The 9th Fortress

convinced! I needed to know if…'

'Well?'

'If… you were monstrous?'

'I am no monster,' Kat growled, with another pull of her arm. 'Are you?'

'No, no!' she yelped. 'You're hurting! Please! Release me!'

Kat let go and she scurried back in her cell, making the most of any space between them.

'I was only curious,' she then said, rubbing the pain from her arm. 'May I ask what kind you are? What kind?'

'I am human. I am samurai!'

'Sam…' she stuttered, surprised. 'Is your name Kendo Katamuro? Are you the warrior, Kat? '

Instantly, Kat honed in on her box of shade, eyes straining for a better look. 'Who are you?' he asked, seeing nothing of the woman.

'Are you… the Kat?' she softly repeated.

'I am! And you?'

The woman exhaled with relief as if she knew him. 'My name is Harmony Valour. It was my duty to collect you and Daniel Fox from the beach not far from here.'

'Valour?'” Kat returned, puzzled. “How did you get here?'

She held a guilty silence next door until Kat rattled her bars, 'Answer!'

'The wizard captured me!' she blurted out. 'Demanded information concerning you and your companion, particularly when and where I would be expecting you both. It is my fault you were captured. I am to blame, samurai.'

'You stupid fool!'

'He tortured me!' she exclaimed. 'Pressed his palm onto my forehead — the burning was…'

Her story and sorrow seemed genuine enough. “Scarfell was keen to acquire your friend,' she added, clearing her eyes; 'I expect he won't last long.'

'We will all perish from our bodies woman! All of us!'

'Not you Kat. If we had the light to see you would realize that those confined here are unique to the Distinct Earth. We are the wizard's zoo, his exhibit for all eternity. You are the second caged today. A naked man was locked in the corner cell shortly before your arrival in the fort. I am afraid he has not moved since.'

'What else?' asked Kat, whiffing in a putrid combination of straw and shit.

'There is a sphinx and serpent in this menagerie, and various kinds of alien; Scarfell also had a unicorn which I managed to free before my own imprisonment. The wizard was very cross, although having the only man to escape Hell has cheered him somewhat.'

'And you? What are you?'

'I am… an outcast,' she replied, gulping down some past hurt. And revealing nothing more, Harmony changed the subject. 'I suggest we get used to our incarceration samurai — ever since I freed the unicorn security has been increased. Bogs inspect cell locks on the hour and patrols of the Fort are round the clock. The bog men are not the brightest, but there is strength in numbers.'

'I will not be caged!' he yelled, making a futile attempt to pry his bars apart.

'The keys are hanging near the door,' she informed him. 'Nothing else will open these locks.'

The keys could not be seen in the dark, so Kat resigned himself to patience for the time being.

Minutes later, a rattling came at the end of the corridor, and the cellblock door duly opened. Kat and Harmony cricked their necks for a better view, but the squeaking door only let in more darkness from outside, concealing the identities of these people now moving along the corridor.

'This will be quite spectacular,' said the old man. 'Fresh in this afternoon. It took nine weeks to track him.'

'I have been looking forward to it,' replied a robotic sounding woman. 'If only my sisters could be here to see it.'

A trio of silhouettes passed Harmony's cage, then Kat's on their way to the farthest end of the cell- block.

'Time approaches,' said the old man. 'Let there be light!'

The block of wood covering the window was removed, and rays of translucent moonlight illuminated the cellblock. Under that window stood Scarfell with Grutas, and that green-eyed siren who earlier claimed to be Harmony Valour. 'Wizard!' exclaimed Kat, furious.

'Joy!' said Scarfell; 'the Kat is awake! My latest acquisition, there are curious far and wide who will come to view you samurai. They will not be disappointed.'

'Hell could not hold me!” he roared. “Bars will not hold me!'

Grutas sneered at Kat's arrogance, whilst Scarfell merely waved a pithy hand at it. 'You are a legend, Kat,' he returned, 'but one of flesh and blood. Now if your strength can indeed pry iron aside, then be my guest. Beautiful moon tonight Miss Valour, don't you think?'

'What are you up to wizard?' the French woman asked him.

'You will see, mischievous one… you will see.'

Kat peered into Harmony's cell, the diamond light revealing a small portion of her heart shaped face. She was young, no more than twenty years old, with long yellow hair to her shoulders. Harmony felt Kat watching her, and met his hard face with a polite smile. 'Pleased to see you… cell-mate.'

Clicking his spindly fingers, Scarfell brought all attention back to him, and especially the cell underneath the full moon's gaze — a cage belonging to a naked man. 'Wake up!' moaned Scarfell, repeating the order until the forlorn stranger stirred. This person's body was scab ridden, hair a haven for lice; his legs curled up into his belly and he hid his head inside tightly folded arms. Eyes still closed, the man shook, trembles at first which grew to severest chills in no time at all.

Mutually disturbed, but too intrigued to look away, Harmony and Kat watched the scrawny man cough, and like his shivering, this clearing of the throat increased. 'Reveal your true form!' whispered Scarfell, leering through his bars. 'Show me your soul…'

Dollops of black gravy began dripping from the man's mouth, and he scraped his fists repeatedly on the stone floor — the flesh coming away like grated cheese from his knuckles.

'Seal the window!' yelled Harmony, disgusted. 'Stop this circus!'

Gagging, the naked stranger opened his mouth to expel large quantities of slurry from his stomach, and the more of this sick he discarded, the thicker in consistency it became; a gluey spew oozing from every orifice. Surprisingly, even with a system clogged full of bile and no possible room for oxygen, the prisoner did not pass out.

'Help him!' cried Harmony. 'Enough!'

Scarfell was engrossed, and with deaf ears to Harmony's pleas, he leant ever closer as the man squawked, his bloated face the colour purple and his forehead pulsing with a fat boil. That boil burst and the white puss dribbled down his nose. The stranger then winced to his back and there had a raging fit — flapping his arms like a bird as jellied tears ran from his tortured eyes. 'Ahhrrr!' he groaned and gurgled.

His skin became black now with growing patches of wiry hair; his jawbone abruptly shut with vice like force, shattering the teeth inside his mouth. That mouth presently barfed out all the teeth and a tongue to the tarry pools under his face.

'Wonderful!' exclaimed Scarfell, clapping a hand on one knee. 'Wonderful!'

'Indeed,' added the hypnotic looking siren.

'Kill him!' Kat yelled. 'End this misery!'

'Oh no!' said Scarfell, playfully. 'And miss the best part?'

The man's convulsing grew to intolerable levels, until his bones bent crooked and began contorting inside his frame, the cracking grotesquely audible. Suddenly, the spinal cord, with all its connecting tissue and veins, sprung out from his back, followed by all ten finger and toenails launching like missiles from their ends, with longer and sharper nails now replacing them. The ribcage seemed to pump from inside his skin, breathing in and out until eventually breaking free with a ghoulish burst, revealing a cavity of organs cooking in putrid slime. The stranger's neck stretched out with a crunch, and a pair of sludgy eyes popped from their sockets and dangled like conkers from the bloody holes.