The trail led toward a wooded valley between those two jagged ranges. “That’s a forest down there. We could lose them among the trees.”
“You’re heading toward a Pandemonian forest?”
“You have a better idea?” The lower they got, the closer they were to the river of lava. Sweat poured from him, ash drying out his mouth. The demons stayed right on his heels.
“I feel like I’m cooking!”
“We’re almost there.” The path finally veered away from the lava, leading straight to the forest.
As he and Melanthe neared the edge of it, she said, “They’re too close! We can’t lose them.”
“Then I fight.” He set her down, readying to combat the sentries. “Stay behind me. But remain close.” He faced off against the pursuing warriors, positioning his wings to strike.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spied two marble markers flanking the path. But he couldn’t divert his focus to read the glyphs.
Swords drawn, the sentries charged as one—
They stopped before him, just out of range. Right at the line of those markers.
“Come on, then!” He flared his wings, antagonizing them. “Fight me!” But they wouldn’t cross that line, shifting and muttering.
So there was something in these woods that even a cadre of demons feared?
A heartbeat later, he heard an earsplitting buzzing sound above them—hair-raising in its intensity! Melanthe shrieked. Was she running from him?
He whirled around, saw a black swarm oozing through the tree canopy as if it’d been poured.
“Wait, Lanthe!” he yelled as he sped for her deeper into the brush. The swarm was already between them, a multitude of solid black wasps with dripping stingers.
Their buzzing seemed to make the entire world vibrate, like his brain would be jostled to mush.
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
Melanthe had clapped her hands over her ears, still careening along that path. “I can’t take that sound!”
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
Using his wings to fan and bat the wasps, he fought through the cloud to reach her, biting back yells with each sting—like icepicks stabbing his skin!
And that sound was about to drive him insane.
Closing in on her, he nearly tripped over one of another pair of engraved marble markers along the path. They read:
The pest that WAS . . .
What did that mean? Confusing bloody place! He lunged for Melanthe, enclosing her in his wings as they hit the ground.
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
Even with his wings shielding them, the sound was deafening.
“Thronos, I-I can’t! It’s too loud. My head!”
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
He wrapped his arms around her trembling body. “Shh, shh, I know . . .” How the hell was he going to get her away? When he could barely think past that sound?
Yet then it . . . dimmed.