“You have defaced this swamp, God’s creation!”
Thwack!
“You are a liar!”
Thwack!
“You are a fraud!”
Thwack!
“You are a coward!”
Thwack!
The feechie battle had stopped altogether by the final time Aidan struck his club. All eyes were on Pantherbane at the door of the stockade.
The long silence was broken at last by the voice of the Wilderking, not quite as clear as before, from inside the wooden walls. “Take care you do not talk yourself to death, Pantherbane. You meddler. You ignoramus.”
This was what everyone was waiting for. “Rudeswap!” called Chief Larbo. “The Wilderking finished the rudeswap!”
“Hee-haw!” called a feechie voice. “We gonna see a civilizer fight!”
The feechies-North Swamp and Bearhouse alike-stampeded toward the stockade.
“Do you hear that, Wilderking?” shouted Aidan over the confusion. “Your subjects await you.” The feechies surrounded the stockade, bruised and bloodied from battle. But there was no response from inside. Dobro, who stood at Aidan’s right hand, rapped his knuckles on his helmet, one fist, then the other in a steady rhythm: Tock… Tock… Tock… Tock…
The feechies around him joined in. Tock… Tock… Tock… Tock… The tempo was like a great clock ticking out the seconds toward a showdown between Pantherbane and the man who called himself the Wilderking. Fighting out a rudeswap was the most basic point of honor in the Feechie Code. Every second the king remained in the stockade, every second he refused to fight out his rudeswap, his power over the Bearhouse feechies dissolved a little more. Now all of the feechies were pounding their helmets with a deafening urgency: Tock… Tock… Tock… Tock…
At last the stockade door cracked open. The helmet banging stopped, and the feechies waited eagerly, expectantly for the Wilderking to appear and do his duty. But the man who stepped out of the door wasn’t the Wilderking. He was Lawmer, the Wilderking’s big, thick-necked lieutenant. He read from a piece of paper: To tussle with a common ruffian is beneath the dignity of your king.
There was a general grumble among the feechies, but Lawmer continued. The Wilderking desires you, his subjects, to continue with the battle and drive the invaders off the island. He will address you when your task is complete.
Chief Larbo was livid. He hopped in a circle around Lawmer, who did his best to maintain a dignified indifference. “Beneath his dignity?” the old feechie barked. “I tell you what’s beneath his dignity: hiding from a free fight like a bunny in a brush pile!” He snorted. “Beneath his dignity! I don’t care who he is. He swaps rude with a man, he better be ready to fight it out!” Larbo darted behind the big civilizer to push through the stockade door. He meant to have it out face to face with the Wilderking. Lawmer, quick as a cat, struck Larbo across the back with the flat of his sword. The feechie chieftan sprawled to the ground.
That was the blow that ended the reign of the false Wilderking on Bearhouse Island. The sight of a civilizer striking down a feechie was like a shot of cold water in the faces of the Bearhouse feechies. It jolted them out of their shiny-hungry daze and demolished the last remnants of the false Wilderking’s hold over their conscience. The atmosphere was thick with their anger, like the air before a summer storm. Lawmer felt it down his whole spine. He ducked through the door and barricaded it behind him.
The feechie storm broke with terrifying suddenness. Feechies closed on the stockade and climbed the palisades elbow to elbow, one right behind the other. Pobo Sands and Orlo Sands led the way, one on either side of the stockade. Feechies swarmed over the palisades like ants on an anthill. Before the first climbers reached the sharpened tops of the poles, the whole structure began to sway beneath their weight. The stockade had been built by feechie hands, and being the first wooden structure they had ever built, it wasn’t very sturdy.
The stockade collapsed on itself in a jumble of falling poles and tumbling feechies. The civilizers were as exposed as soft, pink crawfish that had shed their shells. They flailed about them with their gleaming weapons, and several feechies fell. But it was only a matter of seconds before they were swarmed under by the very people they had lorded over for two long years.
But the Wilderking somehow slipped away from the melee. A flash of white at the edge of the clearing caught Aidan’s eye. He saw the robe of egret plumes drop to the ground, and a tall civilizer in boots and tunic, now unencumbered by the trappings of the Wilderking, disappeared into the woods.
Chapter Twenty-one
The false Wilderking ran south, toward the end of the island he and Larbo’s band had not yet ravaged. Aidan picked up a bodyguard’s sword and plunged into the forest after him. The ground on Bearhouse Island gave rise to a riot of vines and entangling brambles. Aidan tried to hack his way through with the sword, but there was little use.
The Wilderking had obviously taken a hidden trail. Aidan couldn’t find a path. So he tucked the sword in his belt and climbed a nearby tree. Through the treetops he swung and soared, watching the forest floor for any sign of movement. He was within sight of the island’s edge when he saw a rustling in the bushes below. Then, above a stand of sparkleberry bushes, a clump of brown, curly hair appeared.
Swift and light as a bobcat, Aidan tree-walked toward his prey. The Wilderking had made it to the shoreline. A flatboat was waiting for him at the water’s edge. That’s when Aidan crashed down on him from the treetops. The impostor fell hard onto his face. Aidan scrambled to his feet and stood over his prostrate enemy, sword raised and ready to strike if need be. But the Wilderking made no sudden moves. He hardly moved at all.
“Turn around!” Aidan ordered. “Look at my face.”
The man who called himself the Wilderking turned his head slowly to the side, then lifted one shoulder to face his conqueror.
Aidan peered into the narrowed eyes of his enemy, and his face turned white. He had known those eyes since the day he was born. Those eyes had watched Aidan grow up. Aidan had seen those eyes sparkle with laughter many years before. He felt his head grow light. “Maynard,” he whispered.
The impostor twisted his mouth into a sneering smile. “Hello, little brother.”
Aidan staggered back a step. The sword hung by his side, loose in his grip. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t understand,” Maynard snarled. “How could you understand a man going out and getting what nobody meant to give him? You’ve never had to work for anything. You’ve been given everything you’ve ever had. How could you understand?”
Aidan stood blinking. He couldn’t begin to make sense of what was happening.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a second son,” Maynard continued. It seemed he had practiced this speech many times to himself. “To come so close to being the heir to Longleaf Manor, but instead to spend a lifetime knowing that Brennus is going to get it, that self-satisfied moron, because he was born fifteen months before you were.
“That’s bad enough. But then a lunatic shows up pretending to be a prophet and convinces everybody that your baby brother is the Wilderking.” He waved a hand dismissively at Aidan. “You! The Wilderking!” He barked one short syllable of a laugh. “The fifth son! That was the last act.” Maynard pushed up from his elbow and rose to his feet, looking Aidan in the face. “I wish you’d explain one thing to me: How do you deserve to be the Wilderking more than I do? That’s one thing I don’t understand.”
Aidan didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. Maynard’s diatribe went on. “Then I saw what the feechiefolk did to the Pyrthens in the Eechihoolee Forest. I realized that if I could train them, arm them, I wouldn’t have to depend on any half-wit prophet to make me the Wilderking.” He shook his head slowly, condescendingly at Aidan. “Where did
