“Fine.” Emma hugged her knees and shivered. “It’s kinda cold up here.”
Milo had been listening carefully to Barrel’s words. He had known there was something wrong with Calista—some sort of pain buried deep inside. He still could not erase the image of the girl drying herself off in the bathhouse, and at times he felt ashamed at how he had dealt with the situation.
Calista took her meals in her bedroom and sometimes came out to spend time with Lily and Barrel, who seemed to be her only friends. She avoided everyone else.
Especially Milo.
They heard a low tap tap, like someone rapping fingers against a heavy box. A dark form scampered across the attic, beyond the wall of boxes so that all Milo saw was a fleeting shadow in the doorway.
“She was listening to us,” Emma said, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t like her.”
“Don’t worry about Calista,” Barrel said. “She’s just—misunderstood.”
Lily poured herself more cola. “Barrel’s easy to talk to because he blushes too much. Try it. Tell him he’s handsome and he blushes. He really is handsome, too!” She watched him, smiling as his face deepened in color. “See what I mean?”
“Stop it, Breezy. You’re such a child.”
“So are you.” She got on her knees and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. He pretended to push her away, but it was obvious he enjoyed the attention. “And don’t you forget it,” she added.
“You’re all just kids.”
The voice that had spoken was not deep, but it was slow and arrogant—the voice of a prince upset at not having been invited to a royal meeting.
A dark, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway. Then Milo saw that it was not a man at all—he simply looked like one because of the way he was standing, and because everyone else was sitting. It was Sevarin, and he was wearing a black cotton T-shirt and black sweatpants. His outfit, loose and baggy against his already deep brown skin, made him almost blend in with the darkness around him.
“There are some men with swords downstairs.” He glanced at Milo. “They’re looking for you and your sister.”
Chapter 28
“No.”
Emma’s voice came out a watery whisper. Her throat closed as though a hand had tightened around it; a cold, dead person’s hand.
They’re looking for you…
“We need to get out of here.” She jumped up and looked at her brother. “Milo!”
She had expected Milo to be wide-eyed with fear. Instead, he was glaring at Sevarin like he wanted to strangle him.
“He’s lying,” Milo said. “It’s just another one of his pranks.”
Sevarin’s face broke into a grin. Then two boys—friends of Sevarin’s from among the Humankin orphan population—popped into view behind him. One was a skinny black-haired boy named Sticks (because no one knew his real name since he’d been left on Ascher’s doorstep without even a note of explanation, clutching a stick in his infantile hand) and the other was a stocky, angry-looking kid with a shaved head and an earring. His name was Lano, and he and Sticks did pretty much anything Sevarin told them to do because he was a Sargonaut and therefore a hundred times stronger than them.
When Sticks and Lano saw the look of resentment on Milo’s face and the hot-cheeked look of rage on Emma’s, they chuckled and slapped Sevarin on the back.
“You almost gave ’im a heart attack,” Lano said.
“Oh, buddy, that was good,” Sticks said.
“Hey,” Lano said, “give us some of that Bara-pop.”
Barrel rolled his eyes but went and got two more cups.
Sevarin crossed his arms and smiled down at Milo and Emma. Colored lights twinkled brightly against his skin as lightbugs drifted between them. The room was silent. Emma could barely take it anymore. She struggled to keep from yelling at him.
“Just keepin’ you on your toes,” Sevarin said, “that’s all.”
And that was all it took. Emma exploded.
“GRRRRAAAA!”
She lunged forward, arms held straight and locked at the elbows. In a distant corner of her mind, a little voice said, You can’t hurt him, he’s a Sargonaut. But she didn’t care. Everything she had experienced until now—the death of her father, the kidnapping of her mother, watching her brother turn into an angry loner—had been building up inside of her, and now this was her chance to let out the pain and frustration and despair and maybe cause some damage to those who deserved it.
She should have listened to the little voice in her head.
