It's been a little while, here's my next update. Thanks very much to those who reviewed, I greatly appreciate it.
You feel so lonely and ragged,
You lay here broken and naked,
My love is just waiting
To clothe you in crimson roses!
— "Whispers in the Dark"
I used to hate when people claimed they could 'sense it' coming. But it wasn't far from the truth.
Once we had gotten down the mountain, the black rock and icy cold turned to a dead forest. Literally. We were surrounded by trees, as far as I could see. Tall, black, and dead. Occasionally a crow flew overhead, cawing loudly, startling us. I had no clue what they ate here, or how they were alive at all. I focused, tried to hold onto the hope I had felt around Morpheus. The dream.
"How do you think it's going at camp?" I asked quietly. Staying quiet would probably have been a better idea, but the silence was unnerving.
"Very badly." Annabeth sad shortly. "For the Romans." I managed a faint smile. Reyna had almost been a friend, but after the skirmish at Fort Sumter… Annabeth had tried to explain why the Leo had fired on New Rome, but Reyna didn't care. She had tried to get Annabeth to surrender, openly stating she'd be taken back to New Rome and executed painfully.
Everyone over age 10 had seen at least a few crucifixes, and knew the backstory of Jesus, how he died on a cross. Now it was a symbol of Christianity, of the church.
Quite a few people didn't know that the cross was a Roman symbol for quite a while before that. It was literally one of the worst ways humanly possible to die, and an invention of Rome. The victim would usually have been beaten half to death beforehand. Then he would be laid down on the cross, and huge spikes driven through his feet, and one spike driven through each arm, just below the wrist and between those two bones in the forearm. The victim would take hours to die due to how they were positioned, agonizingly pushing themselves up against the spikes for each breath, until their muscles cramped and they suffocated. Jesus hadn't died a quick death.
Needless to say, I'd sooner kill Reyna myself than let Annabeth end up on a cross.
"How do you figure that?" I said, trying to ignore the trees. I felt like we were being watched, listened to.
"Simple." Annabeth whispered. "I saw their camp. They're still Roman Legionaries. Imperial gold weapons, spears, shields, bows, swords. And I did cabin inspection before we left, saw Ares' cabin. Clarisse and Vincent turned their siblings modern."
"They're outnumbered pretty badly." I remembered unhappily.
"The Ares campers will even that up pretty quickly with landmines, mortar fire, and 40mm grenades." Annabeth said distractedly. "My siblings only have light weapons, but we still have shotguns and assault rifles. I tried to give Piper a Mossberg 500 when she showed up at camp. She preferred a dagger…" Silence fell as we kept walking through the woods. It seemed like hours.
I noticed something odd about the trees… not a leaf in sight. On the ground, or on the trees. The branches… they looked odd. The 'bark' was a grainy, dark color. I stopped after brushing a trunk, looking at my fingertips. It looked liked dried blood. Annabeth looked from my fingertips to my face to our surroundings. I saw alarm flicker on her face.
"We need to get through here." She said quietly. "This is a bad place to be, Percy." I hesitated, reached out, touched one of the branches. On impulse, I snapped a twig off. A dark fluid oozed from the break.
"Why do you wound me?" A voice groaned. Annabeth and I jerked backwards, away from the tree. "Is my suffering not great enough for you?" The voice was low, gravelly, and seemed to be coming from the tree. I was frozen in shock as a few seconds ticked by.
"You killed yourself." Annabeth ventured, speaking to the tree. "That's how you died. You were a person."
"And now I suffer for it." The voice whispered, the dark fluid becoming solid around the break. I stared, horrified.
"We're in the forest of suicides." Annabeth said, sounding strangely detached, looking around the dead forest. "Those who destroy their bodies in life do not get to keep them in death. As they silenced themselves through wounds, they now can only speak through a wound." Alarm bells were going off in my head, slightly dulled by what was occurring to me. Every dead tree I saw had a been human being, a person who had succumbed to despair or fear and ended their own lives. Now they were doomed to this existence, forever... and there were thousands of them, at least.
I grabbed Annabeth's hand and started walking as rapidly as I thought she could keep up. Either through the ambrosia or Morpheus's power, her ankle had healed enough for her to walk. I wanted to run. My free hand found riptide and gripped it.
That was when I heard it—wings, beating the dead air. Annabeth and I turned in time to see it land. It was seven feet tall, at least. The wings were huge and bat-like. The arms and legs looked muscular and tough, but there were places where the flesh was sliced open, revealing bone and muscle, as though wounds never healed. The face looked like that of a man, except hideous and deformed, goat horns sprouting from his head. A huge curved sword hung at its belt, like something arabic. For a brief second, no one moved.
I remembered my first fight, with the minotaur, briefly. The first time I had realized my own speed and abilities, how I dodged several blows with ease as I noticed every tiny detail.
I saw the arms tense, the hands move towards the belt even as I shoved Annabeth behind me and activated Riptide. The huge scimitar came down in an arc and clashed against my blade, even as Riptide finished extending. The shockwave ran up my arms, like I had hit a brick wall. It stepped back, eyeing me with new interest.
"Spawn of the lesser ones." It growled. The voice was deep, and sounded bizarrely like three beings speaking at once. "You tread in this land without having passed judgement."
"What… are you?" I demanded, holding my sword ready, adrenaline surging through me. It chuckled, a brutal, evil sound. "One of Hades' minions?" I asked.
"I served the first, He who was here before the foundations of the earth." The monster growled. "Yet he cast many of us down."
"Be gone!" Annabeth ordered, holding her knife at ready. The monster looked from me, turning to Annabeth—
I lunged forward, slashing at its torso, hoping the scimitar would be too slow to block in time.
The creature simply leaned backwards, dodging the strike with ease, twisting and bringing the huge scimitar up, slicing upward in a move that nearly gutted me. I turned, barely avoiding losing an arm, then rolled, striking at the huge feet. It simply jumped. I regained my feet, brought Riptide back—
And was kicked in the chest with a clawed, dragon-like foot, sending me straight into a tree trunk. The monster cocked its head sideways and advanced. I crawled, grabbed Riptide—
A small cry sounded, and the creature spun, neatly grabbing the knife Annabeth had thrown, catching it by the hilt. It chuckled, then simply dropped the knife, taking a leisurely step towards her. I regained my feet, brought Riptide up, and leaped towards the thing, screaming like madman and bringing my blade down in the heaviest strike I could muster. It turned and easily brought the huge scimitar up again to meet my blow.
Riptide cleaved through the metal and cut almost a foot vertically down into the monster holding it. I was still shaking with insane rage as it dropped, holding onto the blade, still embedded in dark flesh. Annabeth was frozen, looking between me and the dead creature. I put a foot on the shoulder and pushed, freeing Riptide.
And dropped my sword, holding my arms. Searing pain jolted through me—it felt like I had torn most of the muscle in my arms and shoulders with that strike. Annabeth just hugged me.
"You okay?" She whispered, kissing me. I nodded faintly, trying weakly to rub my arms. She noticed quickly. "It'll get better. You just pushed a bit too far." She picked up Riptide, looking around.
"What was that thing?" I asked, looking at the body. "I don't remember anything like that in the legends."
"Not important." Annabeth said. She stomped on something small, I didn't notice what it was in time. "We need to move."
