Vault of Shadows (7 page)

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.

M
ilo 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.

No sign at all.

I
t was Killer who greeted them as they arrived at the bolt-hole. The little dog came out of the tall grass like a four-legged missile. He ran past another of the big chunks of debris tagged with the fierce demand of the Huntsman.

I WANT WHAT YOU STOLE

Killer ran right at Milo, tail wagging at full speed; then he jolted to a stop at the smell of blood. Killer sniffed Barnaby and whimpered softly.

“Get Shark,” begged Milo, and the little dog was gone.

Two minutes later, Shark and Evangelyne came hurrying through the woods. They bent over Barnaby to assess the wound.

“Oh, man,” groaned Shark, “this is really, really bad.”

It was only two “reallys,” which was of mild comfort to Milo. Three and he'd have lost hope.

Evangelyne lifted the compress and studied the herbs. A deep frown line appeared between her brows. “Where did you learn this magic?”

“It's not magic,” said Milo. “It's herbal medicine.”

Shark looked too. “Is that lobelia and
Epipactis
? Why'd you put those on there?”

“I didn't,”
said Milo. “Lizzie did.”

“When?” demanded Shark.

“I don't know . . . twenty minutes ago.”

Shark and Evangelyne stared at him.

“Dude,” said Shark, “what are you talking about? Lizzie's been at the bolt-hole for half an hour.”

“No she hasn't. I just saw her.”

“You can't have,” said Evangelyne. “She led the wounded there and hasn't left.”

“No way,” insisted Milo. “Look, that's a strip of her blouse.”

Shark touched the edge of the compress. Blood had soaked it so thoroughly that it was impossible to see the flower pattern.

“This is strange,” murmured Evangelyne. “That combination of herbs . . . that's very old magic. Lizabeth could not have known this. Maybe some of it is from your own herbalists, but not this.”

“And, like I said,” said Shark, “she's been here the whole time.”

“You guys are nuts,” growled Milo. “But forget that for now. C'mon, Shark, help me get Barnaby into the bolt-hole.”

It took ten careful minutes to rig another sling and lower Barnaby down. Mook was already inside. He raised his powerful arms to accept the burden and lowered Barnaby to the concrete floor with surprising gentleness. Then he climbed out to make room for the other
survivors to begin working on the Cajun. The bolt-hole was cramped with all the wounded refugees, so Mook, Shark, Milo, Evangelyne, and Killer stood outside. A few seconds later Lizabeth climbed out too.

“I'm glad you made it back,” she said, touching Milo's arm.

He wheeled on her. “What's going on with you? Why didn't you tell everyone I needed help?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, snatching her hand back in surprise. “We were waiting for you—”

“What do you mean, what do
I
mean?” snapped Milo. “First you show up out of nowhere with those herbs, then you take off without a word, and now I find you here and you didn't bother to send anyone out to help. And what's with your blouse? It was covered with blood and now it's not. What'd you do? Stop to do laundry? What's with you?”

Lizabeth stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language. “Milo, I—”

“You're allowed to be weird, Lizzie, but that was just mean.”

Tears sprang into her eyes and she turned bright red. Shark shifted and put his arm around her.

“Hey, back off, man,” he growled. “What are you dumping on her for? I told you, she was here the whole time.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come there's a piece of her shirt around Barnaby's wound?”

“A piece . . . ?”
began Lizabeth, but Milo snaked a hand out and tugged the hem of her blouse out of the top of her jeans. The fabric, which must have been washed, was completely dry.

“See? Right . . . here . . .”

His voice trailed off because the hem was intact. Clearly nothing had been cut from it. Shark, Evangelyne, and Lizabeth stared at him. Even Killer seemed to give him a skeptical and accusing look. Mook shook his head.

“Mook,” he said.