Book 01. Prologue to Adventure
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All but invisible against the stars, a gossamer dreamcatcher rolls through the void: a ringworld of shifting lands and primal survival, where mountains rise only to crumble, and where those who feel the call traverse its wilds.
RingWalkers journey between eternal havens, braving desert and flood, exploring canyons and forests, forging their paths along its neverending valley.
Crafting tools and mastering skills, these friends share their tales of adventure, and this tale begins with a girl strung upside-down.
“HELP!” she cried. “GOD, heeeeeeeeelllp me! Anybody? Anyone?”
The woods tilted, spinning around her, and the forest floor pressed down like a ceiling. She reached up to the snare that bound her ankles, but her abs protested and she flopped back, cursing her weak core.
“I need to do some situps,” she muttered, then inhaled sharply. “IS. ANYONE. THERE?”
A shift in the bushes caught her eye and she turned with a relieved smile. The rustle would have been inaudible if not for a silence draping the clearing. As the birds fell quiet and the background chatter faded, her smile slipped and she felt blood try to drain from her face. But it was fighting gravity.
The paw extended from the shrubs without a sound and claws extended from its toes. Then the shrub itself pulled back, unveiling fangs and a dripping tongue as the GrassWolf shed its camouflage.
“Oh, GOD. Nice doggy,” she said. It circled her, each step on the ceiling of her world. “I have jerky in my pack if you’re hungry?”
It slunk around her, tongue smacking at curled lips as it closed in and its maw stretched wide. Her eyes widened with it and her arms flew to her face before it lunged, but the serrated jaws clamped around the back of her head and pulled to rip her from the tree. Screaming and slapping, she clawed at its eyes, scratching at every fold she could find as it pulled the noose tighter around her feet. The scream became a screech as she clamped her eyes shut, raking its snout as bloody breath soaked her hair and her own blood trickled from splits in her ears.
And then the pressure stopped. The jaws let her go with a yowl.
“Zoran, buddy? Now would be a good time!”
A boy’s voice broke through the GrassWolf’s strangled snarls and she opened her eyes. Teeth gnashed inches away. Then the gap widened. Around the GrassWolf was a rope. It stretched from a tree and looped across its neck, held at the other end by a boy in a red bandana. He grit his teeth and yanked hard as a twang rang through the canopy. An arrow buried itself between them, birsting into flame. The GrassWolf yelped and quit fighting the rope. A second arrow flared by its feet and it ran, passing the boy in red who simply sidestepped to release the lasso, allowing it to escape.
“Phew!” He stared after the disturbances between the bushes and turned, grinning at the girl. “Hey, you should add a bunny ear to your slipknot. One tug and you’d be out.”
“If you think that’s bad, you should see her trigger,” a gruffer voice said.
She looked past her feet. In the branches, a dusty mane framed two piercing eyes. The leaves around them billowed as the second boy leapt to the ground. A hunter’s cloak, camouflage as good as a GrassWolf’s fur. He pointed the tip of his shortbow at the broken twigs that’d been her trap’s trigger.
“That should’ve been dug twice as deep,” he said. “And you should anchor it with a crossbar if the soil’s too loose.”
She swayed for a moment before responding. “Are you going to lecture me or are you going to cut me down?”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your…” he noticed the straw bonnet lying upturned in the dirt. “…hat on.”
“You wanna be cut down?” the bandana’d boy said. “Sure.”
He drew a knife from the strap of his backpack and the flash of a ruby blade arced up between her ankles. She fell free with a yell, into the hunter’s arms, and he twisted with the momentum to plant her upright. The grinning guy put his knife away and held out a steadying hand.
“I’m Arro, by the by, and the guy who thinks he’s suave here is Zoran.”
“Faylee,” she said, before her knees gave out.
Both boys grabbed a windmilling arm and lowered her down gently. Zoran crouched beside her and pulled a small box from his pack.
“Sit here a spell. Let some blood drain back to your legs. I’ll clean the cuts on your neck.”
