World Leapers Book I: The Forest

The Village

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Tink cupped his hands around the wooden bowl and brought it to his mouth, peering over it with suspicious eyes at River and Terran as he took a long sip of dirt-brown, earthy soup.

He coughed loudly, reached up to his teeth, and tugged what looked like a long blade of slimy grass from his mouth. "Muddy weed soup! These Kateawan certainly dine poorly when they're not feasting on delicious human and elf flesh." Setting his bowl down on the leather rug that laid on the floor of the giant treetop house, he looked again at River and Terran. "I may not be a fierce warrior or a keen woodsman, but my powers of observation revealed today something I have never before seen. So tell me, boys, how long were you going to wait before revealing your secret powers to your friend, Tink?"

Terran shifted uncomfortably, wishing he had a chair. The knotted slats of the wooden floor beams dug into his sit bones. He reached down, brought the bowl to his lips, and took his first sip of the soup. At first, it made his tongue feel chalky and dry, but as the salty, earthy flavor of the warm beverage hit the back of his mouth, it felt as though new blood was suddenly surging through his body. As he swallowed this first sip, he stirred the bowl with his finger, bringing sticky, seaweed-like clumps to the surface of the liquid. It was just like the miso soup at the sushi restaurant Father used to bring them to on the weekends. Just... slimier.

They'd been sitting up in the treehouse for the past hour, nervously eyeing the soup and water, deliberating whether to feast and risk a horrible death from a paralyzing variety of Kateawan poison, or to sit in desperate silence with parched throats and burnt skin. Surrounding them on all four sides was a sturdy, well-built cabin wrapped around the thick trunk and branches of a giant ponderosa pine. The ceiling of this structure was tall enough for a fully grown Kateawan to easily stand upright, and in the center was a large, stained, oil-streaked leather rug that seemed to serve as a primary gathering place and dining table. A gaping hole on one side of the cabin served as both a window and an entrance, with a long, well-used rope ladder hanging from it and dangling down to the forest floor nearly fifty feet below.

With easily enough room to hold ten adult humans, this was the largest treehouse Terran had ever been inside, and the long, swaying climb up had made him slightly motion sick. Through the window, he could see at least half a dozen other identical treetop houses scattered through the forest canopy and blended with expert camouflage into the trees. An inattentive passerby could easily walk under an entire Kateawan treetop village full of hundreds of enormous, savage creatures and never know it.

After they had been cut free, they'd been led by the largest Kateawan to the base of this particular tree. The entire community of Kateawan had followed cautiously behind, grunting, sniffing with curiosity and, among the few who had been assaulted with water, rocks, and dust-storms, whimpering with fear. When the parade arrived at the base of the tree, the leader had growled to two older females, who pointed upward and nodded toward Tink, River, and Terran to begin climbing. One female led them up, while another followed behind with a large basket strapped to her hairy, hunched back.

When they had arrived at the top and clambered in through the opening, the females sat them around this center rug, then opened the basket to reveal three wooden bowls, one large canteen of soup, and one soft leather canteen of water. During the entire hour they'd been sitting in the treehouse, a young Kateawan would occasionally poke its curious head up over the window, then scramble inside to join the two big females huddling in the corner. By this time, nearly a dozen Kateawan youth now sat watching and staring at their odd human and elf visitors.