Charlie, Sam, and I backed up to one another. Three cadmean beasts glared down at us, their mouths dripping with red foam. I didn’t want to be part of that foam.
The tallest one pricked its ears back and forth, and then snorted. Its breath pulsed in the air to the beat of its paw thumping the ground as curved claws scraped deep lines in the dirt.
“Don’t hurt us,” I said out loud. Instinct drove me to keep talking. “Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”
The leader threw its nose up in the air and howled.
“You’re just making it mad,” Charlie said as he and Sam backed away.
The beast spoke, and to my shock, I understood him clearly. “As if you runts could do anything to us. We rule this forest, Reeker meat.”
The other beasts joined their leader in mocking us. “Reeker meat! Reeker meat!”
“Joshua—” Sam whispered behind me, but I cut him off with a glance.
“We’re not Reeker meat.”
“What?” Sam and Charlie’s mouths hung open. The beasts stepped forward. We all stepped back.
“Mon dieu,” Charlie said. “Why did you say that?”
“Didn’t you hear them?” I said.
Sam and Charlie’s gaze flicked to the beasts and back to me again.
“You’re a malumpus-tongue,” Sam said, as if that had some meaning to me.
I was as shocked as they. If beasts could smile and talk on this world, what else could they do? The beasts continued to laugh.
Charlie said, “What the h—”
“And they’re not friendly,” I whispered.
Charlie backed up further as he held onto my shirt, pulling it tight against my skin. “I didn’t think they wanted to play catch.” A branch snapped underfoot and we both flinched.
The trees crowded around us, the deafening quiet of the woods pounding in my ears. Sweat broke out on my lip and I wiped it away. The one beast licked its lips in return, then curled its mouth in an awful grin, exposing vampire dagger teeth.
The beasts inched toward us. “We don’t want to hurt you.” Bluffing still seemed the best idea.
“And you won’t, my tasty morsels.” The leader panted hungrily.
The lightning orb. I had to trust in Bo Chez’s story and believe all its stormy, electric power could help us. But Sam had said the Greek gods lost their powers. Let it do something! And if it breaks, I’m sorry, Bo Chez!
Charlie clung to my arm so tight it cramped. Fire flashed out of the leader’s mouth, and a long flame roared toward us, cutting through the mist like a fire sword. All three of us stumbled back.
The beast pack leapt toward us like hairy dragons. The moss beneath our feet snapped with fire and heat roasted my face and arms. Fire raced up the wizard trees, and their wood shrieked in splitting agony.
“Run!” Sam dragged Charlie and me back.
Red eyes glared at me.
“Hi-yahh!” I flung the orb hard.
Blue light exploded into the space before us and knocked us all off our feet. I slammed sideways into a tree and slid down to the ground. The beasts were sprawled motionless before us on the blackened, smoldering moss. Trees smoked as flames flickered up them. Charlie and Sam lay a few feet away. We all staggered up.
My arm was numb from the shock of hitting the tree and my legs ached. The air sizzled. The sickening smell of burnt fur snaked up my nose, and my legs grew less wobbly as the fear that had gripped me drained away.
Something sailed toward me through the air. It twisted and rolled along in slow motion.
The orb.
“Joshua, it’s coming back to you,” Sam said. The orb hovered before me and fell into my hand, cool and comforting. Its blue glow dimmed as I gripped it so hard my nails cut into my palm. Sparks flared across my fingertips. Charlie moved closer to me. Blood trickled down his forehead.
“I guess the legend is true. It always goes back to the hand that throws it,” Sam said.
“If you had instructions, we sure could have used them earlier,” I said.
“Sorry. How did you know to throw it?”
“It just felt … right.”
“You know a lot of stuff,” Charlie said, his eyes wide. I squirmed, not liking the way he and Sam were staring at me.
Sam tipped his head. “Well, we know now what you can do, Joshua, and that’s what counts.” He squinted at me. “You’re from Earth?”
“Where the heck else would I be from?” I rubbed my temple back and forth, feeling light-headed from the smoke and all that had just happened.
“I’ll tell you this,” Sam said. “Of all the people in our twelve realms, only those with the ancient power from the Arrow Realm have the malumpus-tongue.”
“What’s that mean?” Not sure if I wanted to know.
“Talk to animals.”
“You mean you didn’t hear them talk?”
Sam shook his head and Charlie crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “And I thought only Doctor Doolittle talked to the animals.”
“You hear animals speak on Earth?” Sam said, his black eyes huge in his pale face.
“No. How could I?”
“Maybe the orb gives you powers here.”
I stared at the orb, wondering how I was connected to this place. For the first time, an idea forced its way into my head that maybe I wasn’t here by chance. Bo Chez, find me! But how could he?
Movement caught my eye. Two of the beasts stirred. “They’re not all dead,” Sam said.
I pushed the orb deep into my pocket and muttered, “Let’s go.”
The fire from the cadmean beasts’ mouths was my inspiration as my leaden legs pushed forward. We soon reached a fast running creek, the smell of singed wood and hair behind us.
Sam gestured to the rushing water. “We can’t cross here.”
“Well, I am,” I said as I waded through water that reached my knees. There were no fire-breathing foxes here, and that was good enough for me. Beyond the tumbling froth spread a heavy gray curtain of fog. Charlie and Sam both hesitated.
“What are you waiting for?” I shouted, urgency pushing me on like the water swirling around my waist. Charlie flitted his eyes up and down the creek, then ran in behind me.
“The creeks aren’t safe,” Sam yelled back.
“Nothing is here.” I’d almost reached the other side with Charlie on top of me.
“For the love of Olympus,” Sam said and charged in the water. “All right!”
Charlie and I neared the bank, his hand on my back nudging me along through the frigid water. Sensing someone watching me, I searched over my shoulder for red eyes, but there were none. We scrambled up the bank just as a snout poked its head up out of the water behind me.
Sam pointed. “We can head this way a bit and up to the top of Mount Parnassus. Down the other side is the bakehouse. I’ve only taken the road to get there, but we’re heading in the right direction.”
“Sounds easy enough,” I said, stamping my soggy feet to warm them up.
“As long as we don’t come across any Perimeter People,” Sam said.
“Who are they?” Charlie looked around as if such people were after us now.
“Outcasts, mostly. People who’ve been banished across Nostos for not following laws. Some people choose to come here and live a life without laws. Sometimes a ruler will send in guards and cadmean beasts to sweep the Perimeter Lands and toss a few off The Edge.”
Charlie scowled. “The edge of what?”
“Of our world,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “It’s flat. You drop off and never come back.”
I snorted. “Isn’t Apollo ruler of the sun? So why doesn’t he just drag them off The Edge with his chariot?”
Sam turned to me. “I told you. The gods lost their power. And he’s not the original Apollo. He died long ago. Each new king takes on the Apollo name.”
“Whatever. I just want to get my friend,” I said and took off running, spurred on by Finn’s face in my head. Charlie and Sam scrambled to keep up.
I dragged my legs over logs and rocks, my wet pants clinging to me like weights, wondering where Finn might be and what he was being forced to do. Was he trying to escape, too, in this land of the fallen Greek gods?
With the cadmean beasts long behind, Sam slowed down a bit, sniffed the air, and gave me a weary smile as if confirming we had lost our pursuers. The trees grew together, protecting me, hiding me from what chased us, and my anxiety lessened. At one point the woods were so dense we had to walk single file. I brought up the rear with a feeling of safety covering me as thick as the mist.
It was then that a rough hand closed on my throat, and cold steel pushed into my neck.