It took at least seven hours to cross that hypnotic sea, seven hours to an apparent dead end. Facing us was a wall of orange rock, perfectly smooth, perfectly flat, and glistening like wet ice as far as the eye could see. "Our toughest challenge yet." I said, lost for ideas. "Are we supposed to climb? Kat?"
"No-one could." he answered, rubbing the blisters on his feet.
The unnatural, and impossible wall glowed with an alluring, radioactive light.
"It is over." said Harmony, daunted.
Nearing the end of the bridge, a crack became visible on the unblemished rock. A hairline at first, the crack soon widened to a crude entrance with space enough to squeeze through.
"A way in!" declared Eddinray. "And surely our way out!"
Floating bodies smashed off the dense wall below us, and the sound of their cracking bones was sickeningly similar to normal waves breaking against boulders.
"Who first?" asked Harmony, moving to observe the pulsating crack.
"Volunteering?" asked Eddinray, gloomily examining the rough edges inside.
"I am no leader Godwin. I'd just prefer to be out of this nightmare as soon as possible."
"I'll go first." I said, forging to the crack and feeling the wall buzz a glow over my face. It was hot. Extremely hot. "No-one touches it." I added, unwrapping the connecting rope from my forearm.
"Are you trusting me Fox?" asked Curtis, smiling. "Is that what this is?"
"Our umbilical chord." I said, securing the rope around my waist. "Now there's at least six feet connecting us; that's all the trust you're going to get." Then, and without his permission, I proceeded through the crack. Shimmying sideways through the crude opening, I heard my prisoner complain at the searing stone at the end of his nose.
"Keep moving." I uttered, the heat provocatively sizzling.
Struggling to fit inside this jagged kiln, this was a game of don't touch the edges. Unfortunately, the walk across the bridge had left us weary, and mistakes would be inevitable.
The others followed further back, and Harmony's cries came uninterrupted as her prominent wings brushed continuously against the fizzing stone. Eddinray's armor came into contact too, causing it to steam like a copper kettle. For all our care, we were soon left with no choice but to touch, to climb to an open hole some forty feet above.
"Typical!" I groaned, feeling Curtis bungle into my back. "It leads out!" I called to Kat. "I see the way!"
"You sure?" Curtis whispered. "That stone will eat the flesh from our hands in seconds."
"Better move fast then." I said. Curtis was right. My palms burned immediately on touching the rock. Foot and handholds were firm on the way up, but the pain was unbearable. Curtis let his agony be well known, while I focused on haste rather than pain, grunting, spitting, and forcing my body toward the hole despite it all. Bludgeon trained me for this trial with his cloudy walk through fire, but what of my friends? Kat, come rain or shine, would see Yuki up here on his back; but how would the angel and knight cope?
At one loathsome point, my prisoner's weight became so heavy on the rope that I was convinced he had blacked out underneath me. Carrying on regardless, I eventually clambered out of this constricting burn, through the hole and dragging John Curtis with me. "Get off!" I moaned, his hot body pressing over me.
He rolled off my chest and we lay with burnt hair and crisping skin, hearing the harrowing sounds of companions still climbing.
"What…is…that?" asked Curtis, his recovering voice distinctly horrified. I sat up, stunned by the horizontal tunnel before us — a vortex of stitched bodies, a quilt of bobbling bald heads, snoring mouths and hanging hands.
"What else?" I whimpered. All was still throughout this burrow of interweaving black, white and yellow flesh. All eyes here were closed, and their collective breathing gave the area a stale, sauna like air.
"They're alive." I said. "Every last one."
I returned to the steaming crack to see Kat climbing with Yuki locking her arms around his neck.
"Not a sound up here." I whispered, extending my hand for him. He grimaced back and I assisted them both out of the hole. All of us made it out with blistered burns or singed hair, and before Harmony spotted the gruesome pattern of sewn bodies, I cupped my palm over her mouth to snuff her scream.
"A trap." said Kat, smearing sweat from his brow. "Another."
A thousand arms hung down like vines, or grew up as a confused bed of seaweed; there was also no step free from the fat heads — wherever we would set our feet, these things would instantly be aware of it.
