Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

Septimus, nonplussed, looked at the whetstone. It was easily half the size of his whole body. “Okay, but I—”

“Thanks, man,” said Curtis. “Guess I’ll . . . see you in a bit.”

Curtis followed the bandit over to a lodgelike hut at the far end of the clearing. The light of a candle illuminated the interior of the building, casting a glowing orb of light across the overhanging branches of the fir-bough–shin

gled roof. Brendan sat on a small, upturned barrel at a rude desk. He looked up when he saw Curtis enter.

“How are you, Curtis?” asked the Bandit King.

“Good, thanks,” said Curtis. “What’s up?”

Brendan gestured for Seamus to stand by the door to the hut. He looked directly at Curtis, his steely blue eyes catching the flicker of the candle. “The boys were giving me the lowdown on what happened, back there in the Dowager’s prison. Seems you really showed your mettle.”

Curtis smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Guess someone had to do it. It just happened that my cage was the right one—to make it to the ladder, that is.”

Brendan stood up from his seat and walked a tight circle around the half-barrel chair. Opening a small trunk in the corner of the hut, he pulled an ornamental dagger from its insides. He turned it over in his hand thoughtfully. A gilded snake wound its way across the hilt from the guard to the pommel.

“The lads have come to me with a petition,” he said. “And I have to say, I tend to agree with ’em. You’ve been nominated to take the bandit oath.”

Curtis’s eyes widened. “Really?” He cast a glance over his shoulder at Seamus at the door of the hut. The bandit gave him a quick, proud nod.

“Yep, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. Very few men and women, if they ain’t first born into the camp, get the opportunity to do so. And, as far as I can reckon, you’d be the first Outsider to be elected to it.”

“What does it mean?”

Brendan walked toward Curtis and stood within inches of his face. Curtis’s nose barely came up to the middle buttons of the bandit’s shirt. “It means to be a Wildwood bandit,” said Brendan, “through and through, till your dying day.”

The conifer branches of the lodge’s roof shook a little in a quiet breeze. The sound of the bandits’ hubbub in the camp could be heard beyond the walls, a steady clamor.

“Okay,” said Curtis, after a moment. “I’d be honored.”

He was jarred by a sudden slap to his back. It was Seamus. “That’s my lad.”

Brendan walked to the front of the hut and yelled out into the milling crowd of bandits. “Angus! Cormac! He’s ready.”

The four bandits, Angus, Cormac, Seamus, and Brendan, led Curtis away from the hubbub of the campsite and over to where a few torches illuminated a narrow, switchbacking trail that cut its way up the side of the ravine. After a short time they came to a small glade. In the center of the clearing was a carefully stacked pile of slate stones, standing about three feet high, protected from the rain by a small wooden shelter. The bandits urged Curtis forward; they fanned out to make a semicircle around the altarlike stack. Walking closer, Curtis saw that a thick, dark film stained the gray face of the altar’s headstone.

“Stand by the stone, Curtis,” said Brendan.

Curtis glanced back down at the altar. Little stripes of the dried black liquid descended the length of the altar. A dark clot of the stuff had pooled in a little divot in the face of the top stone. Suddenly, Curtis heard the ominous swik of a dagger being drawn. He turned quickly to see Brendan, his face awash in the torchlight, approaching. He held the ornamental knife in his hand.

A momentary panic passed through Curtis’s chest. Was this some sort of trap? Had they really not forgiven him for his involvement in the other day’s battle? He was about to issue a frightened plea when he saw Brendan do something wholly unexpected: He brought the blade of the knife to his own palm and, gritting his teeth, drew it across the flesh. A bright streak of red appeared on his palm, and he walked to the side of the stone altar, letting the blood drip onto the rock. Turning to Curtis, he flipped the knife in his uncut hand so that the handle faced out, toward Curtis.

“Cut your palm, stain the altar stone with blood,” explained Brendan, bright drops of red dripping from his open palm.

Curtis took the knife from Brendan and gingerly held the blade to the smooth skin of his palm. “Just like this?” he asked.

Brendan nodded.

He held his eyelids shut and pressed the cold metal into his skin, feeling a pang of pain as the blade cut through. A little bubble of deep-red blood emerged from the wound, and he quickly held it over the stone, letting the few drops fall on the altar. He watched as both his and Brendan’s blood rolled down the shallow bowl of the stone to well together in the little divot, conjoining into a unified dark blot. Brendan smiled and nodded.

“Now the creed,” instructed Brendan.

Angus stepped forward and began to recite the oath, which Curtis repeated after every line.

I, Curtis Mehlberg, do solemnly swear to uphold the bandit code and creed.

To live by my own hand and to challenge all forms of authority before the code