A flurry of smaller birds ascended into the air, a dizzying funnel, before exploding outward in all directions. The surrounding bandits shared a few fleeting words with their comrades before returning to their winged mounts and climbing astride. Oz and Ruthie climbed aboard a pelican that was offering its back, while Harry situated himself atop a bald eagle. Martha and Carol were already gone; the eagle Brownfeather and his two passengers were just now clearing the tops of the trees and disappearing toward the southern horizon. The young bandit Henry, with an undue amount of chivalry, bowed to Rachel and helped her astride his silver egret, before he, too, mounted up. She blushed beneath her black tresses and clasped her wrists at his belly as the egret bent its spindly legs and, with two hearty beats of its wings, lifted into the air.

Brendan watched all this activity proudly, a natural-born leader newly freed of his shackles. Just then, he felt a tug at the hem of his gray robe. He looked down to see it was Elsie Mehlberg, nine years old, smiling shyly up at him.

“Can I ride with you?” she asked self-consciously.

Without saying a word, Brendan reached down, picked the girl up by her waist—a feather’s weight to the broad-shouldered bandit—and set her atop the back of a dappled golden eagle. Climbing aboard behind her, he gave the eagle a small whistle.

“All right then, Chester,” he said.

“We ready?” responded the eagle.

The Bandit King said, “Let’s fly.”

CHAPTER 28

Wildwood Irregulars,

Take Wing!

They’d soon passed the vanguard of the ivy tide; the wave had struck against the peaks and passes of the Cathedral Mountains, and like Hannibal crossing the Alps, it was charging mercilessly over the terrain as if the great mountain range was a small bump in the road. Prue saw it all from her vantage in the air: the sea of green coloring the world into one homogenous pattern like someone dragging a drab-colored paintbrush over a formerly vivid canvas. Beyond the dividing line between the ivy and the uncovered forest, the patchwork fields of North Wood could be seen, drowsy in the afternoon light, untouched, untrammeled, and peacefully ignorant of the great invasion that was about to descend on them.

She rode a white heron named Oliver; Owl Rex led the flock of thirty birds. Other gray-robed bandits joined her in flight. Several South Wood citizens had volunteered as well. Once Brendan and the rest of the bandits reunited with them, carrying whatever weaponry they could scavenge, they would be a formidable force.

But who was their adversary? Could even the best-trained militia stand a chance against the awesome power of the ivy, harnessed by the reborn spirit of the Dowager Governess? Even now, the woman’s awful handiwork was being done: Looking down at the world of the Wood, Prue saw that the borders between the provinces were being quickly era

sed. South Wood and the Avian Principality were effectively gone, their borders wiped away in the flood. Soon North Wood would be caught up in the deluge. The old divisions were disappearing.

It was all Wildwood now.

That’s what Alexandra had wanted all along, wasn’t it?

And there, just as her mind had touched on it, she saw the great expansive crown of the Council Tree itself, towering over its surrounding trees by magnitudes of greatness, standing resolute in the center of a great meadow. From this height, the sackcloth-clad Mystics who surrounded its gnarled trunk were minuscule, little dots on a green field. As they drew closer, she saw that many of them were in the midst of their daily meditations. It surprised her to see them engaged thus: Surely the tree, in its omniscience, with its deep connection to the fabric that ran through the entire Wood—surely it had seen what had happened, what was coming, and would’ve long since alerted the Mystics to the danger they faced.

The flyers began their descent, veering low over the fields and the farms while astonished onlookers gaped at their progress. Somewhere, a bell was ringing. As they flew closer to the ground, Prue saw carriages being drawn up in front of the tiny farmhouses, filled with the accumulated belongings of the panicked residents. The winding roads that linked the plantations, one to another, were becoming clotted with these vehicles, all overflowing with the prized possessions—furniture and chests, framed portraits and pewter dishes—of a fleeing people.

“What are they doing?” Prue said, marveling at the activity. “They can’t escape it!”

Banking sharply, the heron landed deftly on the grass of the great meadow, and Prue leapt from his back at the sight of two individuals she hadn’t seen in a long while.

“Sterling!” she shouted. “Samuel!”

Indeed, there could be no mistake: Sterling the fox greeted her proudly in his bibbed jeans while Samuel the hare, colander jauntily flattening his long ears, stood at attention. They smiled, despite the circumstances, at seeing the girl.

“Hello there,” said Sterling. “We got word from the swallow—that’s the Alarum Bell you hear ringing. Wasted no time on that. But I can’t figure for the life of me what the problem is here. Something about the ivy?”

“It’s her!” said Prue. Sterling and Samuel had both been at the Battle for the Plinth, veterans of the Wildwood Irregulars—who her was needed no further explanation. “She’s back! And she’s got the ivy controlled.”

A look of shock overcame the fox’s face. He swiveled his head to look upon the circle of Mystics, still lost in meditation, gathered around the base of the mighty Council Tree. “But they’ve not given us any word,” he said. “Seems like the tree would’ve alerted us long ago.”

Samuel gestured with his thumb to the robed figures. “They’ve been like that for twelve hours now. Ever since last night, late.” He paused, adding, “So.”

Prue stared across the wide, grassy meadow at the Council Tree and its attendant Mystics, immobile and quiet. Just then, a wind picked up and a flurry of shapes, like static released from a freshly dried blanket, whipped up into the air from the green canopy of the tree and flew out across the clearing. One of the shapes traveled the distance to where Prue was standing with the hare and the fox and fell at their feet. It was a dead leaf.

Kneeling down, Prue picked up the leaf and studied it: It was brittle and ochre-colored, and a piece crumbled between her fingers at her touch, scattering to the earth. “What’s this?” she murmured.

Sterling nodded knowingly. “It’s been happening. Just a few months ago. The Mystics told us. Some kind of sickness, though no one seems to be able to tell what it is. Not the Mystics, leastways. They’ve been all mum about it.”

“It’s dying,” put in Samuel. “The tree, dying. Can you believe it?”

Tags: Colin Meloy Wildwood Chronicles Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net