He looked intently at Milo.
“Do you know that before they merged with my mind, they had no true understanding of evil? It was only an abstract concept to them. They understand it now. And more than that, do you know that they have never once, not in their millions of years, experienced the emotion of fear? Amazing. Now . . . Oh, yes, Milo. They know what fear is.”
He pulled Evangelyne so close that she could have bitten him if she wasn’t drifting on the edge of unconsciousness.
“And they fear me!”
Milo saw his black stone on the floor. He began edging slowly toward it. If he could get off one more shot from this distance, maybe he could stun the monster. A shot to the eye, the temple . . .
“You see this machine?” said the Huntsman. “This is the heart of their ship. That’s why I came here. This is a birthing processor. As the queens lay their eggs, they pass through this machine. Every single one of them. And as they do, they are exposed to something very special. Come look at it. No—leave that stone where it is, boy, and do as I say. Do it or I’ll snap her neck right now.”
Milo stopped moving toward the stone. He kept his knife, though, useless as it was.
“That’s right, boy,” said the Huntsman. “I’m actually glad you came here. It’s fate. It’s destiny. You, of all people, should witness this because you, of all people in the world, actually know me. You’ve been in my head and I’ve been in yours. You know what I am.”
“N-no . . . ,” said Milo.
“Yes. You know what I was, and you know what I’ve become. Now I want you to witness what I will be when my transformation is complete. Look into the chamber.”
“I . . . don’t want to.”
The Huntsman shook Evangelyne again. “Do you want to be responsible for her death? Will you force me to punish her for your weakness?”
Milo felt tears burning in his eyes because he knew that he had no choice. They’d tried. And they’d failed. Of course they had. They were kids, and this was a monster who had an entire alien race behind him. Milo hated himself for his stupidity, for his weakness.
For believing that someone like him could ever become a hero.
It was ridiculous.
Defeated and small, he walked over to the machine. He had to stand on his toes to look in through the glass. The condensation clouded things, but up close he could see what was inside.
There were two conveyor belts that ran continually, both fed from pipes that ran from the floor and exited on the far side to other pipes in the ceiling. On each belt were eggs. Small, gray-green, and speckled. They were half the size of chicken eggs, but there were so many of them. The belts rolled on and on without pause. But Milo knew that wasn’t what the Huntsman wanted him to see. Resting on a platform of solid gold was another, larger egg. This one was an inch and a half long, the size of a crow egg. It was not made of shell, though. This egg was made from the purest crystal, and a brilliant white light glowed from inside.
Milo gasped.
He recognized that egg.
He knew it.
He’d seen it in a dream. The Witch of the World had offered him a plateful of them.
“This is the heart of this whole ship, boy,” said the Huntsman. “That egg contains the DNA of the queens, and it has a hundred thousand sequenced genomes stored in it. Every one of those eggs that pass by becomes imprinted with one of those codes. If the hive needs a thousand drones, then the crystal egg imprints a thousand eggs for exactly that. If they need a legion of shocktroopers, they can have them. The eggs are imprinted, and the troops are bred in birthing pens. Everything’s there. Knowledge, training, the necessary skills. We can create any kind of army we want whenever we need it. All we need is the right molecular bulk materials. Minerals, water, and . . . oh yes, organic components. You don’t think your friends from the camp were brought up here as slaves, do you? The Swarm doesn’t use slaves. They are slaves, every one of them, bound to the will of the queen and the hive mind that is the combined brains of each queen on all seven ships. That’s why you can’t win, boy. That’s why no one has ever beaten the Swarm. They don’t conquer. They assimilate their enemies into the raw materials for the next wave of the Swarm.”
The truth of it was so horrible that Milo staggered and fell to his knees.
