Vault of Shadows Read online

  And there were still the old and the sick aboard the red ship. Milo saw movement over there, and through the haze he saw an old woman—Ms. Han, the camp’s assistant cook—lean out the hatch with a machine gun in her wrinkled hands. She began firing at the shocktroopers, the gun juddering in her grip, bullets flying everywhere and hitting nothing. One of the ’troopers whirled and fired at her, and Milo screamed as the old woman vanished in a ball of blue flame.

  We’re all going to die, he thought. Right here and right now.

  In his pocket he could feel the weight of the thing he knew the shocktroopers wanted most of all. The red ship was really only a secondary objective. They wanted the crystal egg. That egg, and the Heart of Darkness, which was now in the possession of the Nightsiders. The egg was crucial to the survival of the Dissosterin species, while the Heart of Darkness was the last known link between the Nightsiders here on Earth and all the infinite magical worlds into which most of their kind had fled. Evangelyne and her friends hoped to somehow relearn the secrets of the Heart of Darkness so they could open those shut doors—maybe to escape, maybe to call back others of their kind to help in this war and try to save the planet from the Swarm. However, for the Huntsman, the black jewel had a similar but much more destructive potential. He wanted to discover its secrets and open those doors—not to save the world, but to conquer all worlds and all dimensions, to use the Swarm to conquer all of time and space. The Huntsman was obsessed with unlocking the secrets of magic because the Swarm had reached a limit to their own technological growth. The monster they had created—the alien-human hybrid—was not content with destroying his homeworld. He wanted to be a new, dark god of the entire universe. Losing that stone to Milo and the Orphan Army had been devastating. Milo lived in terror of what the Huntsman would do to get it back.

  He will burn the fields of the earth and topple mountains to find you and get back what you stole. That’s what the witch had told him.

  So Milo had to ask himself what he was willing to do to stop these monsters.

  Barnaby groaned in pain and tried to raise his pulse pistol, but he lacked even the strength to do that. There was no choice but to try to use another grenade. Milo fished one out and showed it to Barnaby.

  “I have to . . . ,” he said apologetically.

  The Cajun’s face, though now gray with agony, twisted into a wicked grin. “You throw that thing and let’s all go down together. Booyah!”

  “You’re crazy,” said Milo, but he flicked the arming switch and hurled the grenade as far as he could. Then he pushed Barnaby flat and arched his own body over him, ready to shield his friend with his own vulnerable flesh.

  The grenade vanished into the smoke.

  “I want what you stole!”

  Milo scrunched his eyes shut, waiting for the explosion, maybe waiting to die.

  And absolutely nothing happened.

  Nothing.

  Until it did.

  Chapter 10

  What happened wasn’t an explosion, though.

  The grenade did not go off. Maybe he hadn’t pushed the switch all the way, or maybe it was faulty. Milo never found out.

  The shocktroopers kept advancing, their guns raised, their antennae clicking with the anticipation of an easy kill. Milo cracked one eye open and looked over his shoulder. Seeing the aliens, seeing their hideous faces, seeing the lenses of their glowing blue pulse pistols as each of them raised their weapons. . . .

  And then something rose up from the ground between Milo and the ’troopers. The scorched grass lifted and the dirt tore apart as something pushed up from beneath. Chunks of limestone and granite, slabs of fossilized trees, and splinters of shale thrust upward as if pushed by some giant hand. Pebbles and stones and rocks slapped together, grinding and twisting to form powerful legs, a thick torso, and huge arms, and a boulder as big as a barrel rolled up against the pull of gravity and planted itself between the ponderous shoulders to form a head. Blunt stone split apart to form fingers, and then those fingers clenched into fists like mallets.

  The shocktroopers skidded to a halt, stunned and confused as the figure of rock towered over them. They chittered in fear as they swung their guns up toward the impossible creature.

  The head of the rock figure split apart to create the jaws of a great mouth, and from that mouth issued a single word that was a challenge, a name, a threat, and a promise.

  “MOOK!”

  And then the rock elemental swung his fists at the shocktroopers. Mook struck one and tore it to pieces as surely as if the grenade had actually exploded.

