Denizens: Penelope - 3

Part 3 of ? in an unfolding Denizens series Spring came; Penelope left with a company, bodyguard, chambermaid, there at her side. Ten days of travel now lay there before them: the passage maintained well, the way open, wide.  For six days, the journey was most uneventful. Then the air thickened, felt heavy to breathe. When they made camp in the moonlight at nightfall, the sounds of the forest disturbingly seethed. Guards were dispatched all around the perimeter; sentries, no issue, for nobody slept. Then, in the morning, dim, gray and quite overcast, what was before them was hard to accept. Though none could prove it, the clearing felt smaller, and there was no evidence forward or back; of the trail they had been traveling eastward on: briars and brambles now, thorny and black. Two of the guard stepped up, withdrew their broadswords and labored to cut a way farther ahead; others were scavenging downed trees and branches to throw on the bonfire to hold back the dread. As to what happened next, none could be certain. One moment, our two knights still hacked a way clear. Then, though none saw it, there was a loud rustling, and muffled cries trailing, as though far from here. For a brief moment, before their way closed back in, wizened and old, a man leaned on his staff, then like a panther, he bounded off, crying out like some strange bird: a maniacal laugh. With little fanfare, the forest just swallowed them, Tilted its head back and opened its maw. Cat-like, a beast sprang forth, straight at Penelope; That was the last thing the rest of them saw. (To be continued) part 1: https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/denizens_prologue_-_1_1445556 part 2: https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/denizens_beginnings_-_2_1445687