The Orphan Army (27 page)

“This is our world too, Milo Silk,” said Halflight. “Even when humans crowded us out, we still loved this world. We loved it first and we will always love it. Some of us do not want to leave it.”

“Even now, when it is being torn apart,” said Oakenayl, nodding.

“Even now,
because
it is being torn apart,” corrected Evangelyne. “It would be like betraying a friend who needs you. It would be like leaving our mother to die alone because we did not care enough to protect her.”

They all looked sad and weary. Mook clanked his rocky fists together.

“Mook,” he said glumly.

“Besides,” said the wolf girl, “now, even if we wanted to, we can't.”

“Why not?” asked Milo gently.

“There was a time when all doors were open to those who knew how to find them. We had keepers—door wardens—­who guarded those doors,” explained Evangelyne. “They knew the secrets of moving between worlds. Your people destroyed many of those keepers.”

“How?”

“Maybe they didn't know that's what they were doing. Doorways are hidden, and the wardens aren't exactly like sentries standing guard. Not in the way you think. A keeper might have been a certain tree planted from a magical seed. Or a waterfall whose waters were snow pure. Or a circle of twigs that the wind could not blow away. Each was placed there using great magicks.”

“Old magicks,” said Halflight. “Magicks the like of which have mostly faded from the world. The faerie folk knew some of them. So did we sprites and water witches and dryads. Each of our kind had their own special magic, and there were magicks known only to the oldest and wisest of us.”

“What happened?”

Oakenayl ground his teeth. “Forests were cleared to build cities. Mountains were leveled to make roads. Waterways became polluted, and the spirits within them sickened and died. That's what happened.”

“Oh,” said Milo, deeply sorry that he'd asked.

“Our elders—parents and others who tended to the youngest of us,” said Evangelyne, “tried their best to push back. Some even lived among you, blending in, trying to influence you to be kinder to the world in which we all lived. Sometimes they succeeded. Many times they failed. With each new failure, they became more disillusioned and sent more and more of us away into shadow worlds.”

“Not all of us left,” said Halflight.

“Some of us didn't want to go,” said Oakenayl. “Some of us wanted to stay here and fight back.”

“Against the aliens?” asked Milo.

“Against you.”

“Oh.”

Evangelyne said, “My mother and aunts stayed to fight the Bugs. So did Oakenayl's father and Mook's whole family. We're here because they stayed.”

“The Nightsiders fought against the aliens?”

Evangelyne paused. “We started to, but then the Huntsman came.”

Milo swallowed hard.

“We believe he was created to hunt us down,” said Halflight. “That was part of a prophecy.”

“From the witch?”

“Yes. Evangelyne's mother had a dream a few months ago. A dark dream filled with horrors. The Huntsman and his pack came the very next day, and with them legions of shocktroopers.”

“What happened?”

“Whole forests burned,” said Evangelyne. “Mountains were torn down to find the Nightsiders. The Huntsman set traps, and he threw the full weight of the Swarm against us.”

There was a dreadful silence.

“I never saw my mother again,” said the wolf girl. “I never saw another of my kind again.”

“Nor I,” said Oakenayl.

“Mook.”

“I . . . I'm so sorry,” said Milo.

They sat together in wretched silence.

Into the silence, Evangelyne spoke. She raised her head and in that moment truly did look older, more majestic. More powerful and far more dangerous.

“The orphans of that slaughter found one another,” she said. “We formed an army. We are going to fight back. Today we tried to lay a trap for the Huntsman. To get back the Heart of Darkness and to claim revenge for what that
monster
has done.”

Her eyes faltered and fell away.

“But we failed. The Huntsman lives . . . and the Heart of Darkness is lost.”

A horrible thought blossomed in Milo's mind. “Wait. Today . . . you tricked the Huntsman into coming down and chasing you?”

She nodded. “We tried. We let ourselves be seen. We know he's trying to find Nightsiders for capture and study. To use us to unlock the secrets of the Heart.”

“Yeah, I get that,” said Milo sharply, “but did you deliberately set your trap near our camp?”

Evangelyne said nothing, but her eyes grew wide as the implications sank in. Mook looked down at his rocky fists; even Oakenayl turned away as if ashamed.

“We thought the Huntsman would come down with a few shocktroopers,” said Evangelyne, barely able to look at him. “We never—
ever
—thought the Swarm would send an entire assault force. We . . . did not know they would attack your camp.”

“Didn't know or didn't care?” asked Milo bitterly.

No one answered him.

He sniffed and wiped tears from his eyes. “Everyone I know is probably dead,” he said softly. “All of my friends. Everyone. Maybe even my mom, if she came back while the Bugs were still there.”

He buried his face in his hands and wept.

H
e cried for a long time. Grief was like a knife stuck deep in his chest. Halflight came and sat on his shoulder. After a while Mook placed a heavy hand on Milo's back.

“Mook,” he said sadly.

Evangelyne touched the tears on Milo's cheeks and then stared at the wetness on her own fingers. There were tears in her eyes too.

Finally Milo pulled himself back from his pain. He knew that he would have to plunge into that icy water again, but not now. Not now. There was too much to do. He wiped his face on his sleeve and blinked his eyes clear.

“You're trapped here now?” asked Milo thickly. “On this world?”

“Yes.”

