"Marvellous, isn't it?" he said, oblivious to her feelings. "I have a good home here Harmony, but it is missing something vital, something I have wanted the moment I woke in the Waiting Plain those centuries ago."
"Don't say it. Please don't…"
"During my lifetime," he continued, "I had a taste but never fully appreciated the concepts of love and affection. I had to be struck by a divine beauty before my thoughts turned to it. Thoughts consumed by it. I want you Harmony Valour; I want you to be my wife."
"You cannot —" she gasped.
"Be serious?" he interrupted. "What can be more appropriate, nay, more natural than two soul-mates becoming one? The first union of its kind I'd wager, and no better place to celebrate it."
Gob-smacked, Harmony could barely express herself; but when she could, she did not hold back. "Napoleon you're asking me to throw away everything I know, to willingly embrace evil, to forsake my God and friends for this life of wickedness! Unthinkable! Impossible!"
Directly, a tactful Napoleon changed his game plan. "Of course." he huffed. "What am I thinking? You've been through so much my love. How can I expect you to consider my proposal at a time like this? Why, only this evening your trust was cruelly shattered by the nurse. How can you believe the words of another man? Indeed, how can your mind think clearly at all? What was I thinking?"
"Can we not mention Godwin?" she said, wincing. "I'm not sure yet…how I feel about that."
"Let us never discuss the Englishman." he replied, failing to conceal his relish. "I have many like him in my Fortress, liars who hoodwink others to feed their own egos, never an honest word leaves such conniving tongues."
Napoleon stood from his chair and crept toward her. Harmony watched his approach at the corner of her eye, heard the tapping of his shoes over tiles and felt his eventual breath warm the back of her neck.
"I promise you angel," he husked, caressing her face; "when we are married I will see that your companions are looked after; including the nurse. I see your fondness for him, I do, and it is completely understandable, given the yarns he spun you. They will all be made as comfortable as possible in their cells. You can even visit…on occasion."
"Why are you talking like this?" she mumbled, hiding under her hair. "I am sorry to hurt you Napoleon, so sorry, but I do not feel the same. I do love you but not that way. I…cannot."
"You will." he added; his arrogance and conviction incensing Harmony up from her chair.
"I won't!" she cried, shaking. "I will not! Furthermore I refuse your sick and blasphemous proposal! To think of you touching my skin…I despise the lunacy you stand for and will never betray my beliefs for it!"
Harmony was red faced, chest heaving, but a placid Napoleon seemed not to register it on his features. He did with his actions though, knocking the angel to the tiles with two slaps across her eye and lip.
Crumpled, Harmony held a rattling hand over her raw face. "We have made an arrangement." said Napoleon, examining new marks over his knuckles. "It would have been pleasant to pretend you had a choice in the matter…but alas. Tomorrow morning I will defeat the Englishman, and tomorrow night will be your first of many in my bedchamber. The first…of many. If that thought still repulses you then remember this fact, my beautiful life-support — the happier you make me, the easier I make eternity for your friends."
Lovingly, he sucked in the air as if inhaling another wonderful hit of tobacco. "And do take off that ridiculous bandanna," he added. "It really does not become you."
The Emperor then collected his glass of wine and left Harmony for the evening. Once alone, she crawled to the darkest spot under the dinner table, and there, she had her breakdown.
***
Kat cradled his wife in a cell, swimming in sewage. Rats ran over her bare feet and the maggots stuck like damp on the walls. Yuki Katamuro was a shell, her withered face blank as her dedicated husband clutched at her, mumbling encouragement, whispering memories and combing her hair through his fingers, anything to bring her back to him.
Kat was a picture of contentment. The man had achieved all his heart had ached for: he was reunited with his beloved, and nothing alive or dead, would dare take her away.
39. Duel
The courtyard was an area of flat sand with the four fortress walls enclosing. Napoleon's robotic hoods pressed their backs to those walls in side-by-side formation, and from the thousand windows above and around us, prisoners cheered in support for their warden.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
Keeping close to each other in this cauldron, none of us asked Harmony to explain the bruise under her eye, or the disappearance of her bandanna No explanation was necessary.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
"Why are they all for him?" I yelled. "I don't get it."