“That’s how the Swarm has dominated thousands of worlds,” said the Huntsman. He pulled Evangelyne close and sniffed her. A long, deep lungful of her scent. “Can you smell that? The perfume of magic. She reeks of it. Imagine what will happen when I add her organic material to the mix. Imagine what will happen when I force her to give me the secrets of the black jewel so I can bond it to the crystal egg. Can you imagine it, boy? You must have seen the beauty of it in my mind.”
“No . . . ,” gasped Milo. “You can’t do this.”
The Huntsman gave Evangelyne a final shake, and she went slack in his hand. As she did so, her wolf form melted away to be replaced by a girl who hung as if dead.
The Huntsman dropped her unceremoniously to the deck.
“Trash,” he said, dismissing her. He advanced on Milo and stood over him, ignoring the empty slingshot and the short-bladed knife. “But you, Milo Silk, you have promise.”
Milo raised his head and looked up at him.
“W-what?”
“A god needs worshippers,” said the Huntsman. “You have seen my majesty. You alone know what I will become. And, look . . . You are already on your knees. Worship me, follow me, and I will make you a prince of a new empire that will spread across time and space.”
Milo turned his face away, unable to look at the monster.
“Boy,” said the Huntsman, “don’t forget that I’ve seen into your mind, into your heart. I know what you want.”
Milo shook his head.
“Oh, yes, I do. You want your parents.”
Milo shot him a nervous look.
“Your mother wasn’t at the camp, was she?” asked the Huntsman, then answered his own question. “No. She might still be alive. With the resources of the Swarm, you could find her. You could keep her safe.”
Milo didn’t dare speak.
“And your father . . . You think he’s dead. Or you think he’s in some collection.” The Huntsman snorted. “The Swarm doesn’t collect, boy. The Swarm uses. If they took your father, it wasn’t to keep him as a pet or hang him on a wall. No. He was probably taken by one of the science teams. He could still be alive. Do you know that? Do you believe it? Alive and waiting for you to come to him. To rescue him. Would you like to do that, Milo? Would you like to be the hero that rescues your father?” The Huntsman paused as if listening. “I can almost hear him singing. It’s there inside your memories. Or . . . maybe I hear it for real. Out here, outside of dreams and memories. Or perhaps it’s here in a hive ship. You never know, Milo. I don’t know. Not yet. But if you join me, we could look for him together. And your mother. We could have a nice, happy family reunion.”
His voice was oily and filled with mockery. But Milo also believed him. Believed that this insane offer was genuine.
Could the Huntsman find Dad? And Mom?
Doubt gnawed at him with hungry, hungry teeth.
His lucky stone was across the room, lying by the door to the hall. It was achingly out of reach, sitting in a small pool of golden light. He looked at the knife he held. It was like bringing a peashooter to a fight with a tank.
“No one who’s ever lived has been offered so much,” continued the Huntsman. “Join me, and I’ll even spare all your friends. What are their names? Shark? Yes. And Lizabeth? I remember them from when we shared one mind. I’ll let you bring them with you. With us. I’m making this offer once. Now. Come with me. Be like me. Be something.”
The Huntsman placed his hand on Milo’s shoulder. Milo turned away and stared at the black stone. It was no longer bathed in light.
He frowned at that, trying to make sense of it.
“I know your secrets, Milo. You want to be a hero.
That’s noble. That’s a goal. You should be proud of wanting that. You came here, to this ship, to fight the entire Swarm. To fight me. That says something. It shows you have grit. It shows you have something special. But there’s no future in being a hero. Trust me. I had a chestful of medals. None of them made me a better man. None of them made me what I am now. A god waiting to be reborn.”
The words hurt Milo. Tears rolled down Milo’s cheeks. He looked away, not wanting to meet the creature’s eyes. He saw the glass dome of the machine where the crystal egg did its endless job of building the Swarm’s army. He saw the doorway that was too far away for him to run through. He saw the black stone, equally useless. He saw the slumped form of Evangelyne, her face bathed in light.
In a soft, golden light that seemed to come from nowhere. So strange.
So lovely in the midst of all this horror.
