Refugees

  Chapter 7

  Trees - Brina

  I was awakened from my sleep by the sudden whistled calls of danger which filled the forest.

  Notes rang out from one distant tree: shrill and long; piercing but short; and then sliding from high to low. The same tonal pattern was repeated from another tree. I jumped from my hammock to grab my bow, placed a curved finger to my mouth, and blew a screeching whistle in reply as I ran. Our whistled language might sound to an untrained ear like the sound of birds, yet through it we communicated specific information.

  My entire family rushed to the doorway to grab our goryti from the nails in the entranceway, as we prepared to join our troops in the designated areas along the perimeter of the forest. Ceila stood wide eyed holding her bow as she watched us leave. She was too young to be part of a defending troop, so she would stay behind. Papa paused briefly to reassure her.

  As I tied back my long hair on the way to the door, I passed my mama, who wore her hair twisted in a bun. She was already carrying her gorytos across her back. “Be safe Brina,” my mama said, briefly catching my eyes with hers. Then, she hugged me, pressing me tightly to her chest, kissed me on my cheek, and headed out to the platform. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Mama,” I replied. “Fly safe.”

  This could be a drill or the real thing. There was no way to know.

  I grabbed my gorytos, which held the bow I had so lovingly prepared the night before, slung it about my neck, and then ran out onto the terrace of my house. I stopped only to check that my path through the air was clear. Then I popped my claws out of my sheathed fingers, and running at full speed, I leapt into the air, spreading my arms and legs fully to open the webbing of skin attached at my wrists and ankles. As I spread my arms, my lungs opened and filled with oxygen. The wind blew its breath into my face, making me feel fully alive and completely free as it caught my glides and buoyed me up, giving me lift. All the while, I soared downward on a diagonal at a high speed, still so far above the ground that I was not even aware of it. I aimed several feet below my intended landing spot on a tree. Then I lifted my arms and arched my back to glide up for a short way, thus slowing my speed before landing directly on the trunk of the tree.

  I needed to climb higher before beginning my next descent. Staircases wound around some of the tree homes for those who were less agile or carrying supplies. I avoided the stairs and scrambled up the side of the trunk, using the claws on my hands and feet to dig into the tree bark. At each platform, I passed through a hole that had been fashioned in the wood. Several platforms up, I again launched into the air.

  Other Gliders filled the woods, the terraces, the stairs, the bridges, and the air, as they reported to their positions. In Kalpok, each troop contained same aged peers with an older leader. Crack troops headed for the perimeter. Troops with less experienced, aging, or handicapped members manned trees more toward the center of the forest, in planned concentric rings moving inward. Some of the best gliders waited as rovers inside the perimeter so they could quickly move to any area where an attack was identified.

  I repeated my sequence of actions several times as I headed to join my troop at the appointed tree in the southeastern edge of the forest. The Mesmeringa Forest was nestled in the lower slopes of the Cragyog Mountains along the Alfon River. Although the barren peaks of the mountains held their terrors, they served to keep out Ground Dweller encroachments. Likewise, the raging rapids of the Alfon River below the Frothian Waterfall protected us from the outside world. Sometimes fishermen or merchants in small boats sailed as far upstream as our docks at the bend in the river below the rapids. But nobody ever came closer, unless they were invited.

  My path took me through a maze of vines and ropes which were a part of the elaborate system of pulleys that ran from tree to tree, which had been constructed to enable us to bring goods up into our homes. Within minutes, I reached my designated troop tree.

  When I landed, Sir Garwin, Sabra, Grala, Barque, Taber, and Brank had already arrived and were scattered on branches behind foliage. They each held multiple arrows in one hand, ready for rapid release from their bows, which were pointed toward the ground below. Most of them just glanced at me and nodded briefly as I landed, but Barque turned and smiled at me, his dimples creasing in his cheeks, as I leapt to a branch near his. Just after me, Klala landed on the trunk and silently joined the troop on a branch above mine, looking sleepy eyed with her hair hanging loose about her shoulders. Even though I had been carefully trained to be silent, it was difficult not to blurt out the news about the appearance of the new star to my best friend, Klala. I would have to wait until the drill or danger was over.