  “I want what—”

  The tinny voice was cut off, replaced by the less mechanical but no less alien shriek of a dying shocktrooper.

  The other soldiers tried to flee, but suddenly they were blocked by a tree behind them that had not been there before. It was made of living wood and scorched chunks of the dying oak. Nestled beneath a wreath of flowers, leaves, and twigs was a face that was twisted into a mask of terrible rage and hatred.

  “What have you done?” bellowed Oakenayl as he thrust forward with hands from which long tendrils of vine shot like silk from a spider. The vines wrapped themselves around one of the troopers and then tightened like a fist, crushing the alien into green pulp. “Filthy parasites!”

  The last of the ’troopers snapped off a few wild shots as he backpedaled away. Then he turned and ran for his sky-sled, the Dissosterin speakers still repeating the same demand. Something dropped from the limb of a smoking tree and coiled itself around the ’trooper’s throat. Milo saw green scales marked with glowing red lines, saw claws and a flickering serpentine tongue, and then the ’trooper’s head burst into a fireball. As the dead Bug fell, Iskiel the fire salamander dropped to the ground and scuttled off through the brush, seeking other prey.

  Smoke swirled through the battlefield, but the tinny growl of the Huntsman was silent now.

  “Milo!” called a voice. High, female, and urgent. He turned to see a girl standing near the ramp of the red ship. She had long pale hair that looked almost silver, and eyes the color of a winter moon. She pointed toward the eastern sky. “There’s another drop-ship coming. It’ll be here in minutes!”

  “Evangelyne,” he yelled, “we have to get everyone out. . . .”

  The girl nodded and vanished into the ship. Mook lumbered after her, while Oakenayl stood staring at the burning trees.

  “I knew those trees,” he murmured in a voice filled with great sadness.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . ,” began Milo, but the tree spirit ignored him, snatched up a barrel of drinking water, and hurried over to fight the flames. Milo heard a snatch of the vile things he muttered as he went. Oakenayl said “Daylighters” exactly the same way he said “parasites.” As if he saw no real difference between the alien invaders and the human race.

  A heartbeat later Mook reappeared, and in his massive arms he held a metal-framed bed that had clearly been torn from the wall of the ship. On it were four of the most badly injured survivors. Mook glanced east.

  “Mook,” he said, then turned and ran into the forest. Evangelyne came next, leading the others out. Most of the survivors were in no condition to run, and the strongest had the weakest leaning on them for support.

  “Head to the bolt-hole,” yelled Milo, and even though many of the survivors were older than him, they didn’t stop to question his order. They shuffled off, moving as fast as they could. Evangelyne leaped from the ramp, changing mid-leap from an eleven-year-old girl into a wolf with silver fur. The off-white linen dress she wore, the leather belt, her shoes, her jewelry, and the small leather pouch that hung from her belt—all vanished. Milo kept meaning to ask her where her clothes went when she transformed, but there never seemed to be the right time for that kind of question.

  Evangelyne landed and raced ahead of the survivors, sniffing out the safest route. That left Milo in the clearing with Barnaby, who had lapsed into unconsciousness.

  “Oakenayl!” yel
led Milo.

  There was no answer.

  “Oakenayl . . . please!”

  When it was clear the tree spirit was not going to come help him, Milo stood, caught Barnaby under the armpits, and began to drag him from the burning camp. Barnaby was heavy, the terrain was not accommodating, and Milo ached from the shock of the blast. But he had to do the job or leave his friend to die.

  Milo summoned all his strength and dragged Barnaby into the woods.

  As the foliage closed behind them, Milo glanced up to see Oakenayl step out of the smoke and stand there. Watching him. Offering no help. The tree spirit looked pointedly at the twigs and branches covering the injured Cajun. Oakenayl spat a lump of sap onto the ground between them; then he turned away and stalked back into the smoke.

  FROM MILO’S DREAM DIARY

  Last night I had a strange dream.

  Stranger than normal, even for me.

  It wasn’t like any dream I’d ever had before. There were no aliens, no Stingers, nothing connected to the Swarm or the Huntsman.

