There had been no resistance.
And yet, she’d felt something. Something deep in her bones. Something whispered among the trees, perhaps, a quiet murmur from plant to plant. As if the forest was intending to rise up against her.
She laughed the thought away. Even the North Wood Mystics, in all their power, could not bring the forest, this lawless cosmos of greenery, to their side.
The baby was waking. She looked down at him and cooed. He smiled in response, wiping the sleep from his eyes with two balled fists. He blinked at the brightness of the sun, the sun that had nearly climbed to its highest point in the sky.
That was when the forest broke open.
Brendan was the first to give the command.
“Center column,” he began.
Prue stood at his side as they looked over the embankment at the oncoming horde of coyote soldiers, the tall, implacable figure of the Dowager Governess astride her horse in the center of the multitude.
In her arms was a swaddled baby.
My brother! My baby brother! The thought blocked all others from Prue’s mind. She fought the urge to scream his name.
“Attack,” Brendan finished levelly.
The conjoined army of the bandits and the North Wood farmers, the Wildwood Irregulars, broke through the line of trees above the ruined center of the ancient city, and the eerie silence of the ivy-strewn clearing was instantly shattered by their full-throated, impassioned voices.
Prue saw Alexandra’s horse rear in surprise, nearly bucking its rider from her saddle, and screamed.
“MAC!” she cried, giving in to her instincts. Her heart surged with protectiveness for her baby brother.
The spearhead, the center column of the Wildwood Irregulars, led by the copper-haired Bandit King, descended the hillside like a great wall of water being released from a dam and crashed into the unsuspecting army of coyotes with a loud explosion of sound: bodies colliding, iron clashing. Their battle cries, yelps, and howls erupted into the air and echoed off the marble stone of the ruined city. The coyote fusiliers had been caught off guard, their muskets unloaded, and they were forced to defend themselves by bayonet. Even the coyote swordsmen had to struggle with their sheathed swords in the chaos of this initial melee, gaining the Irregulars an acute tactical advantage until the coyotes were able to wrest themselves free of combat long enough to draw their weapons.
Alexandra wheeled her horse in the middle of the throng and, kicking his flank, shot past a pair of dueling soldiers to arrive at a safe distance on a stone platform. There, she took the baby in her hands and placed him, upright, in a saddlebag. His pink face peered out from the top of the leather bag; Alexandra took hold of the reins with one hand and drew her long, silvery blade with the other.
“Coyotes!” she hollered. “Attack!”
A wave of coyote reinforcements crested the hill into the bowl of the clearing, smashing headlong into the crowd of warring soldiers with a loud crash. They had come prepared, their sabers flashing amid the tight scrum. A long line of fusiliers appeared behind them and began packing their musket barrels with powder and ball. The Irregulars, despite their earlier advantage, appeared to be losing ground.
“Prue!” came a voice from below the ridge where she was positioned. It was Brendan. He’d run halfway up the hillside and was carefully engaged in a delicate swordfight with a particularly large coyote soldier.
“Yes?” she called.
“Get to Sterling’s unit!” he shouted over his shoulder between saber clashes. “Tell them to move in!”
“Got it!” yelled Prue, and she leapt up from her crouched position.
The soldiers, huddled as they were in the deep green carpet of ivy, heard the telltale sounds of the battle cresting the ridge. Curtis winced at the shouting voices, the sound of clashing steel, and the crack of gunfire. His heart started racing in his chest. Sterling lay sidelong against the sloped ground, listening to these first salvos of war, his eyes flickering with anticipation.
“Blast it all,” he muttered. “Why don’t we just attack?”
The sound of footsteps in the underbrush eclipsed the distant noises of the battle.
“Prue!” shouted Curtis, seeing his friend approach at a sprint. She was crouched low as she ran, and her clothes were decorated with fallen leaves and strands of spiderweb.
Sterling jumped up to meet her. “What’s the word?” he asked frantically, as she slid into the underbrush beside the gathered soldiers.
“Go,” she said, fighting for her breath. “Brendan says to move in.”
A glow erupted in the fox’s eye. “Finally,” he said. He turned to the two hundred men, women, and animals that lay hunkered down behind him and said, “Let’s move.”
Prue and Curtis shared a quiet glance before the soldiers on the hillside, with a great collective holler, leapt up from their positions and stormed the crest of the ridge.