Kat sat up as my saturated body stopped beside his on the shore. Heaving and spluttering, I stood to spew a gutful of salt water over my thighs. "Where — where are we?"
A stream seemed to pour from Kat's armor when he got to his feet, and shaking his oily hair like a wet dog, he secured it again in a topknot. The sea was as calm as the shore we left a day ago, a pacific vista with no clouds in the sky or monsters underneath it. The beach stretched along a tropical shore, and at our back was a steaming Forest fat with trees.
"We made it," I said, checking my belongings to find the short-sword, dagger and shield in their proper place. Nausea leaving me, Atlas brushed her long nose against my arm. My face was distorted in her reflective coat, and temporarily forgetting she was an immortal, I was delighted to discover the horse alive. I embraced her, and then remembered something else. "Eddinray!"
Examining the beach and water, the knight was nowhere to be seen. "Eddinray! Can you hear me?" I listened, hearing only the hiss of forest and the rustling break of waves. "Kat?"
"He has drowned Fox.”
My head knew that was possible, but my heart didn't believe it. I jogged further down the shore, feeling the intense heat already drying my clothes
"He was heavily armored!" Kat yelled. "Sank like a stone!"
"You're wearing armor too! I'm wearing a shield for Christ-sake!"
"Then the fool was swallowed down the Goliath's throat!"
His callous attitude sickened me. I turned to confront him when my eye caught a glint of silver. It was a glove washed over the sand. I raced to pick it up then scanned the shore for the rest, but there was no piece of him left. “Poor bastard…” I said, lowering my head in respect, while Kat picked the sand out of his ears.
***
We had been on the beach an hour. I sat with legs crossed and Atlas crouched beside me. Eddinray did not appear in all that time, and I accepted Kat's theory of him disappearing with the Leviathan.
On one knee, the samurai was studying the forest, like he had done Bludgeon's assassin-proof entranceway. There was no obvious route in, and no Harmony Valour to escort us. "We can't wait all day," I complained. "Maybe we're too early?"
"Or too late," he murmured.
The forest was sticky, jam packed with the hustle and bustle of unseen things. Wise trunks rose hundreds of feet and fought for space at the roots. Smog smothered around the trees and random geysers blew chutes into the air. The soil at my feet resembled wet liquorice, while multicolored mushrooms grew in abundance; around those jinxed spiders big and small.
"We go on," said Kat, swallowing something he didn't like. "Get rid of the horse."
The short samurai ventured into the forest without another seconds pause, leaving me to say farewell to Atlas. "You're a brave girl," I whispered. "Thank you so much." Atlas smeared her tongue up my face one last time before trotting off down the beach, reflecting all the gleaming skylight and pearly grains of sand.
***
Our footing through the forest was a lumpy moss, which sank under foot. Fearing another ambush, Kat kept his katana poised at all times, meanwhile I pondered over Harmony Valour, and why she hadn't kept her arrangement to meet us at the beach.
The air thickened as we advanced. Sweat sat permanently over our skins, bringing on a light-headedness that sapped our spirits. Weighed down by armor and the burden of leadership, the punishing climate seemed to affect Kat most.
"How about a break?" I asked. "Five minutes, eh?"
"This is no place to linger," he replied, face greasy.
"For a minute?" I begged, wiping my drenched brow with a damper sleeve. "Do you know what trench foot is, Kat? We keep walking in this mire you'll find out."
I sat on the moss with my back against a trunk. Preferring to remaining standing, Kat's narrow eyes focused between abundant logs, a cloak of fog disguising whatever he may be searching for.
"See anything?" I asked, pleased to be sitting.
He shook an assiduous face, and any chance of rest was suddenly shattered by a prolonged howl, forcing the heart into my mouth. It was the harrowing bay of a wolf or dog close by, silencing the forest snakes, the shrieking bats and incessant creepy crawlies. Again it howled, louder this time, followed by the sound of panting breaths approaching. "Run!" roared Kat, starting a sprint through the dreary mist.