"Well, well," said a smug faced Curtis; "can't escape without waking them, and they won't be too pleased about that. See the teeth?"
Closer observation revealed the shark like teeth inside these mouths, and the fingernails like many knives and forks. Sensing my friends awaiting some kind of concise, confident advice, I gave the best I had to give. "This is it. We carry on. No matter what. Keep moving your hands and feet. Climb, run, race, and don't stop for anything."
"Are they going to eat us?" asked Harmony, shivering.
"Would that surprise you?" returned Eddinray, thoroughly exhausted.
"Just don't stop!" I stated. "We're done if we do, understand?"
Worried, I glanced at a labored looking Kat and his slight wife.
"Is she up to this?" I asked him.
"I am." she abruptly answered, her voice so delicate that I almost could've imagined it.
Eyes welling up, Kat proudly pressed his cheek against Yuki's. All of our smiles seemed to surprise the woman, and she was further embarrassed by Harmony's warm embrace. "Welcome back!"
Curmudgeonly, I hushed the angel quiet. I wanted to show Yuki my support, but right now I was more concerned with the Gauntlet. I shuffled to the beginning of this rising tunnel and its sitting musk, disquietly examining the sleeping faces, those hairless, frowning things. When would their eyes open? When would their nails scratch? When would their teeth bite?
After triple checking the rope's knot around my waist, I turned to whisper at my prisoner. "Ready to run?"
He nodded. "Don't plan to be eaten alive to spite you Fox. I will run. Don't you worry about that."
Searching for the nerve, Eddinray and Harmony held hands. Kat and Yuki also prepared themselves. We were all…ready to run.
"On three." I said, feeling a much-needed kick of adrenaline. "One…Two…Three!"
Leaping, I landed a sturdy foot on one face, and sure enough, the thing woke from its ancient sleep. Its mouth opened wide and screeched, disturbing the rest from their slumber.
"Move!" I bellowed, starting my scramble over feet, necks, faces and chest parts.
"FOOD!" announced one grizzly mouth. "FOOOOOOD!"
Thrashing fingers attempted to snatch us, their starving sound like an overpowering dong of a church bell, reverberating off the walls of this fleshy tube.
"Let go!" Harmony cried out, when one hand dug its dirty nails into her ankle. She forced it from her but fingers reaching down from above caught her yellow hair. "Help! Help me!"
Directly behind her, Eddinray was flat on his back having stumbled, and numerous hands and nails ravenously scrubbed and scratched his armor and face.
"Harmony!" he moaned. "Danny! Kat! Help her!"
Teeth closed around Harmony's shin and she howled as the blood streamed down her foot. The tongue inside that gob hadn't a second to enjoy her taste however, for Kat returned, dancing back over faces and boring his katana through its hairless head.
Crying, Harmony pried the mutant jaw from her shin as Kat set Eddinray upright. Then, typically bold, the samurai returned bouncing up the tunnel for Yuki, throwing her over his shoulder as every orifice snapped at his feet.
Ahead, my scale up the wicked woven was thus far trouble-free. I didn't stumble — Curtis didn't fall, and when one of those hands did take a hold, one or the other would kick it off.
"FOOOOOOD!" they endlessly screamed, mouths deprived of food and water for a millennium. "THEY CANNOT ESCAPE US! THEY CANNOT!"
This was the Gauntlet, seen by the virtuous, those no longer deserving their eternal place in Hell. Faces here did not eat to satisfy hunger, they had no bellies to fill or bodies in need of sustenance; they ate for the simple and vindictive reason of preventing souls from achieving what they cannot — freedom.
The ascending tunnel became gradually steeper and extremely difficult to avoid any bites or tares. Like cats on a hot tin roof, Curtis and I went on all fours up a route of clinging nails and snarling expressions. Suddenly, my prisoner squealed, and I turned to see his left hand trapped inside of one mouth, the teeth grinding away at the bones. Surprisingly, Curtis did not yell for my assistance; instead, he screwed up his face and personally tugged his hand free, moaning as the skin was peeled away like a rubber glove.
Our exit lay feet away, another glimmering light amongst foaming mouths and greedy hands. Curtis held his ravaged hand to his chest and hastily followed me up and out. Thankfully Eddinray, Harmony, Kat and Yuki, were not far behind.
