Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

Prue leapt up from her crate. “So you’ll do it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I s’pose so,” he said, sighing.

Prue grabbed his hands and, squeezing them, led Richard into a kind of impromptu, maniacal dance in the small clearing before the fire. “I knew you’d do it!” she shouted, forgetting herself. “I knew you’d say yes!” Enver had left his perch and was making quick figure eights in the air of the room, twittering joyously.

“Now slow up,” cautioned Richard, pulling Prue to a stop. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And we’ve got to keep our voices down—those SWORD officers are like little termites when they want to be: coming out of the woodwork. They could be anywhere.” He let go of Prue’s hands and walked over to a paraffin lamp on the mantel, the sole source of light in the room, and lowered the wick. Shadows extended into the room. He gave a hasty look out the window before returning to Prue, saying, “I said before you were likely here for a reason; maybe you were sent here to make rightful change in this place—get folks back up on their feet. That’s a kind of cause I can stand for.”

Prue smiled, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you so much, Richard,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much this means.”

Richard nodded before scanning the room. “Now,” he said, “we just have to find a box that’ll fit the cargo.”

Curtis had a difficult time finding a comfortable spot to sit in his cage; the floor was made of closely woven maple boughs, and the knobby surface did not make an inviting sitting area. He settled for a spot opposite the cage door, where a depression in one of the branches created a kind of seat; this was where he stayed, waiting out the bandits’ derision. They had made good sport of Curtis for the better part of an hour until, their tormentee remaining silent, they turned their attention elsewhere: first to the coyote Dmitri, who spat more insults back at them, and then to one another, berating their neighboring prisoners over boasted feats of strength and derring-do.

“Ten feet?!” challenged one. “I’ve leapt farther in my sleep! Ten feet.”

“Oh yeah?” responded another. “Would love to hear your best jump, Cormac.”

Cormac, farther out the same branch as Curtis, replied casually, “Thirty, easy. The distance of about five trees. And not just little saplings, mind you, these were full mature firs we’re talking about. During that big raid, last August. Connor saw me. I’m on the crown of this massive cedar and all of a sudden a big gust comes up and I hear this crack and I look down and the whole top of the tree is splitting, right in two. Well, I’m high enough up that there’s no real tree to get to, just these firs that are well down below from where I was. In a flash, I look over and see—I swear to you here, five fir trees apart, thirty feet, easy—another cedar, same size. So I grab hold of the treetop, set my foot in the crotch of the topmost branch, and I just jump, hell-for-leather, just as that old cedar gives way, and the next thing I know I’m scrambling for a grip in the far tree. Sure as I’m standin’

here, gentlemen. Thirty feet.”

A snort came from the bandit below Curtis’s cage. “Right,” he scoffed. “I heard from Connor that that cedar top just tipped over and fell straight into the other tree—ye’d as easily walked from branch to branch if ye’d not had your eyes clapped closed in terror!”

Cormac shouted a reproach. “Eamon Donnell, so help me, I’ll string you from your toes as soon as we’re out of here—the second we’re out of here, you and me are going blow for blow.”

“Save your breath, gents,” advised the bandit up and to the left of Curtis’s cage. “We won’t be seein’ the light of day anytime soon.”

“You may be right there,” said another. “Hey, Angus, don’t suppose your old lady’s going to wait around?”

Angus, a bandit with a raspy voice whose cage was the farthest out, its weight straining the root branch, sighed a reply. “Hope she does. That bairn’ll be born any day now, I expect. Had half a hope that I’d be there for the birthing.” He kicked impotently at the wooden bars, setting his cage slowly rocking. “Blasted cages. Blasted coyotes. Blasted war.”

Dmitri had remained mostly silent during this exchange; here he interrupted, “Now hold on, some of us coyotes don’t want any more a part of this than you all do. I’d let you know that I happen to have a litter of pups at my home warren, waiting for me. Haven’t seen them in ages! I imagine they’ll be just about full grown by the time I get back. If I get back.”

The bandits gave no rebuttal to this honest admission; the cages fell silent for a moment as each prisoner fell into a reverie. Finally, Angus spoke up. “Hey, Seamus,” he called.

“Yeah?” was the response.

“Give us an air,” said Angus. “Nothing too sad, mind you—something to kick the mood a bit.”

The surrounding bandits murmured approval with a chorus of “Aye, aye.”

Seamus, the bandit directly above Curtis—the expectorator himself—turned and spoke to the other prisoners. “What,” he said, “like ‘The Wildwood Maiden’?”

Cormac groaned. “God, no—not the treacly, maudlin stuff. Something to take our minds off o’ things.”

Eamon shouted his suggestion: “How ’bout the one about the lawyer—the lawyer and Jock Roderick?”

The request was popular; the other bandits chimed in with their approval.

Seamus nodded his agreement and then, shifting in his cage, straightened his chest and began singing, his voice sweet and tuneful:

Sawyer the Lawyer was plying his trade

Clacking and stacking the money he made

Robbing the poor and deceiving the meek

Leaving ’em naught but the tears on their cheek.