The Road (The Road to Hell Series, Book 3)

by Brenda K. Davies

  I turned my attention back to River when they started forward. Corson and Bale stepped beside me. Corson’s breath rushed out of him, and Bale gawked at River.

  “What are they doing?” Hawk inquired and took a step forward. Healthy color tinged his cheeks, the lines that had been etched around his eyes and mouth yesterday had eased. Vitality and control exuded from him once more. He may not like what he’d become, but he couldn’t deny what he was and what he would have to do to survive.

  Beside him, Magnus stood and stared before thrusting back his shoulders. “They are greeting their queen,” he said.

  “Did they ever do this to you?” Bale inquired of me.

  “No. I’ve never seen this before,” I replied.

  River laughed when one of the branches lifted her hair from her shoulder before allowing it to spill down again.

  “Is a calamut tree being playful?” Corson demanded.

  “She feels their life force and they like it,” a skellein said from behind me.

  “Have they ever done this to the nymphs?” Corson asked.

  “That’s a question only the nymphs can answer,” the skellein replied as he took a drink from his flask.

  “Get one of the nymphs for me and bring them here,” I commanded.

  The skellein bowed his head before turning and slipping into the forest. Another branch turned over to offer River some more fruit, but she waved it away. When a branch dipped low to nudge at the backs of her knees, she sat on it. I took a step forward when it rose high into the air, lifting her into the canopy.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I ran forward to stare into the trees. I’d tear the thing down with my bare hands to get to her if it became necessary. “River!” I shouted.

  Her laughter floated down from above. The leaves danced and swayed as their music grew and their movement caused a breeze to drift over me. With a ripple of motion, River was lowered to the ground once more and placed down ten feet away from me.

  Her face was aglow with happiness; her radiant smile eased some of the stress in my chest. The snap of a twig drew my attention away as the skellein returned with a tree nymph. The woman froze; her rosebud mouth parted as her gaze ran over the trees interacting with River. A red flush heightened her porcelain cheeks, and her blonde hair fell forward to shield her bare breasts.

  “The others must see this,” she whispered.

  “Have you ever experienced anything like this before?” I demanded of her.

  “No, Your Highness, I have not, but the trees are a life force all their own.”

  “That they are,” Magnus murmured.

  My lips clamped together as I turned to survey the odd spectacle once more. River lifted her hand to touch a branch when all around her they went as still as the gargoyles could become. So fast that I barely saw them, they all pulled instantaneously away from her. River frowned in confusion, her hand remained in the air as a rush of movement filled the forest and a new, putrid scent drifted to me.

  “River!” I bellowed.

  Lowering my shoulders, I charged toward her as the trees creaked before heaving forward. Their leaves flattened against their bark as the ends of the branches drove deep into the ground. River threw her hands up and stumbled back as rock, forest floor, and dead leaves shot into the air around her from the impact.

  The branches that didn’t drive themselves into the ground, crisscrossed through the air in an intricate webbing system that created a wall directly in front of River. I leapt over the pool of fire and embraced her against me. Something roared through the darkness and crashed into the thick wall the trees had created.

  River gasped as through the crisscrossing sections of trees, red eyes glared at us. The creature hollered again and leapt at the branches. Leaves rattled and the wall swayed, but it held firm as the trees sought to protect her against the threat on the other side.

  “What is that?” River inquired.

  “Ogre,” I replied. “They were behind the thirty-third seal.”

  Her fingers curled into my shirt. The ground shook, and to the right of us, more branches drove into the dirt and created a crisscrossing web of protection. The nymph cried out and scurried into the branches of the closest tree.

  “I take it they’re not fighters,” Hawk remarked as his eyes followed the wave of trees continuing to create a wall around us.

  “They’re better lovers,” Magnus confirmed. “But they’ll kill someone without a second’s hesitation.”

  Releasing River, I pushed her behind me when hands the size of a table grabbed the tree limbs. Broken and bloodied black fingernails tore at the branches and leaves. The trees made an ominous sound before more branches pulled back. Instead of driving into the ground or creating a barrier, the limbs slammed into the ogre.

