"Let's go little man!" he jeered. "Try me on for size fucko!"
Harmony, Eddinray and I came behind this towering man, but his thick arms prevented our progress.
"Don't,” I warned him, but paying me no mind, the man continued to taunt Kat, and on matters like these, he is always happy to oblige.
The samurai approached with a sunken frown, and we companions closed our eyes to the bloody inevitable. The man threw the first punch, and our burly Kat made his second death look like the most elementary thing in the world. He ducked the swinging fist and struck the katana deep into this man's bowels. The sword was then removed with a length of curdled intestines tangled around the steel. Harmony held the vomit in her mouth as the impressed multitudes whispered news of a man with a talent for murder. From this point on, the crowd separated in droves from the short man with the shorter temper.
***
The fuss concluded at a pier, and ambivalent souls at the head of the cue stood still; none keen to stay, nor see more of Hell.
Docked at the end of this narrow wooden pier was our transportation across the lake: a raft slightly smaller than Eddinray's, which the knight was delighted to point out. A figure, covered from head to foot in a raggedy black cloth bent decrepitly on the bobbling craft, leaning all his weight on a trusty oar of solid oak.
"Who'sss next?" he asked, slithering.
Kat took clanking steps on old wood, and reaching the ferryman, he was not repulsed by this creature's appearance underneath that cloak. There was no skin on his face, no hair or a single blotch of blood, simply skeleton. Skeleton with joints connected by wrapping snakes like many elastic bands.
"Look who it isss!" the ferryman hissed, with relish. "The Kat. The Kat himssself!"
We others joined our friend and I was the one to ask. "Kat, have you met this thing before?"
"No,” replied the ferryman for him, a slim snake popping out of his eyeless socket and returning back through the mouth; "I misssed the Kat first time around. The Black Angelsss immediately cassst him to the deepessst dungeonsss of hell-fire. They dragged him there kicking and ssscreaming…"
"No more of me ferryman!" Kat returned. "You will push us across the lake!"
The ferryman cordially reached out a skeletal palm, expecting his fee,”If you cannot pay Kat, then it'sss the long way around, or freeze with the rest on the ssshore."
Kat did not pass payment; instead, he pressed his katana to the ferryman's snake and bone-ridden wrist.
"You will take us across," he said, simply, "no bones about it."
The ferryman's face receded like a tortoise into its shadowy shell, and when it emerged from the cloak, dozens of snake were stretched over the skull, forming muscles and a strange pair of leathery looking eyeballs. We recoiled, but Kat remained unmoved, and unimpressed.
"There mussst be payment,” insisted the ferryman. "No one has ever crossed thisss lake free of charge."
With a flick of his sword, Kat cut three snakes loose from the skeleton's wrist, then three more until there was but a lonely strand of serpent connecting the wrist to the hand. "Take us across ferryman," he warned; "or you'll never take another."
The ferryman's expressionless skull seemed bitterer than the air freezing those around us.
"Let'sss go…" he hissed, and after Kat's forceful prodding, we three gathered on-board the rickety raft.
"I do not like this!" said Eddinray. "On the record let that be known!"
The watching lot at the harbour looked afraid for us as the ferryman lowered his oar into the soup, and pushed us into a dead calm.
22. The Death of Kendo Katamuro
The ferryman, it seemed, had all eternity to spare, and he would take it pushing his raft through this mist, steaming like broth over the lake. Unsurprisingly, Eddinray was most talkative, his tales enthralling Harmony most of all. Who could forget his duel with three great knights who — to their cost — were not so great after all; or who hasn't read about his infamous rescue of the nun from the burning church? The gallant Eddinray saving both nun and church from the fire.
"I wish I was as fearless as you Godwin,” said Harmony. "But why aren't you in Heaven for such lofty deeds?"
Sitting back at the stern, the knight paused in pompous reflection. "I have long accepted that damnation is the price we heroes must pay. And as for being fearless, I will be candid with you madam, some men are born into the world with certain parts missing, be it manners, compassion, an arm or a leg and so on. Well I was born…with no fear."
"Oh my…" said Harmony.
"Indeed,” he continued. "And it will be my duty and pleasure to shield you from everything this hell has to offer. Witness the dent in my helmet,” he pointed it out, and the angel brightly bobbled her head. "Flung off the back of a flying horse whilst escaping the Leviathan itself! A mere spit of my adventures! A mere spit!"
"How then did you come to perish?” she asked. “Oh, do forgive my curiosity, that was most forward. Besides, you don't have to tell, I'll wager it was something terribly courageous!"
Eddinray took her hand and with a grin said, "The fashion of my premature death is one of considerable chivalry, which I cannot deny. Alas, I will spare you the particulars, for to hear those gruesome details would only strike terror into your soul. I shall say only this,” he whispered, leaning forward, “one knight's sword against fifty…is a nasty, futile business." Eddinray then took a self-congratulatory breath of stinky air. "Are those wings a burden to you?" he asked. "They do appear exceedingly heavy, I must say."
"Light as a feather,” she replied, smiling. "Would you…care to have one?"
"One of your feathers?" he gulped, flustered, shy even. "Wouldn't that…harm you?"
"Not at all, and I only ask because angel feathers bring good fortune, can even be used to create certain spells, hence the wizard's interest in me. So I ask again, would you care for one?"
Eddinray sat upright and shuffled his backside toward her. "I would love one of your feathers, Harmony Valour."
Harmony Valour was therefore only too pleased to pinch one from her back and pass the lucky charm to Eddinray. He grazed it under his nose, closed his eyes then inhaled the flowery scent of a far off Heaven.
"Peaches,” he said, placing it inside his chest plate and over his own heart. "I am nude," he suddenly added, with a slant smirk; "under this armor. I am nude."
Unsure of the remark, Harmony turned unfavourably from him, and scrunching up his face, an embarrassed Eddinray bit down on his tongue.
During this, I gazed at our contemplative leader at the bow of the raft. Refusing to rest his legs or eyes, Kat was our watchman, de-constructing a fat layer of cloud we would soon enter. The ferryman also studied Kat like a crouching lion in the thicket, drooling over a wildebeest. "There wasss an inquiry about you Kat,” he said, lurking over his oar. "Many hundredsss of years ago I ferried across one…A man very keen to meet you."
We rest perked up our ears, but Kat remained unmoved. "He was alssso a sssamurai,” added the ferryman. "Jussst like you."
Kat was listening, but few could tell. "That'sss right," the ferryman tittered; "the black sssamurai! He isss looking for you Kat, and he will find you…"
Kat held a stoic squint ahead, recalling a memory — his last.
***
1568.
A cyclone uprooted trees, upended homes and destroyed the livelihood and lives of the people. Here, in this poverty stricken feudal village is where eighty warriors, distinguishable only by armors red and black, clashed.