those thick heavy legs then sprang up to snatch hold of the hanging chandelier. Crystal beads fell from the ornament as Kat swung backwards, then all his weight was forced forwards and into the bronze-man's back, sending that living statue headfirst through the glass.
Blustery winds whistled in through the newly shattered window while Kat dropped from the chandelier, wiping any crystallized specks from his shoulders. 'Lesson over.' he grunted, collecting his faithful katana.
'Ha!' declared Eddinray, smiling. 'You have no more protection Frenchman! The upper hand is ours, sir!'
Napoleon clapped, thoroughly impressed with Kat. Eddinray however, did not impress him. Not in the slightest. 'You are a fool Englishman,' he started, sliding his fingers up Harmony's bare arms; 'a fool to think I have or will ever lose the upper hand here. Take nothing for granted, for everything that you see…there are the lurking surprises that you do not!'
Kat aimed his sword at the warden's heart. 'We are taking all that we need. Try stopping us.'
Napoleon did not argue, but watched disappointingly as Harmony edged away from his touch.
'Prisoner 2020.' he said, tone harsher as he examined his broken desk. 'That is who you seek Mr Fox? Correct?'
'Yeah. How did you know?'
'Unfortunately,' he added, rubbing the grease from his forehead; 'unfortunately no soul casually walks into my Fortress and removes an inmate — this is a prison facility after all, and such precedents are dangerous things to set. I allow you entry, but escape is impossible. Quite.'
'We are taking the prisoner.' Kat insisted. 'No negotiation.'
'But haven't you come here for two prisoners?' returned Napoleon, with clever certainty. 'Surely two? Yes?'
We searched amongst ourselves, Napoleon taking a moment to savour our confusion. 'I know about all of you.' he said now. 'What each of you desires most. For instance, I know how you escaped Hell, samurai; why, you waited in limbo for two hundred years; and what you seek from God…'
'Don't!' Kat exclaimed; but unconcerned, a confident warden continued. 'A cosmic conscience cannot give you what you want Kat, neither can the hollow wish of an old wizard. They cannot because your wife is not in Heaven. No, she is with us…in Hell.'
Napoleon's little lips stretched to his ears, but that smile was smacked off his face when — with no grace at all — Kat snatched the scruff of his neck and dangled him out of the window. 'My wife is not in Hell!' he bawled, spittle flying. 'She is not!'
The rest of us watched flabbergasted. I had never seen Kat so angry, so mad, and so wildly unstable.
'Release him samurai!' cried the ghost Virgil. 'There will be consequences otherwise!'
'Yuki!' chocked Napoleon, over the swirling realm he adores. 'She can…be saved!'
A puzzle was being put together in my head upon hearing the name. A seat and secret shared — 'Yuki, I am coming!'
After a long and pitiful shriek, Kat threw Napoleon spinning back into the penthouse, and then wilted to his knees. There, on the cold black tiles, he sobbed, crushing the window's broken glass between his fingers.
Moved by his despair, Harmony approached. She sat to stroke Kat's arm. Napoleon meanwhile recovered in the corner with Virgil's eye giving him the once over. Agitated, Napoleon ordered his servant poet from the penthouse, and he disappeared to some unknown region in Hell.
Returning to a demoralised Kat, Napoleon manoeuvred Harmony aside then bent to slither words into his ear. 'In the year 1568,' he begun, 'a Warlord sent his best warrior to win his latest battle. Despite being a natural leader of men and grandmaster of the sword, the samurai's time on that earthly plain was over. He never returned home…'
Kat looked lost in the past, his mind transported to a stormy night and rain-swept village, where a hundred swords clashed, and men and horses fell by the dozen; himself included.
'When Yuki received word of her loving husband's death,' Napoleon whispered, 'she was overcome with grief.'
'No.' slurred Kat, crumpled in a ball.
