I was stunned. 'How can you love these creatures?' I hollered, watching at least ten running in search of water buckets. 'These fucking things? Are you crazy?'
Still, they ran to save their offspring, as if their lives depended on it.
'This ends tonight!' I bawled, over cackling firewood. 'You hear me?'
'The wizard can't be stopped!' squealed Madam B, overseeing the dousing of flames. 'We have watched Grutas feed our husbands and friends to bogs! To our own children! Stronger women than us have been ripped apart for disobe-'
A distant cry interrupted her. Looking at something beyond Kat’s and my sight, something outside the barn, a goggle-eyed Madam B staggered and dropped her torch to the hay.
'What is it?' I asked, fires blazing. 'What?!'
Presently, I heard the thudding of approaching steps, and watched frantic women flee in tears as the giant Grutas came to block the barn doorway, holding the tangled hair and decapitated head of Madam L in his hand. A constipated look sat on her pretty face, the blood dripping like clotted cream from her serrated neck.
'No…' I mumbled.
Behind us, the fire caught something it liked to erupt in a ball of frazzling heat and falling cinders everywhere. Grutas flung L's head far into the pen of roasting children, and then stamped his authority with a prolonged roar.
'You dirty pig!' I roared back. 'Dirty fucking pig!'
With no way out of the barn but through Grutas, I felt Kat's sudden squeeze on my wrist. 'Do not move.' he said, as composed as any man ever has been.
Placing me in his protective shadow, Kat squared off with the beast, which showed us the clump of hair and blood glued to his hand. Grutas then made a fist, and Madam L's blood seeped from the gaps of his fingers like soapy lava from a sponge.
'Kill him.' I said. 'Kill that son of a bitch!'
Kat flicked the katana tip to the straw at his feet, the heat causing the sweat to bubble from his arm and grease down the blade. 'I will not fall…' he told the giant.
Grutas smiled, showing all of his stained teeth and murky tonsils. However, with the smoke thickening and the air cooking our lungs, there was no time for posing. Kat charged full-bloodedly at the monster, only to be caught by a wrenching kick to his guts, sucking all of the oxygen from Kat's body and hurtling him backward through the barn enclosure. Splinters burst every which way as Kat touched down at the hellish end of the barn; meanwhile, I dived to avoid a falling stack of burning hay.
On my stomach, I glanced at my protector, who in writhing agony stubbornly picked himself up only to crunch back to his knees, the scattering babies bashing into his arms and torso. Collecting his sword, Kat sucked in a great breath and began slicing. In the meantime, Grutas stamped toward me, but the barn appeared too hot for the bog, he battered frustratingly at the flames with his arms, and I was saved by a rush of remaining bog babies, who were fleeing on fire from the breached pen and clattering into the giant's legs.
Hobbling, I joined Kat deep in that incinerator, the roof collapsing above us.
'Are you okay?' I yelled. 'Can you stand, man?'
The katana was dripping blood in his hand, and still heavily winded, he could not speak, so I wrapped his arm over my neck and saw us both to the furthest end of the barn.
At the rear wall, a towering inferno greeted us. I heard Grutas scream bloody vengeance in the background and turned to see him beat and throw miniature bogs from his path. With haste, I secured the rope over my shoulder again, stepped back six paces, and shared a plucky glance with Kat before we charged in unison toward the incandescent wall.
We crashed out the other side in a wind of shattering wood and jagged flame. Immediately, Kat flapped out the fire in my hair, and we clambered without rest toward the misty route of the Macros, leaving the village of pregnant prisoners and factory of wizard armies behind forever.
8. The Mouth of The Mountain
Early morning found us recovering in a rocky inlet at the foot of the Macros. The rope coiled around my heels, I sat on a boulder as a bitter breeze blew snow over my face. A steep curl wound up the jagged mountainside, a route we would trek in a few minutes time.
Kat was unfussy in the removal of his splinters. He yanked one lodged from his thigh and I winced at its width. I had minor cuts over my face and hands, but Kat certainly came off worse from the barn collision. He had earlier yanked a splinter eight inches long from the side of his neck, and several shorter ones from his wrist and knuckles. He either did not acknowledge this pain, or didn't care to.
'I can help you with that,' I offered. 'If you need — '
'What can you do that I cannot?' he griped, pulling the final splinter from his brow with trails of squirting blood.
The atmosphere between us was distant to say the least. I was still smarting from his earlier choke-hold, whilst the samurai was just being the samurai. Nevertheless I felt I should put personal complaints to one side; after all, getting on Kat's good side was the only way to gather information, and knowledge was always worth more than petty squabbling.
'I haven't thanked you…' I began, carefully.
Kat contemptuously threw that splinter over his shoulder then showed me his back.
'The only reason you're here is to protect me,' I continued. 'You got the dirty end of the stick for sure. Your motives… are your business, I respect that, and I'll try not to let you down in future.'
That came out better than I expected, and judging by Kat's subtle nod, he approved.
'It is not me you have to impress,' he then said, eyeing the build up of cloud overhead.
'Can you tell me more about him?” I asked. “Bludgeon, the king?'
The samurai studied the empty road we had run the previous night. There was no pursuing wizard or bogs there yet.
'Bludgeon is illusive,' he whispered 'is a master of all things.'
'You've met him?'
'Never. I doubt his existence.'
'But… you know he lives up there, right? How?'
'Fox,' he exhaled, irritated. 'If Bludgeon is there then you will not have met a man like it. He will ask more than you could possibly give. Disappoint him, and you disappoint the scientist, the angel… and yourself.'
Kat then moved toward the twisting route up the mountain and I followed, considering those I'd so far let down on my mission to the 9th Fortress, Madam L in particular. I tried to put her last expression out of my mind, but that frozen face was there every time I closed my eyes.
'I've no climbing experience,' I said, arriving at the side of him. 'I used to walk up Ishpatina Ridge on weekends back home, but that's about it, and even then I'd hardly call it a mountain.'
'Instinct,' replied Kat, rubbing a chill from his palms. 'The weather will not help our climb — if we survive it.'
Those darkening clouds aptly grumbled, promising difficult times ahead.
***
As expected, the route grew steadily steeper; oxygen thinner and snow thicker. I was connected to Kat via the rope knotting around our waists, leaving a gap of around six feet between us. Eyes constantly facing my feet, there wasn't much of a view, only a crooked black slate and the blustery conditions we arduously fought with.
Ahead, the samurai battled on until our rope became taut, coercing me like a wet dog on a leash. Onward! Onward! Onward! There would be no stopping here or anywhere.
We carried on in this infuriating manner for the longest time; Kat pushing and me pulling on — push and pull — push and pull! Already I detested this rope and that man's insatiable demands on it. I detested it more than the plummeting temperature, the numbing of my extremities and everything else I've ever hated in my entire fucking life.
