Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [65]
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THE GATES TO the compound had given way half an hour earlier, the once-men had poured through, and Findo Gask had waited patiently for the way to be cleared. His orders were clear. Everyone who resisted was to be killed. All of the sick and injured were to be killed. All of the old people were to be killed.
The rest, the strong and the fit, were to be chained together, but not harmed.
The children, in particular, were not to be touched. Prisoners were no good to him if they were damaged. Breeding pens and experimentation labs required healthy specimens.
Once shackled and lined up, the captives would be marched twenty miles east to the slave camp he had established two months earlier. There they would live out their usefulness.
He glanced over at the gates as the first of them appeared through the haze of smoke and ash. They shuffled ahead with their heads down and their hands clasped, and only one or two bothered to look up as they passed him. He gave them a momentary glance, then looked back at the burning compound. It would be looted for whatever supplies, equipment, and weapons they could salvage.
Everything left over, including the bodies of the dead, would be burned in the compound center. It would take all day to complete this task. It would take the rest of the week to pull down the walls and level the buildings. Findo Gask was thorough. By the time he was finished, almost nothing would remain to mark where the compound had stood.
Then he would march his army north and begin the process all over again with the compounds on the coast.
Except that he had done something different this time in anticipation of bringing his efforts to a swifter conclusion. With precise instructions, he had sent half of his army north two weeks ago to begin laying siege to the compounds of Seattle and Portland. While his half of the army worked its way up the coastline to San Francisco, the other half would begin working its way down from Seattle. Together, the two would form the jaws of a trap that would soon close on the last outposts of the Pacific coast.
In less than six months, it would all be over.
One of the lesser demons that served him, a still-too-human creature named Arlen, lean and stoop-shouldered and possessed of stringy hair and reptilian features, came through the gates leading two bloodied figures by chains he had fastened about their necks. Every time they stumbled, he screamed at them and yanked hard on the chains before allowing them to struggle up again. Bringing them to a ragged halt, he threw them down at his leader’s feet and kicked them.
One was a woman. Findo Gask waited. Arlen beamed in expectation of his reward, then realized he was expected to say something.
“These are all that are left, yessir,” he said.
Findo Gask nodded patiently. “Left of what?”
“Them that was guarding the children.”
“And the children are where?”
Arlen shrugged. “Gone. She took them out while we was breaking down the gates. Took them out some tunnels, says these two. The whole bunch of them.”
“The female Knight of the Word?” He spoke quietly, but from between clenched teeth. “She took all of the children?”
The other demon nodded eagerly. “Sure enough. Took ‘em all. Must have come in another way.”
Findo Gask picked up the length of chain knotted about the woman and drew her back to her feet. His eyes locked on hers. She was shaking all over, but she could not look away.
“Where did the Knight of the Word take them?” he said.
“Please,” she whispered.
He gave her one moment more, then snapped her neck and threw her aside. He reached down and yanked the man to his feet. “Can you tell me where they went?”
“Out the tunnels . . . that lead to the streets,” the man gasped.
One eye was gone and the other swollen shut. His face was a mask of blood.
“She told us ... this would happen. We .. . should have listened.”
“Yes, you should have.” He dropped the man in a heap and looked at Arlen.
“Where are these tunnels?”
Arlen shrugged—one shrug too many to suit Findo Gask. Quick as a snake, his hand shot