"The subject is not permitted to be discussed outside your own life support," she replied. "It is a question I have been asked countless times since my exile, from countless lost souls, and my answer is always the same — Heaven holds something for everyone, it will warm the coldest heart, and the view of the universe would humble the greatest man." The angel then set her forehead against her knees. "I wish to return so very much."
Kat slunk, satisfied with the answer.
***
I was awake to see in the morning, and it seemed the whole fort was too. My left eye-socket had scabbed over again, and as I searched the crowd for the possible identity of last night's Samaritan, I saw only the unpleasant faces of Scarfell, Grutas, and numerous smears of bogs in preparation.
Suddenly, a great tribal symbol clashed from inside the temple, stirring the army into a practised drill. Starting at the bottom step of the temple, the bogs formed a circle stretching behind my post and to encompass most of the fort. This was rehearsed, precise, and I could only surmise how many times the Scurge had dined inside this black ring. Grutas loitered at the smoking temple door beside an impatient looking Scarfell. Once the wizard received word from inside that temple, he eventually turned to address his restless admirers. "They are ready!" he announced to adoring snorts. "May you all enjoy it! May you all survive it!"
Scarfell stepped aside to reveal the seductive triplets at the door, their chins held high and their barely covered bosoms causing bogs to rub their groins. As far as I could tell, the only apparent difference between these sisters was their eye colour: hypnotic green, sky blue, and startling scarlet.
***
A pensive Harmony watched the bright window at the far end of the cellblock, the light giving a gleam to her constricted wings. Kat's patience meanwhile was being tested by the crying Gorgon, still sobbing under her bagged head. "Shut up!" he snapped. "Shut your mouth or my sword will open your stomach!"
"Kat!" yelled Harmony, appalled. "Not everyone is as strong as you!"
"Where does her body find all those tears?"
The Gorgon carried on regardless of Kat's temper, so he thumped his face like a thug against the cell bars.
"Now it can't be all that bad!" said a new voice, a man free from the confines of any cage.
"Who is there?" asked Harmony, peering as far as possible through her bars. "Who is that?"
Presently, Sir Godwin Eddinray left the shadows and stepped into a ray of sunlight.
"You?!" choked Kat, agog. "Can't be!"
"Can be!" the knight declared, with a royal wave and a deep indent marking his helmet.
"And who are you?" asked the French girl.
Eddinray's eyebrows immediately sprung to the top of his head as he beheld the fallen angel. "Divine," he mumbled, losing track of himself.
"Pardon me?" she said. "Are you an ally to us?"
With a rattle of the head, the knight seemed to recover from his spell. "My name is Godwin Eddinray, your ally and knight in impressed armor. I have come to your rescue, madam! Come to save the day!"
"How?" asked Kat, still flummoxed by the gaunt Englishman's appearance here.
"Thrown from the flying horse," he said, "I woke with concussion under a bloody tree some time later. Followed the path here and waited for my opportunity to elude security, which by the way, leaves a lot to be desired."
"What have you there?" pried Harmony, pointing to a bulging bag in Eddinray's hand.
"My dear," he said, smiling; "I have used my skills to recover… what was taken."
Eddinray parted the bag to reveal all the weapons stripped away by bogs — Kat's swords, katana and wakizashi — not to mention my short sword, special dagger, and shield with a centaur's embossed seal.
"We will need all hands to get out of here," he added. "Our friend Danny boy is strapped to a post outside."
"Is he okay?" asked Harmony. "Alive?"
"The wizard removed one of his eyes, madam. I cleaned the wound myself last night and can assure you that he is still with us."
"One of his eyes?" she considered with horror; Kat also appeared disturbed.
"The cell keys are hanging near the door, Godwin," Harmony said. "Bring them to my hand at once."
"My good woman!" he tittered. "It is simply not safe out there for a lady. Yes I admire your courage and orientation, but I strongly suggest-" Harmony stretched through the bars, snatched a chink in Eddinray's armor then yanked the lanky man at her. "I strongly suggest… that you fetch the keys this instant!"
Kat grinned as the knight scurried off for the keys, pausing suddenly down the corridor — recalling something. "Kat?" he said, holding up one bare pink hand. "Have you seen my other glove?"
***
The three black beauties paraded before me at the post, licking a shine over their lips. The immortal Scurge would arrive shortly, and there was nothing on this realm to stop it. Fear of being devoured took my mind from the agony in my eye — even the gentlest breeze was like a searing iron prodding the vacant socket — nevertheless I much preferred living with it than joining Gus in the post.
The fort fell silent all of a sudden, an eerie, ghostly hush. Scarfell and Grutas watched the scene amidst the bog formation, anticipation growing as the women came side by side, linking their little hands. Their eyes were hungry as they ogled me over, and like the wolf before, a bizarre transformation now got under-way. The fingertips began to fuse, a sensation that appeared to tickle the women with a chill; the green, the blue and the scarlet eyes rolling back in orgasmic sync until hands were nothing but lumps of connected flesh.
With a clanging of keys, Eddinray released the angel and samurai from their cages. Immediately, Kat grappled the katana from the bag and rushed to the cellblock door. There, he waited with a cross face and a mind to slaughter any prying bog. None came, so he signalled the others to join him. "Go on ahead!" he ordered once they reached the door.
"But why?" frowned Harmony.
"Wait upstairs!" he insisted. "Do not take a foot from the temple without me. Now go!"
Eddinray ushered Harmony out of the cellblock; and the minute Kat was alone, he returned, twirling his sword down the narrow corridor. He removed the keys from his cage lock and continued toward the bright window, and the putrid cell underneath it. There, a naked man slept in a pool of his own bile and hair. Kat unlocked that cage, and with a single, downward thrust of his katana, he put the wolf out of its misery.
19. The Lion's Den
A tentative Harmony and Eddinray watched events unfold at the temple door. "The Scurge!" she whispered. "Your friend has no chance. Unless…"
"Unless," added Eddinray, sucking his teeth, "unless we charge these brigands.
Do not let the armor fool you madam, for I am greased lightning under this mail."
"I will be back!" she said, a brainstorm hastening her return to the bowels of the temple.
"Where is she going?" growled Kat, watching the angel run past him.
"I count at least two hundred," mumbled Eddinray as Kat joined his side. "Two hundred, including a monster and a sorcerer. I'll have my work cut out, that's for sure."
The triplets continued to churn in metamorphosis, a confusion of arms here and legs there. She, or it, resembled a super-sized slug of bursting bubbles and popping puss. This blob seemed to cook from the inside, sending a vomit inducing fume around the fort until at last, a ravenous moan cried out from inside the sticky mass, and a fist broke free from the jellied coat. Transformation was complete, and the grotesque immortal emerged. There was one head with three faces smeared around it, each wearing a skewed and melted expression. The thing had only one gaping mouth, full of vampire teeth, and gooey suction cups covering her lips. The body, easily ten feet tall, was beetle like, with a shield of hardened shell over its belly. Six arms hung from her torso, and razor sharp points grew from the ends of thirty fingers. Another six lanky legs scuttled for space underneath the gut, and a tail stretched and curled to a tip behind her.