The mention of his fellow bandits, his lost comrades, always came with a softening of his voice. The loneliness of the search became all-consuming for the two searchers: Curtis and the rat Septimus. The rat would spend his days climbing through the high boughs of the trees, scanning from this aerial perch for any sign of the bandits, while Curtis trudged through the bracken of the forest floor. They’d assumed that whoever had survived the attack on the camp would strike out and build another hideout. Bandits were known for their secrecy and their ability to completely conceal any trace of their habitation, so it was no wonder Curtis and Septimus had had a hard time tracking the survivors down.
Days passed. Weeks passed. Still no sign. They subsisted on what meager provisions they could scavenge from the forest, taking shelter in whatever crude lean-to their exhausted limbs allowed them to construct. They spoke little; they woke early and fanned out, combing the nearby woods with an obsessive scrutiny, not moving on until they were certain that no bandit tread had left its footprint.
But as the days piled on, it became clear that the Wildwood bandits were, in fact, gone. Extinct. It was over a low campfire, one clear evening, that Curtis and Septimus decided to rebuild the band anew. It seemed to Curtis that in the event of a total decimation of the Wildwood bandits, the oath required the survivors to carry on. “To live and die by the bandit band” was the final line of the oath, and Curtis intended to stay true to that, to the letter. There was no indication about whether the band should be dissolved in the case of their numbers being whittled down to two. They were now the Wildwood bandits, he and Septimus, from first to last. They alone would uphold the code and creed.
Brendan being absent, assumed dead, Curtis performed the rite of fealty for Septimus, who’d up to this point not taken the oath. He figured Brendan would approve. The rat was a little leery of the bloodletting part, but beyond that, he seemed to take on his new position with a stoic resolve.
And then? Curtis had to put the memory of his bandit brothers and sisters behind him. There was something in that, something that made the whole situation easier to swallow. No longer was there that question mark etched in his mind, following him around like some thought-balloon from a comic book. He put the Wildwood bandits, the old Wildwood bandits, away. He steeled himself in his new role as one of two sole survivors of a long-lost tribe.
They built a new hideout, high in the trees. They built wooden walkways connecting the platforms they’d built in the highest limbs of the oldest cedars. And, in a moment of genius, Septimus suggested they build mannequin bandits to guard the pale of their hideout; so that anyone or anything venturing into these woods would see the shapes and retreat, knowing that the territory belonged to the bandits. The Wildwood bandits, as strong as ever.
They even mounted a few Long Road holdups, which was difficult considering their number and the fact that they did not have horses. Several coaches went flying by, undaunted by their presence in the road, before they managed to stop one. Their first robbery was a South Wood merchant, returning from a successful market day in North Wood. It was getting on in the evening and the coachman was thankfully daunted by the weird, spectral figures that stood resolutely alongside the road. When Curtis and Septimus had appeared from the depths of the forest, the driver assumed that he’d been jumped by an usually large raiding party.
“Take what you need,” he’d said, his voice quavering. “Just let me live!”
In truth, though, the chest of gold doubloons they’d liberated from the merchant’s possession did little by way of easing Curtis’s melancholy. He found that the only reason he’d even staged the holdup was to keep up appearances. He hated the idea of word getting around that the Wildwood bandits were no longer a threat when passing through this most inhospitable part of the Wood.
And that’s how he’d been, that evening when the fog was heavy on the river basin and the stars were blotted out and his two sisters had come running into his territory, just a few scant miles from his tree-bound camp, and tripped his two biggest traps. He’d just returned from another vigil on the Long Road, scouting out for traveling coaches, surprised that none had come in several days, when he’d felt the strange earthquake-like rumble and the undulating wave that had upset the forest floor as it passed.
“I felt that too!” said Elsie, when he’d mentioned it.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” said her brother. “I assumed that there was some attack being staged somewhere. I imagined that maybe the coyotes had regrouped and had set out to go after us. That’s why I went out to check the perimeter of the hideout, and I saw you guys had been caught in my nets.”
It turned out that they’d all felt the quake, but were so consumed with their chase through the mysterious forest that they hadn’t really processed the feeling.
The rat, Septimus, leapt from Curtis’s shoulder and scurried over to the hem of Roger’s robe; before the man had a chance to flinch, the rat had climbed up his leg, rounded his hips, and was whispering into his ear. “I don’t suppose you have any knowledge of such a thing. Are your minions on the attack?”
“Can you call your rat?” the man asked Curtis. “He’s crawling on me.”
“Hey, he’s not my person any more than I’m his rat,” said Septimus drily.
“I don’t like rodents,” said Roger Swindon.
“Well, I don’t much like despotic theocrats,” said Septimus.
The man took a deep breath before saying, “This is a lost cause. It won’t be long before we are overtaken by the Watch. Even now, as we speak, the North Wall is being deconstructed and the Avian Principality is being dissolved into a united One Nation, under a One Tree. You’ll all be held as betrayers of the one true religion and will likely be joining your friend the Bicycle Maiden in her lonely existence on the Crag. If you’re lucky. As the Elder Caliph, I can say that how quickly you capitulate will determine what sort of sentence you will r
eceive.”
“Well,” said Septimus, unperturbed, “I’d say you’re a pretty valuable hostage, then.”
The man said nothing. The rest of the group seemed thankful for his silence. Nico turned his attention to the rat at the man’s shoulder.
“How long have you been able to do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” asked Septimus.
“You know, talk.”
“How long have you been able to?” shot back the rat.
“Point taken.” The saboteur paused, thinking. “Do all animals in here do that?” he asked finally.
“Do try to keep up,” chided Septimus, traveling back to Curtis’s shoulder at the front of the pack. “You’re in Wildwood now.”
“Welcome,” said Curtis, putting his hand proudly on the base of the ladder, “to Bandit Hideout Deerskull Dragonfighter.”
“I helped come up with the name,” said Septimus.