THE CIRCLE OF WARRIORS
A crackle rang out over the forest of the clan of the Omatikaya. Plants that twinkled in the daylight were made dull with the shadows of rainclouds that rolled in like a grey-black dust storm from Earth. Ground-critters skittered to their mounds and other insects slithered under the sog to their burrows. Lemur-like creatures, bleating like cuckoo-birds, swung branch-to-branch in arms of six in a long train to gallop back to their nests and escape the rain that started to hammer the forest from above.
The wildlife shook and teetered in the breeze of the storm, and a species of violet flora collected water until they could no more, and vomited the rest into spills on the forest floor. Tsu'tey pounced over one of the puddles in an arch and kept on to the warriors' camp with tiny squish-squish-squishes that Ree'ahn copied in front of the Dreamwalkers who plodded from behind in their boots and huffed like horses to not lose sight of the warriors.
Ree'ahn leapt to the bottom of a hill and landed with his hands between his knees to end his drop easy and light. Ree'ahn raised his eyes to the path. In a hop-jog, he followed an invisible route. Tsu'tey called in a faraway voice about someone being slower than usual. The other warrior hooted back in Na'vi and scissored his legs ahead. Behind him were four splats in the mud and strings of jarbled English.
The Avatars helped each other up from the ditch and yanked their boots free with a sqweech from a goo that used to be solid ground. They were all slathered with sludge when they saw each other again.
"Waitaminnut, waitaminnut!" said one of the men in the quartet. "Holy shit!" He panted as he rested his hands on his hips. The other Avatars took the time to catch their breaths, too.
"We'll keep up if we just stay together!" yelled Victoria, the taller female avatar, over the shower.
"I know, but...I'm not sure about this!" He remembered how one warrior looked at him as if he were going to eat him.
"If you're too scared, then go back!" Tanner grinned.
The man scoffed, but wagged his head. "Yeah, I think I will!"
The three gave him understanding smiles. "Is your GPS working?!" Sky asked.
"Yeah. Take care!" And that was it from the other driver.
"Alright, man-see you at dinner!" called Tanner.
Victoria shrugged. "It's just us three."
Tanner gasped. "Come on!" The warrior was about to be a mile ahead of them. The women clobbered after Tanner, their lungs pumping like exhaust pipes again.
"Shoulda brought some pogosticks!" Tanner yelled.
That earned him some out-of-breath cackles in reply, but the drivers didn't have much time to talk or they'd be abandoned without an umbrella in the middle of nowhere in a deep, dark and rainy forest on a moon that was light years from Earth.
Sky stopped at something that looked familiar. Red-orange growths, with blooms larger than tractor tires, spiraled into the grey sky. They looked to be the same things that Jake had talked about in his logs to the base. Sky almost reached out to touch one, but she was grabbed by Victoria to keep on going. The driver passed on a little smile to Sky.
Soon, a noise, one like millions of old televisions on a channel with no signal, crescendoed in the Avatars' ears and the air sharpened with a smell of brine and earth. The warriors and the Avatars trotted on the shoulders of a titanic waterfall that fell nearly one-hundred-feet and pounded into a water body with crashing, white waves.
As if the Avatars weren't already soaked enough, the squalls that carried from below hurled blasts of the lake's water over them at random. Victoria squealed and struggled to keep upright. Tanner slipped like he missed a banana peel and landed on his back with a "doosh!"
Sky and Victoria rushed to him and saw he was wheezing, though a bit painfully. The three guffawed from exhaustion, awe, ache, and disbelief at the crazy situation they suddenly found themselves in after deciding to spend a day-off to wander around in the Na'vi life forms they never had a chance to use outside of the RDA station.
"Can I have a little help here?" Tanner said. Blinded by laughter, the driver finally felt a strong hand yank him to his feet; it was a bit rougher than needed. He said "thanks," before a cold feeling froze him.
Through the dark veil of locks that draped over Ree'ahn's face, two large, gold orbs, fixed in a chilling glare, pierced through the driver. The thunder boomed and the rain pattered around them before he finally said, "we are here."
The warrior slowly crept his eyes over the others. Ree'ahn then strolled forward at his own pace and left them to themselves. Like a wet mop, his hair slapped his back with every stride away.
As Sky's dumbfounded colleague picked yellow and pink petals from his arms, the Avatars shared silent looks of surprise and of ease at knowing that they would not have to run anymore.
"I knew he could speak English." Victoria smirked. The others agreed. The three followed the warrior's steps along the falls, now in leisure. They lost the warrior somehow, but then Tsu'tey, with braids tossing from the storm, approached them and they all felt another wave of relief.
"It is not far now," Tsu'tey assured them, looking winded but not spent. Tsu'tey's face hardened and his tail oscillated when he counted the group. "Ree'ahn has lost one of you?!"
"No, one of us was just too pussy." Tanner said. Victoria gave him a look.
Tsu'tey blinked fast and tasted the word. "Puss-see?"
Sky excused the surgeon but didn't offer a translation. "It means that he was afraid to come. But don't worry, Tsu'tey, he didn't come too far."
Tsu'tey trusted his teacher's smile. "Ah. Let us hope he finds his way home." He ushered the remaining three into the trees by the shoulders of the falls.
Under the woodland's protection, the rain muffled to a buzz. The Avatars felt their clothes pasting to them like a second skin. The pacing colleagues stopped in front of a trunk as wide as two arm-spans. A long rope of woven fibers hit against it in the wind. The Avatars' eyes trailed up the rope only to see it dissolve into a haze of leaky clouds. They spotted the other warrior from before monkeying quickly to the top.