  One pierced through the top of its shoulder and straight into the ground, pinning it into place. The ogre’s red eyes bulged as another limb shot out to wrap around its wrists and yanked its hands away from the branches it clawed at. The ogre howled as it was drug away into the never-ending night. Blood sprayed over the branches before the howl abruptly cut off.

  “What just happened?” Hawk inquired.

  “The trees tore it apart,” I said before turning to River. She was five shades paler than she’d been before, but her gaze was steady when it met mine.

  “So we should be really glad they like River,” Hawk said.

  “Yes,” I replied as the ground beneath my feet quaked once more.

  “What is that?” River inquired as more branches drove into the dirt and crisscrossed through each other, surrounding us.

  “More ogres,” I replied as another one crashed into the wall of branches.

  CHAPTER 33

  River

  My heart thundered in my chest as another monster tore at the trees and shredded the leaves within its massive fingers. Noises that reminded me of a cross between a rutting pig and a frenzied hyena emanated from the creature. Hawk pulled his gun from his holster as the ogre thrust its head into the hole it had created.

  Two tusk-like teeth, at least six inches in length, jutted from its lower jaw and over its upper lip. A long string of drool slid down from its lower lip to plop onto the branches. Its leathery skin had an orange tint to it. The creature was hideous with its beady red eyes and colossal size, but there was something almost human in its features. The nose and head were overly large for a human but still similar in appearance.

  I grasped Kobal’s wrist when he stepped away from me. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  I hesitated before releasing him. His strides were purposeful; his claws extended with every step he took until he stood before the creature. Around him, the leaves peeled back to reveal more of the monster beyond the wall.

  Kobal was the largest man I’d ever encountered, but he looked almost small standing before the ten-foot-tall, easily five-hundred-pound monstrosity on the other side of the branches. The ogre’s hand, which reminded me of an oversized baseball glove, swung through the branches at him.

  My breath caught in my throat, but Kobal didn’t back away when the ogre lunged at him. Instead, he looked bored as he stared disdainfully at the creature. Guttural noises rolled out of the ogre, and it took me a minute to realize it was speaking in demonish to Kobal.

  “What is it saying?” I asked Corson.

  Corson’s eyes narrowed as he listened to the monster speak. “He’s saying that he and his kind will eviscerate us and wear our intestines as hats.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I’m not sure our intestines will be big enough to fit him,” Hawk said.

  I had to agree.

  The ogre said something that caused Corson to take an abrupt step forward as the skelleins ran toward the two of them.

  “What is it?” I demanded. Kobal turned to look at me before focusing on the ogre again. “What did it say?”

  “The ogres and many other ex-occupants of the seals have only one mission,” Magnus said from beside m
e.

  “Which is?” Hawk asked.

  Magnus’s silver eyes were wary when they met mine. “To bring you to Lucifer. He knows you’re in Hell.”

  I swallowed heavily and adjusted my stance as fire circled up around Kobal’s wrists. I didn’t have to know what they were saying to know the words he spat at the ogre were along the lines of doing something anatomically impossible.

  Kobal swung his arm out in an arching motion. Green blood sprayed out from where he sliced through the ogre’s thick skin and rolled neck. Kobal flicked the blood away as the ogre released a gurgling bellow and swung his hands through the branches. The ogre’s head bobbed awkwardly on his neck. I had the disquieting feeling that if someone pushed its head back, it would hang half off its car-sized shoulders.

  To my right, something smashed into the thick branches. Then something else crashed into them on my left. The leaves all turned over in a crackling wave that amplified the tension in the air and created a breeze.

  Grunts echoed through the thick branches as hands tore at the limbs keeping us protected from the ogres. The one Kobal had nearly decapitated was suddenly snatched back by the trees, but to my right, branches gave way beneath the towering structure of an ogre who would have made Zeus tremble.