Crashing into Sevarin was like running into a stone pillar. She really did crash, and the force of the impact sent a shiver along the bones of her arms, all the way to her shoulder blades and spine, eventually down to her legs. Sevarin didn’t budge, but Emma crumpled like a ball of tissue paper being smashed against a brick wall—and boy did it hurt!
Not in a million years would Emma have allowed herself to do what she did next, which was to cry in front of Sevarin. But the sobs just burst out of her. She could sense how stunned her friends were as she sank down to the floor and started blubbering. She cradled her arm to ease the pain of what was certainly a broken bone.
Milo ran to her side and held her. He looked up at Sevarin.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “She could’ve broken something!”
“Hey”—Sevarin jabbed his thumb into Milo’s chest—“she ran into me.”
Lily sprang to her feet. “Enough. Stop fighting, please!”
“Everybody calm down,” Barrel said, also getting up. “Let me take a look at her.”
All of the orphans got up and there was a loud, hollow clatter as their shoes moved over the floorboards.
“We’re not supposed to be up here this late,” Owen said. “Someone’ll hear us.”
“Everybody quiet.”
The voice belonged to Emma. With Milo’s help, she had risen to her feet. Her arm was fine after all.
“Everybody just be quiet,” she said, softer this time. “I don’t want us to get caught.” Then she looked up at Sevarin, who was much taller. “And Sevarin’s right. I ran into him—and it won’t happen again”—she looked him directly in the eyes—“since I plan on staying as far away from him as humanly possible.”
Pain flashed across Sevarin’s face, but only briefly. Emma caught the look but wasn’t sure anyone else had.
“Fine,” he said, crossing his arms again. “That serves me just fine, actually.”
Milo put his arm around Emma’s shoulder and pulled her toward the door.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s bedtime.”
The other orphans marched past Sevarin in silence. They avoided his eyes.
“Hey, this isn’t fair,” Sevarin said as Sticks and Lano joined the other orphans in filing out of the attic. “All I wanted was some cola!”
Chapter 29
Milo walked Emma and Lily back to their bedroom.
“Don’t mind Sevarin,” Lily was saying. “He’s like that with everybody. He’s harmless. Really.”
“He’s a bully,” Emma said.
Milo kept silent. He agreed with Emma. Sevarin was the classic bully, a boy who took his anger and insecurities out on those who were smaller and not as strong; basically anyone who wasn’t a Sargonaut.
When they arrived at the door, Lily turned with a flourish and smiled at Milo.
“See you in class tomorrow.”
“OK, Lily. Swood dreams.”
“What?”
Milo stood paralyzed by his own embarrassment. “Um—I meant to say ‘Good night’ and—but…”
She finished for him. “But you also wanted to say ‘Sweet dreams.’ So you combined them to form ‘Swood dreams.’ It’s OK. It happens to me all the time.”
He relaxed. “That’s good to near—I mean, know—I mean, hear!”
The girls looked at each other and giggled. Lily bounced a little on the front pads of her feet. “Swood dreams!” she said.
With
a smile that made her nose twitch, she turned and skipped into the bedroom.
Emma looked at Milo, covered her mouth, and stifled a giggle. It felt good to see her smile like that. As long as she was safe and happy, Milo felt he could endure anything. Even looking like a complete idiot in front of the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
Emma hugged him. “Good night, little brother.”
“Hey,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Just because you were born two seconds before I was…”
“That makes me older!” She darted into the room and closed the door behind her. He could hear the girls giggling on the other side.
Alone now in the drafty hallway, Milo felt a shiver spread across his back. His room was at the other end of the hall, past the stairs—close and yet so far away. The floor groaned beneath the weight of each step he took. He watched the closed doors on either side of him as he walked, just in case one should open.
At the hallway’s opposite end, a blue light burned on the wall next to Barrel’s door. Before that, to the left, was the door to Milo’s room. All he had to do was tiptoe as quietly as possible so as not to disturb anyone, and he would be in his warm, four-post bed before anyone could be the wiser.
