Snippet 6

Chapter 12 - Flight and Encounter - sneak preview (full book available on Amazon - kindle and paperback)

Convincing himself it was too late to go back home, seeing as he had walked all the way here, he edged his way along the path until at last he came to the side of the monument. His heart was absolutely pounding with fear and surprise. He could not begin to comprehend what such a large, unusual creature could be doing here in front of him, now that he was witnessing it up close properly he could see it was not your average normal-looking beast " for starters, he had never seen anything like its kind before: with long pointed ears, sticking out at the top of its head; a curved beak, resembling that which might belong to an eagle; feathers adorning its head, sticking out at the back like a mane, pointing in the same direction as its ears.
The rest of its body, however, was not covered in feathers, but in golden brown fur; its front legs were not the same as its hind legs, which resembled a lion’s " in fact, the front paws were replaced by long black talons, and the whole of its front legs were very wrinkled: basically, to Jason, it looked just like a perfect cross between an eagle and a lion.
Was he dreaming or was he really seeing this?
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It was just a very large tree, but it was the only tree inside the whole wood that was made of oak " and by very large, that meant twenty feet wide and sixty feet tall " it had to be, in fact, the hugest tree in the area. And it had a massive tangle of roots surrounding one side which looked like the legs of a spider climbing out from the bottom of the trunk.
Jason walked closer until he was an inch away from the tree trunk and standing between two of its biggest roots, then looked up towards the towering web of branches.
The tree itself looked old and decrepit, like it had been resting there for hundreds of centuries, and yet there was something youthfully eternal about it " like, no matter what happened to it, if the birds pecked holes in it all the time, or any of the other trees got ill, or the winters were extremely harsh, or someone tried to tear it down, it would always be here.
Suddenly, a tiny bird landed on one of the lowest branches. It chirped happily and musically away to the rest of the birds that were in the other trees, and Jason could hear them chirping back in response.
He took a small step backwards, and in that moment something sickeningly horrible happened " his foot lost contact with the ground, which seemed to have caved in beneath him " and unexpectedly, shockingly, he heard a snap, and " whoosh! " he fell downwards, through a hole in the earth and into hollow darkness, which lasted a few long seconds, before " crash! " thud! " he landed on something hard, which shattered beneath him as soon as his butt came into contact with it.
For goodness sake! Jason thought; he had had enough of falling.
‘Owwwwwww ... ouch-a-rama! What the "?’ Jason exclaimed agonizingly, looking up towards the hole in the ceiling above him. He could see the leaves and branches of the oak tree through it. ‘Did I just fall through " no way " ouch!’ He hissed as he felt a sharp pain in his right buttock. Something had been digging into him from beneath. He got up slowly and turned around. There he saw in front of him, the broken remnants of what could only have been a wooden chair; the splinters in one of the legs were what dug into him. ‘What the " a " a chair? How ... where the hell am I?’ Jason asked out loud, as he scanned the area around him.