"They cheer for the hand that feeds them!" replied Napoleon, straddling a huffing black horse. "I promise you, spectators of my next tournament, will soon be doing the same!"
The Emperor was immaculately suited in medieval armor. His voice was strained under the burden of jangling mail and plates, but he didn't seem to mind. Smiling, Napoleon tangled the reins of his toothy charger around one arm, and with the other he held a long wooden lance — the tip as sharp as any spear.
"Solid oak." he said, raising the lance like a trophy.
"Viva l' emperor!" his crowd responded. "Viva l' emperor!"
Their sound was deafening, and magnificent. A wooden rail stretched directly down the courtyard centre. Its purpose to separate the soon to be charging horses into lanes. "My prisoners are in for a treat!" said Napoleon, his cheeks like roses. "All their pains postponed for the spectacle. Ah!" he exclaimed, looking behind us. "Mr Fox, here is your catch!"
Napoleon pointed to an arched doorway, where a humpbacked John Curtis — twitching and cowering — shielded his face from the burning suns. A thick rope was wrapped around his waist — a request I made — and a masked soldier now tugged him along by it. "I'm a man of my word," Napoleon said. "Prisoner 2020 is yours for the meantime."
The hood brought Curtis to my side and I greedily snatched his leash and wrapped it several times too many around my arm. He looked weak, but intelligence was still strong in his eyes.
"Do not get attached!" added Napoleon. "I will soon be taking my property back."
The Emperor then, with supreme confidence, looked down upon a grey-faced Eddinray. "Are you ready nurse? The time is now!"
"I am ready." he answered, convincing none of us. The tournament was clearly not on Eddinray's mind, nor was the fear of failure and eternal suffering in the 9th Fortress. Harmony Valour was all that occupied his thoughts, yet she ignored him.
Presently, a hooded soldier passed Eddinray the reins of an unhealthy looking brown charger, and a similar oak lance with sharpened tip.
"No shields?" asked Kat, keeping Yuki glued to his side.
"And why are the lance-heads sharp?" I added.
"This is a duel to the death!" said Napoleon, obviously. "Shields and blunt lances defeat that purpose."
"You never mentioned this!" Harmony protested. "This wasn't the arrangement!"
"The arrangement is whatever I want it to be." he uttered, circling his horse. "I am already giving you and these…people…much leeway Harmony. Do be grateful, and do pray it is the only change of plan! To the death then!" he announced. "We charge to kill nurse, do you accept the terms?"
Eddinray slunk as if already beaten, and moving to his horse, he struggled to get a foot inside the stirrup as the animal nudged him aside.
"It's called a horse!" giggled Napoleon, clicking down his visor. "Do not dawdle to your station nurse. The crowd are a thirsty lot! They expect blood to be spilled and spilled soon!"
Napoleon turned his pristine animal around to make a cloud of rising sand, before prancing over the courtyard. His prisoners now, through honesty or force, sycophantically applauded.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
Pompo
usly waving back, Napoleon revelled in their adulation; much like Eddinray, this was a man playing a knight, and he too was smitten with the façade. Fearing the worst for our knight, Kat surprisingly attempted to inspire confidence in him. He left Yuki's side for the first time, took authority over Eddinray's fussy horse then passed him the reins. "Be solid." he growled, pressing the lance firmly under Eddinray's arm. "Be one with the beast. Focus your aim."
"You can do this!" I added, while he mounted his horse. "Believe it!"
"I need to do this!" he replied, steadying himself over the saddle. "For Harmony, for all of us, I will do this!"
Poorly pretending not to hear him, Harmony kept her eyes toward her feet.
"I see failure all over him, Fox." whispered Curtis in my ear. "Almost pissing himself. It's pathetic."
I tugged the prisoner closer, aiming my sword at his groin. "That's enough from you."