  In my dream, I was awake and sitting in a big chair in a dark room, reading a book. It wasn’t like any book I’d ever seen before. The covers were of heavy wood and had carvings of all kinds of animals and monsters. And when I opened the book, I could feel the carvings move—but only when I wasn’t looking at them. When I closed the book and looked at the covers, there were different animals and different monsters. Little kids and strange birds, hunting cats and unicorns, dragons and trolls, and many other things. I didn’t know the names for a lot of them, because I was pretty sure they didn’t have names.

  No matter how long I stared at them, they wouldn’t change.

  That happened only when I opened the book and looked inside.

  Then the covers would move and change.

  I knew that I should be scared by that.

  I wasn’t, though.

  I felt something else, a different feeling.

  When those carvings were changing, when the animals and monsters were moving around, coming in, going away, I felt sad.

  So sad.

  Maybe it’s because the book was sad. Not the story. The book itself.

  Chapter 11

  Milo dragged Barnaby for what seemed like a year. It was probably not more than fifteen minutes, but it felt longer. And he was certain that it was all uphill, which it wasn’t. The pod leader moaned piteously, caught in the haze between agonized awareness and dangerous shocked unconsciousness. At least half the sweat that poured down Milo’s face was from fear of not getting his friend to safety in time.

  Then Milo heard the bushes rustle and he crouched, still holding the groaning Barnaby, and his heart sank. If it was a shocktrooper, he was done. He had no traps ready, no convenient alligators. Nothing.

  “Milo,” said a voice, and Lizabeth stepped out from between two wild rosebushes. She had moss and leaves in her hair, and her pale eyes were filled with strange lights.

  “Lizzie!” gasped Milo. “Barnaby’s hurt. Help me. I think there are more ’troopers coming and—”

  “Don’t worry, Milo,” said Lizabeth. “They’re gone.”

  “You can’t know that. They’re after us and we need to get Barnaby to the bolt-hole. He’s hurt bad.”

  Lizabeth stepped closer. Her jeans and blouse were stained with grass and pollen, and the side of her blouse was slashed open and soaked with blood.

  “You’re hurt!” Milo gasped. He reached for her but she stepped quickly back and shook her head.

  “No,” she said. Then she glanced down at the cut in her shirt and lifted the hem to show that the skin beneath was untouched. “See?”

  “Geez,” said Milo, relieved, “I thought you were . . . you know . . . I mean . . . Whose blood is that?”

  “Something died in the woods,” was all she said. When Milo pressed her, Lizabeth gave him the strangest look. Then she turned away and slowly knelt beside Barnaby.

  “He’s hurt bad,” said Milo, “and I don’t know what to do for him.”

  “He’ll be okay,” she said. “I brought something for him.”

  Lizabeth reached into a pocket, removed some items, and held them out to Milo. There were herbs and plants that he recognized from wilderness first-aid classes—calendula, cloves, garlic, and echinacea—and many he didn’t know. She even had a loose ball of spiderwebs and a few useful roots.

  “These will help,” said Lizabeth. “To prevent infection and reduce pain.”

  Her voice sounded strange to Milo. A little distant and a little older than the way she normally spoke. She’s in shock, he thought. It was sad, but it was also understandable. Right now, everyone had to be jolted out of their normal mind. He knew he had been.

  Milo carefully lowered Barnaby’s head and shoulders to the ground and squatted down next to him. He glanced up at Lizabeth. “You’re a lifesaver, Lizzie. How’d you even know he was hurt?”

  Lizabeth shrugged, but there was a pause before she did so, as if her mind was somewhere else. Without waiting for Milo’s permission, Lizabeth knelt beside Barnaby and removed the bloody compress around the spike. Then she pressed the herbs and spiderwebs carefully around the edges of the wound.

  “Give me your knife,” she said, and Milo drew his hunting knife and passed it to her. As she accepted it, her slender fingers brushed his, and Milo was shocked at how cold they were.

  “You’re freezing,” he said. “We need to—”

  “I’m fine,” she interrupted. When Milo protested, she ignored him and set about cutting a long strip of cloth from the hem of her blouse. Then she gently applied it as a fresh compress around the wound; it also served to keep the mixture of herbs in place. Lizzie reversed the knife in her hand and offered it handle first to Milo.

