Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [92]
So much had gone wrong that it was difficult for her to imagine anything going right. The Word had once held the upper hand in this battle, but now everything favored the Void. How could that have happened when everyone had been warned of the possibility and the need to guard against it? The answer was simple, of course. Not enough of those warned had believed.
She turned her small charges over to those waiting, standing back while they were loaded into the trucks. She took a moment to look back at the city, searching for any indication of a pursuit. But she saw only the encroaching shroud of nightfall. She imagined she could still hear the cries of the wounded and dying, but she knew by now that she was only hearing them in her mind. She wished she could find a way to shut those cries out, to silence them. But she knew from experience that she couldn’t.
The trucks were loaded and beginning to pull away. They were old and jerry-rigged and ran on batteries that were solar-charged. They would convey the children far enough to get them clear of the city, but not much farther. It was four hundred miles to San Francisco, and that was too far to walk. The batteries would have to be replaced or recharged. She hoped some thought had been given to this in her absence. She hoped preparations had been made. But there was nothing she could do about it now. Too tired to think further on the matter, she climbed into the back of the last of the trucks, curled up in a corner, and quickly fell asleep.
* * *
SHE SURVIVED A fitful night of rough road bounces and grinding truck noises amid the small distressed sounds from the children who shared her quarters. The cessation of the truck’s movement coupled with the sudden stillness woke her at daybreak. She was stiff and sore and, for a moment, disoriented. She had been dreaming of the compounds and the assault of the oncemen. The sights and sounds of battle were still fresh in her mind, a wild mix of horror-inducing struggles that left the smell of death thick and pungent in her nostrils. It felt as if it had just happened, and she had just escaped it.
She climbed down from the truck, greeted a few of the guerrillas who came up to her, and waved good morning to Helen Rice, who was already organizing into groups the children she had brought out of the Anaheim compound. Angel stood watching for a moment, filled with a sense of sadness she could not dismiss. It was all so futile, so hopeless. They were saving these children for what? For a chance to live? But what sort of chance were they going to be given if nothing in the larger picture changed?
They were in the guerrilla camp now, a wooded refuge that allowed entry and exit from several directions and could be watched over from a dozen high points close at hand. The defenders were heavily armed and organized. She did not think they would be caught off guard, but did not intend to linger long enough to test the possibility. By midday, they would be traveling north to wherever she decided they must go. They would do so because she was certain that the old man was coming after them with his armies and his weapons and his insatiable lust to see them destroyed.
Or, more particularly, to see her destroyed.
She thought about that for a moment, walking away from the encampment, moving back into the trees where she could be alone to think. The real target of his efforts, of this hunter of Knights of the Word, was herself. His purpose as a servant of the Void was to eliminate all of the remaining Knights, and she was likely one of the last. Her battle with that female demon today demonstrated how intent the old man was on finding and eliminating her. He would not stop because today’s attack had failed. He would come after her again, from a different direction perhaps,