Ki-yo-te Tales The Forbidden Forest

By Benjamin D. Upton II

Ki-yo-te Tales: The Forbidden Forest is the first volume in a new middle-grade adventure series where he action, and the laughs, never stop. The Ki-yo-te, a walking, talking coyote in the town of Smud, gets into trouble when his most recent heist enrages the Lord Pamplamoose Pithwhithle.

Fleeing from imprisonment Ki-yo-te finds his way to the mysterious Forbidden Forest where something dark has been dwelling and stealing the life from the forest.

Befriending a pair of pacifistic (sort of) dwarves, he learns that there are dark creatures in the forest and a mystery surrounding rumors of an ancient elven queen.

The Ki-yo-te follows the clues of the mystery and uses all the skills of his training at the ancient Buni Temple. Dark Phantoms and brutish bugbears infest the forest and serve a master darker still. The Ki-yo-te’s quest leads him to the dark enemy, new friends and a the redemption (sort of) of his roguish ways.

Will the Ki-yo-te bring peace to the forest! Only one way to find out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin D. Upton II
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798814665379

Benjamin D. Upton II

I currently reside in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the Western tip of North Carolina. A great deal of inspiration comes from being in the expansive Pisgah National Forest. For 15 years I taught children from 2nd grade up about self reliance, team building, science and history using experiential education and 'hands on' teaching.The Ki-yo-te tales themselves began about 12 years when my son was just taking in interest in reading and stories. Every other night for the next decade I would make up tales about the Ki-yo-te and his adventures as bed time stories. After a while, they took on a life of their own. He encouraged me to write them down and gave a few copies to his friends. One of those friends walked up to me one day with a printed and stapled copy of the 'Forbidden Forest' on top of a stack of library books. He told me that my story was the best one he had read. I decided then to give see if I could get my stories out to the world.

Book preview

Ki-yo-te Tales

The Forbidden Forest

Benjamin D. Upton II

Fifth Edition 2023 ©

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was

purchased, nor without the written consent of the author.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of every author.

www.kiyotetales.com

Cover art by Shawn K. White

For Grant,

Without whom I would have never gotten started.

Table of Contents

Kiyoté has a Fizzy Brown

Nicked

The Forbidden Forest

The Caves of the Dwarves

Crispy Drippin’s

Why was the sofa moist?

The Swamp of Fools

Stinky says ‘Distelfinks’

Kiyoté makes a Tactical error

A Tower by the Sea

Trouble is a brewing

Kiyoté has a dream

No good will come of this

Cursed Luck

Stinky gets some real bad news.

Now What?

A brief History of Dwarves

Magic

Trolls in the Night

Just One Tear

Chapter 1

Kiyoté has a Fizzy Brown

The Kiyoté deftly inserted a pick listening for the satisfying click from the tumbler.  This sounds like a simple task, but he was also performing this action while balanced on a window sill thirty feet off the ground.  He was straining to grip with his toes and his off-hand as he carefully wiggled the pick, looking for the sweet spot.  The tensioner was being pinned in place using his knee.

Sweat would have been beading within the grey fur of his forehead, but coyotes did not sweat.  Instead he lolled out his tongue and continued to work the pick.  It was all around a dangerous, difficult and foolhardy task. 

Kiyoté was loving every minute.  Sneaking around and ‘borrowing’ things was the life he had always wanted to live.  He wasn’t exactly sure what room this window led into, but it wasn’t a bedroom and it wasn’t occupied. 

‘Click’ went the lock.  With a grin, he carefully pushed the window up and dropped into the dark.  The nearly full moon was just moving into the right spot to illuminate the space within. 

To Kiyoté’s chagrin, he saw that he had broken into a bathroom.  To his glee, he saw that the Lord of the Manor decorated his bathroom with a goodly amount of precious metals. 

He quickly scooped up the brushes and mirrors that were laid out for morning grooming.  There was also a silver razor and a variety of silver skin care items.  The Lord clearly took pride in his appearance.  If his bathroom contained this many valuables, Kiyoté could not wait to see the rest of the house.  As he gathered each item, he pulled a piece of cloth out of his loot bag to wrap them up.  This kept the various things from clanging around in his bag.