"You will climb, but first, listen," Tsu'tey said, holding onto a half-smile from the looks on their faces. The pitter-patter of the rain likened a drumroll. "This place is called the Circle of Warriors. Only the counsel is in this place. You will stay here until the rains pass. With us you will eat hametsi kalin, and then we take you back. Do not say that you know me to aytsamsiyu. If I choose, I tell them."
The Avatars looked at one another and nodded.
"Tsiltsan," Tsu'tey said. Something inside of him relaxed. "Last one. You come up here, this is our kelku." Tsu'tey tapped his chest with his four fingers. "Our house. Be respectful to all aytsamsiyu, and do not touch what does not belong to you."
Tanner said, "then that means everything, right?"
Tsu'tey looked satisfied at the healer's common sense. "Piral will be kind, but do not test her. Toyo might ask you many questions, that is his way, but his hands can be sticky, so watch your things. And, you do not need to be afraid to speak to that one," Tsu'tey said, glancing up, "but he enjoys his sleep." He warned the group with an unreadable smirk and said, "do not look down." Tsu'tey grabbed hold of the rope with his hands and tail, and he wriggled himself high above their heads in a fluid pace.
Tanner spoke when Tsu'tey was high enough. "What are we eating, again?"
"Only one way to find out," said Sky. Sky clasped the fibers. She strained to pull herself up, but ran out of wind. She crossed her ankles and started to spin in-and-out like a pinwheel. She let out a flustered shout.
"You're almost there," quipped Tanner while his and Victoria's eyes followed her body like a pendulum.
Sky stretched her feet to the ground to stop. Her breath churned and her yellow eyes surveyed the rope and tree from another angle.
Again, Sky clasped the rope and growled to pull her legs from the grass. Tanner pushed Sky forwards until she could help herself along. Eventually, they were all worming up the rope, but then their balance started to topple as the storm gained strength. The Avatars' grip slipped and they fluttered their legs in the air to find a foot-hold on the big tree. Panic erupted when they realized they were now almost as high from the ground as a skyscraper. The Avatars hollered at each mammoth push and heart-plunging pull of the rope that creaked on the tree like an old boat at sea.
Ree'ahn hopped to the summit and hauled up Tsu'tey behind him with one lean arm as he looked to the Omatikayan acres far below. The area was now splotches of dark-green and black-purple. Ree'ahn usually took a moment to sit, inhale the air and enjoy the view before crossing over to the camp because the climb was worth it. Today, it was too rainy to see or smell anything. Wind jostled the bridge that latched with wounded rope to the tree under the friends' long, blue feet.
The warriors heard screams from below that rose above the thunder like sirens.
Ree'ahn ha-ha!ed at the captors and yelled to Tsu'tey, "I think you should see about your Dreamwalkers!"
Tsu'tey showed a cheeky look. "Txi." He hit his friend's shoulders forward to get dry and rest.
Ree'ahn, with his eyes still twinkling in crescents, turned and skipped across the bridge.
After giving out a "guh!" of her own last effort, Sky's arms clawed to the top of the tree and her legs crabbed over.
"It is on the other side, karyu; move fast!" Tsu'tey said as his teacher of the sanctuary, Sky, stumbled in his hands to the start of the bridge. "Hold onto the sides if you must! But do not look down!"
Sky started to realize that not looking down may be the golden rule for the whole of Pandora. At first, her boots wobbled a few steps but she steadily gained momentum and progressed across the planks. The surgeon shuffled behind her.
Tsu'tey looked to the last one. Victoria swallowed heavily before the groaning bridge that swung left and right like a guillotine.
"I'm going to die," Victoria croaked.
That made no sense to Tsu'tey; she had just climbed all the way up there on her first try. He insisted, "you will not dye!"
Her tail thrashed with racing thoughts and her pulse roared in her ears. A shiver started from her feet to her hands and made them tremble.
Tsu'tey gestured from her to the rain. "Go now!"
The tall RDA intern jerked in a sob and shook her head.
Tsu'tey breathed with a sound that was unsure and hungry. Then, he had an idea. He squatted and told her to crawl on his back. Victoria touched her hands to her elbows around his neck and Tsu'tey squeezed her thighs and lifted her with a grunt. He tight-roped over the bridge while wobbling with her weight. A few times he stopped to balance and he jostled her to a better grip in his hands. Victoria fisted Tsu'tey's neckwear, the only thing she could hold onto, and kept her eyes glued together at the same time that water from everywhere hosed her body. All at once, she was released on a tree branch thicker than a mound that stood for solid ground, and she was gently pushed forward to reunite with everyone.
The drizzle they had all escaped blurred the view to a near-white. Everyone was blackened by the crown of the new tree where a jagged and homey structure waited before them. It was built in a fashion like images from the Avatars' guidebooks to the Omatikaya; its body morphed and twisted to the bends, valleys and crooks of the branches in the tree and it was roofed for the very worst of tropical rainstorms by its large, green leaves.
Sky, short and blue and slathered with muck and with dregs of hair over her face like long, black slugs, slapped the palms of Victoria with both hands and showed her canines in an enormous grin. Tanner, worse for wear with dark marks over his arms and his brown clothes sagging from him where they were slit, slapped everyone's hands in the air and added a gutty roar to the womens' cheers. They had finally made it.
Tsu'tey swirled from his place to see the male touching his knees to his chest in the rain and the females hugging and bouncing together. For their safety, he beckoned them to stop and to follow him in the kelku.
"Za'u. It will be warm inside," Tsu'tey promised.
Words: 2310 Next chapter: Sweet Bread