Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [132]
It was only an hour or two before dawn when her mother finally allowed them to stop. They had come through a pass and were on the other side of the mountain, and the camp and its horrors were left behind. They sat together on a grassy berm that provided them with shelter, facing west across a plain dark with night and a sky filled with stars. Her mother had abandoned the Spray sometime back, but she still wore her backpack. She stripped it off now and pulled out clothes and boots for Sparrow to change into. She was breathing heavily, and the blood from her wounds coated both the front and back of her shirt. She seemed unaware of it as she watched Sparrow change out of her nightdress, but her eyes were filled with pain.
“We’ll rest here until morning, little one,” she said. “Then we will walk west to the ocean. It will take a couple of days, but we will go slowly and carefully and watch out for danger.” She reached into her pack and pulled out a flechette handgun. “This will be yours until we reach our destination. Don’t use it unless you are in real danger.”
Sparrow listened and nodded, not knowing how to reply. Finally, she said,
“You have to stop the bleeding, Mama. You have to bandage yourself so it will stop.”
Her mother smiled and reached for her hand, pulling her down beside her.
“I need to rest a little while first. You should rest, too. We have a long walk ahead of us. Can you make that walk? Are you strong enough to walk all the way to the ocean?”
Sparrow nodded, staring into her mother’s clear eyes. “I can walk anywhere you want me to, Mama.”
Her mother squeezed her hands. “Then everything will be all right.” She sighed heavily. “I have to rest now. I’m very tired. Don’t forget, little one. I love you. I will always love you.”
She lay back against the wall of the berm, and her face was pale and drawn in the starlight. Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. Sparrow lay down next to her, pressing close, still holding her hand. She looked over at her mother’s face and thought how much she loved her in turn. She told herself that she would be strong for her mother and would not complain. She would do whatever her mother wanted her to do.
Moments later, she fell asleep.
When she woke, it was morning. The stars had gone and taken her mother with them.
* * *
“SPARROW!” OWL HISSED.
But Sparrow didn’t hear her. She was remembering her last night with her mother. Almost five years had passed, yet it might as well have been yesterday.
She would never forget what her mother had done for her—how she had carried her from the killing ground of the camp, entrusted her with a weapon to protect herself, told her where to go to find safety, and given her a chance at life. It was all her mother had been able to do for her at the end, but it was enough.
I will grow up to be like my mother, Sparrow had promised herself afterward. I will make her proud.
The words recalled themselves now as she stepped in front of Owl, holding the prod at port arms, her finger on the charging trigger. She would have preferred the flechette her mother had given her or the big Parkhan Spray, but both were long since gone. The prod would have to do.
“Sparrow!” Owl pleaded a second time. “Get out of here!”
Sparrow heard her this time, but ignored her, her eyes fixed on the giant centipede. She had already seen how quick it could be, how fast it could strike. Cheney had done well to avoid its jaws for as long as he had, and she was neither as swift nor as agile as Cheney. She would probably have only one chance at the creature, and she would have to make it count. She wished she knew something