The moon moved a bit further and a glint shown from the privy stall.  Kiyoté was amazed to see that the toilet seat was made of gold.  He crept over and was able to pop it loose.  It was heavy.  He wrapped it then saw another piece of gold dangling above.  Before he could consider why a handle would be dangling he grabbed and pulled it down.

A loud gurgle of water revealed that he had just flushed the toilet.

Loudly.

Who goes there! came a mighty voice from the next room, followed by swift, heavy footsteps.

Kiyoté was a skilled fighter, but had no wish to test those skills against the Lord Pamplamoose Pithwhithle. 

Curses he hissed and yanked the golden yanker off the chain, tossing it in his bag.  He leapt to the window just as the bathroom door was thrown open.

Halt, Miscreant! yelled the Lord, but Kiyoté had already dived out of the window.

He landed on top of the wall and rolled off as much momentum as he could, but it still knocked the wind out of him.  An alarm bell sounded and the house guards picked up the chase.

Alive and reasonably intact! bellowed the voice of the Lord from above. 

Kiyoté ran along the top of the wall until he was near the gate.  There was a bowman stationed atop it taking aim.  Clearly the archer had missed the ‘alive’ part.  The wall wasn’t nearly as high as the window, but still unpleasantly high.  None the less, Kiyoté jumped down toward the street below.

He managed to dodge the incoming arrow.  It was aimed with skill, but his training served him well as he leapt and twisted his short body acrobatically.  He landed in a tumble-roll and launched himself off the stone wall surrounding the keep.   Kiyoté was finally able to get into the streets. 

As he ran he furrowed his furry, gray brow and wondered where he had gone wrong.  Well, aside from being in front of a loaded bow.  He had also underestimated the professionalism of the guards. Those were two excellent examples of where he may have made some minor misjudgements.  Or could this whole situation be more of a life choice issue?

He casually did a second athletic twist, avoiding an incoming spear.  Being distracted by his life choice considerations, the spear came close enough to nick his tail.  Kiyoté needed to get his head in the game.

Landing back on the cobbled street, he bolted away from the guards.  The guards in question weren’t really concerned with Kiyoté’s life choices, just the ones from this evening.  The well stuffed loot sack gave them extra impetus because none of them wanted to look the Lord in the eye and tell him that a thief had escaped.

The Lord Pithwhithle was the only true noble in the town of Smud and was a direct descendant of one of the city’s founders.  He was not a cruel man, but he was an unforgiving one.  Kiyoté wondered if the Lord had gotten a good enough look at the window to identify him. 

Probably not.  Maybe.  He hoped.

Kiyoté skidded around a corner using an evasion technique called Yogi in the Snow, as another spear flew over his head and stuck into an ornate lamp post with a quiver.  His time and training in the fabled Buni temple had taught him many useful skills in combat, survival and stealth.  As the temple was trying to train priests, not thieves, it was perhaps lacking when it came to choosing a good target.

The Lord’s palace was, unfortunately, located in the ‘ritzy’ part of town.  Translation; it was well lit, had smoothly cobbled roads and all the houses had high walls.  Nowhere was there a convenient shadow or inviting alley.

Cursé́d lamplighters, Kiyoté growled under his breath, as he turned another tight corner under a pool of bright lantern light.   More sharp pointy things  flew past as he ducked and rolled.  Luckily the guards, competent though they were, lost ground on the tight turns, as they were not as nimble as Kiyoté.  His small form and excellent reflexes kept him ahead of the pack but he was starting to lose wind.  There was a particular house he was trying to get on the edge of the ritzy neighborhood, but it was still a goodly way off.  Even the heavier, rounder bodies of the guards would be able to catch up when he got tired.

Angry shouting  and alarm bells started pealing up ahead.  Kiyoté suspected the guards of other wealthy homeowners were joining in the chase.   Nobody liked a thief and Lord Pithwhithle paid well for their capture. 

Just ahead a fancy carriage was dropping off some late night party goers.  Kiyoté seized the moment and leapt up between the two horses giving them both a good swat on the backside.  The horses bolted, pulling the carriage straight toward the approaching guards.   They scattered, giving him a chance to scurry past the surprised party goers, up the steps and dive through the open door, nimbly dodging a footman.  

He ran straight through the house, regretfully passing up many rooms full of shiny things, and headed for the kitchens.  His long nose twitched and he followed the smell of bacon to a very surprised cook.  The cook swung a skillet at the Kiyoté, but he was already diving out the back window.

