That was when the forest broke open.
Brendan was the first to give the command.
“Center column,” he began.
Prue stood at his side as they looked over the embankment at the oncoming horde of coyote soldiers, the tall, implacable figure of the Dowager Governess astride her horse in the center of the multitude.
In her arms was a swaddled baby.
My brother! My baby brother! The thought blocked all others from Prue’s mind. She fought the urge to scream his name.
“Attack,” Brendan finished levelly.
The conjoined army of the bandits and the North Wood farmers, the Wildwood Irregulars, broke through the line of trees above the ruined center of the ancient city, and the eerie silence of the ivy-strewn clearing was instantly shattered by their full-throated, impassioned voices.
Prue saw Alexandra’s horse rear in surprise, nearly bucking its rider from her saddle, and screamed.
“MAC!” she cried, giving in to her instincts. Her heart surged with protectiveness for her baby brother.
The spearhead, the center column of the Wildwood Irregulars, led by the copper-haired Bandit King, descended the hillside like a great wall of water being released from a dam and crashed into the unsuspecting army of coyotes with a loud explosion of sound: bodies colliding, iron clashing. Their battle cries, yelps, and howls erupted into the air and echoed off the marble stone of the ruined city. The coyote fusiliers had been caught off guard, their muskets unloaded, and they were forced to defend themselves by bayonet. Even the coyote swordsmen had to struggle with their sheathed swords in the chaos of this initial melee, gaining the Irregulars an acute tactical advantage until the coyotes were able to wrest themselves free of combat long enough to draw their weapons.
Alexandra wheeled her horse in the middle of the throng and, kicking his flank, shot past a pair of dueling soldiers to arrive at a safe distance on a stone platform. There, she took the baby in her hands and placed him, upright, in a saddlebag. His pink face peered out from the top of the leather bag; Alexandra took hold of the reins with one hand and drew her long, silvery blade with the other.
“Coyotes!” she hollered. “Attack!”
A wave of coyote reinforcements crested the hill into the bowl of the clearing, smashing headlong into the crowd of warring soldiers with a loud crash. They had come prepared, their sabers flashing amid the tight scrum. A long line of fusiliers appeared behind them and began packing their musket barrels with powder and ball. The Irregulars, despite their earlier advantage, appeared to be losing ground.
“Prue!” came a voice from below the ridge where she was positioned. It was Brendan. He’d run halfway up the hillside and was carefully engaged in a delicate swordfight with a particularly large coyote soldier.
“Yes?” she called.
“Get to Sterling’s unit!” he shouted over his shoulder between saber clashes. “Tell them to move in!”
“Got it!” yelled Prue, and she leapt up from her crouched position.
The soldiers, huddled as they were in the deep green carpet of ivy, heard the telltale sounds of the battle cresting the ridge. Curtis winced at the shouting voices, the sound of clashing steel, and the crack of gunfire. His heart started racing in his chest. Sterling lay sidelong against the sloped ground, listening to these first salvos of war, his eyes flickering with anticipation.
“Blast it all,” he muttered. “Why don’t we just attack?”
The sound of footsteps in the underbrush eclipsed the distant noises of the battle.
“Prue!” shouted Curtis, seeing his friend approach at a sprint. She was crouched low as she ran, and her clothes were decorated with fallen leaves and strands of spiderweb.
Sterling jumped up to meet her. “What’s the word?” he asked frantically, as she slid into the underbrush beside the gathered soldiers.
“Go,” she said, fighting for her breath. “Brendan says to move in.”
A glow erupted in the fox’s eye. “Finally,” he said. He turned to the two hundred men, women, and animals that lay hunkered down behind him and said, “Let’s move.”
Prue and Curtis shared a quiet glance before the soldiers on the hillside, with a great collective holler, leapt up from their positions and stormed the crest of the ridge.
Good luck, Prue mouthed as Curtis was carried by the wave of soldiers over the ridge and into the battle below.