Before Eddinray set for his mark at the start of the rail, Harmony approached his horse. The crowd’s volume increasing, the angel glanced up to Eddinray's hopeful eyes. "I have one question." she said, leaning against the horse. "Did you ever…love me? Was that a lie too?"
"I'll love you!" jeered Curtis, grinning. That smirk was quickly wiped from his face when I kicked the back of his knee and watched him fold in on himself like a deck chair. "I'll murder you for that!" he cried on the sand. "I'll murder — "
"I have always loved you Harmony!" interrupted Eddinray, his courage returning. "And if such a thing is possible my love, and if such a man be worthy — will you consent to be my wife?"
Eddinray appeared to be stunned by his own audacity. We all were. All eyes turned sharply to Harmony, who did not accept or refuse him, in-fact she did not say or express any emotion; she simply released Eddinray's horse and shrunk back into our group.
"Right!" huffed Eddinray, his voice breaking. "That answers that then!"
"Eddinray!" I begged, catching his eye. "Good-luck man!"
Without comment, he slid the pot-marked visor down over his face, glanced over Harmony one last time then galloped for his station. The baying crowd kept their applause exclusively for the warden, and did their master proud with pantomime boos for Eddinray.
"He'll be okay." I said. "He will."
Napoleon pulled up his horse at the furthest end of the courtyard, and forty feet away, his challenger fought to control his stubborn animal. Between them, at the centre of the wooden rail, one hood raised a flapping tissue in the air like some high-school drag race.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
The Warden aimed his sharp lance over his horse's head and the crowd reacted with delight, causing the living walls of the 9th Fortress to shimmer and pulse.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
"Do it Eddinray!" I cried at his back.
"He can't hear you!" Curtis complained. "Christ, I can barely hear you!"
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
Inwardly suffering, Harmony appeared to be caught in two minds.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
The angel reached into her gown pocket and removed an Indian's red bandanna. She sifted it slowly through her fingers, before fixing it tight around her head.
"Where are you going?!" exclaimed Kat, as Harmony suddenly sprinted toward Eddinray.
"I will Godwin!" she announced, over amplifying adulation. "I will!"
She shouted, she screamed and she begged him to turn, to see her; but the noise was too great. The hooded soldier now dropped his white tissue, and horse, lance, and men set off for each other, leaving Harmony eating dust. She cleared her eyes and moaned for Eddinray to return; but he would not stop his charge.
"Let him go." I muttered.
Harmony looked back at us with dirty tears streaming down her face. I called for her, but she did not. Instead, the dust-covered angel started her own charge over Eddinray's fresh tracks. "Godwin!"
Kat and I yelled for her, but she and we were drowned out by the dammed.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
Both horses galloped, all eight feet trouncing toward a fatal collision. Eddinray gripped the reins tight and hugged his body against the horse's wide neck. The visor impairing his vision, his French opponent was merely a blur of horse and lance coming at him.
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
I could barely watch, and although Yuki remained wordless, her clenching hand around Kat's wrist spoke volumes.
"Godwin!" cried Harmony, frantically, breathlessly chasing and never catching. "Godwin! Godwin! Godwin!"
"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"
Both knights lowered their lances, Napoleon beating his horse ragged until his charger was at a bolt, until the two solid projectiles of Sir Godwin Eddinray and Napoleon Bonaparte came to a grizzly, and shattering head.
CRUNCH!
Lances clashed, splinters burst, horse's squealed, dust exploded, and the duel was over in a brutal blink of time. Silence followed, then a collective holding of breath as every soul in the courtyard waited to see the victor, hidden somewhere in a fog of sand and smoke…
"Godwin!" spluttered Harmony, arriving breathless in that rising cloud. "Where? Are you?"
She coughed through the orange gas toward the only body she could see, the one not moving. The horse dead underneath this man, the helmet was knocked clear off to reveal Eddinray's slim face, dishevelled hair, and uncouth moustache. No energy or oxygen left inside her, the weight of the angel fell over the knight. Harmony folded her arms around Eddinray like a duvet, and her gasping on his neck finally stirred his eyes open. The first thing he noticed was a football shaped object bobbling between his thighs. Squinting at it, Eddinray's focus revealed a human head, decapitated from the neck.
