Free Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 by John D. Brown Page B

forty feet below and the crowd of woodikin looking up at them. Hundreds of feet above, woodikin traversed rope bridges and branches. It made him dizzy, and he focused on the branch in front of him.
    “Come,” said the leader.
    They followed the fat branch to the trunk of the massive tree, walked straight through a tunnel to the other side and followed another branch leading away. The branches did indeed tangle, growing from one tree to the next, wrapping and intertwining. However, it appeared that the growth wasn’t haphazard. There was an order to it. In the distance a perfectly arched bridge spanned a gap in the tanglewood. The arched bridge was still alive with greenery. In fact, the whole length was covered with living wood that had been trained into lattices.
    They came to a branch that sloped from the lower branch to a higher one. Rope mats lined the surface. Guide posts grew out of the sides to hold the safety ropes. There were also bumps protruding at even intervals along the upper length of the branch. They weren’t blocky human stairs, but the leader and the other woodikin scrambled up the branch using them as steps. Talen and the others followed.
    They traveled along another branch that split, up a bridge, across another branch, up a rope, another bridge—always up. Talen was sweating and panting from the climb. He watched River, making sure she didn’t stumble.
    They finally joined a wide road, formed where numerous branches from two parallel curving lines of trees met. The road was wide and flat on the top, wide enough for ten woodikin to run abreast with ease. Supporting branches grew in arches above the road. Branches acting as struts grew up to it from beneath. As before, the rope mats lined the wood walkway although the rope here was more worn. He looked over the side of the railing to the gloom below. They were at least a hundred and fifty feet in the air.
    Half of him was scared to death of what the woodikin might do to them. But the other half looked about in wonder at what the woodikin did with their tanglewood trees. From the outside, he’d expected all to be a dense wild tangle, like a huge briar. But here it was all graceful order. Great open spaces reached to the the sky and let in the light. There were houses, walkways, flowers and fronds growing in the crooks of limbs, and other plants growing into the flesh of the tanglewood tree itself. Tree limbs had been trained into a variety of shapes.
    He passed a branch that led away from this main road to a line of huts standing perhaps twenty yards away on another branch. The huts had been, not built, but grown from a curving lattice of limbs and daubed with something to make them tight. A small flock of bright red and white birds perched atop a limb that grew out of one of the houses. They startled and took flight.
    To the side of another house grew a knot of branches. A small woodikin child played among them. As they walked, the sound of odd pipes or flutes carried to them from the distance as did the hoots and chattering of other woodikin.
    They finally came to the massive trunk of a tree and stopped. In the crook of a branch was a dry oval basin. Wooden cups were tied to the railing. The leader unplugged a tube that was embedded into the bark of the tree above the dry basin. Water flowed out of the tube. He filled his cup and drank. There were four other tubes. The warriors unplugged these and drank as well. Talen wondered how much water moved up and down the length of such a massive tree.
    Talen tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He despaired that the leader would refuse them a drink, but when all the warriors had finished, the leader motioned Talen and the others forward.
    Talen took the cup from the leader’s hand and filled it. The sap was clear and fluid as water, but when he drank it, there was a slight bitter and leafy taste to it. Nevertheless, it was cool and felt wonderful on his throat.
    He went to fill his cup again, but