CHAPTER 26
The Wildwood Irregulars;
A Name to Conjure With
At the fox’s instruction, Curtis, along with the archers and riflemen, after scrambling to the top of the ridge, held their positions behind the charging unit at the higher ground above the bowl of the clearing. He watched as the rest of the Irregulars tore into the heated melee below. A black bear wielding a threshing flail was laying into the tide of coyotes with a surprising enthusiasm, a wide swale of unconscious coyotes littering his wake. A bandit, armed with two short sabers, was engaged in a fierce skirmish with a coyote swordsman; the coyote seemed to be getting the better of the bandit until Curtis saw a rabbit, his haunches covered in blue denim, snaking between the feet of the coyote, stretching a tangled web of twine. Before the coyote had any idea what was happening, the twine cinched at his ankles and he went crashing down to the earth in mid sword thrust. The figure of the Dowager Governess, astride her horse, towered over the warring hordes, and she laid an impressive swath of destruction wherever she leapt her horse: bandits and farmers fell at the flashing steel of her long sword. Every attempt to unhorse her seemed to fail; her skill at swordplay was clearly unparalleled in this field of battle. Curtis watched her with rapt fascination as she made her way through the crowd, her eyes set on the far staircase that would lead to the third tier of the basilica: the clearing where the Plinth lay. A barked instruction woke him from his spellbound stare—Samuel the hare stood at the end of the line of soldiers on the ridge and made his command: “Long-range fighters, ready your weapons!” Curtis dropped a large stone into the cradle of his sling.
A loud whistle emanated from the midst of the combat below; it appeared to come from Alexandra, her fingers poised between her lips. Within an instant, a deafening sound of screeching tore through the air, and the sliver of sky to the east of the clearing was blotted by a throng of jet-black birds.
“The crows,” Curtis, whispered to himself in awe.
Samuel seemed to be in the grip of the sight as well—the scores of these flying birds like spatters of ink against the tree line as they dove down into the skirmishers below—but finally returned his attention to his charge. “FIRE!” he shouted.
The ridge came alive with the crack of gunfire and the swish of arrows. Curtis let fly the rock from his sling and watched it arc lazily toward his intended target. He was dismayed to see it fall well short of its mark, lost in the ocean of ivy that carpeted the ground of the clearing.
A bandit standing next to him, repacking the barrel of his musket, saw the shot. “Swing harder,” he suggested. “Put more arm into it.”
“Yeah, okay,” Curtis said as he grabbed another rock from his pocket.
A few crows had fallen during this barrage, but more arrived to take the place of their fallen kin—a dark cloud of birds funneled up the wide valley from the first tier of the basilica. The clearing was awash in the noise of clanging steel and the warlike shouts of the combatants.
Prue watched briefly as the fox’s battalion made their charge over the ridge into the wide valley below before she turned and ran back to her station—at the little stand of trees that stood between the middle and upper tiers of the open-air basilica. The valley in which the ruin sat was masked by the hill of ivy and trees, and as she ran back up the ridge, she had to roughly gauge where her initial position had been. Guessing at a break in the trees, she dove through the underbrush at the crest of the ridge and, losing her footing, tumbled down the hillside, her fall softened by the rich bed of ivy. Standing up to brush herself off, she saw the Plinth st
anding in the center of a clearing, its fluted base covered by fresh shoots of ivy vines. She began to walk toward it—she wanted to touch it, to feel the cold, austere stone—but was reminded of Brendan’s instructions when the sound of a thousand screeching crows sounded beyond the wall of trees.
She ran to her previous position, behind a squat stand of salmonberry bushes, and looked down at the heated battle below. She watched, aghast, at the teeming murder upon murder of black crows as they wheeled over the clearing.
Brendan, flanked by two bandits, stood on the bottom step of the wide stone flight of stairs that led up the slope to the top tier of the basilica. The three bandits were in a bitter struggle with an ever-growing crowd of coyote swordsmen. Brendan and the bandit to his right stood with their sabers flying, desperately holding the coyotes at bay, while the bandit to his left busily crammed ammunition into the muzzle of his rifle. While Prue watched, Brendan gave a swift kick to the chest of one coyote assaulter while shoving another away with the flat of his saber blade. Given a moment’s respite, he glanced back to see Prue ducking her head out from behind her covert.
