The 9th Fortress

and groin kicks to unfortunate others. 'Cut you down scum!' he spat. 'One after the other I will cut — you — down!'

Standing like a tense spider, Scarfell saw the Scurge suck what little brain it could from a bog, and then took his opportunity to rob the immortal of her marrow. The wizard came at me but Kat was nearest. He ran to me, and with a downward slice, cut me free from my bonds. 'Fight or die Fox!' he roared, as I ducked to miss a bog blade splintering into the worm's post.

***

Keys in hand, Harmony was back in the gritty cellblock under the temple, talking at length to the caged Gorgon. 'Do you promise?' asked the angel. 'Do you swear it to me?'

'I swear it,' replied the Gorgon, her voice muffled under the bag. 'You have my word — I will not set sight on your friends.'

And with that, Harmony unlocked her cage, removed the bag from the Gorgon's head and the ropes binding her wrists. Apart from the reptilian skin and scaly wings, the Gorgon was an alluring creature with a caring face and soft lips. Her eyes however were a frosty white, reflecting the form of whoever dared look. Harmony kept her eyes completely shut as the Gorgon rubbed an old crick from her neck. Then, an inch from Harmony's face, the Gorgon whispered a grateful thank you into the angel's ear.

***

I pulled my shield, short sword and dagger from the bag whilst knight and samurai protected me from the onslaught. Bog bodies were strewn everywhere — and reminding me of the horses they had earlier butchered — the bulk of them ran terrified around the enclosure, some even opening the gates to flee from the compound.

Once armed, I fought alongside my friends and precariously close to the Scurge. All of us ducked and dived from her swooping tail, and rolling, I slashed at any limbs within range of my sword. Parts successfully dismembered however, would regenerate in no time flat — she was immortal after all.

Near us, Grutas was tightening a grip on his axe and pointing out Kat. The samurai smiled back at him, then left us to face the giant.

'I will be your eye!' said Eddinray, covering my blind side as we fell back from the Scurge. 'Back you villain! Back!'

I dispatched a bog to my right then jabbed again at the Scurge, before being abruptly knocked to a sick heap by a ferocious fire inside my head. I heard Eddinray cry out my name, then watched through a blurry eye as the knight took the Scurge's tail full in the chest, flinging him backward and crashing down on a derelict bog hut.

Kat strolled around Grutas, and Grutas around Kat. This mouth watering clash did not last long however, for when Grutas raised that heavy battleaxe, Kat lunged forward with a lightning cut across the giant's guts, then several more to separate the arms from his body.

Kat was extremely efficient, and glaring over his numb faced opponent, he amputated the giant's legs below the knees. Unlike the Scurge, Grutas would not regenerate, and Kat would not spare his life like he had Bludgeon's. With one slash of the sword, he removed that gargling head from its shoulders, then booted the upright torso to the deck.

Recovering from the fire in my head, I rolled onto my back to find Scarfell stood over me, arms raised and summoning another fireball between his hands. It hovered there like a new sun whilst he concentrated on cooking it. Digging my fingernails into the clay, I attempted to slump away, but my fried brain — in these vital seconds — had forgotten how to crawl or cry out; and without words or mercy, Scarfell threw the soaring comet at me.

Instinctively, I showed him my back, and Scarfell's star shot directly onto my shield centre. Searing temperatures roasted the armor white to completely melt the centaur's seal. Fortunately the image had its own charm, repelling that ungodly force back to sender, and consuming the wizard in a blaze of his own wicked magic. The shield incinerated, Scarfell screamed in a shroud of flames before bursting into a million sooty ashes over me.

Eddinray picked himself up from the broken shack, and then snuffed out the bog forking a blade at his chest plate. 'Amateur,' he huffed, wearily brushing off debris before joining Kat and me in the centre of the fort, Scurge and bogs moving in.

'I can rip them all,' growled Kat.

'And the immortal?' I asked, wheezing.