He crept forward, keeping his eyes fixed on that ghostly blue light. The other orphans were so strange, especially Barrel. Milo had heard a rumor that the boy’s condition was known as luminether poisoning. Sometimes a Savant’s body is so sensitive to luminether that the cells begin to age dramatically. A rare genetic condition, and there was no curing it. He would live another ten or fifteen years if he was careful.
Gusts of wind pounded the ranch’s outer walls. Milo heard a sound from the other end of the hall—a drawn-out creaking, like a door being opened. Who could it be?
Elki.
He froze, thinking about the words Barrel had used to describe them.
Sleek, hairless dogs…bone spikes sticking out of their backs along the spine…rows and rows of teeth, like sharks, that could cut a person clean in half.
Milo inspected the doors on either side of him. To his shock, he found that one had been opened about a quarter of the way. The room beyond it was dimly lit, probably by a desk lamp.
Two heads jutted out of the opening and looked at him.
Milo jumped back, hitting the wall.
The door opened the rest of the way, and Owen and Gunner slid out into the hallway and stared at him.
“Milo,” Owen said in a whisper. “We thought you were something else.”
“Something?”
Gunner gave a frightened nod. Owen motioned for Milo to come forward. He spoke in a low voice.
“Spies. Assassins. You never know. The emperor has eyes and ears all over the continent.”
Milo felt a bit relieved. Spies and assassins didn’t seem half as bad as the Elki monstrosities he’d been worrying about a moment earlier.
“Oh, good. I thought you were going to say Elki.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say Elki? What do you want to know?”
“Actually,” Milo looked down the hall toward his bedroom door. He was thinking about his warm, comfortable bed by the window, where he could lie on his back and stare at the stars until he fell asleep. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”
Owen took a step back and nodded. Even in the near dark, Milo could see the boy’s frown of disappointment.
“No problem. Just thought you’d be interested in becoming an Elki hunter. We could always use more people like you. Savants are underrepresented in the guild. And demigods, especially…”
“The guild?”
Gunner was the one who spoke. “The Guardians formed a guild called the Steel Teeth for regular citizens who wanted to help out. Our goal is to hunt Elki out of existence, or die trying. You want in?”
Milo searched their faces for a sign that they were joking. They weren’t; both boys, still dressed in hunting fatigues, wore expressions of grim determination.
“Tell me more,” Milo said.
Owen put a hand on Milo’s shoulder and led him into their bedroom, which smelled like unwashed laundry and dried mud and grass.
The room was in a state of chaos. Clothes had been strewn all over the floor and the two beds. Half-empty bags of seed sulked in the corners. Bits of mud shaped like the bottom of someone’s boots lay on the floor by the door, as if the person wearing the boots had stomped their feet once or twice without cleaning up. A variety of crossbows, arrows, and leather vests and leggings spilled out of the half-open closet.
There were posters on the walls of giant robots wearing either red or blue armor and matching helmets with visors. The robots carried long, mechanical-looking swords. At the corner of each poster was a logo: Mecha Series. Milo had heard about them before. The military of the High Republic of Theus had been working on the Mecha program for decades, trying to create the perfect war machine. He wondered how Owen and Gunner had gotten the posters, since they were illegal in Taradyn.
There was a narrow bed on either side of the room. Owen sat on one and motioned for Milo to sit across from him on the other. Milo sat, feeling strangely comfortable and giddy, like he was about to be initiated into some secret club.
“So you want to know about Elki,” Owen said.
Gunner sat next to Milo. He held a small sack in one hand and was shoveling something into his mouth with the other. He offered some to Milo. They were seeds that smelled a bit like the herb spices in Italian-style pasta sauce. Milo took a handful and stuffed them into his mouth, keeping his eyes on Owen the whole time.