Kat moved like an expert of the terrain, and it didn't take long for me to lose him. Thankfully the howl was fading fast. I cast a reassuring peek behind — there was nothing on my ass. Glancing forward again, my face crashed between Kat's sturdy shoulder blades, and we rolled forward in a collection of samurai red and fleece brown.
"Why did you stop?" I yelled, searching for myself in this mix of moss and men. Kat meanwhile stared at the reason, and pushing me aside, he rose to greet a woman. Straddling a strong brown horse, she directed her hand at two grey horses in tow. "For you," she said with a raspy, foreign voice. I wiped dizziness from my face and stood to be staggered by her beauty.
"Who are you?" asked Kat, concealing the katana behind him.
"Harmony Valour," she returned; "you are expected."
She looked down at me with strawberry coloured cheeks and a perfect smile. Her jet-black hair fell like wet rope to her waist; her slender body was covered in a satin gown which revealed too much of her fleshy legs, plunging neckline and teasing hint of cleavage. Her most startling feature was those bewitching emerald eyes, casting its spell over the pair of us.
"Did the wolf frighten you?" she asked, emotionless.
"So it was a wolf then?" I said.
"It was. The beast will now be supper for a larger predator. There are many here in the forest."
The thought of a carnivorous wolf being supper for something larger made me anxious, and extremely aware of the fact that we had stopped moving.
"Our guide?" asked Kat.
"To the mouth of Hell," she replied. "That is my duty. Mount your horses and follow. I ride fast and hard to a Fort not far from here."
"Fort?" I said, prudently on my guard. "Why should we go there?"
"It has been long abandoned and will provide suitable shelter for the evening. I have my instructions. Come." She clicked her heels, turned her horse on a dime and charged over a new forest path.
"Do we trust her?" I asked my companion, who settled a foothold into his new horse's stirrup.
"We have no choice…"
***
We rode fast and hard as Harmony demanded. The pace was unrelenting and, as usual, I found the going tougher than the rest — my grey horse not a patch on the swift Weather-Maker. Our widening road eventually brought us to a wooden door, a dominating fifteen feet tall and flanked on each side by soaring tree trunks. Harmony and Kat waited on horseback as I brought up the rear. Foliage around this entrance was sad and overgrown, and the wood of the door was old with rotting hinges. Harmony was right. No one had been here for some time. "Miss Valour?" I asked, trying not to look at the provocative bend of her back; "what was this Fort used for? Do you know?"
"It was used to keep bogs out," she answered, "the armies of the wizard."
That was a relief. If this Fort could hold back bogs then I wanted in. Our three horses shuffled restlessly while Harmony kept us waiting. Before we could question her reasons why, there came a knock on the other side of the door. Harmony leant forward to return two knocks on the wood. She then sat back on her animal and waited for the entrance to creak open. It did, cutting down the middle to form two, inwardly grinding doors. "Who opens these doors?" asked Kat, cheek twitching.
"I have a friend inside," Harmony answered, plainly. "He is known to you. There is nothing to fear men."
"Known to us?" I said, baffled. "Who is he?"
The doors parted enough for Harmony to click her horse into the Fort. Kat passed me an indifferent expression before following her in. His casual attitude was reassuring, so I set my horse toward his.
Past the doors, I was relieved again to discover an ancient and barren place inside. Surrounded by a fence of wooden poles with the suffocating trunks beyond, the fort contained many dilapidated shanty homes constructed over a surface of flat clay. There was an elementary looking stone temple in the centre of this enclosure, a place of worship presumably with numerous tents dotted around it. I searched for the man supposedly known to us, hoping to see Sir Isaac Newton or even master Bludgeon. Unfortunately, a thunderous strike of two slamming doors woke me from naivety, and looking back over my shoulder, I watched five bogs fixing the entrance shut.
"You said it was to keep them out!" I cried at Harmony Valour — her watery lips grinning back: "Twas not successful…"
Time seemed to slow as bogs hunched from those dank corners and crevices — a hundred — two hundred. Kat, our horses and I shuffled side-by-side — looking into each other's eyes — no thoughts in our heads — no ideas. Bogs hedged us in with their curved blades, sharp spears and mouths snarling zeal. This was a stockade — and we were its prisoners.