  The cracking of the branches echoed through the air, and the leaves rippled with an angry hiss that caused the hair on my nape to rise. Branches shot down from above us, driving into the creature’s shoulders and propelling him backward. The ogre’s hands tore at the limbs, breaking them in half as its neon green blood oozed from its shoulders. The branches propelled the ogre into the wall before it tore the last of them away from its body.

  The skelleins released a battle cry as Hawk opened fire. A bullet struck the ogre dead center in its forehead, a forehead that brought to mind a dinosaur with a head like a battering ram. The ogre’s head snapped back, but it didn’t hesitate as it continued to charge forward.

  “Holy shit,” Hawk said.

  A branch dropped before me, curling in the same inviting way the last one that had taken me into the trees had. “Get on it, River!” Kobal yelled as he charged across the clearing toward the ogre who had honed in on Hawk.

  My heart gave a stuttering beat when Kobal sprang at the creature and wrapped his arms around its neck. Blood spurted out beneath his claws before he drove his fangs into the ogre’s throat. Corson grabbed my arm and propelled me toward the branch thumping impatiently on the ground for me.

  “Don’t!” I jerked my arm away from him.

  The tree gave another impatient thump. Instead of climbing onto the bough and allowing it to lift me away from the clearing, I rested my hand on the limb and took in the flow of life pulsing beneath my palm. Directly before me, a shimmering image of Magnus materialized and then solidified into something more realistic looking. I hadn’t noticed the other ogre coming at me until the mirage of Magnus smiled at it and gave a little wave of his fingers, distracting it from its direct course toward me.

  The mirage Magnus had created sidestepped when the ogre threw itself forward. Its barrel-shaped body plowed into the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks. I threw my hands up to protect myself from the debris battering against me. The ground beneath my feet gave a heaving roll when the ogre slammed its fists into the terrain.

  Taking hold of the tree branch again, I drew on the flow of its life once more. I suspected the life within the trees was so strong because they were interwoven with each other and communicated in a way no trees on Earth did. Of course, trees on Earth didn’t come to life to pummel the crap out of things either. If they did, I had a feeling woodpeckers and lumberjacks wouldn’t exist anymore.

  Deep purple sparks, the same color as the leaves of the tree, flared at the tips of my fingers. The sparks spread to encircle my wrist and arm. I focused on the beady red eyes of the ogre when it lifted its head to look at me.

  Turning my wrist over, light poured over me when I dug the toes of my boots into the ground beneath me. The light shot from my fingertips, blasting through the mirage of Magnus and dispelling it on impact. The ogre screamed when the flow of energy hit it; its feet gouged the ground as its six-inch, black toenails kicked into it repeatedly.

  Gritting my teeth, I drew deeper from the well of life within the tree and focused it into my hand. Corson leapt forward, his foot-long talons extended from the backs of his hands as he readied himself to attack the ogre. The creature released a wail the likes of which I’d never heard before. I didn’t dare take my hand away from the tree to cover my ears against the hideous sound, but I was certain my eardrums might burst.

  The ogre’s cry was abruptly silenced by its head exploding. Debris blew outward, reminding me of the egg I’d once cooked in the microwave when I was six. I’d believed a baby chick would hatch from it; instead, all I’d gotten was a bunch of yellow chunks and bits of shell splattered across the inside. I’d cried because I’d been convinced I’d killed the chick. When my mother saw what I’d done, she hit me so hard that I hadn’t been able to sit for a week after.

  Now, a wash of neon goo and orange-hued skin blew over me and Corson, coating us from head to toe. It dripped from my hair when I tremulously pushed the cloying strands away from my eyes. I didn’t dare open my mouth for fear of something getting inside.

  Corson frantically wiped at his eyes before they slid to me. He gave me a look that said he was contemplating choking me as green goo trickled over his narrow features and dangled from the tips of his pointed ears. I wanted to protest that I hadn’t known it was going to explode, but that would require opening my mouth.