“Good job!” he cried, leaping backward, step by step, up the flight of stairs. “Now quick: Get to Cormac’s unit. I want them to come down the ridge, regroup in the lower tier, and sweep up the slope from the east. Catch them in the rear flank. Is that clear?”
“Got it,” she said, preparing to run.
Brendan wiped a streak of blood from his brow. His beard was clumped with perspiration. “If we can hold them a little longer,” he said, eyeing the field of battle, “I can maybe get to the Dowager. But I’ll need those reinforcements to set up the distraction.” Prue dove off into the brush. The ivy was impossibly dense here, in the space between the middle and upper tiers, and Prue’s sprint was hampered by the vines—but she made it to the far ridge in a matter of minutes. Before she knew it, she was tearing down the lee side of the ridge, the low-hanging tree branches lashing at her face and hands. Farther down the slope, the third unit of the Wildwood Irregulars lay in wait.
“What’s happening? Are we to attack?” asked Cormac frantically, when Prue came to a sliding stop amid the waiting bandits and farmers. His was the last unit to receive instruction, and Prue could tell that he was desperate to join the fray. The sounds emanating from the valley beyond the little ridge came loud and fierce.
“He wants you to head down the ridgeline,” she said, battling for breath. “Regroup in the lower clearing. And then come up from behind.”
Cormac looked at her blankly. “How do we know we won’t be surrounded once we’re there? Does he know how many soldiers remain in the lower tier?”
Prue raised her hands apologetically. She could read the fear in the bandit’s face. “That’s what he said to do. He seems to have a plan.”
“Very well,” said Cormac gravely, turning to the gathered soldiers under his command. “Down the ridge, lads. We’re to fall in from the rear.”
Ducking low, the third-unit Irregulars jogged down the line of the ridge while the sounds of battle receded behind them. When they’d traveled far enough, Cormac instructed them to hold tight while he crawled up to the top of the ridge and looked over the lip. Prue waited with the rest of the unit, hearing their quiet, steady breathing and the sound of their weapons—iron, wood, and stone—as they turned them over, antsy, in their hands and paws.
Cormac returned from the ridge. His face was pale and serious.
“There’s a whole army down there,” he said stonily. “Waiting to funnel up those stairs to the second tier.” He looked over at Prue. “It’s an impossible feat.”
“What do you want me to do?” Prue asked, searching the bandit’s worn face for an answer.
“Nothing,” said Cormac finally, shaking his head. “Tell the King we done what he told us. Tell him there are four hundred more in the lower clearing. There’s a line of heavy artillery—I’d say twelve cannon—just about up the slope. They’ll need to contend with that. As for us, we’ll do our best.”
Turning back to the gathered soldiers, Cormac gave his orders. “Over the top, lads,” he said, and, with a great yell, the third-unit Irregulars crested the top of the ridge and ran howling down the far side. Prue remained in the protection of the low ridge for a time, listening to the cries of the soldiers and the loud baying of the coyote army they engaged, before she took a deep breath and went running back through the bracken, up the line of the ridge.
Arriving back at the stone steps above the middle clearing, Prue was surprised to see that Brendan had left his prior position on the stairs. Momentarily panicked that he’d been struck down, she crouched low and crawled to the head of the steps and looked out over the tumult of the warring armies in the wide square. She could see Alexandra in the center of the crowded melee, her sword making wide arcs over the heads of her embattled soldiers. Mac’s face, flushed and distorted in a terrified fit of crying, peered out from the horse’s saddlebag. A tight ring of protective coyote grunts had made a circle around Alexandra as she slowly attempted to wade her way through the crowd. Occasionally, a squadron of crows would dive-bomb into the chaotic multitude and return to the air, a farmer’s pitchfork or a bandit’s saber clutched in their talons. Suddenly, Prue caught sight of Brendan’s crown of vines in the midst of the crowd; he’d forced his way closer to Alexandra and her guard of soldiers.
“Brendan!” Prue shouted.