“And all your parents are gone?”

“Yes.”

“Like mine.”

Evangelyne gazed at him with her pale eyes. “Yes.”

“Look . . . I need to tell you guys something, but I have a couple questions first, okay?”

“We didn't bring you here to interrogate us,” said Oakenayl.

Milo looked him straight in the eye. “Who cares? You guys are in trouble, and so am I. You guys lost everyone you loved, and so did I. You guys have some powers and some knowledge . . .
so do I
. Maybe we should, I don't know, work together? Am I the only one who doesn't think that's a bad idea?”

Oakenayl snapped his mouth shut and glared.

That was fine with Milo. He could deal with glares.

Halflight and Evangelyne exchanged a brief look.

“What are your questions?” asked the sprite.

Milo took a breath. “That pyramid—what was it? Was that one of those doorway things?”

“It was a door warden,” corrected Halflight. “It protected the last known door to the worlds of shadows. As long as it remained, all that was required was for us to unlock the spells that would open it.”

“Could you?”

“Yes. We all know the spell of opening.”

“Good, then all we need to do is rebuild the pyramid, right? I mean, you guys seem like you can do magic, right?”

The tree boy almost smiled. “Can you build a kite?”

“Sure. Everyone knows how to—”

“Can you build a spaceship?”

“Um . . . no.”

“It's like that,” explained Evangelyne.

“Oh. Ouch.”

“If it were that easy, we would be doing it already,” said Halflight. “The door warden was constructed with magicks. Very old and immensely complicated. It took some of the most powerful Nightsiders a year, from winter solstice to winter solstice, to complete the ritual of making.”

“Oh.”

“There is one slight hope, though,” said the sprite. “All great spells are recorded in case there is ever a disaster. In case the magic needs to be redone.”

“Great! Where's that stuff kept?”

Evangelyne sighed. “The secrets were recorded in the Heart of Darkness,” she said.

Milo bent forward and banged his forehead on the table. Twice.

“We have some magic,” explained Halflight, “but like all things, there are levels and levels of it. I can do some simple spells, a few glamours, cast a few brief illusions.”

“Illusions?”

“Yes,” said a very tall, exceptionally beautiful red-haired woman who appeared out of absolutely nowhere. Milo jumped out of his chair. The woman turned into a silver-maned unicorn, who winked and then vanished. In its place was the little sprite on her hovering hummingbird. “They are illusions. You see them, but there is nothing actually there.”

“How long do they last?”

“A few minutes at most. I am getting better at it, but so far . . . they are fleeting phantoms. And they require much of me,” she said wearily. “Mostly I can create fireworks. My mother, though, she was very old and very powerful. She could transform dust into living creatures. She could take a handful of straw, throw it into the air, and turn it into an eagle.
That's
magic.”

Milo grunted. The demonstration of Halflight's powers had planted a tiny seed of an idea in his mind. “What else can you guys do?”

“None of us are as powerful as our elders,” said Evangelyne. “I become a wolf, but that wolf is only a wolf. It's not stronger than a regular wolf except that I heal faster and my senses are a little sharper. Lycanthropy doesn't come with any other special powers.”

Milo looked at Oakenayl. “How about you? I saw you torn apart and now you're all together. That's got to be serious magic.”

“I'm a wood spirit,” said the oak boy. “Even this body is not who I really am. I can inhabit some growing plants. If they're destroyed, then I abandon the debris.”

“So you can't die?” When the oak boy didn't answer, Milo looked at Halflight. “Can he?”

“Don't answer—” began Oakenayl, but the sprite ignored him.

“Yes, he can,” said Halflight. “Fire will destroy any of us except Iskiel.”

“Wait . . . Iskiel. That's what you called the big salamander,” Milo said to Evangelyne. “What happened to him? He's not dead, is he?”

“No, but he was hurt. His body was destroyed, so he let it burn. He's like a phoenix in a way. It'll take him a few hours to make a new one.”

“Wow. Can he be killed at all?”

“Why are you telling this boy our secrets?” demanded Oakenayl. “He's the enemy. He's of the sun.”

Evangelyne stiffened with anger and turned on the oak boy. “Because, Oakenayl, son of Ghillie Dhu, this boy stood with us in battle. He risked his life for us.”

The wood spirit made a disgusted noise and turned half away.

“And,” said Halflight, buzzing over to land on his shoulder, “because the Witch of the World has clearly put her mark on him. I can see it in his aura. She speaks to him in his dreams. And in one of those dreams, Evangelyne revealed her true name. How are those things the signs of an enemy?”

Oakenayl glanced at her, and Milo could see the doubt in his eyes.

In the ensuing silence, Milo asked, “The Heart of Darkness . . . what does it look like? I mean . . . is it a small black jewel?”

They stared at him, mouths opened.

“Cut like a diamond with a bunch of facets?”

They gaped.

He held his fingers two inches apart. “About this big?”

Oakenayl moved like lightning and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Mook rose and cocked a rocky fist. Even Halflight seemed to glow brighter, as if ready to blast him.

Evangelyne was the only one who spoke. Her voice was low and threatening and far more wolflike than ever.

“How do you know what the Heart looks like?”

Despite the scowls and obvious threats around him, Milo managed to paste on a smile.

“Because I've seen it,” he said. “I know where it is.”