World Leapers Book I: The Forest

The Departure

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I think the boy is close to my age. His hair is the color of summer straw and his eyes icy blue. His face is smeared with mud and dried earth, like a hunting scout. He is holding a bow, drawing the bow, aiming and shooting an arrow into the sky. Then he turns. He looks at me. I feel the elements of wind beginning to surge from my fingertips and my body shivers.

Then I see Enya. She is standing beside another boy. Like Enya and I, the two boys are the same, but a little different. This boy's eyes are more narrow, chin sharper and jaw more tapered. There is no dirt on his face, but on his shoulder, perched upon sharp talons, is a bird of prey - a hawk perhaps, or a falcon.

He releases the bird, and it soars after the arrow. Enya raises her hands and fire leaps from her, chasing after both bird and arrow. I feel the power of the wind rush through my fingertips, and I raise my hands to send air up after the arrow and the bird and the fire.

But just as I prepare to unleash my powers, someone calls my name.

"Aria."

The boys are fading. Enya is fading.

"Aria!"

I open my eyes.

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Aria lay for a moment, eyes wide open, staring up at the tiny sliver of light peaking down through the crevice tunnel through which she had slid.

She sensed the presence of Enya beside her, breath softly rising and falling. "Aria! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I think. I was sleeping."

Aria heard Tamar stand up behind her, hit her head against the low stone ceiling and curse. "Knocked unconscious more likely, princess Aria."

Somewhere up above, there were faint, muffled sounds of stomping, sniffing and digging. Aria sniffed and smelled in the dank cave air a hint of the rotten, sulfurous breath of a scithrin. She sat up, rubbing her head. "Are we safe here?"

Tamar looked back up the dark tunnel, her face illuminated by the light trickling down. "No full grown scithrin is squeezing down that crevice, but neither are we going to escape from that direction." She turned to look behind them, farther into the blackness of the cave. "We must find another way out. These old crevices and Pygian mining tunnels weave through miles and miles of underground Western Orera. There is surely another way. Come."

Tamar's outline shifted out of the illumination from the single beam of light coming through the crevice, and she disappeared from view, but Aria could hear the clacking of her hard boots on the rocky ground. She felt her sister's hair brush against her as Enya followed Tamar.

"Enya."

Her sister stopped.

"Did you see the boys too?"

Enya paused.

"Yes."

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Barbecue.

Terran rolled over in his cot and pulled a pillow over his head.

Why are they barbecuing?