They paced like caged lions, looking down, searching for permission, longing for a single word to unleash them. I shuddered at the sight of them, legion upon legion, crowding down, pressing and pushing, crying out and begging leave to destroy us who drove the nails into his feet.

“Let us run the cowards through with the sword of your righteousness.”

“Let us rid the cosmos of their evil forever.”

The more we below drove our nails, the more restless, even frantic, became the warriors above. They pushed against the glass ceiling until I heard cracking and feared it would burst.

The Woodsman raised his hand to the warriors and sternly shook his head. “Hold your place,” said the deep, powerful voice.

I felt something under my feet and looked down to see the ground beneath me thin out and transform until it became clear, a glass floor. I saw horrid faces pressing their mouths and snouts against the glass and smearing it with drool and mucus. I moved backward, away from what I saw, but could not escape them because they were everywhere below me. They looked like the warriors above, yet very different, as a rabid dog looks the same as a normal one, yet doesn’t. I closed my eyes, hardly able to look at them, but when I opened them again, the twisted creatures were still there, pushing and pressing up.

Their eyes were cold gray, cold as death itself, bloodless, the eyes of predators, while the eyes of the warriors above the glass ceiling were hot and furious and alive.

The shark-eyed warriors below kept pressing up against the floor, searching for every crack, just like their counterparts above. The ground beneath me pushed up, and my heart raced.

Would these dark creatures escape from their pit? What would they do to us? Would it be worse than what the warriors above would do if they got their hands on us? I looked over at Malaiki, hammer in her hand, flesh quivering. I read in her face the same questions. I wondered if she was as terrified as I.

The Woodsman looked down and cleared his throat, as if about to speak. The warriors below shuddered and winced and backed away from the glass, covering their hideous faces, as if anticipating a decree of doom.

I held my breath. What would he say? At last he slowly nodded at the beasts below. “Yes,” he whispered, a whisper that blew a powerful wind, forcing me to my knees.