“All you have to do is drop that knife and stand with me,” said the Huntsman. “That’s it, Milo. Drop the knife. Show me that you are with me, and you’ll be more powerful than any hero who ever lived.”
Milo mumbled his answer. A broken whisper.
The Huntsman bent over him. “Speak up, boy. The powerful aren’t afraid to be heard.”
Milo raised his head and looked up into the face of the creature that was poised to conquer everything.
“Okay,” he said.
The Huntsman smiled. “Get to your feet and speak to me like a man.”
Milo struggled up. His body felt leaden and infinitely weary, but he slapped one sneakered foot against the deck and forced himself up.
“Now, say it again,” said the Huntsman.
“Okay,” repeated Milo.
“Okay—what? Come on, boy. This is a turning point in your life. Put some drama into it. Give it some importance.”
Milo took a breath, coughed to clear his throat. Then he looked up at the Huntsman. “Sure. You want drama, you big freak? How’s this?”
He screamed as loud as he could, threw himself at the Huntsman, and stabbed the monster in the chest with the little knife.
The blade punched through the stiff leather of a cross belt, hit the steel armor beneath, and snapped. The broken blade skittered sideways across the Huntsman’s chest.
The Huntsman laughed and seized Milo with his powerful right hand. His fingers knotted in Milo’s shirt and lifted the screaming, kicking, flailing boy into the air. Milo howled at him as loud as he could. He kicked him with both feet. He pounded on him with his fists.
With a bray of contemptuous mirth, the Huntsman flung Milo against the side of the birthing chamber. The resulting carooom bounced off the walls. Milo slumped down to his knees, his head filled with fireworks.
“Seriously, boy?” said the Huntsman. “Did you actually think you were going to sucker me with a toy knife? Did you actually think I’d let you this close if I thought you had any chance at all? How could you be inside my head and think I’m that stupid? Is that your idea of being a hero?”
Milo spat some blood onto the floor.
“No, you enormous whacko,” he said. “I wasn’t being a hero.”
“Then what—?”
“He was being a distraction,” said a voice.
The Huntsman spun around to see three figures behind him.
A teenager made of oak.
A sprite whose hair burned with soft golden light, sitting astride a hovering hummingbird.
And a pile of rocks in the shape of a boy.
“What—?” began the Huntsman.
“Mook,” said Mook.
And he punched the Huntsman in the face with a fist made of twenty-two pounds of marble and iron ore.
The Huntsman tried to evade it.
He tried to block it.
Instead he just got hit by it.
The punch smashed the Huntsman’s jaw and sent him flying past Milo into the birthing chamber with such incredible force that the whole machine canted sideways. It hung there for a moment and then it fell. The glass dome exploded into a thousand gleaming fragments. Hundreds of eggs smashed onto the deck, and the conveyors kept running, kept sending more and more of them into the ruined chamber. The belts spat them out and they splatted to destruction. Milo had been leaning against the chamber, and as it fell, he dropped down into the mess. He was covered in green egg yolk dotted with glass and pieces of shell.
Instantly, an alarm began that shook the whole chamber. It was even louder and more insistent than the one that had signaled the birth of the new queen.
Halflight flew immediately to Milo as Oakenayl hurried over to check on Evangelyne, who was stirring feebly.
“We need to hurry,” called the oak boy. “This place will be swarming with Bugs any second. If he can’t travel, then leave him.”
The sprite hovered in front of Milo.
“Milo! You saw my light!” she said happily. “You gave us a chance to sneak in. That was so smart. That was so brave!”
“Brave? I don’t think so.” Milo spat alien egg out of his mouth. He sniffed away the last of his tears, grinned through the muck and the pain. “I guess if I can’t be a hero, then being a nuisance is okay.”
He jerked upright and immediately hurried past her to where the Huntsman lay. The monster was dazed and semiconscious, but alive. It amazed Milo that anyone could survive Mook’s punch. It frightened him, also.