Arro shoved a roll of something sweet into her mouth. “Here, I made fruit leather at the last haven. Don’t actually remember what fruits I put in it, but you might need the sugar. Oh, and if you find any crunchy parts, just think of that as extra protein.”
She hissed as Zoran’s swab stung a graze by her ear and swallowed the roll without finding a crunch.
“Who even are you guys?”
“We’re the RingWalkers.”
“Ring…Walkers? I’m not familiar. Is that a tribe?”
Arro grinned. “The world’s smallest.”
“Oh. Well, thanks for the save and the…fruit, but I’m fine now. I can take care of myself.”
“Really? I can teach you how to tie that bunny ear if you want. Might save you from getting stuck again later.”
“You’ve been kind enough already and I don’t need to take up more of your time.”
Zoran shot Arro a glance. “Then do you mind if we ask for some of yours? It’s getting late and we’re thinking about setting up camp for the night. Could use directions in the morning from someone who knows the fastest route to the next haven. Or a safe spot that isn’t in GrassWolf territory.”
She bit her lip and looked back to where it had gone, then stood without accepting help. Her legs tingled as feeling returned.
“There’s a little cave not far from here,” she said, snatching her hat from the ground. She then drew a bag from a nest of roots and slung it over her shoulder. “I can take you.”
“Thanks,” Arro said. “Want me to grab your rope?”
“No, I’ll do it.”
They stood back patiently as she climbed the tree, swearing at the cordage for getting tangled up in twigs. When it refused to budge, she sawed sliced it with a sapphire blade and returned with two, much shorter coils, leaving most of it in an entangled mass near the treetop.
“Why didn’t you just cut the twigs?” Arro said.
Faylee dropped the rope ends into her bag and opened her mouth, then glanced up at the lengths she’d left. “Because I…oh, shut up! Let’s go.”
She marched on ahead of them without another word, kicking leaves and twigs aside with her sandals, but once they found a wide trail, she gave in and spoke.
“So, you two handled that GrassWolf pretty well.”
“Not our first time,” Zoran said.
“You’re specialists?”
Arro laughed. “Us? Ha! Last time we met a GrassWolf, I screamed like… You, actually. And this guy? He likes to pretend he’s all grounded and calm, but I think he peed his pants.”
Faylee blinked at them. “Really?”
“I didn’t pee my pants! It was raining.”
“But you guys seemed to know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, we give that impression.”
“My old tribe would’ve liked you.”
Zoran narrowed his eyes. “Old tribe?”
“Yeah, I’m not with them anymore. Kinda got left behind. Okay, told not to follow.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, they’d like you guys. But if you can’t hunt? Can’t set a trap? You pick the wrong mushrooms or burn the stew? You’re dead weight. That’s what I was doing back here, actually. I thought if I could at least have one useful skill…”
“Oh, yeah, we get that.”
Arro nodded, suddenly solemn. “Yeah, believe me, we get that.”
She didn’t comment as the mood shifted. The two boys who’d fallen into her life seemed to lose focus a moment, so she cleared her throat and backpedaled.
“So, not you first GrassWolf, huh? Care to tell me about it?”
Arro shot her a grin. “Yeah. No, not our first. Actually, it’s, uh, how me and him met.”
“Okay, I’m officially curious.”
The grin split wider and he smacked Zoran’s chest. “You’re up, big guy. She wants to know about the GrassWolf.”
Zoran’s eyes were still glazing. “You tell it better.”
“Nah. This one’s your story.”
“It’s fine,” Faylee said. “If it’s a sensitive subject?”
Zoran shook his head. “How far’s this cave?”
“Less than an hour from here?”
“Okay. But don’t expect to be impressed.”
The three pressed on through the darkening woods as Zoran tried to find where to start his tale. He looked at his hands and she noted the scars of faded rope burn across the palms. Then he clenched them and fell into step, and Faylee found herself listening to a tale of the RingWalkers.