"Right here!" I announced, unafraid. "It was me! So what! I've had it with your mood you tetchy son of a bitch!"
Kat returned — not walking, but striding.
"What?" I moaned, my heart racing. "Come on you bastard!"
I grappled another rock and threw, but it was batted away like a baseball by Kat's katana. Aware that I would lose any sword fight, I threw down mine and readied my fists. "I fight like a man! Let's go! I'm going to knock you the fuck out!"
Kat placed his swords on the ground then charged like a bull. We dove into each other with a thud, trading high punches and low blows on the dirt. Eddinray paced like an old woman over our scuffle, biting his nails as I rolled over my protector, pummelling him with my clenched fists.
Kat yelped like a puppy when I planted my knee deep into his groin. He came back stronger however, and with his teeth, he tore a chunk of skin from my neck. I yelped too, pulled my hand free from our ball then punched Kat's face, feeling my knuckles break against his jaw.
"Okay men!" said Eddinray, deciding now was the time to break it up. "Point is made! I will not referee such rambunctious behaviour!"
We didn't stop — we couldn't. I placed my hands around Kat's neck and throttled him stupid. He meanwhile gouged his thumb into my eyeball.
"God's blood!" announced Eddinray. "This is your final warning men! Dare you provoke me to intervene!"
With his cheeks full of hot air, Eddinray leapt between us with prying arms. Unfortunately, his well-meaning interference only fed Kat's fire. He punched the knight full in the teeth before resuming his wrestle with me.
"Stop! Stop!" exclaimed Harmony, at the top of her voice. "What…is the meaning of this?"
The three of us paused now, inter-weaved, bleeding and breathless under the angel. She looked weak on her feet, but her anger toward us seemed to give her strength.
"They started it!" Eddinray complained, cradling a cut lip.
"You are all accountable!" she yelled back. "How dare you have me wake to this! I am absolutely appalled! Ashamed!"
We bruised men began to separate while she berated us further. "Godwin, Daniel — disgraceful! And Kat I expected more from you — a man of your wisdom scrapping like a schoolchild!"
Showing us the harshness of her clamped wings, we each took a good look at ourselves. How could I have allowed myself to get so frustrated? Especially after Newton's plea to have patience with Kat, not to mention my trials with Bludgeon. Like Harmony, the scientist and centaur would be ashamed.
"I'm sorry Eddinray,” I said, assisting him up. "I'm sorry…Kat."
Patting the dust from his armor, Kat looked at me; then, without reluctance, he apologized. The humble word sorry left those thin lips of his, and I was gob-smacked.
"And me?" jabbered Eddinray. "Do you apologize for smacking my lip, samurai? Well? Let me hear it…"
The knight did not get his apology. "Charming!" he scoffed. "Are you well Harmony, dear?"
"Still pains in my arm,” she answered, with an amiable nod. "I'll be fine, I'm sure. Who is responsible for the sling on my arm?"
“That was Kat's work,” I said, and Harmony thanked him.
Preparing to move again, we suddenly caught sight of two black angels in the sky overhead, carrying three struggling strangers toward the advancing storm and town.
***
We pushed against the wind, using every bit of energy to stay on our feet. Sharp specks of hellishly blowing sand ate into any flesh exposed, and in our battle against the gale and glass, we could hardly gather intelligence on this town — a town called Breakneck.
The thoroughfare was deserted during the blizzard, but we could hear the rowdy cheers and a tuneless piano coming from the most popular building in town. There, a tempting yellow light blurred from smeared over windows. We fought our way toward it, passing a hitching post with no horses, and a wagon with no wheels.
Kat squeaked open those classic saloon doors to a generously spaced room, packed to the rafters. I expected a great hush and turning of heads to greet us newcomers, but our arrival did not stir more than idle curiosity. My hands and face were scored with cuts, as if someone went mad with a razor. My friends also wore the unsightly marks of the storm. I took my canteen and prepared to drink these cuts away, when Kat pressed his palm over the lid. "Not here,” he said, carefully. "Superficial wounds will heal before morning."
With that, I sealed the canteen and observed our surroundings. The saloon needed a new word for rotten — the staircase, the banisters, the tables and chairs looked a moment from collapse. Floorboards were covered in two or more inches of grime, and the weird and wonderful customers were no cleaner. There was a large pile of sugar on the bar counter, and a fly the size of my head snorted greedily into it. Causing offence, a lonely figure made of compacted manure sat on a stool, swatting at the smaller flies around him. One drunkard slouched on the floor, and at his shoulders grew the leathery head of a shark, biting any legs within range of its teeth. "What complete and utter riff raff,” gawked Eddinray. "Be on your guard, angel."
Kat thumped toward the bar like a walking beer keg, and I fully expected his legs to break through the weak floorboards. Miraculously they held his weight and ours; but on route, I near fell onto a table of card players when an eel, resembling a wet sock with golf ball eyes, bungled under my feet and slithered out the flapping doors. "What the?" I muttered, aghast.
The bald bartender was the oddest of them all. Made entirely of a gassy blue flame, he was a man like any other, but for that all-encompassing heat shield. "What can I get ya?" he asked us, passing a shot glass to one customer, who wisely left it to cool before drinking.
"A minute,” replied Kat.
At the piano, an oversized thing played the incoherent nonsense we heard from outside. This creature was a shag of purple hair all over, with a slurping mouth as wide as the instrument it played. What can only be described as a fat bumblebee flapped its wings in one corner of the ceiling, around and around in brooding circles he went. Finally, stretched on a bench lay the crinkly cream body of a maggot larger than any other here. Disgusting.
"Heee better not show today!" buzzed the bee. "I ain't scared! He won't run meee out! Just you wait!"
"Let it go!" the maggot said to the bee. "There's nothing you can do, Charlie! Nothing at all."
"That'sss what you all think! You think I'm a coward! Well you're wrong! All wrong!"
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, these were souls scared to venture forward, and scared to turn back. But for what it was worth — with their drink, music and friends — each seemed to have found a tiny peace of paradise here in Breakneck.
I noticed those customers seated at tables did not play cards for money, chips or matchsticks, but for the only currency worth a damn here: the rejuvenating well light. Players kept their stash piled beside them in cups or preciously balanced saucers. Some carried flasks containing dregs of the stuff while others had droplets swirling in dirty ashtrays. Clearly, the light was in limited supply — none had the amount our company carried, none had seen the centre of the labyrinth.
"Ready to order?" asked the winter blue barman.
Ignoring him, Kat sauntered to the table nearest and to the three skinny men blowing froth from their pints. "Beat it,” he snarled.
The grey faced drinkers froze, and after hasty contemplation, one swallowed his pint whole, scooped up his belongings then left the saloon with fellow drinkers in his wake. Taking a seat at the now vacant table, Kat signalled us to do the same.
"What do we do now?" I asked, feeling weirdly at ease as I sat on a wonky chair.
Anxious, Harmony gazed past the flapping doors to the jet streams of glass outside. "Stuck here,” she mumbled, resting the longbow on her lap and fiddling its string.