Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

nto the night. The soldier below her swung his flashlight toward her position, shouting, “Who’s there?”

Panicked, she threw her weight toward the Principality side of the wall and tried to make quick purchase on the stones of the other side; she found the surface to be not so obliging as the one she’d just climbed, and the rough-hewn stone tore at her skin and her clothing as she slid the distance of the wall to the ground.

By this time, the soldier’s comrades had been alerted and the gate had been thrown open. “There’s an intruder on the wall!” came the shout. Zita barely had a moment to consider her injuries from falling before she was bounding through the forest, a host of angry soldiers giving chase.

“Stop!” Zita heard one soldier shout. “You are a trespasser in the Avian Principality!”

A wild flapping of wings alerted her to the fact that several Avians had taken up the chase from the air; the unmistakable voice of a bird sounded from the tree boughs. “Human! You must surrender immediately!”

Zita’s heartbeat slammed in her chest; her breathing came in frenzied gasps. She ducked under bent saplings and leapt over fallen tree trunks, the spindly bracken of the forest whipping at her skin like a million tiny fingers. Just as she felt her pursuers were about to overtake her, she found herself within feet of a mighty hemlock, as big around as a small house, and she dove into the protection of its gnarled roots. There, she found she could winnow her way deep into the tree’s inner recesses, and soon she was completely concealed.

Within seconds the soldiers’ footsteps were beating down the brush outside her hiding place; they circled up in a glade just beyond the hemlock and could be heard speaking loudly to the hovering Avians.

“She hopped the wall—east of the gate,” explained one. “A girl. I swear it was a young girl.”

A bird responded, “You have no authority beyond the wall, soldier. Please return to your post. This is a matter for the Principality.”

“But she’s j-just—” was the stammered response.

“Soldier, you are in direct violation of the Border Treaty. Return to your post before I have you arrested.”

This threat, barked from the air, seemed to silence the South Wood soldiers, and Zita heard their slow footsteps retreat through the woods toward the gate. The girl stayed huddled in the nook of the massive tree for a while longer, listening as the wing beats of the birds cycled farther away until it became clear that she’d been given up for lost. Breathing a sigh of relief, she extracted herself from her tight hiding spot and continued on her way.

She knew from her father’s tutoring that eagles built their nests high in the exposed limbs of trees; great confusions of salvaged wood called aeries. As the night gave way to a bright morning and her breath stained the air in a cloud of fog, she searched the high branches for such creations. She kept an eye out for any bird sentries, though as she traveled farther, she knew that she had eluded them. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for a human to be in the Principality; a few non-avian settlers, South Wood expats, made their homes among the ground cover. If she were to be caught, she could merely explain that she was out foraging, a daughter of the Principality’s few human citizens.

Finally, after a few hours of searching, she found what she’d been looking for: Cresting a small hill, she got a view through the trees and saw the wide, woody bowl of an eagle aerie perched in the top of an ancient cedar tree. An adult had just disrupted the branches around it as it came in for a landing, bearing some bit of food in its mouth for the awaiting juvenile who lay in the cavity of the nest. No sooner had the bird done this than it was off again, presumably in search of more forage. Zita prowled her way to the base of the tree and began searching the ground for a feather, hoping that one might’ve fallen during molting. Admittedly, she wasn’t sure if eagles molted.

Her search was interrupted when she heard a voice in the air above her. “What are you doing down there?”

She jerked her head up; she couldn’t find the speaker.

“Up here,” came the voice again. “In the nest.”

Shielding the rising sun with her hand, she saw the beak of the juvenile eagle pointing out from the lip of the aerie. “I’m . . . ,” she responded, unsure how to answer. “I’m looking for a feather.”

“A feather? Why would you do that? What, are you making a pen or something?”

“Yes,” said Zita quickly. “I’m making a pen. A quill pen.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll find any feathers down there,” said the eagle. “I haven’t molted yet.”

“Oh,” said Zita.

“But tell you what,” said the eagle. “If you can get up here, I’d be happy to give you one.”

Zita eyed the height of the tall tree. “Really?” she asked.

“Sure thing. Got plenty of ’em.”

The girl grabbed hold of the lowest reachable branch. It was solid, rippled with bark. She looked back up at the distant aerie. “This is going to be hard.”

The eagle answered, “I’d fly it down, but I don’t think I could get back up.”

And so Zita began to climb, limb by limb. She heaved her midsection over the lower, solitary boughs and stepped gingerly on those that presented themselves in series like woody stairs. Occasionally she would stop on a wider branch and gauge her position in the tree. The eagle in the nest egged her on, saying, “Almost there! Don’t give up now!”

“I’m not going to,” was her reply.

“My dad’ll be back soon,” said the eagle, when she’d stopped again. “I don’t think he’ll take too kindly to a human climbing up to our aerie.”