He turned, aimed his hands at the rider, and the nearest trees around the armored man closed in on him. The trees weren’t truly alive, no more than anything else in Hell, no more than bloodgrip or the burning bushes or the statues. They were a part of Hell, like the dirt, the blackstone beneath it, and the veins of hellfire beneath that. They listened to the song, and they twisted in from the top down onto the rider and into his path, hitting him on the way down.
He fell to a knee as the sharp branches shattered on his body. Unharmed, but slowed. He stood up, and David weaved another song, sending the trees behind the rider for his feet. He fell, this time to his side, but pushed forward and got back to his feet with seamless motion. David brought in more trees, bending a dozen of them forward and into his path; they were brittle, but bent to his song as if made of rubber. But the rider brought down his axes, and the black trees shattered in an explosion of embers and swirling flame.
The fire didn’t spread, but it rained down on the path, and the rider walked through it, helmet’s gaze locked on David.
David pointed his other hand behind him, toward the girls. All the Las were trapped, squirming movements getting their wings caught in the trees, and their desperate cries ripped his guts apart. Even through the ocean currents that drowned him, he could hear the squeals of panic, and see the fear in their eyes.
He told the trees to release them. Their branches shattered into heavy dust, and fell around the Las’ feet.
“David!” Lasca yelled, and she dashed for him, tears in her eyes as well. “David, we–”
“Stay with the others. Get down.”
All eight demons stared at him, but once Caera threw herself to the ground, the rest followed.
The trees beyond them bent and twisted, some shattering, some losing their branches, but past the girls and for several kilometers in a line, the forest bowed to the song. A path, trees spread apart.
Somewhere in the back of David’s mind, the image of Moses parting the red sea came and went.
Acelina spun and faced David and the rider.
“Boy, you–”
“Go!” David took a step back, away from the rider and toward the girls, eyes locked on the encroaching reaper. “And you. I won’t let you kill me. I have a world to save.”
The rider said nothing, but his aura buried them, a hailstorm of embers that ignited hunger, rage, and blood thirst. It was a wonder the demons didn’t succumb, but even as some of them clicked or yelled in protest, Acelina, Jes, and Caera scooped them up, and ran. Dao had tried to stay, and her storm of clicks echoed in the ocean currents David sank beneath. Distant. She sounded so distant.
All the reflexes in the world told David to turn and run, but the currents pulled him, wiped away the pesky little thoughts, and brought all his focus on the task at hand, the music, and the rider in front of him. The armored man drew closer, and said nothing.
David would have tried to say something else, to learn something from the man, or plead for peace, but again, all those thoughts washed away in the current. Whoever was yelling those thoughts at him was above the water, while he swam in it. It was down in the water where the vibrations were strongest. It was down in the depths where Hell could hear the song.
David pointed both palms at the rider, and drew them out to the side. Hell shook, and broke apart. The ground underneath the rider opened with a mighty crack, and the armored man fell into the blackness below like a shiny rock dropped into a well. How deep it’d gone, how far the crack had reached, David couldn’t tell. Like cracking glass, the canyon had spread as it had desired, summoned by the song but free to do whatever it wanted. Hopefully, it reached deep.
David slammed his palms together, and the canyon closed, slamming with all the grace of two rocks smashed together. Trees toppled, and a million shattered branches decorated the black dirt. The hellquake came and went in an instant, and a deadly silence followed, every nearby remnant rendered either dead or catatonic.
David waited.
New vibration rumbled up through the ground, but it wasn’t the song. It was the rider.
David raised his hands again, prepared another song, and fell on his ass when burning red wings erupted from the black dirt. The same wings the stranger woman had used when she’d taken Mia from him.
The flaming wings pierced up through the ground, far bigger than any demon’s wings, attached to the rider but unable to free his armored body of his tomb. That didn’t stop him from trying, and the burning wings ripped up the ground until the trees and dirt melted, slowly morphing into lava that drew closer and closer to David’s feet.
David turned, tripped, and fell into Acelina’s awaiting arm.
“Fool,” she said, scooped him up, and ran after the others.