Two minutes past, and worry set in.
'He must be drowning!' cried Harmony. 'It is water after all!'
Ten seconds later, I decided to take action with a run up the three steps. 'I'm going in!' I yelled, the water reacting ferociously now.
'Behind you!' blared Eddinray, causing my insides to spasm. I turned to see one dishevelled rat man stuck like a spider to the wall. All of me froze as that vermin kicked itself off from the stone with a mouth closing in for my face. Shutting my eye to the inevitable, I suddenly felt a spray of hot liquid drench me.
Trembling, I glanced an alarming peek to discover my clothes now covered in the blood of the rat, and Kat standing over its corpse with a dripping katana.
'There!' announced Harmony, petrified. 'And there!'
More came sniffing around the corner, dozens upon dozens into the centre of the labyrinth.
'Our home!'
We were surrounded, the filthy filling the grounds and sticking to every available plot of stone.
'I feel we're done for!' Eddinray wheezed. 'Absolutely!'
Hastily, Harmony removed an arrow from the quiver, pulled it back on the longbow and fired. 'Cumbersome thing!' she moaned, as the arrow hit granite.
'Our home!'
Without warning, a violent scream — the raw sound of a being born again — erupted from the well water. Godly light exploded over the circular enclosure, startling all the rats away. We four covered our eyes until the blast had settled, and with the rats gone, the regenerated body of Wisp was free from its cloak, and revealed to us.
From that point, everything moved in frame-by-frame slow motion. The most disturbing scene played out before me now as I witnessed the spear of Wisp bore like a drill through the centre of Kat's face. 'For Grutas!' said Scarfell, tugging his lance free from the wound then examining Kat's brains on the blade.
The samurai dropped dead. Blood flowed from his open skull as a triumphant Scarfell stepped away from the wells shimmering illumination. 'No!' I chocked. 'It can't be…'
No longer was the wizard's flesh burnt to a crisp, no longer was he old and fragile — but younger, virile, and all our doing.
'Kat!' shrieked Harmony, rushing to his twitching body and falling to her knees. Blood soaked her gown through as she shook him, but nothing could be done. The samurai was beyond hope.
'He's gone Harmony!' screamed Eddinray, pulling at her shoulders. 'Gone!'
I slithered in a shambles down the steps and away from the wizard, ripping out my sword and taking a chunk from my own chin in the melee. I cried out, pressing my hand over the wound.
'No one to save you!' Scarfell announced. 'No-one at all boy!'
He reached out for me, so upward I swung my blade, snapping the spear in pieces from Scarfell's hand. I then lunged at the wizard, but he kicked up his feet and flew — flew — over my head, magically levitating above the labyrinth walls to observe the chaos he created.
'Come back here!' I roared. 'You fucking coward!'
'I will be waiting for you Fox!' he replied, laughing. 'At the end…I'll be waiting!'
Promptly, Scarfell disappeared in a puff of scarlet mist, and spinning sick, my mind sped through thoughts and consequences — Scarfell alive — Kat dead. Numb, I glanced at Harmony, watching her emotional wreck attempt to drag Kat's dead bulk up the three well steps.
'Of course!' I exclaimed and springing from my heap I snatched Kat's cold wrist whilst Harmony pulled on the other. Together, we grunted and hauled him up those remaining steps as Eddinray held out his sword to the returning rats. 'Come!' he dared. 'Taste my fury!'
'No!' panted Harmony, grief stricken as Kat's body began to break down and sift through our fingers. We could no longer grip him, his whole now melting to the faint ball of blue plasma. Quickly and without another thought, I snatched this speck of life in my hand and leapt with a splash into the well water.
Shell-shocked, Harmony turned to witness the hairy masses swarming a lonely Eddinray.
'Our home!'
Mincing her teeth, Harmony joined Eddinray's side, and steadying an arrow on the longbow, she fired at the nearest. 'Together!' said Eddinray, fending off one as the well blustered with activity, a gassy outrage of bubbles shooting me out as fast as I dove in.
I thumped stone hard and drenched, and to my astonishment, could already feel the blinking lid in my left eye. I vigorously tore the wrappings from my face and was staggered by the perfect vision in both my eyes. I could even feel all the wiggling toes returned to my foot. This was black magic, an unholy miracle; but I didn't mind.
'Help us Danny!' yelled a perturbed Eddinray, deflecting a rat's blunt hook. Dripping wet, I scuttled to their side, shielding off rodents with slash after slash. 'Get back!' I screamed, chipping them away.
I hacked and hacked with more power than I've ever had in my arm, my sword hand pulsating, unadulterated adrenaline pumping through my system, urging me to kill more and more and more! My companions, although far from pulsating, kept up their ends. Harmony gave up on the longbow and simply held her arrows like knives, stabbing any close. The knight meanwhile struggled to deal with one of the larger rats taking an unwelcome fancy to him.
'Off!' he moaned. 'I'll run you all through!'
More came, and more over them, too many to see off. For all their overwhelming numbers, my sword did not stop. My wrist seared from overuse, and already I could feel this brief talent drain from me as human bodies with rat heads began to shroud the light. They were everywhere.
The second scream from the well caused every living thing to stand rigid — the wrenching ululation of something wicked. Kat burst from the water in a tremendous explosion of light and sound — and removing both swords in flight, he landed with a crunch of stone under his feet. There, the man smouldered — recovered in body, but pathological in mind.
The samurai raised a queer brow to the odious mob, wearing a fresh and disfiguring scar down one whole side of his face. He saw their claws, smelt their breath, and thus began the slaughter. Kat destroyed every rat near and not near him, a steel tornado leaving destruction in his wake. Death cries were high pitched and excruciating, and it didn't take a minute for Kat to eviscerate, behead, and vanquish every one of them. He was superlative, superhuman, the devil incarnate. Once finished, he slunk famished, then observed his massacre with a still, insane satisfaction.
After a moment, we three came over our friend in deadened disbelief, the flesh and hairy parts piled around us like a mass grave. The blood of the rats smeared gooey greens over the labyrinth floor, and there Kat sat and soaked in it, those trench eyes of his trapped open, not blinking nor flinching. He held this glacial expression for too long, and remarkably, just one bead of sweat dribbled down his temple.
With open arms, I diligently bent to him. 'Kat?' I whispered. 'Kat?'
'Your body was gone,” said Harmony, keeping her distance. 'Daniel saved you…'
I shook my head. 'Not me Harmony. The well.'
Eddinray was highly strung, restlessly jerking and winking. 'Well?' he yelled. 'Are you alive, man? Say something!'
Bending down to the petrified warrior, Kat's predator eyes made contact with mine to once again inspire a curdling in my stomach. I placed a gentle hand on his knee, and spoke as softly as my voice would allow.
'You're okay Kat. Do you understand?'
At last, he blinked, and then stood like David to his feet.
'Fill flasks,” I said, quickly. 'We get the hell out of here now.'
We guzzled down the remaining barrel water from our flasks, and all but Harmony refilled them with the miraculous well water. We would need every drop.
25. The Flood
Grazing my hand on the left wall, I took the lead and Virgil's advice, while the youthful face of Scarfell played in and out of my mind. The witch told me he had the power to come and go between realms whenever he pleased,