It was impossible to raise her voice above the deafening clamor of the battle.
“BRENDAN!” she hollered again.
She saw him hesitate in his violent slog through the crowd. He searched the air for the source of the voice. She stood up and waved her arms in the air.
“CANNONS!” she shouted, pointing to the place where the ground sloped away to the basilica’s first clearing. “THEY’RE MOVING IN CANNONS!”
He furrowed his brow, confused.
She pointed again to the far slope, this time with as much animation as she could muster. He looked where she pointed in time to see the great black muzzles of the dozen cannon crest the ridge. His face dropped.
Curtis was the first to see the cannons, their four-coyote artillery teams laboring to push the massive guns up the slope of the hill. There must have more than ten of them, all lined up along the lip of the clearing, and he was disturbed to see the artillery crews, once they’d set the cannons in position, swivel them to point at the line of archers and fusiliers who manned the ridge he currently stood on.
“Samuel!” he screamed, not taking his eyes from the line of cannon.
“What?” called Samuel, his musket raised to his eye as he took aim at the crowd in the middle of the clearing.
“Cannons!” said Curtis, pointing to the artillery.
Samuel dropped his musket to his side and stared. He gulped. “Hold your line, boys.”
“Are you kidding me?” asked Curtis.
“Hold the line,” repeated Samuel as he hefted the musket back to his shoulder, this time aiming at the artillery teams as they began to load the cannons. “Let’s see if we can’t take some of ’em out before they get a shot.”
The line of archers and fusiliers turned and aimed into the row of coyote artillery and fired, the ridge exploding with gun smoke and rifle fire. Curtis looked to see several coyote artillery officers fall, only to be replaced by reinforcements from the slope behind them. While the Irregulars reloaded, shoving muskets full of powder or pulling arrows from their quivers, the coyote artillery completed their task and let fire the cannons.
The world erupted around Curtis.
The explosion instantly silenced the noise of the warring armies, and Curtis’s hearing was reduced to a single high-pitched whine. The ground below his feet seemed to fall away, and he was showered in a wild spray of earth as he fell back, tumbling into a seemingly endless, bottomless void.
Prue screamed to see the cannon fire rip into the ridge of archers and riflemen, knowing that Curtis had been positioned there. Th
e ridge had practically disintegrated under the awesome power of the artillery, leaving a wide slope of craters where the leafy hillside had once been. The displaced soil from the barrage rained down on the warring armies in the square. What was left of the ridge was empty of its prior occupants.
In the middle of the tumultuous crowd of fighters, Prue saw Brendan, his saber swinging in a wild circle around his head. Having witnessed the dizzying spectacle and the devastation that the line of cannon had wrought, he gave a long, defiant whoop before diving back into battle.
As the coyote artillery team prepped their guns for another fusillade, a fresh wave of coyote infantry came roaring up the slope from the lower tier. Prue watched in despair, understanding the implication of this new assault: that Cormac’s unit had been unable to hold back the reinforcements. Like a basin overfilled with water, the bowl of the clearing could not contain the amount of bodies it was now carrying, and the fighting was forced up onto the adjacent hillsides as the vastly dominant coyote army began their systematic routing of the Wildwood Irregulars.
Curtis emerged from unconsciousness to the thunderous sound of a million pounding footsteps all around his ears. His hearing was still impaired; the world sounded as if it were veiled in a thick fog. He was half-buried in earth and, as he took in his surroundings, he realized that he had awoken some twenty feet away from where he’d initially lost consciousness. The footsteps, he quickly gauged, were of the conjoined forces of the coyotes and the Irregular infantry, the fighting having been forced over the cannonball-cratered ridge. Curtis, gaining his bearings, covered his head with his arm in an effort to avoid being trampled. Protecting himself thus, he began crawling away from the throng of fighters, toward a little thicket of plum trees.
He’d no sooner arrived in the safety of the trees than he heard a click behind him, the distinctive noise of a pistol’s hammer being engaged. He turned slowly, still on his hands and knees, to see a coyote sergeant, his uniform stained with dirt and blood, standing over him, his pistol cocked and at the ready.