Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

Below him, the Governess appeared, back astride her horse. She fearlessly cantered the horse to the front of the line, drew her sword, and pointed it at the emerging army across the ravine.

“Bandits!” she shouted. “I’m giving you one last chance to drop your weapons and concede defeat. Those who surrender will be treated with fairness and leniency. Those who don’t will face death!”

The horse sidestepped and whinnied on the lush slope. There was no response from the other side. A breeze disturbed the quiet tree branches. The afternoon light came through the woods sideways, casting long, looming shadows on the ground.

“Very well!” continued Alexandra. “You have chosen your fate. Commandant, prepare your—”

She was interrupted by the snick of an arrow, speeding past her cheek and lodging itself with a woody pop into a nearby tree. Her horse reared and she struggled to calm it, all the while training her eyes angrily across the ravine.

A man stepped forward from the throng on the opposing ridge. He wore a thick red beard and what looked to be the salvaged remnants of an officer’s coat, its red cloth and decorative braiding defaced by dirt and ash. Finger-wide streaks of paint scarred the cheeks of his weather-beaten face. He held a gnarled yew bow in his gloved hand, its sinewy string still quivering from the shot. A crown of ivy and salal was tangled in his matted, curly red hair, and his forehead was branded with a tattoo of some totemic aboriginal design.

“This country ain’t yours for the taking!” shouted the man. “You’ll be queen of Wildwood when we’re dead and laid in the dirt!” The army of bandits surrounding him let out a boisterous cheer in response to the man’s defiance.

The Governess laughed. “Couldn’t agree more!” she cried, finally steadying her horse. “Though I am unclear as to what authority crowned you king, Brendan!”

The man, Brendan, grumbled something under his breath before shouting, “We follow no law, accept no governance. They call me the Bandit King, but I’ve as much right to that title as anyone here, any animal, avian, or man who follows the bandit code and creed.”

“Thieves!” shouted Alexandra, furious. “Low thieves and brigands! King of the Beggars is your rightful mantle!”

“Shut it, witch,” was Brendan’s steady reply.

The Governess laughed and clicked her tongue at her horse, spurring it away from the ravine. Passing the Commandant, she turned to him and said flatly, “Wipe them out.”

“Aye, madam,” said the Commandant, smiling. Standing at the front of the line, he raised his saber and shouted, “Fusiliers! Aim!”

The line attended his command; together, their rifles were raised to their shoulders.

“FIRE!”

An erratic staccato of cracks followed, and the air of the ravine was filled with a dense, acrid smoke as the fusiliers fired into the opposing bandit forces.

Through the clearing haze, Curtis watched as several bandits toppled into the gully, their lifeless bodies rolling down through the ferns, while others crowded into their abandoned posts. There was a sort of half second of shocked silence that seemed to Curtis to last an eternity before the quiet was broken by a collective, impassioned cry from the entire hillside and the bandit line burst into action, tearing down the ravine, their swords, clubs, and knives brandished savagely above their heads. A loosely organized line of archers behind them let fly a dense volley of arrows into the coyotes’ forces, and Curtis gaped to see the line of fusiliers decimated, dozens of the coyote riflemen keeling over into the gully with arrows lodged in their chests.

Before the bandit ground forces had a chance to reach the other side of the ravine, the coyote archers, on command, stepped forward into the fusiliers’ position, their arrows nocked. “Archers!” shouted the Commandant, standing in their midst. “FIRE!”

The wash was again bridged by a tight weave of arrows in flight, this time in the opposite direction, and the gully became littered with the bodies of those unfortunate bandits who should find themselves in the arrows’ path. The bandit archers, reaching for more ammunition, allowed a straggling few riflemen to step forward and fire into the coyote formation; many shots struck home and more bodies of coyotes began to join the bandits’ in the smoky ravine. Curtis stared at the growing number of dead and wounded, and the battle had scarcely begun.

“Infantry!” came the Commandant’s holler. “MARCH!”

The grunts in the rear of the formation marched forward past the archers and fusiliers, just in time to meet the bandits as they clambered up the gradual incline of the ravine. The two forces crashed together in an explosion of sound: clashing sabers, wild howls, fiery shouts, and cracking bones. Curtis grimaced, his stomach turning. The romance he’d associated with these sorts of battles, chiefly from historical novels he’d recently taken a liking to, was beginning to tarnish. The reality was proving much uglier.

The two warring forces became a tangle of bodies, fur and flesh, metal and wood, as their respective artilleries fired round after round of arrow and bullet into the opposing ridgeline. But however many bandits spilled over the edge and into the gully, more appeared from the forest to replace them, and for a moment it seemed as if the coyotes would be horribly outnumbered.

That was when the cannons were called in.

With four coyotes to each gun, they were heaved through the remaining line of archers and fusiliers to stand at the top of the ridge. One coyote stood beside the cannon and howled commands to the others, who in turn packed powder and ball into the cannon’s wide shaft with a disciplined efficiency. When the guns were loaded, the commanders raised their sabers and, on the Commandant’s mark, yelled “FIRE!” and the forest resounded with a series of thunderous booms.

The cannonballs smashed into the bandits’ line, sending bodies flying in every direction. The balls, hitting their mark, sent up giant plumes of dirt and splintered even the most massive of tree trunks as if they were toothpicks. Ancient, sky-tall trees that looked as if they’d been born when the earth was new came lumbering to the ground, crashing into their neighboring trees and sending splintered branches and limbs flying in every direction. More than a few unlucky fighters in the ravine, in heated battle, were crushed by these falling behemoths.

Curtis’s ears were still ringing from the cannon fire when he saw the bandits regrouping on the hillside. The fusillade had temporarily disarmed them, but they were growing again in number, their forces continually feeding from the woods behind the ravine. Their line of archers was pulling back for another deadly volley. In an attempt to capitalize on the artillery’s initial success, the Commandant quickly ordered that another round be fired. Curtis watched the coyotes’ movements intently, fascinated by the quickness of the artillery team below him.

Just as the Commandant barked his order to fire, an arrow shot over the ravine and directly into the neck of the coyote tasked to light the wick. He fell back, dead, and the smoldering slow match in his hand toppled into a pile of dried vines at the foot of the tree in which Curtis was cradled. The rest of the artillery team was suddenly beset by bandits as a wave of them crested the slope, and the coyotes were forced to leave their posts, locked in combat.

The ember from the match quickly caught fire in the dried vegetation, and little flames b

egan licking at the base of Curtis’s tree. Curtis flinched, staring down at the growing fire.

“Darn,” he muttered. “Super darn, darn, darn.”