"Surely not?" said Eddinray, cramping in behind. "Erk! Where is the broom in this cupboard? Dash! It is simply one wretched trial after another!"
The rising suns uncovered more of this sticky chute — it was almost vertical, with fat boulders strewn over a surface that appeared to be moving at an upward slither toward us. It was in-fact an incline of squirming worms, now wiggling over our feet and out through the slate door.
"Get them off!" cried Harmony, kicking. "Can't stand it!"
"Calm her,” said Kat, bending for a better look at the slope. "We mustn't allow weight to settle here."
"Or else?" I asked, and Kat duly demonstrated. He sat perched on the ledge, set one of his boots down onto this clambering hill then watched that foot sink without trace into the worms. "Or else Fox," he said, pulling his boot free, "you will be suffocated."
As he flicked off the many worms already climbing his shins, I shuddered at a brief image of them clogging every orifice.
"Hold tight to your weapons,” he ordered, calmly. "Roll quickly. Do not stand. Do not stop."
"I can't!" said Harmony, hyperventilating. "Not in the dark! Not down there! There's too many! I refuse! I'll find another path."
"We've seen worse,” I said. "Harmony you can do this! You can!"
"She's shaking!" said Eddinray, concerned. "Kat I suggest we find another course!"
Kat's response was straightforward. Irascible and unscrupulous, he stood to push Harmony, sending her tumbling down the slope, alone, and screaming.
"Harmony!" yelled Eddinray, grasping at thin air as she slid out of sight. Without hesitation, the knight dived ungracefully after her — his mail skimming atop worms like butter over porcelain.
"You pushed her!" I bawled in Kat's face. "You complete bas — "
His sturdy push on my chest knocked the wind out of me, and before I knew it, I was over the ledge and sliding like garbage down the chute. My descent was lucky, avoiding the rocks whilst the rest of me was lost in a dizzying larva of gunk and squiggles. Speed increasing, my ears heard the cries of my friends below but nothing from Kat above. I could not prepare my body for what came next — spat like used chewing gum out from a tiny mouth on the side of a black loaf mountain.
I soared through a scarlet sky screaming — arms and feet flailing. Suddenly, my face smashed dull sand, and I rolled head over heels down a steep ridge. My skin grated on this surface as I fought to stay on my back; and eventually coming to a halt, I lay in an accumulating dust cloud, hearing the groans of Eddinray somewhere beside me.
"Worms in my pants,” he moaned. "The worms! The worms everywhere!"
Tender all over, my entire being was smeared over in a colorless muck. Sitting up, I instantly caught sight of something peculiar racing toward me — a rocketing sled descending the same ridge I just did. Clearing the specks from my eyes, I noticed that this accelerating object was none other than a samurai warrior, whose battering ram of a body readily knocked me out like a prize-fighter.
Some time later, surrounded by a swarm of dirt, I placed my head between my legs and searched for the brains inside it.
"No!" Eddinray wailed, his shattering tone waking me from concussion. The knight nursed over Harmony, who lay coiled and broken on the sand. Head pounding, I gagged when I noticed the crooked condition of her right arm — the bone mush and the skin black.
"Thank goodness!" cried Eddinray suddenly, as the angel spluttered back to us. "Thank goodness!"
"Give me your canteen,” Kat said to me, ordinarily composed.
I passed him my well water without question, and he crouched to Harmony's parched lips. She took a tiny sip of the light in the bottle, but baulked upon realizing what liquid she was drinking.
"It is…black magic,” she muttered, turning her mouth away. "I won't ever drink it."
"Suffer then,” replied Kat. "Your fleece, Fox. Give it to me."
"My fleece?"
"Now!"
I took it off and passed it over, leaving me in a creaky old shirt. Methodically fast, Kat took an arrow from Harmony's quiver as a disturbed Eddinray observed.
"Samurai this is beyond barbaric!" he gasped. "There's a sickness inside you man!"
Kat grunted back, fit the arrow sideways into the angel's mouth then took hold of her damaged arm. "Bite down,” he said. "Hard."
Harmony's eyes glistened over as she focused herself into a trance. Unusually benevolent, Kat waited for her mind to reach that tranquil state, before placing his foot fully on her armpit, and jerking her wrist back with a sickening crunch.
Howling like a wounded animal, Harmony's front teeth snapped the arrow in her mouth and she fell unconscious. That revolting click of connecting bone made me stagger, but I remained standing. Despite her spiritual objections, Kat doused Harmony's wound with the water flask, cut my fleece into ribbons then wrapped her arm securely in a sling. Once the primitive procedure was complete, he stepped back to breathe, then felt the poke of Eddinray's finger into his back. "This is your fault samurai! Time to learn you some manners!"
With a grouchy skull still splitting, Kat provoked the knight with his own push. "Teach me knight…Teach me good."
"Enough!" I cried, positioning myself between them. "What's done is done! Harmony needs rest…not our stupid bickering!"
"No rest!" said Kat. "The knight can carry her!"
And dispassionately he walked on ahead, clearing his ears of gunk and leaving Eddinray and me to mirror resentful expressions.
"I'll carry her Eddinray. Your mail is enough of a burden."
"I will be responsible for Harmony,” he returned, as if a duty. "You've carried us long enough already Danny."
With respect, I nodded, bearing weapons instead of the angel. Touchingly, I noticed that Sir Godwin Eddinray had, for the first time, lost his carefree shield. No longer was he the intermediary with no emotional investment — now he had something very precious to lose. With great struggle then, he picked up that sleeping beauty, and carried her on his way.
27. Breakneck
A storm was coming. The wisest option would be to wait this torrent out, but Kat had other ideas.
"In Hell!" he yelled back, "the storms wait you out! We will barter the canteens!"
"Barter?" I cried; "to a storm?"
"That town!" he stressed, pointing ahead.
A staggering clash of dark clouds concealed any sign of the town, but Kat was adamant. "All realms have their civilisation,” he remarked. "Their damned civilization…"
***
The dry landscape reminded me of a John Wayne movie, the vast plains of the old west with oddly shaped boulders and standing columns of rock.
“Can we stop?" begged Eddinray. "Just a little while?"
Harmony heavier in his arms, her limp feathers coiled around his feet and dragged behind him.
"We should stop,” I agreed, taking pity.
Kat spared a moment to look over the fatigued knight, and unmoved, he not only resumed his pace, but increased it…
Not ten minutes later, Eddinray's legs expectantly gave way, and he buckled to the dust with Harmony. I went to him and he drank from my canteen, clenching his thirst and returned some colour to his cheeks.
"You're fine,” I told him, glaring at Kat, who pigheadedly upped his gears toward a town growing clearer. "Hey!" I yelled, furious. "Get your ass back here! You hear me?"
That second, the red mist came over me. I picked up the nearest rock and threw. It struck its target, impressively bursting over the back of the samurai's head. Eddinray's eyebrows sprung up in surprise, as did mine to observe Kat stumble, but not completely fall over. He rubbed the back of his skull, dabbing his fingers at the blood accumulating there, and when he eventually turned, his livid face demanded the one responsible. "Who…?"