There were only a moments before the guards caught up.  The head Chef was shouting and raising the alarm.  Ignoring the back gate that he was sure was locked, Kiyoté headed for the trash chute.  It slid him out onto the street safe, but covered in greasy slime.

Kiyoté’s destination was just up the street and around the corner.  Keeping fast and low he reached the corner where he heard an odd wheezing sound.  He peeked around the corner to find the herd of guards having a breather.  They saw him at the same time as he saw them. 

He ran and they shambled after with a wheezy shout.

One more quick sprint and Kiyoté spotted a familiar iron gate that was standing open in front of an unoccupied home.  He had been looking for this gate, as he was the one that had opened it earlier in the evening.   The Buni temple had always harped, have a backup plan.  This gate was his last-ditch emergency escape route. 

The guards turned the corner.  One managed a good throw with his spear.  Kiyoté acrobatically flipped through the gate using Flopsy’s Gambit (a technique that maximized one's momentum without breaking stride), while grabbing the spear out of the air.  He used the spear to bat the stick that he had left to prop the gate open.   Kiyoté landed and sprinted across the grounds toward the back garden. 

He heard the guards piling up in a well marbled mass against the closed gate, buying him a few more precious seconds.  That was all the time he needed to get lost in the long neglected bramble that surrounded the old manor house. 

Kiyoté crept close to the wall and stayed clear of the rose bushes.  Some of those had thorns that would go right through his light leather armor. 

Gasping to catch his breath, he listened as the guards flung the gate open and began to uselessly search the front yard. Kiyoté quickly made his way to the back.  He carefully pried the head off the guard’s spear to add to his collection and left the shaft where the guards could find it.  With a snicker he moved on.

The back garden of the abandoned estate was in a worse state of repair than the front, full of weeds and undergrowth.  In other words, it contained the shadows that the street had been lacking.   This suited Kiyoté just fine.  Shadows were his element and he was able to quickly get to the back wall which butted up against an alley that accessed the seedier (and less well-lit) part of town.  With great dexterity, and the ladder he had left there earlier, Kiyoté shimmied up the wall. He pulled the ladder up and used it to go down the other side before the guards could see where he went.  He carefully slid the ladder into its hiding place in a nearby cellar, just in case he needed it again.

With another snicker (and only the faintest twinge of guilt about using the ancient defensive skills of the ‘Buni Temple’ for ‘free-form procurement’) Kiyoté knew the guards would spend the rest of the night searching the garden (none of them would want to be the one to give Lord Pithwhithle the bad news), giving him time to parlay his pilfered procurements of Pithwhithle to a buyer.  He could then get out of sight until the fall-out had blown over.

Kiyoté sat and finished catching his breath while he collected his thoughts.  He needed to be much more careful now that he was over the wall.  This part of town, being the disreputable part, didn’t have guards per-se, but it did have ‘the locals’.  Kiyoté knew that the locals here bouts were much more dangerous, and had considerably less restraint than the guards.  He certainly didn’t fancy having to dodge street gangs while he had a full loot sack.

Pulling his cloak close he began to sneak through the comforting darkness.  The few nocturnal prowlers that were out in the evening didn’t even notice as Kiyoté passed by.

A cold rain had begun as Kiyoté reached his destination; an establishment called the ‘Elk and Narwhal Inn’.  As he always did, Kiyoté took a moment to ponder the inn’s name and what connection there could be between an elk and a narwhal.  All he could think was that neither one would be good at flying.  Though elk were related to reindeer, and he was pretty sure they could fly. The dark wood of the inn glistened as the rain fell, and Kiyoté decided to give up his pondering and get warm.

The inn had a rough reputation but it had the advantage of being open all night.  The innkeeper (as the result of a curse) never seemed to sleep, though, as a consequence, his brother never seemed to wake.  Many a scoundrel had passed through the old walnut door.  Kiyoté approached the door and kicked it open with suitable aplomb.

Greetings friends! Kiyoté yelled as he stepped through the door, drawing the steely gaze of folks who were most definitely not his friends.  Kiyoté walked in unconcernedly, went straight to the great fireplace and removed his soaked cloak, looking with disgust at a nick in the hem from one of the spears.  He made a mental note to visit a tailor.  There was a large pile of spear heads on the