John Jackson - The 9th Fortress

The hood brought Curtis to my side and I greedily snatched his leash and wrapped it several times too many around my arm. He looked weak, but intelligence was still strong in his eyes.

"Do not get attached!" added Napoleon. "I will soon be taking my property back."

The Emperor then, with supreme confidence, looked down upon a grey-faced Eddinray. "Are you ready nurse? The time is now!"

"I am ready." he answered, convincing none of us. The tournament was clearly not on Eddinray's mind, nor was the fear of failure and eternal suffering in the 9th Fortress. Harmony Valour was all that occupied his thoughts, yet she ignored him.

Presently, a hooded soldier passed Eddinray the reins of an unhealthy looking brown charger, and a similar oak lance with sharpened tip.

"No shields?" asked Kat, keeping Yuki glued to his side.

"And why are the lance-heads sharp?" I added.

"This is a duel to the death!" said Napoleon, obviously. "Shields and blunt lances defeat that purpose."

"You never mentioned this!" Harmony protested. "This wasn't the arrangement!"

"The arrangement is whatever I want it to be." he uttered, circling his horse. "I am already giving you and these…people…much leeway Harmony. Do be grateful, and do pray it is the only change of plan! To the death then!" he announced. "We charge to kill nurse, do you accept the terms?"

Eddinray slunk as if already beaten, and moving to his horse, he struggled to get a foot inside the stirrup as the animal nudged him aside.

"It's called a horse!" giggled Napoleon, clicking down his visor. "Do not dawdle to your station nurse. The crowd are a thirsty lot! They expect blood to be spilled and spilled soon!"

Napoleon turned his pristine animal around to make a cloud of rising sand, before prancing over the courtyard. His prisoners now, through honesty or force, sycophantically applauded.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

Pompously waving back, Napoleon revelled in their adulation; much like Eddinray, this was a man playing a knight, and he too was smitten with the façade. Fearing the worst for our knight, Kat surprisingly attempted to inspire confidence in him. He left Yuki's side for the first time, took authority over Eddinray's fussy horse then passed him the reins. "Be solid." he growled, pressing the lance firmly under Eddinray's arm. "Be one with the beast. Focus your aim."

"You can do this!" I added, while he mounted his horse. "Believe it!"

"I need to do this!" he replied, steadying himself over the saddle. "For Harmony, for all of us, I will do this!"

Poorly pretending not to hear him, Harmony kept her eyes toward her feet.

"I see failure all over him, Fox." whispered Curtis in my ear. "Almost pissing himself. It's pathetic."

I tugged the prisoner closer, aiming my sword at his groin. "That's enough from you."

Before Eddinray set for his mark at the start of the rail, Harmony approached his horse. The crowd’s volume increasing, the angel glanced up to Eddinray's hopeful eyes. "I have one question." she said, leaning against the horse. "Did you ever…love me? Was that a lie too?"

"I'll love you!" jeered Curtis, grinning. That smirk was quickly wiped from his face when I kicked the back of his knee and watched him fold in on himself like a deck chair. "I'll murder you for that!" he cried on the sand. "I'll murder — "

"I have always loved you Harmony!" interrupted Eddinray, his courage returning. "And if such a thing is possible my love, and if such a man be worthy — will you consent to be my wife?"

Eddinray appeared to be stunned by his own audacity. We all were. All eyes turned sharply to Harmony, who did not accept or refuse him, in-fact she did not say or express any emotion; she simply released Eddinray's horse and shrunk back into our group.

"Right!" huffed Eddinray, his voice breaking. "That answers that then!"

"Eddinray!" I begged, catching his eye. "Good-luck man!"

Without comment, he slid the pot-marked visor down over his face, glanced over Harmony one last time then galloped for his station. The baying crowd kept their applause exclusively for the warden, and did their master proud with pantomime boos for Eddinray.

"He'll be okay." I said. "He will."

Napoleon pulled up his horse at the furthest end of the courtyard, and forty feet away, his challenger fought to control his stubborn animal. Between them, at the centre of the wooden rail, one hood raised a flapping tissue in the air like some high-school drag race.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

The Warden aimed his sharp lance over his horse's head and the crowd reacted with delight, causing the living walls of the 9th Fortress to shimmer and pulse.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

"Do it Eddinray!" I cried at his back.

"He can't hear you!" Curtis complained. "Christ, I can barely hear you!"

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

Inwardly suffering, Harmony appeared to be caught in two minds.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

The angel reached into her gown pocket and removed an Indian's red bandanna. She sifted it slowly through her fingers, before fixing it tight around her head.

"Where are you going?!" exclaimed Kat, as Harmony suddenly sprinted toward Eddinray.

"I will Godwin!" she announced, over amplifying adulation. "I will!"

She shouted, she screamed and she begged him to turn, to see her; but the noise was too great. The hooded soldier now dropped his white tissue, and horse, lance, and men set off for each other, leaving Harmony eating dust. She cleared her eyes and moaned for Eddinray to return; but he would not stop his charge.

"Let him go." I muttered.

Harmony looked back at us with dirty tears streaming down her face. I called for her, but she did not. Instead, the dust-covered angel started her own charge over Eddinray's fresh tracks. "Godwin!"

Kat and I yelled for her, but she and we were drowned out by the dammed.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

Both horses galloped, all eight feet trouncing toward a fatal collision. Eddinray gripped the reins tight and hugged his body against the horse's wide neck. The visor impairing his vision, his French opponent was merely a blur of horse and lance coming at him.

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

I could barely watch, and although Yuki remained wordless, her clenching hand around Kat's wrist spoke volumes.

"Godwin!" cried Harmony, frantically, breathlessly chasing and never catching. "Godwin! Godwin! Godwin!"

"Bonaparte! Bonaparte! Bonaparte!"

Both knights lowered their lances, Napoleon beating his horse ragged until his charger was at a bolt, until the two solid projectiles of Sir Godwin Eddinray and Napoleon Bonaparte came to a grizzly, and shattering head.

CRUNCH!

Lances clashed, splinters burst, horse's squealed, dust exploded, and the duel was over in a brutal blink of time. Silence followed, then a collective holding of breath as every soul in the courtyard waited to see the victor, hidden somewhere in a fog of sand and smoke…

"Godwin!" spluttered Harmony, arriving breathless in that rising cloud. "Where? Are you?"

She coughed through the orange gas toward the only body she could see, the one not moving. The horse dead underneath this man, the helmet was knocked clear off to reveal Eddinray's slim face, dishevelled hair, and uncouth moustache. No energy or oxygen left inside her, the weight of the angel fell over the knight. Harmony folded her arms around Eddinray like a duvet, and her gasping on his neck finally stirred his eyes open. The first thing he noticed was a football shaped object bobbling between his thighs. Squinting at it, Eddinray's focus revealed a human head, decapitated from the neck.

"Oh no!" he panicked. "Oh no! Harmony, my dear! Harmony! I have no head on my shoulders! No head I say!"