“Wah… Huh?” came his slurred response.
“Wake up!” Alex told him.
“’m ’wake, ’lex,” he said, before she heard the distinct sound of renewed snoring.
“Bear!” she cried, loud enough to startle a jump out of him, which yanked the vines tightly at her ribs. “Ouch! Don’t move so much.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, wriggling against their bonds before processing her words and stopping. “Where are we?”
“Not sure,” she replied. “Can you see anything from your side? Other than the room we’re in?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a massive tree trunk.”
“Tree trunk?”
“Looks like this house thing is attached to the side of a tree,” he said. “As in, moulded into it.”
Before Alex could respond, she picked up the sound of footsteps coming their way, along with hushed murmurs in the foreign Jarnock language.
“Any chance you have an escape plan?” Bear asked. “Because I’m fresh out of—”
“Shhhh!” Alex whispered her warning, cutting him off. “They’re coming.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth before three Jarnocks entered the room. Two males and a female. Each of them reached no higher than Alex’s hip if she’d been standing. All three wore skirt-like loincloths, made from some kind of leathery hide tied to their hips, with the female wearing the same material scantily positioned across her chest. Woven bands were around their biceps securing their hollowed dart pipes, and they had charcoal-like tribal markings painted onto their arms, legs and faces, as well as across the bare torsos of the males.
“With us, come you,” said one of the males in broken words of the common tongue, his bald head differentiating him from the other.
The second male, who sported hair long enough to be tied at his nape, moved forward. He drew a weapon from his belt—a rudimentary dagger of sharpened stone tethered to a wooden hilt—and used it to cut through the bindings securing Alex and Bear around the pole. He then did the same to the vines trapping their hands and feet and motioned for them to stand.
Wobbling slightly as she got her legs steady under her, Alex looked down at the three Jarnocks. Her wrists were quickly captured by the female Jarnock who tied them together once more, but this time at her front. Positioned like this, she could draw A’enara to cut her bonds, free herself and fight a way out of there for her and Bear. But despite the Jarnocks’ lack of civility, she, at least, needed to remain as diplomatic as possible. So she didn’t call forth her weapon. Nor did she whisper for Bear to attempt to use his gift to charm them an easy exit. They weren’t that desperate. Yet.
Instead, she said, “I need to speak with your leader.”
“With us, come you,” repeated the bald male, this time more firmly.
The female drew her dart pipe and aimed it at Alex and Bear while the dagger-wielding Jarnock raised his blade threateningly, so Alex gritted her teeth and nodded.
With the bald Jarnock leading the way and the two others watchfully bringing up the rear, Alex and Bear followed their escort out the door. It was all Alex could do to keep her mouth from dropping open when she took in the sight beyond.
She’d heard of Maroo as being a tree city, but she’d never considered what such a description would entail. It truly was a city in the trees.
Standing high, high, high up off the jungle floor, Alex and her entourage were surrounded by innumerable dwellings hewn into the sides of giant trees, like fungi attached to logs. Thick, overlapping branches offered sturdy walkways, while swinging wooden rope bridges crisscrossed the canopy metropolis for easier access between the more distant trees. There were also loose vines that, as Alex watched, some Jarnocks used for speedier journeying across the city.
A sharp jabbing into her lower back from the stone-daggered male motivated her to continue following their escort, but she did so with wide eyes, taking in everything around her.
The dense canopy overhead allowed only brief trickles of afternoon sunlight to penetrate, so the city was lit by other means. There were lanterns placed all along the branch pathways—lanterns that, upon closer inspection, contained live glowing bugs. Like fireflies, the creatures gave off a strong golden glow, lighting the scenery with ease. But that was because they weren’t just contained within the lanterns. The bugs themselves were everywhere, flying freely amongst the city like twinkling stars.
Distracted by the magical view, Alex didn’t realise the bald Jarnock had stopped until she almost ran him over.
“Fall not,” he said, before leading the way onto one of the swinging bridges.
Even if Alex’s hands had been free to hold onto the vined sides, she still would have hesitated to step onto the hazardous-looking structure. But another sharp jab at her back prodded her forward, and she stepped carefully onto the first plank, her muscles tensing when it wobbled under her weight.
“I’m a fair sight heavier than you lot,” Bear said from behind her, a nervous note to his voice. “I don’t suppose you have an alternate route I can take?”
“Fall not!” called back the bald Jarnock again in response.
“Great advice,” Bear grumbled too low for the Jarnocks to hear but easy enough for Alex’s heightened senses. “Really helpful, thanks.”
Repressing a smile, Alex stepped onto the next plank. It, too, wobbled, but mostly because the bridge was suspended hundreds of feet in the air.
“It’s okay, Bear,” she said, trying to encourage him while hoping she wasn’t wrong. “Just go one step at a time and you’ll be fine.”
This time when he grumbled, not even Alex could make out what he said.
Taking her own advice, she moved step by step across the bridge. The hardest part by far was when she was in the middle and the whole thing swayed precariously underfoot. Not even her experience on the Valispath could save her from a momentary bout of vertigo. Her sudden dizziness caused the glowing bugs to swirl across her vision, so Alex closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Doing so helped her pull herself together enough to continue on until she reached the other side of the bridge, her legs trembling when she stepped back onto the sturdier branch-path.
Bear was as white as a ghost when he arrived beside her. She wished she could offer him some words of comfort, but given their situation, she knew whatever she said would likely fall short. So, after another dagger jab against her back, all Alex could do was continue following the bald Jarnock.
They crossed three more death-defying bridges and wandered more lantern-lit branch-paths before they arrived at their destination. It was a large, flat area, as if someone had used a giant chainsaw on a tree the size of a small house, cleaving the top off it and leaving the smooth surface of the elevated trunk behind.