Terry Brooks - Armageddons Children (The Genesis of Shannara, Book 1)

Armageddons Children

Book 1 of The Genesis of Shannara

By Terry Brooks

HE IS FAST asleep in his bed on the night that the demon and theonce-men come for his family. They have been watching the compound for days,studying its walls and the routine of the guards who ward them. They havewaited patiently for their chance, and now it has arrived. An advance party isover the walls and past the guards. They have opened the gates from the insideto let in the others, and now all are pouring into the compound. In less thanfive minutes, everything has been lost.

He doesnt realize this when his father shakes him awake, but heknows something is wrong.

Logan, get up. Urgency and fear are apparent in his fathersvoice.

Logan blinks against the beam of the flashlight his father holds,one of two they still possess. He sees his brother dressing across the way,Pulling on his shirt and pants, moving quickly, anxiously. Tyler isnt griping,isnt saying anything, doesnt even look over at him. His father bends close,his strong features all planes and angles at the edges of the flashlightsbeam. His big hand grips his sons shoulder and squeezes. Its time for us toleave here, Logan. Put on your clothes and your pack and wait by the trapdoorwith Tyler.

Your mother and I will be along with Megan.

His sister. He looks around, but doesnt see her. Outside, there isshouting and the sound of gunfire. A battle is being fought. He knows now whathas happened, even without seeing it. He has heard it talked about all of hislife, the day their enemies would find a way to break through, the day that thewalls and gates and guards and defenses would finally give way. It has happenedall across the United States. It has happened all over the world. No one issafe anywhere. Maybe no one will ever be safe again.

He rises quickly now and dresses. His brother already has his packstrapped across his back and tosses Logan his. The packs have been sitting in acomer of his bedroom for as far back as he can remember. Each month, they areunpacked, checked, and repacked. His father is a careful man, a planner, asurvivor. He has always assumed this day would come, even though he assured hisfamily it would not. Logan was not fooled. His father did not speak of itdirectly, but in the spaces between the words of reassurance were silentwarnings. Logan did not miss them, did not ignore their implications.

Hurry, slug, Tyler hisses at him, going out the door. He finishesfastening his boots, throws his pack over his shoulder, and hurries after hisbrother. The shouts are growing louder now, more frantic. There are screams, aswell. He feels curiously removed from all of it, as if it were happening topeople with whom he had no connection, even though these are his friends and neighbors.He feels light-headed, and there is a buzzing in his ears. Maybe he has gottenup too fast, has rushed himself the way he does sometimes without allowing hisbody to adjust to a sudden change.

Maybe it is just the first of many adjustments he is going to haveto make in his life.

He knows what is going to happen now. His father has told them all,taking care to use the word if rather than the word when. They are going tohave to escape through the tunnels and flee into the surrounding countryside. Theyare going to have to abandon their home and all their possessions becauseotherwise they will be caught and killed. The demons and the once-men have madeit clear from the beginning that those who choose to shut themselves away inthe compounds will not be spared once their defenses are breached. It ispunishment for defiance, but it is a warning, too.

If you want to survive, you have to place yourself in our hands.

No one believes this is true, of course. No one can survive outsidethe compounds. Not as a free man or woman. Not with the plagues and poisons inthe air, water, and soil. Not with the slave camps to take you in and swallowyou up. Not with the Freaks and the monsters running amok in cities and townsand villages everywhere.

Not with the demons and once-men seeking to exterminate the humanrace.

Not in this brave new world.

Logan knows this even though he is only eight years old. He knowsit because he is dreaming it, reliving it twenty years later. His understandingof its truths transcends time and place; he embraces the knowledge in the formof memories. He knows it the way he already knows how things will end.

He is standing with Tyler in front of the trapdoor when his fatherreaches them, ushering his mother and sister into place. Stay together, hetells them, glancing from face to face. Look out for each other.

He carries a short-barreled Tyson 33 Flechette, a wicked blackmetal weapon that when fired can tear a hole through a stone wall a foot thick.Logan has seen it fired only once, years ago, when his father was testing it.The sound of its discharge was deafening. There was a burning smell in his noseand a ringing in his ears afterward. The memory stays with him to this day. Heis afraid of the weapon. If his father carries it, things are as bad as theycan possibly be.

Jack. His mother speaks his fathers name softly, and she turnsand takes him in her arms, burying her face in his shoulder. The shouts andscreams and firing are right outside their door.

His father lets her hold him for a moment, then eases her away,reaches down, and flings back the trapdoor. Go! he snaps, motioning them in.

Tyler doesnt hesitate; carrying the second of the two flashlights,he goes down through the opening. Megan follows him, her green eyes huge anddamp with tears.

Logan, his father calls when he sees his youngest hesitate.

In the next instant the front door blows apart in a fiery explosionthat engulfs both his mother and his father and sends him tumbling head-over-heelsdown the stairway to land in a twisted heap on top of his sister. She screams,and something heavy falls on the dirt floor next to him, barely missing hishead. In the waver of Tylers flashlight he looks down and sees the TysonFlechette. He stares at it until his brother jerks him to his feet and snatchesup the weapon himself. Their eyes meet and they both know.

Run! Tyler grunts.

Together the three children hurry down the long dark corridor,following the beam of the flashlight. In the darkness ahead, other flashlightbeams and flickering candles appear out of other tunnels that join this one,and the sound of voices grows louder. He knows they all come from homes closeto his own. The tunnel was the joint project of many families, spearheaded byhis father and a few other men, a bolt-hole in case of the unspeakable. Quicklythe tunnels are packed, and people are pushing and shoving. Tyler, fighting tokeep Megan in tow with one hand while wielding his flashlight with the other,shouts his name and shoves the Tyson Flechette at him.

Logan takes it without thinking. His hands close over the cool,smooth metal of the barrel and work down to the leather-bound grip. Curiously,the weapon feels right in his hands; it feels like it belongs there. His fearof it dissipates as he cradles it to his chest.

Ahead, there is a convergence of lights, and a wooden stairwayleads upward. People are pouring out of the tunnel and up the steps into anight filled with flashes and explosions and the sounds of death and dying. Hecan feel the heat of an intense fire as he gains the opening. As he breathes inthe night air, he can smell the acrid stench of smoke and charred timbers.

He has just paused to look around, not three steps back from Tylerand Megan, when an explosion rips the earth beneath him, flinging him backwardinto the night. An eerie silence descends over his immediate surroundings.Everything he hears now is distant and strangely muffled. He cannot see atfirst, cannot even move, lying on the ground clutching the flechette as if itwere a lifeline.