"Oh no!" he panicked. "Oh no! Harmony, my dear! Harmony! I have no head on my shoulders! No head I say!"
Harmony winced at the petrified face of Napoleon Bonaparte staring back at her. Disgusted, she kicked the head aside then passionately embraced her champion. "I will marry you!" she cried. "Of course I will!"
The cloud of sand settling, the rest of us saw their fused lips and all but John Curtis rejoiced, utterly astonished at the last man standing. "He did it?!" yelled Kat, uncharacteristically leaping. "How could he?"
Prisoners of the 9th Fortress were in similar awe at their windows. Unsure what to make of it, unsure what this would mean for them. It was only when one timidly clapped, when this tense wall began to topple. A second man applauded, followed by another — stronger this time — then another and another until the sound of wonderful ovation dominated the courtyard, a wave of hysteria, praise and wholehearted thanks to one individual, one hero.
The angel and knight returned hand in hand under this overwhelming music, and Eddinray unashamedly milked it for every drop, punching the air with his fists and taking theatrical bows.
I embraced the pair on their arrival, whilst Kat's subtle nod showed his appreciation for Eddinray's efforts. Yuki meanwhile, wearing a brief smile, appeared to be coming alive with every passing second.
"What happens now?" asked Eddinray, casting a satisfied eye over the courtyard. "I enjoy an adoring audience as much as the next fellow, but would it be wise to dwell here?"
"We're not staying." I agreed, tightening the rope around my forearm.
The arched door over my shoulder was our way out, but before I could order a sprint toward it, an abrupt jolt knocked us all to the ground. It was a jarring and unnatural displacement of the earth, some brooding beast pounding from underneath.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The crowd of watching thousands and masked hoods scampered from windows and formations — the quake causing our bodies to vibrate as if sat atop an out of control washing machine. This was the warden's furious retribution, and I expected the entire 9th Fortress to fall in on itself at any moment.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Our bodies were scattered like marbl
es over the sand, and clinging to one another, Curtis arose my attention to the 9th Fortress, its squirming towers and squiggling spires like the arms of a raving octopus.
"What's it doing?!" he bawled.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
An almighty crack now opened the centre of the courtyard, followed by an explosion and eruption of billowing gas.
"There's something horrible down there!" cried Harmony; she and Eddinray arriving at my side as the words "lurking surprise" flashed into my mind. Napoleon said escape was impossible, and we were about to discover exactly what security measures he had put in place here.
The dust and sediment creating an obscure orange cloud, the courtyard surface resembled shattered treacle as we six ran like mad for the walls. A final crack, like the breaking spine of a Diplodocus, came from that courtyard centre. There was a sudden and huge collapse of earth, and there, from a smoking new crater, the thing climbed free from its cage.
"We should vacate the premises!" gulped Eddinray. "It's…it's…huge!"
I saw it only as a collection of rising skin and bone through the cloud, a body growing like a beanstalk.
"Look at that!" cried Curtis, spotting a hand with fingers longer than all of us combined. That hand made a fist of flesh, and then hammered it down onto the courtyard.
SMASH!
Shock waves hit like an atomic blast, blowing us off our feet in a gale of dust. The Fortress wall put a thumping halt to both my prisoner’s flight and me. We lay dazed but conscious on the broken surface as the monster opened its salivating mouth -
"ME…WANT…BODIES!"
"Alright?" yelled Kat, arriving with wife beside me like a powdered orange ghost. I nodded back then followed them along the wall to the rest of our companions.
"Look!" bawled a boggle-eyed Eddinray. "There!"
The monster stood, free from the crater and clear of any smoke. Easily reaching two hundred feet tall and dressed in shabby rags, it yawned with a jowly face and a mouthful of crooked yellow pincers. Head bald and egg shaped; it had two baggy arms and legs, and a single, all Seeing Eye in the centre of its forehead.
The 9th Fortress Page 38