He fumbled at the pouch on the Huntsman’s cross belt. Evangelyne had tried to tear it open but succeeded only in damaging it. Milo undid the snap, dug his fingers inside, and pulled out the stone.
The gleaming, multifaceted black diamond.
He heard Halflight gasp.
The Heart of Darkness.
It pulsed in his hand as if it were a real heart. He could feel its energy. Its power. He closed his eyes and held it to his chest.
He never understood why he did that.
It seemed to matter, though. Way deep down inside.
“Milo,” murmured Evangelyne. He opened his eyes and saw her there, leaning on Oakenayl. Her throat was badly bruised and her legs wobbled. The oak boy, Mook, and Halflight looked at him, at the thing he held.
Milo opened his hand and stared deeply into the stone for a moment.
In that moment, he could understand why the Huntsman wanted it. Looking at it was like staring through a doorway into the entire universe. That kind of power was awesome to behold. To hold.
“That doesn’t belong to you. Give that here,” snapped Oakenayl, holding out his open hand. “Give it here and be quick about it.”
“Mook,” growled Mook, though it seemed to Milo that the stone boy’s comment was directed at Oakenayl.
Milo ignored them both. He extended his hand to Evangelyne, fingers open, letting the golden glow from Halflight’s fiery hair ignite tiny flames on each facet.
“I know this isn’t mine,” he said. “Here. This is yours.”
Evangelyne hesitated as she reached for it, as if she wasn’t sure even she should touch it. On the floor, the Huntsman groaned. She closed her fingers around the stone and did the same thing Milo had done—she pressed her fist to her chest over her heart.
The alarm kept blaring, and now there were sounds in the hall. Angry clicks and the scuttle of many feet.
“We’re out of time,” said Oakenayl.
“Then we fight our way out,” said Evangelyne. She morphed into the wolf. Milo did not know where the stone went, but this was magic after all. If she had it, then it was safe.
“Mook!” said Mook as he clanked his fists together.
Milo turned to the little sprite. “Halflight, you know we’ll never fight our way through the entire Bug army. Can you . . . ? I mean . . . is it possible?”
The sprite looked beyond weary. “A final glamour? Yes. I think I can do it.”
He did not like the way she said “final.”
“We have to try,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Then he stopped and turned and looked at the fallen Huntsman.
&nbs
p; “Wait . . . There’s something else I have to do.”
“We don’t have time,” insisted Evangelyne.
“You’ll get us all killed,” growled Oakenayl.
Milo ignored them as he approached the murderous monster who lay amid the debris of the conquering race.
The shocktroopers burst through the door, pulse weapons ready, eyes blazing, pincers clicking, ready to kill.
They saw the overturned birthing chamber that still spewed eggs.
They saw a dead drone lying amid the debris.
They fanned out through the chamber, searching for the cause of this disaster.
They fell back to allow the Huntsman—tall and powerful—to brush past them with a small group of armed guards in his wake. Not one drone or ’trooper dared interfere with the Huntsman as he led his troops along the winding corridors, into the loading bay, and up the ramp into his crimson ship. None of this was irregular to their insect brains. The Huntsman went where he wanted to go.
The shocktroopers didn’t even care about the destroyed birthing chamber.
Or the broken eggs.
Or even the conveyors that relentlessly dumped more unborn Bugs onto the ground.
No, their entire attention was locked onto a small golden pedestal that lay on its side.
Empty.
Seeing that, understanding what that meant, sent a ripple through them and then outward into the hive mind. Before encountering the man who would become the Huntsman, they had never experienced the emotion of fear.
Now they did.
And in that moment, staring at the empty golden pedestal, that fear blossomed hotter than the hottest flame. It was instantly shared by every drone and ’trooper, every subspecies, every queen—newborn or ancient—who dwelt in that massive hive ship. Forty million minds linked by a shared consciousness knew fear in that moment.