***
The steps were our next implausible challenge: red steps to a savage sky with violent forks of lightning. The steps were thick and substantial, with vertical drops at each side.
"Another shadow over hope." said Harmony, completely sapped. "It will take us forever."
"Then let it be forever!" returned Kat, his grit spurring us on over the first giant play block.
The absence of demons here concerned me. Perhaps the real demon was the gruelling staircase itself or the drops on each side? Nevertheless we continued over them without complaint, without rest, and without incident.
Hours passed. Two, maybe more. The winds picked up as we approached what looked like burning clouds, clashing like a hundred Hindenburg’s. “Does anyone see the top?" panted Curtis, recovering against me.
"The top?" chuckled Eddinray, sarcastically. "Who can see the bottom?"
Curtis squirmed back to an obscure fall of blacks and oranges, rolling in a glowing churn. I held a calm demeanour throughout; for every step conquered brought me closer to the end, and the more we ascended the more assured I became.
To avoid falling, Curtis was scrupulous at my side, and our umbilical chord did not once strain taut. It was the pair of us who led this gruelling ascent, and the pair of us who discovered the first corpse.
There was a horned helmet left over ravished rags, furry boots and an emerald necklace between twelve worn arrowheads.
"Not the first to make it this far." I said, crouching to survey the morsels. "What could have done this all the way up here?"
"It's beautiful." said Harmony, gazing at the sparkling necklace. She bent to collect it, and giving no reason for doing so, she discarded this precious stone over the edge of the steps. It plummeted to the puffy fires and we watched it fall like spittle all the way.
"There!" announced Eddinray, pointing two steps above to similar arrows with trails of flesh clinging over the tips.
"Appears we are the latest in a long line of attempted escapees." he muttered, picking through the remains."
"Keep an eye out." I said, with a considering squint. Kat too, appeared more than usually troubled.
"Been quiet." I said to him. "You think we're in danger?"
"We're always in danger. I do not know what killed these people Fox, but we are being followed. I sensed it before the locomotive," he added, hoarsely; "and I sense it here now. This feeling won't leave me."
"Before the train?" I said, bewildered. "Why did you keep it to yourself?"
Lightning struck near to startle us, but still I demanded an answer from Kat.
"Does it matter?" complained Harmony. "I mean, really boys, if we keep going at this rate then what's to catch us?"
I peered behind to see nothing on our tail, and meagrely content, we continued our reach for the sky.
We climbed and occasionally rested, every so often coming across more arrows and scattered entrails. I counted thirty-seven skulls sprinkled over the next sixty steps. The rotting virtuous.
"I can't go on!" begged Curtis, red faced and setting himself against a step. "No more! No…more!"
We were all thinking it, but his refusal to move gave us all the excuse to stop. I placed my drained head between my legs. Eddinray and Harmony flopped like worn out slippers whilst Kat and Yuki slunk on a step below us, the samurai wearing a brave face over exhaustion.
"We stay here." I said, rubbing the burn from my joints. "Enough for tonight, eh?"
Agreeing heads bobbled and relieved mouths sighed. "The cloud above is breaking." said Harmony, heaving. "A good sign. Perhaps, perhaps we are close to the top?"
"I hope so." huffed Eddinray. "I dearly do. Can see some birds over there. Is that a good sign too, Harmony?"
"Birds?" asked Kat, suspicious. "Where?"
The knight directed his finger to the fluttering of three busy winged silhouettes.
"Not birds!" exclaimed Kat, getting fast to his feet. "Move!"
His order terrified tiredness to the back of our minds, and we did as we were told. "They were waiting!" he growled, guiding Yuki up the steps. "Waiting!"
"What are they?" I asked, feeling the rope pull at my guts as Curtis scampered ahead. Suddenly, a female cry cut through the sky like nails down a blackboard, and curiosity getting the better of Harmony, she delayed her climb for a look back. "Harpies!" she announced, her eyes bulging. "We're done for!"
Armed with chunky bows and arrows, the three women like creatures had winged backs, crackled blue skin and baldheads, tattooed over with an indecipherable design.
"Go Godwin!" Harmony yelled, feeling a forceful gust from their passing wings.