  A sound to my right drew my attention in that direction as another ogre leapt over a branch and toward us. I threw my hands up as fire erupted from them and blasted outward. The ogre yelped as it was thrown backward, its body smoldering as it tumbled head over heels across the ground.

  A less-than-delightful glimpse of its ass crack followed by a full image of its twig and berries made me realize the ogres were completely nude. What I had believed was some sort of fur around their waist was actually a brown, really bushy patch of hair, which rapidly caught on fire.

  The ogre rose to its feet and raced across the clearing toward one of the entrances they had torn into the wall surrounding us. Before it could flee, Kobal leapt onto its back and drove his claws through its neck. The ogre beat at him over the top of its head, but Kobal held firm as he worked at slicing through the ogre’s thick muscles.

  The skelleins hacked at another one. The skeletal demons clung to its neck and back, biting and stabbing with their teeth and swords. Their normally enthusiastic chatter had grown eerily silent as they focused on taking down the creature almost six feet taller than most of them. Behind the ogre, I spotted a heap of bones lying on the ground. My heart sank as I realized one of the skelleins had been lost in the battle.

  Another ogre charged at us, but Corson dove forward. Swinging his talons out, he sliced through the ogre’s belly to spill its intestines across the ground. Bale jumped onto the creature from behind and methodically twisted its head to the side until the rending sound of muscle and bone could be heard throughout the clearing.

  Hawk dodged out of the way of another, and in a flowing move that more than matched the speed of the demons, he drove his knife upward and through the jaw of the ogre lunging at him. The creature’s hands clawed at the knife. Before it could pull the blade free, a tree branch came down like a lightning bolt from above and pierced directly down the center of the ogre.

  Hawk ripped his knife free from the creature’s jaw before the branch yanked it into the trees where it vanished. I couldn’t think about what the trees did with those bodies; I had eaten their fruit after all.

  Magnus stepped forward to stand beside me as Bale succeeded in wrenching the ogre’s head off its shoulders, the one beneath Kobal collapsed, and the skelleins succeeded in bringing their ogre down. Magnus’s silver eyes surveyed me; the smile quirking the corner of his mouth had me balling my h
ands to keep from punching him.

  “Maybe next time, you’ll climb on the branch,” he said.

  Unable to open my mouth in order to respond, I gave him the finger.

  “Shut up, Magnus,” Kobal said as he stalked across the clearing toward us. “Are you okay?” he demanded of me.

  I pressed my lips together and gave a brief nod. Amusement lit his amber eyes when his gaze ran over me. I was nowhere near as amused. I started to fold my arms over my chest but caught myself before I pushed the neon goop through my clothes and further onto my skin. It had already started to soak through; touching it would only make it worse.

  Lifting his hands, Kobal clasped my cheeks and wiped the sticky ooze away from my lips with his thumbs before cleaning more away from my eyes and nose. “It’s not funny,” I muttered when I felt clean enough to speak again.

  “Of course not,” he agreed, but I could hear the laughter in his voice, and I knew he was fighting against it when his shoulders shook.

  He tilted my chin up to inspect me before bending to tenderly kiss my lips. I sighed against his mouth, unable to hold onto my annoyance with him when our connection rushed up between us. His eyes were still filled with amusement when he pulled away, but I could see something hungrier awakening there. We had to get out of this forest before more creatures from the seals arrived. I’d end up fighting the next one off while naked if we didn’t leave soon.

  “It really must be love if you’re having any sort of ideas about me right now,” I muttered. “Or you’re depraved.”

  He chuckled as he wiped more neon blood off my face. “I’d say it’s a good combination of the two. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

  The small tree nymph descended soundlessly to her feet behind him, causing Hawk to jump and take a step away from her. I’d forgotten she was here. “I’ll take you to the bath and find you some clothes, my queen. You also, Corson,” she offered.

  Corson glanced at me. He didn’t look as annoyed with me now, but I had a feeling it would be a while before he forgave me for covering him in ogre bits. I smiled at him in return.