Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [161]
The dark-skinned kid pushed forward and looked back at the others, blocking Logan off. “We don’t need him. He ain’t got nothin’ useful to offer us.
Ain’t got nothin’ but that staff. At least we got weapons. We can find out for ourselves about the Bird-Man.”
“Shut up, Panther,” snapped the slender girl with the straw-colored hair and the fierce eyes. She looked back at Logan. “Will you try to find him? Will you go to the compound and ask?” Straightforward and to the point. ‘All right,” he agreed. “Do you want any of us to go with you?”
He shook his head. “Stay here. Let me see what I can learn on my own first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll come back and we’ll try something else.”
He went down the stairs without waiting for their reply, his mind made up about what he was going to do. He had come a long way to find the gypsy morph, and he wasn’t about to give up on it now. The Ghosts meant well, but they would only get in his way if Hawk was inside the compound. His best chance of reaching the boy was to speak with the compound leaders. Assuming Hawk was still alive.
He got a block away before he stopped to throw the bones, unable to wait any longer to make certain there was still a reason to go on. But the bones formed up on the square of black cloth, pointing down the street and toward the sports complex that he already knew was serving as shelter for the compound members. He had seen it from the highway coming in and recognized it for what it was—another futile attempt by a dying civilization at staying alive, another false hope that protection from the world could be found by hiding behind walls.
He picked up the finger bones and put them back in his pocket. He wished sometimes he could find a way to convince those who lived in the compounds that they were inhabiting their own tombs. He wished he could make them see that there was no longer any safe place in the world, and that their best bet was to keep moving. But he knew that thousands of years of conditioned thinking was standing in the way of any real change, and the advice of one man wasn’t likely to overcome that.
He caught sight of some of the other denizens of the city as he went, their furtive, shadowy movements giving them away. Another would have missed them entirely, but his training and the magic of his staff revealed their presence to him. Mutants: some of them dangerous, some not. Some were solitary, some tribal, but the humans who had not mutated shunned them all. He wondered what would become of them in the future that Two Bears had prophesied.
He reached the compound without incident and walked up to the main gates, not trying to hide his approach. If he was to get anywhere, he must be direct.
Guards atop the walls challenged him when he came into view, and he stopped where they could see him, calling up his name and order of service. One of the guards, at least, knew what it meant to be a Knight of the Word and told him that someone would be right down. He waited patiently, studying the complex, noting its defenses. It was heavily fortified; its inhabitants would be well armed. An attack would have to be massive and sustained if it was to succeed.
Not that it wouldn’t. Eventually, they all did.
A small, metal-clad door opened to one side of the main gates, and a man stepped through into the daylight.
“Morning,” he called out, walking toward Logan. “I’m Ethan Cole, Chairman of the Compound Directorate. What brings a Knight of the Word up this way?”
His voice was flat and perfunctory, and his manner was brusque. There was no offer of anything to eat or drink, no invitation to come inside and rest, no small talk, and no time wasted. Get it said and get it done. It wasn’t difficult to get an accurate measure of Ethan Cole. He was perhaps fifty years of age, of average size and ordinary looks, nothing unusual about him, nothing odd. But he spoke and walked in the way of a man used to wielding authority. Logan had met men like him before. They were always the same.
Logan