Starved in the stomachs and deranged in the eyes, the Harpy women attempted to separate us with swooping dives cutting into our group. Twice they spliced us down the middle, but our swinging swords caused them to rethink that strategy. They returned to a safe distance — and there — before a brewing storm they armed their bows, placing three arrows in each to make nine projectiles.
"Huddle!" roared Kat, stopping suddenly. "Now!"
All collected on the same step without question as Kat positioned himself before us, his shadow like a bomb shelter over our bodies. Kat's bravery seemed to amuse the ugly women, who wasted no time firing their arrows. With a whistle, nine sharp sticks came toward our man.
The samurai closed his eyes, honed his focus, then became a blur of cuts, volleying and deflecting all the arrows with spasms of strength and steel, with only a splinter making it through his brilliant shield to score bloody across his forehead.
"Up!" he bawled, immediately. "Up! Up!"
Our huddle broke and we clambered over the next step, and the one after that, hoping to see Hell part above and the exit reveal itself.
"Down" thundered Kat, and we five came together as he single-handedly faced another onslaught of harpies and arrows. He searched, found his mental centre and -
STUT-STUT-CLANG-CLANG!
The attack was over before we could brace ourselves for it, and yet again, we were ordered to our feet and up the steps.
"Up! Up! Up!" he yelled, snatching Yuki by the wrist and pushing her backside ahead.
The moment she was clear on higher steps, Kat received a blow from behind, knocking the swords from his hands and his head near clean from his shoulders.
Bamboozled, Kat opened his eyes to dizzying disorientation as a hysterical Harpy grasped him by the ankle and hung him over a boundless whisk.
"Put him down!" all but Curtis yelled at her. "Drop him! Drop him!"
The fritter faced woman held Kat as if he were weightless in her hand, and carelessly she trailed him upside down until streams of vomit spewed from his mouth.
"Pass the warrior man here!" rasped one Harpy. "I must have him in my hands, sister!"
Presently, we gawked as Kat was flung clear across the clouds. Violently he spun, only to be snatched by the delighted Harpy who demanded him.
Harmony joined Yuki on the higher step, as wife bent and prayed.
"To me sister!" cried the third Harpy. "Pass me the man!"
Kat was again thrown through the sky to be caught by the hair. "Return him at once!" exclaimed Harmony, furious. "You hear me witches?"
All three women collected high above to discuss our group. The sight of the angelic Harmony Valour seemed to spark their interest, and their joy for Kat went on the wane.
"They're going to drop him." I muttered. "Shit, they are…"
The three laughed then started an upward race. They soared until simply dots in the stratosphere, and there, as high as possible, they released our friend to infinity.
"No!" screamed Yuki.
Arms and legs flapping, Kat plummeted, the Harpies not going to save him this time. Without thinking, I collected all the rope slack connecting my waist to Curtis. "What are you doing?!" he asked, dumbfounded, as I snapped my fingers for the wavering eye of -
"Eddinray!" I yelled. "Get behind Curtis! You hold on to his back and don't let go!"
The knight obeyed without question, scurrying behind a sitting Curtis and locking his arms around my prisoner's stomach. "Now what?" bellowed the Englishman.
"Dig in your heels!" I answered, observing Kat's speedy decent, specifically how his body would pass only feet from where I now stood; and seconds before he did, I clenched my fists, sucked in my lips, and took a running leap off the step…
The samurai saw, reached out for my arms and — "Got you!" I cried, our hands clasping in mid-air.
Dropping now, our connecting bodies smashed against the sidewall of those steps, and the rope connecting me to Curtis instantly strung taut, dragging himself and Eddinray toward the sheer face.
Curtis screamed, and so did I as that rope throttled at our guts, but despite this, I held steadfast onto Kat's wrist, as he dangled over emptiness.
Thinking fast, Harmony came behind Eddinray to add her weight to this anchor. "Pull back!" cried the knight, desperately clinging to Curtis. "Back!"
Yuki came also, tugging Harmony's wings as the angel pulled at Eddinray, who pulled at Curtis, who lifted Kat and me from peril.
"Get this fucking rope off!" wailed Curtis, collapsing. "I can't breathe!"
