Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“What the devil?” shouted the coyote, searching the branches of the plum tree. The snout of a rat appeared from behind a curtain of yellow leaves.

“Hey, mutt!” cried the rat. Curtis saw that it was Septimus. “Up here!”

The coyote, enraged, had lifted the pistol and was beginning to take aim at Septimus when Curtis spied his chance. He leapt from the ground and bowled into the coyote sergeant with all the force he could muster. His head connected with the coyote’s belly, and Curtis could feel it deflate like a balloon, the air escaping through the coyote’s mouth with a loud “Oof!” The coyote crumpled at the force, and the two of them went tumbling to the ground. Curtis reached for the pistol, and the coyote, regaining his senses, struggled to keep the gun from his attacker. Finally, in the chaos, Curtis was able to get his hands cupped over the coyote’s grip on the pistol handle and began trying to wrest it away. The coyote began kicking his hind paws into Curtis’s stomach, and he could feel the claws scratching painful scores across the skin under his uniform. The coyote, above him now, yelped in frustration as he tried to regain control of the gun. Curtis pulled it toward him, the cool metal of the barrel pressing up against his cheek.

BANG!

Curtis flinched. Had the pistol gone off in his hand? Had he been shot?

The coyote’s strong grip on the pistol loosened, and his paws fell away. Curtis saw that his eyes had rolled back in his head and his tongue lolled out of his mouth like a fat slug. The coyote collapsed, lifeless, on top of Curtis.

Shoving the sergeant’s body aside, Curtis jumped up and looked around him. He was surprised to see Aisling standing not far off, a little wisp of smoke drifting up from the muzzle of her pistol. She wore a shocked look on her face.

“I—” she stammered, “I—I hadn’t—I hadn’t used it yet.”

A whistle sounded from the plum tree boughs. “And not a moment too soon,” complimented Septimus.

Curtis, sympathetic to the girl’s shock, walked over to her and took her hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

Aisling forced a smile. “Well, there you go,” she said. “Good thing you gave me this.”

The clamor of the fighting behind them arrested them from their conversation, and they gave each other a final, fleeting look before Curtis ran back into the battle. Aisling remained, motionless, in the Grove, looking down at the pistol in her hand.

The tide had clearly turned for the worse. Prue stood on the top stair of the ancient steps, staring out over the clearing as the coyote reinforcements poured in from the far side. She’d seen a small wave of Cormac’s unit appear at the lip of this slope, being pressed backward by the crush of coyote soldiers. Before long they were forced into the middle tier and were reunited with Brendan’s unit, though both troops had been badly diminished. The Wildwood Irregulars appeared to be hopelessly separated, with the conjoined soldiers of Brendan’s and Cormac’s units surrounded in the bowl of the middle tier and the remnants of Sterling’s troop having been chased over the edge of the south ridge.

The Governess, seizing her moment, began careening her horse across the sea of bodies toward the steps that led to the upper clearing. Brendan saw her move and yelled something at the few bandits who fought at his side; they, together, began fighting their way toward Alexandra’s intended path.

Prue didn’t see how it happened—the action in the clearing was much too fast and chaotic to see clearly—but in the few seconds between Brendan’s sighting of Alexandra and his arrival at the spot in front of her horse, a shot had been fired from somewhere far off. Prue couldn’t tell if it had been a coyote sharpshooter, lodged in a tree somewhere, or perhaps a misfire from a fellow Irregular, but its object was clear: Brendan’s head flew back in an agonized yell and he fell away from the charging horse, a bright splash of red suddenly appearing on the shoulder of his white shirt.

Seeing the Bandit King struck low, the surrounding soldiers, human and coyote alike, paused in their fighting to watch him stumble backward and fall to the ground. The bandits howled in anger and despair, but no sooner were they able to bear witness to the King’s wounds than a fresh wave of coyote soldiers fell on them, and they leapt with a renewed ferocity back into battle. Brendan, abandoned, lay in the trampled ivy vines of the clearing floor, his fingers clutching at his shoulder.

“NO!” shouted Prue, and without thinking, she dove down the marble steps into the horde of battling soldiers.

In the frenzy of the battle, she was able to slip through relatively unnoticed. One coyote grunt, having dispatched his opponent, spotted her as she made her way toward Brendan and dove to intercept her. He was stopped short when one of the Irregulars, a stoat in coveralls, swung the iron blade of a shovel in front of him and the two fell into fierce combat. Another coyote turned to see her as she crawled between the backs of two battling soldiers, and aimed the long barrel of his rifle at her; an arrow thunked into his chest and he fell, yelping, to the ground.

Brendan was crawling helplessly across the ivy-strewn stone of the clearing when Prue finally arrived at his side. He’d made little distance; the green leaves of the ivy were spattered with his blood, making a dotted trail of crimson red behind him.

“Brendan!” she shouted, grasping for his arm.

He turned his face to her. His eyes were glassy and his beard was matted with dirt, sweat, and blood. His white shirt was now soaked red, and his hale coloring was slowly disappearing from the skin of his face.

“Outsider,” he croaked, his cracked lips forced apart in a wry smile. “Sweet girl.” He glanced over at the wound in his shoulder and spat angrily on the ground. “Fifteen generations of bandits,” he said. “Fifteen kings. And I’m felled by a cursed gunshot.” He looked back at Prue. “I don’t want to die,” he said, his face soft and quieted. “I want to keep here. Help me keep here.”

Prue, her face streaming with tears, tore her hoodie off and packed the cotton fabric against the flow of blood from his shoulder. The green of the hoodie turned brown as the cloth became soaked in the blood.

“You’ll be okay, King,” said Prue. “We’ve just got to stop this bleeding.”

Desperately scanning the clash of the battle behind them, Prue searched the crowd for another bandit who might be able to help; her first aid knowledge was woefully little. “Help!” she cried. “The King! He’s been shot!”

Suddenly, a long shadow fell over Prue and the prone form of the Bandit King. Prue squinted upward to see Alexandra, steeple-tall in the saddle of her black stallion as the horse reared dramatically, his forelegs sending up a spray of earth. Her sword was drawn, and she held it above her head, the blade wet with blood. The baby in her saddlebag wailed.

“Your time is over, Bandit King,” she said. “A new era in Wildwood has begun.”

Without a further word, she spurred the flanks of her horse and vaulted over the two of them, Prue and Brendan, in a single leap, galloping to

ward the unguarded marble stairs that led to the ruined basilica’s upper tier.

CHAPTER 27