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 unending 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, heeeelp 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 really need to do some situps,” she muttered, then inhaled. “IS. ANYONE. THERE?”

A rustle in the bushes caught her eye and she turned with a relieved smile. It would have been inaudible if not for a quiet stillness draping across the clearing. But as the birds fell silent and the background chatter faded, her smile slipped and she felt the blood try to drain from her face. It was fighting gravity.

A paw extended from the shrubs without a sound, then claws extended from its toes. As the shrub itself pulled back, unveiling fangs and a dripping tongue, the GrassWolf peeled out from 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 lips as it closed in. Its maw stretched wide and her eyes widened with it, arms flying to her face before it lunged. Sharp teeth clamped around her skull and it pulled, a growl drilling through her bones as it failed to rip her from the tree. The bite wasn’t crushing, yet a tooth pierced her ear. She screamed and slapped and clawed at its eyes, at every fold she could find with her free hand, the other gripping its fur to lessen the strain on her neck. The noose pulled tighter around her feet and her cries became a screech as she clamped her eyes shut, raking its snout and gagging as bloody breath soaked her hair, drowning out her own screams.

And then the pressure stopped. The jaws let her go and the world jolted back to the light. The beast yowled.

“Zoran, buddy? Now would be a good time!”

A boy’s voice broke through the strangled snarls and her eyes flew open. Teeth gnashed inches away, but then the gap widened. Around the GrassWolf was a rope, stretched from a tree and looped across its neck, held from the other end by a boy in a red bandana. He grit his teeth and yanked hard. A twang rang from the canopy and an arrow buried itself between them. A flaming rag tied to its head burst into sparks and the GrassWolf yelped. It quit fighting the rope when a second arrow seared its foot and it ran, passing the boy in red who simply sidestepped to release the lasso, allowing it to escape.

“Phew!” He stared after it, then turned and grinned. “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 rougher voice said.

She looked past her feet. In the branches, a dusty mane framed two piercing eyes. The leaves around them billowed as a second boy leapt to the ground. The leaves were a hunter’s cloak, camouflage as good as the GrassWolf’s fur. He pointed the tip of a shortbow at the broken twigs that’d been her trap’s trigger.

“You should’ve dug twice as deep,” he said. “And anchor it with a crossbar if the soil’s loose.”

She swayed for a moment before responding. “Are you two 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?” bandana boy said. “No problemo.”

He drew a long, wooden object from the small of his pack and casually twirled it open. A Balisong. It’s carved handles arced around and clicked shut, leaving a ruby kris blade pointed at her ankles. With a single slash, she fell free with a yell, straight into the arms of the hunter, who twisted with the momentum to plant her back on her feet. The grinning guy clacked his knife away and held out a steadying hand.

“Arro, by the by. And Mister 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 drew a small box from his bag.

“Sit here a spell. Let some blood drain back to your legs. I’ll clean the cuts on your ears and neck.”

Arro shoved a roll of something sweet into her mouth. “Try this. It’s fruit leather I made at our last haven. Don’t actually remember which fruits I put into it, but you might need the sugar. Oh, and if you find any crunchy parts, just think of it as extra protein.”

She hissed as Zoran’s swab stung a graze by her earlobe and swallowed the roll without finding a crunch.

“Who even are you guys?”

“RingWalkers.” Zoran said.

“Ring…Walkers? I’m not familiar. Is that a tribe?”

“The world’s smallest,” Arro said, popping a roll of fruit leather into his mouth. “Ugh. And there’s a crunch.”

“Oh. Well, thanks for the save and the…fruit, but I’m fine now. I should get back to practice.”

“I could teach you how to tie a bunny ear if you want. Might save you from getting stuck again.”

“No. Thank you. You’ve been kind enough already and I don’t need to take up more of your time.”

Zoran shot Arro a glance. “Then would you mind if we asked for some of yours? It’ll be dark soon and we were thinking of setting up camp for the night. If you could show us the fastest route to the next haven or a safe spot that ain’t in GrassWolf territory, we’d appreciate it.”

She bit her lip and looked back to where the GrassWolf had gone, then stood without accepting help. Her legs tingled as a sense of feeling returned.

“There’s a small cave not far from here,” she said, snatching her hat from the ground. She drew a bag from a nest of roots and slung it across her shoulder. “I’ll 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 through it with a sapphire blade and returned to the ground with two short coils, leaving most of the rope in a tangled mass in the treetop.

“Why didn’t you just cut the twigs?” Arro said.

Faylee dropped her salvaged rope ends into her bag and opened her mouth, then glanced up at the length she’d left. “Because I…oh, shut up! Let’s go.”

She marched on without another word, kicking leaves and twigs aside with her sandals.

Zoran leaned over to Arro. “I like her.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, pushing through vines and roots. Faylee’s eyes darted to every movement. She almost froze when a bush quivered, but relaxed when a shrew bounded out. Once they found a wide trail, she gave in and spoke.

“You two handled that GrassWolf pretty well.”

“Yeah, we did, didn’t we?” Arro said. “Better than last time.”

“Is that your tribe specialty?”

“Are you kidding? Last time we met one, I screamed like… you, actually. And this guy? He likes to pretend he’s all grounded and calm, but he peed his pants.”

Faylee glanced down at Zoran. “Really?”

“I didn’t pee my pants,” he huffed. “I fell in a puddle.”

Arro leaned over. “A puddle of pee.”

She ducked back as Zoran shoved his cackling friend away, then stepped between them. “You guys did seem to know what you were doing, though.”

“We give that impression.”

“My old tribe would’ve liked you.”

Zoran narrowed his eyes. “Your old tribe?”

“Yeah, I’m not with them anymore. Kinda got left behind. Okay, I was told not to follow them anymore.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, they’d like you. But if you can’t hunt? Can’t set a trap? Pick the wrong mushrooms, burn the stew? Then you’re dead weight. That’s what I was doing back here, actually. I thought if I could at least have one useful skill, I might be able to join the next tribe passing through, but, well, you saw.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, we get it.” 

Arro nodded, suddenly solemn. “Yeah, believe me, we do get that. Funny how all us useless folk keep finding each other.”

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’s grin returned and he smacked Zoran’s chest. “Aww, she’s asking how we first got together.”

Zoran sighed. “Why do you have to phrase it that way?”

“Are you ashamed of our love?”

“Y’know, it’s fine,” Faylee said. “If it’s a sensitive subject?”

Zoran shook his head. “How far’s this cave?”

“About an hour?”

“Alright. But don’t expect to be impressed.”

The three pressed on through the darkening woods as Zoran tried to find where to start his story. He looked at his hands and she noted the scars of faded rope burn across their palms. Then he dug his nails in and slowed his step, and Faylee found herself listening to a tale of the RingWalkers.