A solution to that problem came with an attention-seeking shout from the temple. 'Close your eyes boys!' announced Harmony, racing down the steps. 'Close your eyes!'

She stumbled to scrape her knees as the Gorgon swooped out from the temple, a screaming torrent of vengeance. Gorgon flew low, her green arms swimming through the air and dodging the Scurge's tail with ease. Her cry was high spirited and her rage focused only on those creatures who imprisoned her. She dove upward and examined the compound with those pulsating, glacial eyeballs, then returned to transform five bogs to a harsh grey rock, and furthermore catching the Scurge in one of its three faces and six eyes. The Gorgon laughed manically, turned seven others to granite then flew a free woman over the tall trees.

Without wait, Harmony, Eddinray, Kat and myself bunched together to observe the Scurge's last transformation. Her arms stopped lunging, her tail stopped whipping, and that beetle body began a slow and painful looking crackle into stone — her immortal self buried alive inside it.

Harmony knew the way out of the fort so after her we followed, straying from the path and venturing through deeper jungle. She caught her cumbersome wings against branches which snapped back into our faces. We heard snorting bogs in pursuit, always in pursuit.

'Haste!' Harmony yelled at us. 'Almost there!'

'Where?' asked Eddinray, struggling to keep up. 'Why do we flee from these pigs?'

The dense forest was suffocating, and the surface slippery from lumpy boulders and moss. Puddles of tree sap snared our feet while hanging vines attempted to clutch back our wrists, as if to steal our souls for themselves. We batted free with weapons and fists ‘til the roots and vines got the message.

Without warning, Harmony randomly changed direction, leading us over a river of frozen ice. All but Kat spilled to backsides the moment our heels touched the glistening surface. Coming to my aid first, Kat took my forearm and heaved me upright.

'Mustn't linger,' said Harmony, assisting Eddinray. 'The ice is not as thick as it-'

Then, like the sound of a breaking egg, Eddinray's foot gave way and the ice sucked in his leg.

'Be still knight!' ordered Harmony. 'Do not struggle!'

She snatched hold of Eddinray's hand and warned Kat and I not to come any closer. Further cracks escalated around Eddinray's leg and he shrieked at the alien thing swimming against it under the ice.

'I feel it!' he cried. 'What's in here?'

'Dare you find out!' said Harmony, reaching her free arm back for Kat. 'Pull me samurai! Pull us!'

Promptly, all of us made a human chain to haul Eddinray from the water. Behind, a dozen or more bogs spilled out from the forest, each spinning on the ice as we had done.

'Don't stop!' I said, watching the bogs make new holes over the ice-sheet. In my slippery stride, I turned to witness a spotty tentacle rise from a crack in the ice, coil then drag one terrified bog under the surface.

'Move on!' exclaimed Harmony. 'Haste! Haste!'

We followed the flow of the river to its unfathomable end; a drop of petrified water. Ice poured over the edge like a chute; a crystal fall more than five hundred vertical feet down. The height was head spinning, nauseating, impossible — all the ice leading to an open mouth — the head of a colossal stone demon with the features of a deformed cherub.

Cracks intensified over the lake and the world rocked underneath us as eight prodding tentacles burst free for more meat. 'What now?' I yelled, cold water spouting up between my legs.

'We jump!' returned Harmony. 'We simply… jump!'

'Easy for you to say,' said Eddinray, 'you have wings my dear! I cannot do this! What exactly is this, and why am I a part of this fiction!'

'Take,' she said, extending her hand. 'We shall all leap together!'

Eddinray took the thin fingers on offer, and Harmony subsequently took my hand with her other. I then gripped Kat's palm and instantly felt his tug away. 'Together,' I stressed, and grudgingly he accepted.

We approached the edge of the glassy precipice now, a fall beyond words. 'I've a nose bleed!' spluttered Eddinray. 'Dear me, tell me… tell me what awaits this knight yonder?'