Terry Brooks - Armageddon’s Children

He hesitated, and then repeated, "I take you for my wife."

"And I take you for my husband," she replied.

He held her gaze. "I don't want them to throw us from the walls. I don't want them to put their hands on us."

She nodded. "I know."

His hand tightened over hers. "I want us to jump."

She stared at him, transfixed. "Jump?"

"Before they can throw us off. Before they can touch us. I want us to do it on our own. I want us to be free when we go over."

She started to say something, but the words seemed locked in her throat.

There were fresh tears in her eyes. "I don't think I can do that," she whispered.

He looked out to where birds were winging their way across the color–streaked sky. One of them, he thought, might be his namesake. He wanted to fly, to soar above everything, to lift away to somewhere he could never be reached.

He took a deep breath. No rescue was at hand. No one was coming. To one side, four of the guards were clustered around the compound Chairman, a man named Cole who had told Hawk earlier that he was sorry about what was going to happen, but hadn't meant it. The men were whispering and glances were being cast in their direction. They were getting ready to carry out the sentence.

He looked back at Tessa. "Now," he said.

Her hand locked tight on his wrist. "I can't."

"I love you, Tessa," he said.

"I love you, too." Her head lowered into shadow. "But I can't."

"Just don't look. Just hold on to me."

They were too late. The guards were coming toward them, grim–faced in the failing light. Hawk started to his feet, tried to pull Tessa up with him, but she refused to follow, sitting where she was, crying softly. The guards seized them by their shoulders, yanked them to their feet, and began walking them forward.

"Don't do this," Hawk pleaded, glancing from face to face, and then in desperation back at Cole, who stood watching impassively. "Cowards!" he screamed at them.

No one responded to him. He looked around wildly. Was there really no one coming? His mother's words recalled themselves anew. Trust in me. His free hand went to his pocket and closed about the bones.

Then they were at the edge of the wall, the world spread away below them in a vast, shadow–streaked carpet, the distant horizon crimson with the sunset.

Behind them, Cole spoke sharply, words that sounded more guttural than human.

Hawk tried to break free, then tried to reach Tessa, but his captors held him tightly. He caught a quick glimpse of her stricken face as she sagged against the hands holding her. He tried to speak her name, but the word lodged in his throat.

Then the hands gave them a hard shove and together they went tumbling into the void.

ON THE ROOFTOP of the building the Ghosts once had called home, Sparrow took a last look around. Acting as the legs and eyes of Owl, she performed a quick check of the catchments to make certain the necessary pieces had been dismantled and carried away. The others were down in the street and heading for the freeway, Bear pulling the heavy cart, Chalk and Fixit carrying the Weatherman on a litter, River pushing Owl in her wheelchair, Candle and Squirrel carrying packs and armfuls of supplies, and Cheney watching over them all.

She had volunteered to stay behind for a last look around and would catch up to them when she was satisfied.

She brushed at her ragged thatch of hair and looked south toward the compound, wondering if the Knight of the Word had reached Hawk yet. Somehow, she believed, he would find a way. She searched for movement through the shadows that draped the dark structure and listened for revealing sounds. But she saw and heard nothing. The sunset splashed across the metal and stone surfaces of the compound, a vivid and garish crimson. She didn't like the look of that light. She didn't like how it made her feel.

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.