'Yes,' he continued. 'Your woman stuck a dagger into her chest then bled to death on the floor. In a position similar to your own now. Perhaps you thought she passed peacefully? An old widow in her nineties?'
'Stop it!' Harmony cried.
'Suicide is an appalling act,' he pressed, making light of Kat's grief; 'a mortal sin. Life is a gift you see, and God gets very cross when you return it unwanted.'
Defences obliterated, Kat slobbered like a baby into his bleeding palms. It was deeply disturbing to see him this way, emotion so human from a man so robotic.
'Do not believe it Kat.' urged Harmony. 'He is a liar and the very best of them!'
'Spare me!' griped Napoleon, guiding our eyes to his oversized fireplace. 'Have a look life support! See her for yourself!'
Inside the jagged flames of that fire appeared the image of a woman Kat knew to be his wife. Yuki was in her early fifties, delicate and emaciated. Strung up by a wired noose around the neck, her hands where bound behind her back as her legs kicked at thin air. Her choked expression revealed the horror she endured, her flesh was purple and airless, and the eyeballs protruded like boiled eggs from their sockets.
'Yuki!' Kat writhed, reaching out to her pathetic image. Napoleon childishly moved to block Kat's view of the fire, and his wife. 'She can't hear you.' he said, full of deranged pleasure. 'Prisoner 1692 hangs and suffers every second of her days and nights, for all time. Now, I ask again: Have you come to my Fortress for one prisoner…or two?'
'Let her go!' begged Harmony. 'It is too cruel! Let her go, please?'
'For you Harmony?” he asked. “Is that what you want from me?'
'Yes!' she answered, without hesitation. 'Do this for me Napoleon.'
Interested, and clearly keen to satisfy Harmony, Napoleon sauntered to his blustery window to mull things over. There, he kicked a shard of glass to the puffy red clouds and watched it flip and fall like his bronze-man. I thought of sneaking to his back now and kicking his fat ass out the window, but how would that see the release of our two prisoners? Not forgetting those lurking surprises he mentioned.
'I will release her!' he exclaimed suddenly. 'Yes! You can have the old woman. A token of…goodwill.'
Presently, and on his word, the wire cut from around Yuki's neck and she dropped to soiled ground. Engrossed in the flames, we then watched her remarkable realisation that she could breathe again. The purple on her face settled a bit at a time, and the eyes receded back into her head. Her suffering seemingly over, her image was gone in a woof of smoke, and the fireplace flickered back to normal.
'Thank you Napoleon!' exhaled Harmony. 'Thank-you!'
Carefully now, I approached Kat, placing my soft hand on his hard shoulder. 'Your wife will be safe, my friend. We will see her out of here. I promise you.'
Kat smeared the salty tears away and gripped my forearm. I pulled to his feet and here, at the top of the 9th Fortress, we brothers stood.
'You will be reunited with her.' said Napoleon. 'In the meantime there is important business yet to discuss.'
Although happy to grant the wishes of Harmony Valour, Napoleon Bonaparte was not in the least bit amused to see her arm clung around Eddinray's. An ugly malice appeared on his face, a poisonous desire to see the Englishman put in his place. 'Listen here!' he declared. 'I will release the wife of the samurai! I will also release prisoner 2020 and see you leave the Fortress with my blessing…All be done!'
'If?' I asked, sceptical and hopeful at the same time. 'Whatever I can do!'
'Not you Fox!' he exclaimed. 'You have already sacrificed plenty in getting here — your sanity lost in the cave of a centaur — the eye carved out of your head. But what of the Englishman? What has he lost through this endeavour?'
'What about me?' pried Eddinray, standing straight.
'I am an enthusiast.' Napoleon replied, nonchalantly. 'A competitor and proud Frenchman! My wise and noble Father nurtured all of his children, often regaling this impressionable boy with bedtime tails of Joan of Ark and Turenne. He sent his son dreaming of the greatest battles and glory over impossible odds; the following morning I
