Free The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw by Christopher Healy, Todd Harris Page A

off on his trip to Yondale.

10
A N O UTLAW S MELLS S OMETHING F ISHY
    A t night the Twisted Forest of Yondale is the kind of eerie, shadow-bathed, creak-and-groan-filled place that makes you believe its gnarled and drooping trees are going to snap to life and bite your head off. By the light of day it’s slightly less intimidating—you may feel like the trees are only going to eat one of your feet or maybe a few fingers. So as Lila rode through the Twisted Forest, she reminded herself that sweet, naive, little Snow White had managed to brave these woods on her own. It had been here in the Twisted Forest that Snow’s stepmother, who was queen of Yondale at the time, had abandoned the young princess and left her to die. But Snow had survived and made it into the much happier forest of Sylvaria (which was, coincidentally, called the Much Happier Forest). And I will survive my trip too , Lila told herself. After all, I’ve got the world’s greatest bounty hunter by my side .
    “So why did we come here again?” she asked Ruffian, ducking as she rode under a particularly evil-looking oak.
    “Wiley Whitehair is from Yondale,” Ruffian said, glancing down at her from his much taller horse. “So is Greenfang. And they were the first hunters to find out about the bounty on the League of Princes. They saw the Wanted posters by Yondale Harbor.”
    “Of course!” Lila said excitedly. “You’d think posters would have gone up in Avondell first, since that’s supposedly where Briar was killed. But we didn’t hear about it until days later, when Reynaldo wrote his song. If news of the murder spread from Yondale first, maybe this is where the crime actually took place.”
    “If you know everything, why do you bother asking questions?”
    “Are you smiling under that hood?” Lila asked playfully.
    “I assure you I am not,” Ruffian said.
    “Sometimes I think you’re the only one who actually believes in me, Ruff.”
    “I really do wish you would stop calling me that,” the bounty hunter droned.
    “You know it’s true, Ruff. Even my brother still thinks I’m useless.”
    “I do not believe that is the case. You need to give Prince Liam some leeway right now. He has suffered a loss, and as I can tell you from personal experience, loss has profound ways of affecting a man.”
    “You’re talking about your daughter, right?”
    Ruffian closed his eyes and pictured the girl, barely Lila’s age at the time, who had disappeared years earlier—the one person he had never been able to find. “As I said before,” he sniffed, “why do you bother asking questions?”
    “Sorry,” Lila said quickly. They rode in silence until the trees opened up onto bright-green fields, and they could see the rooftops of Yondale City beyond.
    “Well, that’s a relief,” Lila said. She patted her pony on its dappled neck. “I think Radish here was getting a little spooked by that forest.”
    “I don’t understand children,” Ruffian grumbled. “Who names a horse Radish?”
    Lila cracked up laughing. “ That’s why I did it!” she hooted, practically doubled over in her saddle as they trotted across the sunny meadow. “For that ! It’s a laugh every time someone asks me!” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, that’s so worth it. Ask me again!”
    “I will not.”
    Lila and Ruffian made their way along the busy, seashell-paved streets of Yondale City to its bustling harbor, where burly men pushed wheelbarrows full of flopping flounders, and fat seagulls swooped from the sky to snag stray bits of fish guts. They saw wobbly sailors stumbling out of taverns with names like the Mermaid’s Spittoon and the Salty Trousers. They saw mangy sea cats chasing after runaway crabs. And they saw League of Princes Wanted posters on every corner. Lila put on a wide-brimmed hat and tucked her hair up under it, hoping it would help disguise her. When the pair hit the docks and began asking questions, the sailors and fishermen were quick