The Orphan Army (31 page)

They discussed the best way to go and assigned tasks.

Evangelyne went to the door, opened it, and sniffed the air. “No Bugs close. We should go now while we have the chance.”

They followed her out into the corridor, which was empty in both directions.

Around the far side of the left-hand curve, they heard noises. Evangelyne morphed into a wolf and ran quickly and silently to see what was going on. She returned just as fast and became a girl again. Milo wondered how many times he would have to see that before it stopped being amazing. Or creepy. He wanted to ask her what happened to her dress when she became a wolf but didn't think this was the right moment for that.

“The Bugs are already crawling out of their holes,” she said. “They're off-loading supplies. The prisoners are still in the locked compartment. Perhaps they'll take them out last.”

“Could you see if Shark managed to cut the cables? Is everyone free?”

She shook her head. “Only a few are. It is taking time to cut those cables.”

“Rats,” said Milo. “Shark will do it, though. He never gives up.”

“He's the fat one? The one who was with you when you fought the Stinger?”

“He's not fat,” said Milo defensively. “He's big-boned. And . . . yes. He's my best friend.”

“A friend is sometimes more important than family,” said Halflight. The other orphans nodded. She climbed back onto her hummingbird and buzzed near Milo's nose. “We will try to help you save your friends.”

“They're not
my
friends,” said Oakenayl. Mook looked at him for a moment, then punched him in the chest. Not hard, but hard enough.

Point made.

“Sorry,” muttered the oak boy, though it was clear he didn't mean it. Milo wondered how much fun it would be to run Oakenayl through a wood chipper. Then something occurred to Milo. “What do we do if we get the Heart back but can't get off the ship?”

Evangelyne answered that. “We know how to destroy the Heart,” she said. “If we have to.”

“Destroy it? But . . . but . . .”

“Better that than let the Swarm gain possession of it,” said Halflight. “Better for us to destroy the last link to magic than have it turned against us all.”

What she didn't say—what none of them seemed willing to say—was that if things got so hopeless that they had to destroy the Heart, then it meant there was probably no chance of escaping.

Milo's great plan had morphed into what was almost certainly a suicide mission.

They all knew it.

He pasted on his best game face and stuck out a finger so the hummingbird could land.

“Halflight,” said Milo, “I hate to ask, but—”

The sprite gave him a weary nod. “I can manage a few more glamours. But they won't last. And when they're gone . . .”

She didn't need to finish it.

They looked at one another, all of them knowing that this moment was the cliff they all had to jump off.

“For our mother, Earth,” said Halflight. “May we acquit ourselves with honor.”

“For Earth,” said Oakenayl.

Milo said, “For the Nightsiders.”

They stared at him. Then Evangelyne kissed his cheek.

“For the children of the sun,” she said.

Iskiel hissed.

“Mook,” said Mook.

They left the storage compartment, and as each of them passed through the doorway, they changed.

Instead of a girl, an oak boy, a stone boy, a fire salamander, and a human boy, they were a line of rust-colored five-foot-high cockroaches. Only Halflight remained in her true form. Her face was gray and haggard, and even her fiery hair seemed to be nothing more than tangles of sparks. She slumped in her saddle and let the hummingbird carry her into the hall.

T
he next few minutes were a strange blur for Milo.

He and the orphans hurried along the curved corridor until they found the place where the drones were climbing out of rows of slots in the metal walls. A knot of shocktroopers seemed to be directing their actions by shouting orders that sounded to Milo like clicks and pops. The drones turned around, formed a line outside of one of the storerooms, and began the orderly process of off-­loading all of the supplies stolen from the destroyed camp. Milo joined the line and when he entered the storeroom, he tried to hurry over and pick up a crate of rifles, but a shocktrooper shoved him back into line. The 'trooper had his shock rod out, and there were more of the Bug soldiers climbing out of holes in the walls.

Milo shuffled back into the line, picked up the box the nearest 'trooper indicated—which contained nothing more important than cans of corned beef—and followed the rest of the drones outside.

He lamented his previous plan. If it had worked, not only would the orphans have recovered the Heart of Darkness, but he'd have stolen a working Dissosterin ship. If he could deliver it to the EA—or use it to find his mother—then the resistance would acquire a powerful weapon. Maybe a game changer.

Now that looked a lot less likely.

The drones moved down the ramp and into a vast chamber. Milo almost dropped his bundle when he recognized it. They were inside a great dark shell of metal whose curved walls were so massive that they were nearly lost in shadows. The air was so humid that clouds hung in the air
inside
the hive ship. There was a titanic column in the center of the ship, and it rose through the clouds and shadows. Hanging from it, or perhaps growing out of it, were hundreds of thousands of leathery sacs of various sizes. Some were as small as duffel bags while others were big enough to cover an attack helicopter. Each sac twitched and throbbed as things moved within them. Drones and shocktroopers and other creatures. Hundreds of different subspecies, jostling with others for space, for food, for air. Long strands of gleaming metal webs crisscrossed the immense chamber, connecting the sacs to feeding machines and other equipment so obscure that even having seen them from inside the Huntsman's mind, Milo couldn't understand them.