  Was she more careful this time not to make contact skin to skin? Milo thought so, but couldn’t understand why.

  Almost immediately the Cajun boy’s moans of agony diminished and he lapsed into a more natural and comfortable sleep. Even his color improved, going from a gray green to a faded pink. Not good, but much more encouraging.

  “Lizzie,” said Milo, “that’s . . . that’s amazing. Really incredible. Thanks.”

  She said nothing. Instead she got to her feet and walked a few paces away, looking back toward the camp.

  “You should make a travois,” she murmured. “If you don’t, he’ll die before you get him back.”

  “I don’t have time—”

  “Yes you do,” she said, her voice still distant and strange.

  Milo frowned. “Are you okay, Lizzie?”

  But Lizabeth didn’t answer.

  Milo wasted no more time. Making a travois—a kind of stretcher that one person could pull—was one of the thousand things they’d learned in survival class. Milo hated taking these precious minutes to make it, but he knew that Lizabeth was right. Without it, he’d never get Barnaby to the bolt-hole. Not alive. He set to work.

  First he found two long, straight branches. He had to use a piece of line wrapped around a heavy rock to snag the branches and pull them down from the trees. That took muscle and about a gallon of sweat, but Milo managed to break them off. They were each about twelve feet in length. Then he found two shorter branches—one four feet long and the other five feet. He used his hunting knife to strip them of leaves and twigs and any jagged knots. Then he lashed the heaviest ends of the long poles together to create the “foot” of the device.

  “Oakenayl’s not going to be happy with this,” Milo said while tying the knots.

  Lizzie said nothing. She watched him work, not helping, but instead running her cool fingers over the injured boy’s brow.

  Milo lashed the crossbars in place and attached his shirt as a sling. He used up all his own ball of heavy-duty twine, and some he found in Barnaby’s pocket. Then he quickly wove vines together and wound them about each joint for reinforcement.

  He could feel the seconds ticking away on the big warning clock inside his head. “Come on,�
� he muttered to himself. “Come on, come on . . .”

  When the travois was finished, the next part was quicker but much, much more difficult. He had to get Barnaby onto it. The Cajun was in and out of consciousness and was in terrible pain, but he was a practical young man and understood what Milo was doing. Just as he understood the need for speed and silence.

  “Gimme a stick, you,” he mumbled, and when Milo found one, Barnaby placed it between his strong white teeth and then nodded.

  “Lizzie,” said Milo, “get his other arm.”

  Lizabeth hesitated, then positioned herself opposite Milo.

  “On three,” said Milo, and then counted down.

  It was horrible work. Fresh blood darkened the bandage Lizzie had placed, and a strangled scream tore itself from Barnaby’s throat. By the time they had Barnaby on the travois and tied in place, both boys were panting and the Cajun had bitten all the way through the stick. Milo was flushed lobster red, and Barnaby was as pale as death. Lizzie was not breathing hard and was still as pale as a ghost. She merely stepped back and stood to one side, watching with her ice-blue eyes.

  Milo positioned himself between the two long arms of the travois, squatted, grabbed the bars, and straightened his legs. The physics of the travois didn’t make Barnaby’s weight feel like a load of feathers, but it made lifting and pulling him possible.

  Barnaby moaned softly.

  “You take one pole and I’ll get the other,” Milo said. When Lizabeth didn’t answer, he looked up.

  She was gone.

  He looked wildly about, but the woods were still and quiet except for the buzz of insects. Normal Earth insects.

  “Lizzie!” he called in a terse whisper.

  There was no answer.

  Milo stood and glanced around, but there was no sign of her. He studied the ground to see if he could tell by her footprints which way she had gone, but except for his shoe prints and those of Barnaby, the immediate area was undisturbed.

  “What—?” he said aloud, but then Barnaby groaned as a fresh wave of pain shot through him. There was no more time to waste. “Hold on, buddy.” Milo gritted his teeth as he picked up the handles and began to pull. It was still hard work, but it was easier than using sheer muscle. Soon Milo and Barnaby were far away from the battle site, the red ship, and the dead shocktroopers. All the while, Milo keep looking into the woods to see if Lizabeth had followed, but he saw no sign of her.