“There are three ways to kill ’em,” Owen said, clasping his hands together and leaning over them. “You can burn them, you can electrocute them, or you can stick them with an arrow or a knife made out of Tiberian steel, the strongest metal on Astros. It’s so strong that a Sargonaut, even one as strong as Sevarin, couldn’t break a small chain made out of it.”
A memory flashed in Milo’s mind of his father being stabbed by a dagger made from that same metal. He pushed it down and tried not to show his discomfort.
“That’s what they say, at least,” Owen continued. “Now, burning and electrocuting Elki is extremely difficult. You can’t just light them on fire or blast ’em with a lightning spell. The fire would have to be hot enough, and they’d have to be shocked long enough, to cause damage to their internal organs.
“Because, you see, their skin and muscle are nearly indestructible. Try stabbing them with a sword and the blade will snap. Throw ’em into a pit of red-hot lava and they’ll swim out, maybe missing a layer of skin, but not enough to stop them from attacking. That’s why you pretty much have to stick ’em with a Tiberian blade or arrow. It poisons them and kills them quick. You understand?”
Milo nodded and crunched more seeds in his mouth. A vision ran through his mind of himself, Owen, and Gunner sprinting through the forest hunting Elki like a bunch of mercenaries, wearing headbands, flashing Tiberian daggers, and inspiring legends across the countryside.
“So you just have to pierce their skin with this metal?” Milo said.
“Pretty much.” Owen rolled his eyes upward. “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”
“The armor,” Gunner said, popping a handful of seeds into his mouth. “Tell him about the weak spots.”
“Oh, right.” Owen nearly jumped off the bed. He stood over them, gesturing with his hands. “The weak spots. You can’t just hit them anywhere. Most of their body is protected by a thick layer of muscle that’s about five times tougher than leather, and there are only a half-dozen spots around their body where a blade or an arrow can go through. Mouth, armpits, neck, and groin—M.A.N.G., that’s how I remember it. Here, I’ll show you. Gunner, the diagram.”
Gunner got up, leaving the sack of seeds on the bed, and walked toward the closet. He had to step over piles of clothes and toppled weapons to get there. He was a funny sight with his wobbly, uncertain walk. Milo was confused as to how such a skinny, awkward boy c
ould be a hunter. But if there was one thing he’d learned since coming to Astros, it was never to underestimate anyone. After all, who would have thought that he, Milo Banks, would shoot a fireball from his hands?
Gunner came back with a large, rolled up sheet of paper that he unrolled and held against his chest. It was a detailed drawing of an Elki with lines and descriptions written all over it indicating areas of interest on the creature’s body. The Elki was every bit as ugly, terrifying, and revolting as Milo had imagined it to be—like a greyhound dog crossed with a Great White Shark, with a little bit of dragon thrown in.
Owen showed him the weak spots.
“Hey, Milo,” Gunner said, keeping the poster aloft. “Mind helping me out with those seeds?”
“Sure thing.” Milo lifted the sack and poured a healthy serving into his mouth.
“Fenk oo,” Gunner said, crunching them into a mash.
They moved on to the weapons, allowing Gunner to rest his arms. The weapons were meant to give Milo an idea of the different hunting methods one could use. They were not real weapons but replicas made of plastic with blunted wooden tips. The swords had been carved from wood and painted to look like steel. Ascher didn’t allow real weapons inside the ranch—aside from his soldiers, of course—and it took Owen and Gunner months to convince him to allow fakes made from wood and plastic.
Milo was impressed at how realistic they were. Owen and Gunner had created the moulds themselves, and had poured in the plastic and carved the wooden blades in their spare time. They were serious about Elki hunting, which left one question burning in Milo’s mind.
“So, have you guys ever killed an Elki?”
Gunner looked at Owen, who turned his gaze down to the floor. The question seemed to drain all the confidence out of him.
“What’s the matter?”
Owen gave him a sideways look, as if he wasn’t sure Milo could handle the truth.
“You won’t believe me, just like everyone else.”
Milo leaned forward and looked Owen straight in the eyes. “Tell me.”
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 17