  FweeeeeeeeeFwoooooooeee

  From the whistle, I learned that the area at highest alert was the southwestern edge of the forest, near the Alfon River, where extra archers would have reported, but the danger might move, so we had to be ready.

  Silently, I positioned my arrow to the right of my bow and held Eej up to eye level. I scanned the ground for movement below, while deftly holding numerous arrows between my fingers, ready to pull and rapid release one arrow after another, at any movement.

  I began to wonder what danger we might be facing. The Forest makes all things my people need for a good life easily available, and so, in gratitude, we seek to please the Forest. We do not cut down living trees but prune them for wood. We kill the animals of the forest only in self-defense, so for centuries the ground cats have freely roamed the forest floor. We can share the forest with these big cats because they stay on the ground, while we prefer the trees. Cats kill by ambush, so there have always been occasional killings of villagers gathering berries alone on the forest floor. But recently, the larger lions, bred by the flightless dwellers of the grasses, had become active man killers, silently stalking our people.

  FwiiiiiiiiOaaaUuuu:

  My eyes widened as I comprehended the meaning of the whistle: cat riders. In the past, the chances of any human threat to our village getting past the outer circle of our troops had been almost nonexistent. But now a predator worse than lions had entered our forest. I had never seen a cat rider, but I had heard the stories.

  We all remained motionless, listening to the sounds of the forest. Every crack, rumble, or animal call drew our attention, as we waited for any noise that would provide further clues to its direction, origin, and meaning. To remain hidden from danger we simply blended in with nature. Our whistling sounds, which corresponded to the tones of our speech, were like those of the birds. When on high alert, we made no noise except those of the wind, the trees, or the animals. Even our sign language was not used at such times, because the movement could attract a predator.

  I have watched the big cats as they creep silently through the forest. They move a front and back leg forward together, one side at a time, noiselessly on padded paws. But the cat riders were noisy. They did not live in the forest, so they did not know how to blend in.

  Although I could not make out the words, I heard the whispers long before the cat rider came into view, so I knew exactly where he would appear and directed the point of my lead arrow to that spot, without releasing. First, a cat’s large maned head came into view between two bushes, far below where my troop was stationed. The cat rider’s long, tangled, dark hair hung out below his cap. He was wearing a tan leather tunic, and his legs and forearms were wrapped in leather. A bow was in his hands and a curved sword swung from his belt. He took a noisy swig from the water bag he carried slung over one shoulder.

  The sound of a cough in the brush behind the first man alerted me to the presence of another cat rider. My nocked arrow was pointed at the first man’s heart. I held my breath, waiting for a sign from Sir Garwin. If we shot and missed, we ran the risk of shooting an innocent lion or alerting other cat riders nearby. If we waited, we might endanger the entire village by losing the advantage of surprise. The cat would notice us long before the man would. The timing was all-important. I was glad the
decision was Garwin’s, not mine.

  Just as the second rider came into view, the first cat looked up, tensed, turned his ears back, and sniffed the air. He started to flick his tail from side to side. The first man reached over his shoulder, pulled a single arrow from his quiver, pointed his bow in our direction, and pulled back. A leaf rustled in the breeze just over my left shoulder. It was Garwin mimicking the forest. I tightened my arm muscles, pulled back and released my first arrow, followed by a rapid succession of other arrows. At the very same time, I heard the twang of eight other bows. Both men fell from their cats, riddled with arrows.

  I wondered how the Forest would feel about that.

  Before I knew what was happening, an enraged lion leapt into the air directly toward our tree. The entire tree shook violently as the powerful, massive creature landed on the trunk and began to climb. I reached out for a branch.

  Gliders seldom fall. We spend our lives in the trees, balance expertly, grip the bark with our claws, and glide to a soft landing. But Klala fell.