However, Milo realized now that the robot hunter-­killers were not modeled after Earth insects, but were instead smaller automatons based on all of the dozens of living insect forms up here. And here, above and around him, he saw the true shapes of the aliens. The many, many shapes. Ten-foot-long wasps. Fiery-red ants the size of German shepherds. Ticks that were nearly as big as cars. Stick bugs as long as telephone poles.

And there were smaller ones, too. Smaller than the giants, but much larger than any insects on Milo's world. Teeming lice the size of mice; flies that there bigger than pigeons. Foot-long worms the color of old paste. Red-shelled beetles in their thousands, each of them larger than Milo's hand.

Centipedes with bodies as long as school buses writhed and crawled between all the sacs. Other creatures, like slow spiders of enormous size, climbed over the sacs, moni­toring them, adjusting them, and killing any of the Swarm that showed even the slightest sign of imperfection.

The walls were encrusted with countless bays and landings, with ships magnetically clamped to the hull, with smaller hives of a thousand kinds.

There had to be a million creatures up there.

No, tens of millions. He could see countless green lifelights pulsing in the gloom.

This hive was a world unto itself.

And there are seven of them
, thought Milo. Not an invading army. It was an invading population. In those seven ships was the whole of the Dissosterin race, and he was looking at one-seventh of them.

The chamber was as hot as an oven and so humid that Milo found it hard to breathe. He'd read once that insects grow largest in the hottest climates, and the hive ship seemed to take that concept and magnify it thousands of times. Beneath the false drone skin of his glamour, Milo was pouring sweat, and he stopped to try to catch his breath.

A series of angry clicks made him turn. A 'trooper was glaring at him, his shock rod raised. Milo did his best to scuttle forward the way the other drones did. He could feel the 'trooper watching him.

There was no chance to break the line for nearly fifteen minutes, as the procession of drones made several loops back into the red ship for more of the supplies. Milo began to worry that the glamour was going to fade. He kept looking around to see if Mook, Oakenayl, or Evangelyne was suddenly there with boxes in their hands.

They were not. For now the sprite's magic was holding.

At one point, on his fifth trip into the ship, another drone brushed against him.

“We need to get out of here,” it said in Evangelyne's whisper. “We're never going to find the Heart doing this.”

“I'm open to suggestions,” he whispered back. He wanted to find the captives as well, but that seemed equally as unlikely.

They picked up boxes and followed the line outside and, as if the universe wanted to finally cut them a little slack, a loud buzzer suddenly sounded from overhead. It shook the whole place, and Milo nearly dropped his bundle. Everyone—every drone and shocktrooper, and all of the insectoid creatures in the massive chamber, looked toward the gigantic central tower. One of the larger sacs was tearing open, and a creature was emerging. It was huge. The legs alone were thirty feet long and this had to be an infant.

A newborn monster.

As they watched, the creature shredded the leathery sac and clawed its way out. Its body was longer than a shocktrooper, but it had the same six-legged structure. However, its thorax was much bigger and banded with rings of bright scarlet and yellow. The monster crawled up the column, shedding the tattered remnants of the sac as it went. Once clear, it seemed to vibrate for a moment, and then its shell split apart and a huge pair of wings swept upward and out, the membrane glistening with moisture.

All around the chamber, the drones suddenly dropped their bundles and boxes, and the shocktroopers flung down their weapons as, in a mass, they bent and bowed to the ground. A chorus of clicking sounds—the language of the Bugs—filled the chamber like thunder.

It took Milo a moment to realize what he was seeing. This creature and the reaction of the Swarm.

This wasn't simply a new Bug hatching.

They had just witnessed the birth of a new queen.

Only four drones stood amid the sea of prostrate bodies. And far across the chamber, standing like a colossus in a sea of insects, stood the Huntsman. He was framed in the entrance of a side tunnel, and he stood looking up at the newborn queen. Milo couldn't see the monster's face, but there was something about the Huntsman's body language that spoke of an emotion other than blind adoration.

The Huntsman turned away and vanished in the tunnel while the masses still knelt in worship.

Had Milo been able to see the monster's face, he was sure he would have seen emotions the Huntsman wouldn't want the queen or her minions to observe.

After all, he'd been inside the mutant's mind. In his memories. And though he couldn't possibly remember everything in detail, Milo came away from the experience with the certain knowledge that the Huntsman did not care to bow to anyone. Or anything.

It was he who wanted the world to bow to him.

Did that mean he wanted the secret of magic for the Swarm or for some personal agenda?

Either possibility offered unending harm. Neither could be allowed.

Milo turned to the others and pointed to the tunnel where the Huntsman had vanished.

Suddenly, a voice spoke in Milo's mind. A voice he had not heard in hours.

I have whispered a horror into life,
said the Witch of the World.
I have helped birth a monster so that you may have a chance. Do not waste it!

Milo gaped at the exultant queen.

I cannot offer more help than this. Time is burning, and if you don't act soon, the world itself will burn. Now is your time, Milo Silk. Now.

Now.

And once more.
Now.
But that was like a fading echo in his mind.

“Come on,” Milo whispered to the orphans. “We have to go—now!”