Sunborn Rising (11 page)

Barra panicked. She made bad choices. She missed her jumps. Instead of redirecting the acceleration like before, she fell haphazardly. Her ankle complained, but the pain was barely noticeable as the alarm in her head screamed for her to ascend. Out of control, Barra ran inexorably toward the big emptiness between the Middens and the Root, toward the Fall.

She saw a blur of purplish gray rolling through the thinning branches of her descent. It was Plicks. Looking up past him, she saw that Tory wasn’t far behind. The bups were funneled down together. Barra was desperate to conceive of an escape, as their options disappeared with the branches into the ether.

She made her way closer to her friends. They saw her and tried to close the gap between them. They flowed around each other in a braid as they maneuvered away from the Kudmoths. Barra bellowed, missing a branch. She was freefalling. Tory lunged at her and the collision sent her flailing toward a hold. She was safe for the moment, but Tory didn’t make it to the branches. Quick to react, Barra lassoed the heavy Rugosic with her tail and pulled him over. Her claws dragged from his weight.

Plicks was tumbling by and Tory reached out to him. He caught the flailing Kolalabat. Her tail strained from the extra force, and her claws cut deeper into the slender branch. Sharp pain, and her eyes were tear-blind. She squeezed them shut, hard. They clung to each other frantically, trying not to think of what was beneath.

Barra held.

The branch did not.

Barra heard the snap-crack of the wood—not with her ears, but with her heart. Her eyes burst open and she watched the bottom of the Middens fly away.

The bups fell into the void with nothing to hold onto but each other.

11. The Fall

The wind rushing past Barra took her breath away. Her skin rippled. Her eyes watered. She plummeted through the blind-black of the Fall, clutching her friends with no other thought than to hold onto them. The force of the wind threatened to rip them apart, but they were stronger, and they fell as one.

Barra thought they would fall faster and faster forever. She extended her arm, dragging it into the wind, and as she did they started spinning slowly. She tried to keep focus, but her eyes rolled and her stomach flipped, and she snatched her hand back. Accidentally snagging a claw on one of Plicks’ scruffs, Barra realized the flaps of loose skin were pulled tight overhead, their tips snapping overhead.

There was hope.

Barra struggled with Plicks’ scruff. Yelling out, she begged for help, but her voice was beaten away by the relentless wind. She couldn’t even hear herself. They tumbled. Spinning faster, Barra felt another dizzy-sick punch in her gut, but she kept trying to wrangle the scruffs.

All the scratching and pulling got Plicks’ attention. He understood what Barra was trying to do, and knew there was a chance. Determined, Plicks worked to reel in his wild scruffs. He dug his fierce talons into the stretched skin, pierced it, and pulled down. Inches at a time, hand over hand, he gathered.

Scared Plicks was taking too long, Barra cinched her tail around the boys and held tight. Hands and feet free, she bunched the scruffs down to Plicks one at a time. The reduced drag caused them to speed up, and the buffeting wind attacked the bundles.

Luckily, Plicks already hooked the ends and held one securely in each hand. He released the bundles. The scruffs blew up, mushrooming into two large arcs going from his back to his outstretched hands.

Nauseating deceleration overwhelmed them again. Barra, who had been holding on with her tail, slammed into Tory as the speed changed. She felt weak and lightheaded, but had the wherewithal to get a new grip and hug her friends close. The lack of blood to her brain threatened to knock her unconsciousness. Even in the blackness of the Fall she could see the tunnel closing around her vision.

Barra swallowed hard. She took a few deep breaths and managed to push back the tunnel. Looking around, she noticed the light improving a little, and saw the silhouettes of impossibly tall columns in the distance. She guessed they were the trunks of the Great Trees, but she couldn’t know for sure.

There was something else too. Something moving in the distance, falling with them. Barra saw it change direction abruptly many times, and realized it was flying, not falling, and it was getting closer. Two pairs of long, diamond-shaped wings swept out of the darkness. The creature was colossal, dark, agate red, and without eyes as far as Barra could see. It had four gigantic ears, a pair above and below its T-shaped head. Barra had never seen anything in her life to rival its sheer size. An intense sound, like a gale rushing through a hollow, erupted from each beat of the creature’s wings. It flew straight at them.

Barra braced herself for impact. Instead, all she felt was a warm gust as the creature passed above them. Plicks’ scruff sails collapsed from the pressure, and the three tumbled sideways until he was able to sort them again. Barra looked for the immense creature when they were under control again, but couldn’t find it. She wondered how something that big could disappear.

“You okay?” Barra yelled as loudly as she could. The boys nodded.

They kept falling. They were doused in an eerie twilight. Barra saw drab, unfamiliar petals waving and rippling up and down the great columns in the improved light. Above them, a dome of darkness blocked out everything save a few bright points. She wished she could ask her mother about the lights. “
If
we get back home again,” she whispered. But she shoved the doubt firmly out of her way. “
When
,” she corrected herself.

Below them was the surface of a gigantic lake of fog that radiated a soft, mantis green glow. The fog rolled in huge liquid waves. They were moments away from being engulfed by it, and on instinct Barra howled a raw screaming challenge against whatever would come next. The boys heard her defiant call and joined her, eyes and mouths wide to the fog, refusing to look away.

They passed painlessly into the moist, close air. Barra held her breath. Her senses told her she was floating, but she wasn’t fooled. They were falling fast with no visibility. She felt trapped. All Barra could do was wait out the claustrophobic fog for whatever would come next.

