Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

The meditation had begun.

The pace was fast; the bandits moved quietly and stealthily through the trees. After a time, they came to the Long Road. Checking to see that no sentry had been posted, they began running southward, beckoning Curtis to keep pace. They arrived at the Gap Bridge and crossed, none of them besides Curtis giving so much as a glance to the deep and fathomless darkness of the ravine it spanned. When they came to the other side, they swiftly left the openness of the road and dove headlong into the treed canopy of the forest.

Septimus rode on Curtis’s shoulder, ducking the odd lo

w-hanging tree branch that threatened to knock him from his perch. “What do you think the plan is?” he whispered into Curtis’s ear.

Curtis could barely catch his breath to speak, the bandits traveled so fleetly. They followed paths that were undetectable to his eyes, traced against the forest floor like invisible ink. “I don’t know,” he hissed back at Septimus. “We’re gathering an army, I think.”

Septimus whistled between his teeth. “I don’t know about that, kid,” he said. “Sounds dangerous. I happen to know that that woman’s army is pretty massive. They’ve been gaining recruits hand over fist. And how do I know this? I eat their garbage. And they make a lot of garbage.”

“Okay,” said Curtis, focusing intently on the distant figure of Angus, crashing through the brush.

“What I mean to say is this: It’s hopeless. I don’t know how many bandits there are, but I doubt it’s enough. It ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Thanks, Septimus,” said Curtis. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Listen, if you’re gonna ride on my shoulder, you can at least keep those kind of thoughts to yourself.”

Septimus huffed. “Okay,” he said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The bandits’ momentum came to a stop when they arrived at a small clearing. Brendan stood in the center, searching the treetops. “Strange,” he was saying as Curtis caught up. “No lookout. Where’s the cussing lookout?”

Curtis followed Brendan’s sightline. He saw nothing but strata upon strata of green oak tree leaves and the branches that supported them. Silence filled the glade, disrupted only by the slight rustle of the fern fronds around the bandits’ boots.

“Let’s go,” commanded Brendan, visibly concerned. His step was slightly lopsided from his limping, but he still was able to move as swiftly as any of his bandit cohorts. After a short distance, the group followed Brendan around the slope of a hillock that masked the mouth of a shallow ravine. Soon the gully became a small, brook-bottomed valley. Through the underbrush ahead, Curtis saw that the ground leveled into an enormous natural cul-de-sac. As the bracken cleared, an entire camp of canvas tents, rugged lean-tos, and smoldering campfires came into view, populated by a small contingent of milling figures. As soon as the escapee party arrived at the clearing, the camp flew into a commotion: A group of children who had been busy at a game of marbles came running over, men carrying a load of firewood dropped their cargo and hollered for joy. Women began to appear from within the little domiciles, clearly overjoyed to see Brendan and the bandits approach. Embraces were shared, stiff handshakes were exchanged. Sloppy, lovelorn kisses between reunited husbands and wives were enjoyed. Only Brendan stood away from the group, eyeing the camp.

“Where is everyone?” he said at last. “Why are we so few?”

A young man in a frayed white button-up shirt and suspenders stepped forward. His face showed a deep sorrow. “Sorry, King. We done our best in your absence.”

“What’s happened?” demanded Brendan.

The man spoke again: “Yesterday evenin’. The sentries picked up dog soldiers on the perimeter. We sent out a troop. Only Devon returned.”

Devon, his arm set in a splint, came forward. He walked with some difficulty, his thin frame supported by an improvised tree-bough crutch. The rapturous atmosphere of the bandits’ reunion had fallen away, and a pall descended over the camp. Devon nodded. “My King,” he said.

Brendan stared, glassy-eyed.

“My King,” continued Devon, “the far sentry saw ’em, a few dogs just shy of the Periphery. So we went out to give ’em a little taste. Turned the corner by the fern glade, down the old creek bed, and ran into the whole army.” Devon sniffled a little here, visibly troubled by the memory of the incident. “We fought best we could, but we weren’t no match for them. They was hundreds of ’em, sir, hundreds. All comin’ from all directions. Never seen so many in my life. We couldn’t get away—they had us surrounded. Brin, Loudon, and Maire. All dead. So’s Hal. We lost thirty-five in total. They stalked me down and let me live. Gave me this”—here he pointed to a jagged claw mark that made a series of three parallel red streaks across his cheek. “Said I should let my kin know to stay clear.” The young man’s voice was freighted with grief. “I’m so sorry, King. I know I let ye down.”

Brendan stood, his jaw set firmly in concentration. “Have we lost so many?”

An older man, his brown beard flecked with ribbons of gray, stood apart, his hands on his hips. “Aye, King,” he said. “Between losing those men and all we’d lost in the battle over the ridge, we’re in no fit shape to go anywheres. Barely’ve got enough to keep the camp guarded.”

Remembering himself, Brendan walked up to the wounded man, Devon, and gripped the back of his neck with his hand. He gently pressed his forehead into Devon’s, his eyes wet with tears. “They won’t have died in vain,” he said slowly, quietly. “We’ll avenge their deaths. All of them.”

A woman stepped from the small crowd at the foot of the clearing. Her coal-black hair was closely cropped, and her earlobes were garlanded with large metal hoops. A saber hilt jutted from a wide wrap of silk around her waist, and she rested her ringed hands on the pommel as she spoke. “And how do you expect to do that, Brendan? With what army? We’ve not enough bandits to rob a country squire’s coach-and-four, let alone take on the whole of the Dowager’s coyote army.” A few of the milling bandits nodded in agreement. “No,” she continued, “we stay put. We wait this out. We’ve seen as troubled times as this in the great history of our band; we can make it through this.”

Brendan stepped away from Devon and faced the crowd of bandits. “There’s nothin’ to wait out. This is it.” He accentuated this statement with a pound of his fist against his open palm. His voice was steely, direct. “The Dowager’s set to raze this whole place. The whole blasted Wood. She’s feeding the blood of a human Outsider child to the ivy. The ivy, lads. And once she’s done that, she means to command the vines to consume the whole Wood, North and South. And Wildwood. Gone. Just a big patch of ivy, when she’s done.”

A collective murmur of fear erupted from the gathered bandits. “What?” cried one. “How do you know this?”

Brendan limped to Curtis’s side. He put his hand on the shoulder that wasn’t occupied by Septimus. “This one,” he said stonily. “This Outsider.”

For the first time since their arrival at the camp, the bandits recognized Curtis. A tempered uproar of objection began to rumble among them. Brendan hushed them, saying, “He fought for the Dowager, yes. Indeed—he was a confidant of the witch! But when he was told of her plan, he broke away. And was imprisoned.”

Angus spoke from the crowd. “We met him in that slop bucket of a prison. He aided in our escape. He’s a friend.”

“His friend is the sister of this child,” said Brendan. “This baby the Dowager plans to sacrifice. If it were not for him, we would not have this information.”