Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [178]
Then, suddenly, there was a bright flash near the top of the walls, a soundless explosion that she would have missed entirely had she blinked. She stared fixedly, searching for its source, waiting for it to reappear, but nothing else happened. Had she imagined it?
Her brow furrowed. She didn’t think so. She didn’t make those kinds of mistakes.
She turned away, finished her survey of the dismantled catchments and pilfered purification supplies, decided she was done, and moved toward the stairs. She was almost there when something out on the water caught her eye. She stopped where she was and stared. Hundreds of small lights had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, all across the mouth of the bay, drifting in off the sound. For a second she didn’t know what she was looking at, and then suddenly it registered.
Lights. Torches and lamps were burning on the decks and masts of hundreds of boats.
She blinked. Why were all these boats here?
Then, as she puzzled it through, she heard the first faint booming of the drums, a steady cadence that signaled clearly the purpose of the inhabitants of the boats.
It was an invasion.
She took only a moment more to let the realization of what was happening sink in, and then she began to run.
* * * * * * * *
Armageddon’s Children ends here. The story continues in The Elves of Cintra.
Table of Contents
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Chapter TWENTY-NINE