She didn’t have to wait long.

The veil of fog lifted all at once, revealing a strange, Loft-like wood. The branches curved and looped like tangles of ropes. The boughs were close-knit, and as they passed swiftly from empty space to thickets, Plicks was hard-pressed to avoid collisions. They were knocked around painfully, but Plicks’ clever maneuvers kept them from serious injury.

Plicks yelled to Barra, “Let go!”

She felt him tug at his scruffs, and realized she’d unconsciously grabbed them for security at some point and was holding on, hindering his control. She let go and wrapped her arms around him doubly tight. With total influence over his scruffs, Plicks guided them into the open spaces between branches. Tory thought they were still going too fast to land safely, so he tapped Plicks and yelled something to him that Barra couldn’t hear. Plicks nodded, and Tory jumped clear.

It was disorienting to watch him drop away because they slowed as he sped up. Barra was washed with vertigo again, and her stomach turned over. Her eyes lolled in her head; she’d had enough. Still, she managed to hold down the contents rising up from her belly.

Tory slid and grabbed the foreign boughs, slowing his fall. Plicks felt the relief of the reduced weight, and flew with even more control. Finally, Tory managed to stop ahead of them, and Plicks drifted over and touched down beside him.

They were alive beneath the Fall.

12. Lost

The trio caught their breath atop a pathwood-sized bough. Tory’s entire body heaved with his heartbeat, and Plicks’ eyes were glazed over as he stared blankly. Barra was the first to move, and she crouched down to kiss the wood they were standing on. It smelled funny, but she was too relieved to care.

Her senses slowly returning, Barra jumped up. Cheering, laughing hysterically, she hugged Plicks, and exclaimed, “You saved us!” Tory was stunned a moment longer, and then he joined in. He was vibrating with exuberance, shaking as he lifted his friends into the air.

Plicks was listless, his chin bobbing up and down limply as they thanked him. When Tory finally set them down, Barra stepped away to look over the situation, but Plicks was rigid, both feet white-knuckled to the bough. The Kolalabat held his scruffs vice-like, as though they might fly away from him even though they were wrinkled up and motionless behind him. “Where are we?” he managed to ask timidly.

Tory didn’t venture a guess. He knelt down and touched the bark. It was wet and cold, and the texture was like superfine fur. Rubbing his fingers together, he grimaced at the slippery quality.

Barra surveyed the tangle of branches surrounding them. There were scars the shape of eyelets rent into the woods, emitting the same green that tinted the fog overhead. The boughs in every direction were crisscrossed, dense, and overgrown similar to those less-travelled areas of the Loft, but otherwise unfamiliar. There were no flowers or ferns, and the branches themselves were gnarled and overrun with burls. The moist air created halos around every source of light, a rare thing to see in the Loft. Barra thought the halos were magical at home, but here they seemed ominous. She smelled damp mosses and rotting wood, salty traces in all of it. Where were they?

Eventually, Barra broke the silence, “Everyone alright?”

Tory shook his arms out and tested his legs. “I’m okay,” he replied as he massaged his forearms.

Finally releasing his death grip from his scruffs, Plicks began gathering his loose skin into his arms. His face was drawn down, his chin quivering. Unable to concentrate enough to shrink his scruffs to his back properly, he stood there staring at his half-hearted bundle. There were wounds that needed cleaning in order to avoid an infection, but Plicks wasn’t looking to them. Pools welled up beneath his big blue eyes as he said, “We’re fallen—”

“No!” Barra cut him short. “We fell. We’re not
fallen
.” She limped over to the sagging Kolalabat. “Did you see those gigantic columns on the way down? They stretched all the way up to the Loft. Maybe the trunks of the Great Trees?”

Tory and Plicks didn’t argue, but it was plain they weren’t so sure.

Barra went on, her voice tight and too loud in the hollow silence, “It might be a long climb, but that’s our way back to the Loft.” It
was
a long climb. Before they’d hit the fog, Barra couldn’t even see the bottom of the Middens anymore.

Peering around in the darkness, Barra tried to decide which direction to go. Everything looked so different, and visibility was meager. The eerie shades of green emitted from the scars did little to push back the darkness. Sitting with a decision was hard for Barra, so she picked a direction and started off. She turned back to her motionless friends and waited.

“Come on, Plicks,” Tory said, and then walked toward Barra.

Plicks didn’t blink. His normally expressive face was flat. He gathered in his scruffs and followed without a word.

In the branches behind the bups several green glowing eyes appeared. Different sizes and shapes, the sets belonged to more than one kind of creature. They moved. Like shadows hidden in the near-dark of dusk, they followed the trio.

The bups ascended through the branches without words, an oppressive dampness and isolation holding back their voices. Strange squeaks and unidentifiable, frightening noises filled the void and plagued their imaginations. The wood was filled with knots and dense nettles intertwined with one another, often blocking their progress. The obstacles sometimes forced them to back track, and the already climb-weary bups found it harder to keep going each time. The skin of the boughs was unlike other barks too. It peeled away in shreds with the slightest pressure, frustrating each step.

Each bup had to adapt to the strange treescape. Tory used controlled slides, and it didn’t take him long to regain the confidence of his stance, even when branches fell away from him unexpectedly. Plicks climbed with his razor talons carving into the meat of a branches, through the unreliable bark. Barra had the most trouble, and had to work twice as hard to keep pace, and needed several breaks. The silence among them lingered.