Kat and I slumped to the safety of flat stone, and there lay in a panting, stupefied mess. "You're crazy Fox!" Curtis bawled. "Fucking insane!"
"Where are they?" I asked, eyes searching the sky. "Where?"
The Harpies were nowhere to be seen, but relaxing was out of the question. Forgetting the crunching pain in my stomach, we set again up the steps, but not before Kat could gather up his swords to face a third wave of arrows. Refusing to hide in the huddle, I removed my own sword and stood beside. "Together Kat." I grunted. "Together."
He nodded back, then urged the others to pack themselves tighter.
The whistling arrows struck, two successfully beating our shield. I was hit in the thigh and Kat took one in his shoulder. I fell backward and he forward, the fires coursing through our nervous system. Yuki cried, then draped herself over her stricken husband. "Climb!" he demanded, pushing her away. "Please!"
In her mania, Yuki did as she was told, climbing the remaining steps as Harmony came under my arm, and Eddinray propped up the other.
"Give me your sword, knight!" begged Curtis, over the chortling creatures swooning around us. "I must be free of this rope! I'll be killed otherwise!"
"I will not!" he returned, ducking. However, Curtis, with no one to stop him, bashed our group aside and threw himself on top of Eddinray, wrestling for possession of his long sword.
"Leave him alone!" yelled Harmony, kicking Curtis in the back as Kat sat weak on the step.
"Ger off!" cried Eddinray, finding a free hand to wallop Curtis on the chin.
"Look out!" exclaimed Harmony, spotting a forth wave of incoming arrows.
Eddinray covered himself over the reluctant angel as best he could, and before the arrows smashed us, Kat smiled contently to see Yuki out of harms way above, the blood oozing from his nostrils as he struggled to his legs to see off this fresh batch. Faint, I joined him.
"Together." he gargled.
"This is not the end." I mumbled back, before feeling a hot arrow penetrate my waist, then another through my wrist. I slouched half-conscious over Kat as remaining projectiles bounced from the path of friends and prisoner.
No fight or sense was left in me; the samurai, however, suddenly got a remarkable second wind. I heard him growl underneath me, as if angered by some extraordinary insult. The bones in his ribcage seemed to rumble, shaking all the melancholy from his system. He placed me delicately onto my back then snapped the arrow from his shoulder, throwing the end away like a used cigarette butt. He then smeared the blood away from his nose, returned the katana to its sheath then stroked the smaller Wakizashi through his fingers. As Harpies reloaded, he aimed up the three with one hand — pulled back the sword with the other — then threw with all his might.
His makeshift javelin was like a shooting star through the furious sky, piercing the black heart of one stuttering sister Harpy.
"Amazing!" gasped Eddinray, while Kat redrew his katana. The injured creature's wings wilted, and she duly dived to her second death, with stunned sisters watching.
"Here!" yelled Yuki, from the highest point in this world. "Come! Come!"
She had reached the top step and exit as two inconsolable Harpies came to avenge their sister. Kat assisted me over one-step, then the next. Still Curtis fought with the rope knot as we bundled as fast as possible toward Yuki, who abruptly bellowed — "Behind you!"
A fifth bombardment glided toward our backs. Two arrows battered off Eddinray's armor to leave deep dimples, three more struck the surrounding steps whilst the last sank deep into my calf. I jolted backward with a spray of blood leaving my mouth. Kat ordered Curtis to help me, but refusing outright, he instead used every inch of available rope slack to ascend from all of us. Although the samurai warrior was badly wounded himself, he still had the temerity to haul my body over his good shoulder, and then heave us inch by inch up these last remaining steps.
His humongous effort took us to Yuki and the others before another attack could see us off. Slunk at the very summit of Hell-fire, the steps rose over a swirling storm, sucking the burning air into a fiery Armageddon in the eye. This was a portal containing the evil we were running from, and poking out of this searing hole was the tallest structure in all of Hell — the tip of the 9th Fortress.
A gale blew like God's own breath, while Harpies aimed their arrows. Before us was a wall of stone with a crack wide enough to squeeze through. A wooden notice was perched above this entrance — inscribed in flame, in Latin it read and Harmony translated:
"No light. No chance."