The minute Harmony Valour stepped off her horse two dozen bogs left us to feed on that poor steed. Happily, she passed over the reins and watched with perverse delight as they devoured the animal with hands stripping flesh, stuffing hair, meat and entrails into their gobs.
"What do we do Kat?" I gasped, freaked out. "What do we do?"
"Remain on your horse," he replied through gritted teeth. "I will get us out of this!"
Then, cool as you like, Kat climbed off his horse; one leg after another. Once bogs caught the whiff of his movement they moved in, encompassing us in a circle of black bodies.
Kat eyed up the bogs, but eyes couldn't see anything else. His removal of the katana inspired a growl around the rabble, then a hiss as Kat pointed the sword at the mutated legions. "Attack!" he yelled, fury turning the end of his nose red. "Attack now!"
I was gob-smacked by his bravery.
"Attack me!"
The monsters moved to allow one particular bog to enter the angry ring — the giant Grutas, who rested his battleaxe on a strong shoulder. The hissing became deafening as Kat and Grutas took tantalising steps toward each other. They had business to settle, and it could not wait. Both appeared confident, Kat twirling the katana and Grutas tensing his muscle-bound arms in preparation.
‘Stop!' a voice abruptly bawled. "At once!"
Fever for blood broke immediately, and the bog ring frittered away to reveal Harmony Valour and the smirking wizard at the foot of the temple. Scarfell wore a patch over the left eye I'd removed with a flute. Kat lowered the katana to his shin — business with Grutas would have to wait.
"Welcome to my home!" said Scarfell, delighted. "Grutas — remove Fox from his horse!"
Obeying that order, Grutas strolled past Kat with a twinkle in his eye. "You don't have to," I stuttered back at the giant, "I'll get off mys — "
The flat end of his axe battered me off the horse. I lay blurry headed on the clay as our animals fled around the Fort. They were quickly seized and eaten by the insatiable.
"I want Fox unconscious!" demanded Scarfell, over squealing horses and bloody butchery. "Put mud in his lungs!"
Grutas pressed his foot on top of on my head until my nose snuffed in the grey muck. Scarfell cackled as the giant held my face in place.
"You!" Kat roared at Grutas.
The bog leader's eyebrow perked up on seeing the katana, aimed between his eyes.
"Come here…" growled Kat. "Come now."
Grutas removed his foot from the back of my head and I barfed out mud. There was something more in Kat's anger, compassion maybe, I don't know.
"Back away Grutas!" ordered Scarfell, his hand motioning the giant away. "The samurai will be only too happy to kill you."
Grutas' features seemed to melt, and when his brain eventually understood the order, the undermined strongman was enraged — his erratic axe severing one bog in half, before kicking and hacking the unfortunate thing to a smudge.
"Do as I say!" cried the wizard, playfully sparking fire like flint off his knuckles. "Your adolescent behaviour grows increasingly on my nerves, Grutas! Out of my sight with you!"
Covered in bog blood, Grutas stormed toward one dilapidated tent, releasing his fury on any pig solider within range — biting his teeth into one head and smashing his fist through the chest of another. The loss of three bogs simply amused Scarfell, who now walked to Kat. "Drop the sword samurai," he said calmly. "This time, you are well and truly surrounded."
Scarfell respected Kat's talents by remaining far from his sword, whilst I paused ever so still on my stomach, tasting the muck between my teeth, reality seeping in. Although I knew Kat was only one man, I somehow believed, no matter how ridiculous, that the legend would get us out of anything.
"What do you want wizard?" asked Kat.
"I have plans for you both," he said. "Throw down your sword is the first… and prey I do not destroy you where you stand."
Kat surveyed his surroundings with that poker face. I was probably now the closest person in his life, but I couldn't tell you what he was thinking at that moment in time. Would he attempt to kill every bog and Grutas into the bargain? Or was the added factor of wizard magic too much for him? He arrived quickly at his decision. "I will drop my sword wizard, but you pray — pray I never hold it again."
And with that, Kat relinquished his katana — and an army overwhelmed us.