“I got him,” he said.
Prue looked at him sideways.
Curtis squinted one eye and began carefully swinging the sling, feeling the weight of the stone arc the sling assembly in a whipping circle around his shoulder. He gauged the distance between himself and the uniformed coyote, who was now disappearing into the underbrush, his bicorne hat bouncing just below the lowest-hanging branches. Before his navy-blue uniform had vanished, however, Curtis gave a great yelp and let loose the sling. Time seemed to slow to a stop.
Curtis watched the stone as it flew into the air above the creek.
And followed it with his eyes it as it fell with a mighty plop into the creek bed below.
He looked back up, crestfallen, to bear witness to the captain’s escape into the underbrush. Suddenly he heard an arrow whistle across the ravine and land with a dead thud into the captain’s back. The coyote fell, disappearing into the deep green brush with a crash.
Curtis looked up the line of figures to see Brendan standing with his bow drawn, the string still quivering from the released arrow. He glanced back at Curtis and smiled. Curtis felt his face flush red.
Brendan turned and eyed the far ridge, inspecting the terrain for stragglers. All was quiet. Satisfied, he waved for the column of marchers to continue up the trail.
“Nice shot,” whispered Prue over her shoulder.
“Like to see you try it,” snapped Curtis.
CHAPTER 25
Into the City of the Ancients
The trail cut southward when the ridge became too steep to climb; it crossed the trough of the ravine and carved up the opposite hillside in sharp switchbacks. Beyond the ridge, the ground leveled out and soon led to another shallow ravine where a second creek, this one much larger, cut a wide swath down the hillside. A small wooden bridge crossed the creek here, and beyond, the trail zigzagged up the hill on the other side. The trail opened up at the bridge, and the collected army of bandits and farmers paused at the clearing.
Prue and Curtis made their way into the milling crowd around the bridge and the creek. Curtis dipped his hand into the babbling water of the creek bed and ladled the cold liquid into his mouth. Prue stood alongside, her hands at her hips.
Brendan approached. “I noticed you travel unarmed, Outsider,” he said with a cock of his eyebrow. “I respect a man or woman who fights with their bare hands, but you don’t look the type.”
Prue frowned, saying, “I hadn’t really given much thought to it, actually. I thought maybe I could be some kind of nonviolent support, if that’s okay with you.”
“Very well,” said Brendan. “You and Curtis, come up to the front of the column. I may well be able to use you to carry orders down the marching line.”
When the soldiers had had their fill of the creek water, Brendan gave a quick, shrill whistle and the column fell back into position, weaving its way up the hillside just beyond the little bridge. Curtis and Prue jogged to the head of the line, Prue carefully pushing her bike by the handlebars, until they were just behind Brendan and Sterling the fox.
“How far till this place—what’s it called?” asked Curtis after they’d topped the ridge.
Brendan monitored the column as it arrived above the switc
hbacks, motioning for the crowd to follow the crest of the ridge eastward. “The Ancients’ Grove. Just east of here. An hour’s march, maybe less.”
Prue asked the next question: “What’s the Ancients’ Grove?”
“The site of a forgotten civilization,” responded Sterling, falling in behind Prue and Curtis. “No one knows much about them. But it’s believed that all of Wildwood was once a thriving metropolis, full of philosophers, farmers, and artists. It’s said they perished centuries and centuries ago, a flourishing culture wiped out within the span of a few decades. Victims of a ruthless barbarian invasion.”
Brendan, from ahead, grumbled, “I see where you’re going with this, fox.”
The fox ignored him. “The only remnant of this vast civilization, so advanced for its time, is this single grove of ruins that we are now marching on—and the descendants of the barbarian horde that extinguished it.”
“Who’d that be?” asked Curtis.
“You’re marching with them,” said the fox. “These ‘honorable’ bandits.”
“That’s completely unproven,” retorted Brendan. “And besides, who knows: Maybe those Ancients got what was coming to them.”
“Believe what you will, hoodlum,” said the fox. “Believe what you will.”
There was a crackling in the surrounding vegetation that silenced the marchers, and the line seized at Brendan’s frantic wave of an arm. He relaxed, however, when he saw it was Septimus the rat, scurrying out from under a thicket of ivy. Arriving at Brendan’s feet, he shivered.