Free Shade's Children by Garth Nix Page B

said finally, without her usual confidence. “Maybe the water…”
    “We’re a fair way from the Main Junction,” said Ella. “So unless we’re right next to the University Lake—which we shouldn’t be—I think we can assume that Shade was right about the Death Markers.”
    “Rest for a while?” asked Drum, though it sounded more like a firm suggestion than a question. He didn’t wait for an answer before leaning back against the tunnel wall, his knees bent to keep everything but his boots out of the water.
    Ella hesitated, seemed about to say something, then knelt as well and fumbled at one of the pouches in her belt.
    “I’d better take care of those cuts in your hands,” she said, rummaging in her first-aid kit for disinfectant and adhesive bandages. “We’ll rest for half an hour.”
    Thirty minutes later, she was standing on Drum’s shoulders again, pushing the manhole cover aside and blinking in the full glare of the noonday sun.
    Shielding her eyes with her hand, she did a quick 360-degree scan of the area, looking for any sign of creatures.
    But there were none. Not even Wingers in the bright-blue sky. No black dots cruising like miniature storm clouds.
    The manhole was on the side of one of the narrow roads that ran right through the campus. Here, the road was lined by centuries-old oaks that cast a shade on road and footpath.
    Behind Ella, the Great Hall rose above the trees, its stone walls, slate roof, and grinning gargoyles a strangely fitting setting for the Myrmidon Barracks it had become. But there should be no Myrmidons there today…no sentries on the steps, no banner bearers in the clock tower….
    Newer buildings rose up in front of Ella—ten or so, mixing the architectural styles of sixty years or more. She looked at them carefully, mentally matching them to the map she’d memorized back at the Sub.
    Shade’s old laboratory was in the Department of Abstract Computing, an ugly six-story block of gray concrete and mirrored windows. It was about two hundred yards away through the maze of mismatched buildings, twisting, narrow roads, hedges, and lawns.
    There was another building Ella’s eye lingered on, though it was not part of her mission. The University Regiment armory, a triangular sandstone building positioned at the edge of the campus. The Overlords’ creatures collected and presumably destroyed pre-Change weapons when they found them. But there were weapons locked away securely in underground armories, Ella knew. She had studied books and manuals on everything from machine guns to explosives in the hope of getting some one day. Even in the absence of creatures, though, she couldn’t get into the armory….
    “All clear?”
    Drum’s high-pitched reminder made Ella start guiltily. She answered by pulling herself onto the road, quickly tying her rope around an adjacent steel bicycle rack, and lowering it back down.
    Ninde and Gold-Eye came up first, using Drum as a ladder. Ella motioned them into the shadow of the nearest oak, just in case Wingers did pass overhead.
    Drum pulled himself up last, the rope straining. He looked about, then lumbered across to the shade of another oak nearby.
    Ella recovered the rope and joined him. Gold-Eye and Ninde looked at her expectantly from the other tree, awaiting orders.
    “That’s the building we want,” she said, pointing. “The gray one with the weird windows. Shade’s old lab is on the top floor. There shouldn’t be any creatures around, but we still have to be careful. If anything does happen, try and get back here and then return to the Sub. Just make sure you wait till after sundown to cross the Main Junction, so the Myrmidons will have gone. And try and stay in the shadows when moving here. We don’t want any Wingers dropping in.”
    “Pity we have to stay in the shade,” said Ninde, looking out at the sunshine reflecting from the windows, sparkling down through the leaves, lighting up everything so cheerily. “I’d like