Sure, he thought. Tell that to Squirrel. Tell it to Chalk. Tell it to the other children they had lost. Tell it to all those who would be taken from them before this was over. He felt his throat tighten. How many more lives, he wondered, would his leap of faith cost?
He found himself thinking anew of the vision of the boy who would lead his children to the Promised Land, of the boy who would find a safehold where all could survive the coming destruction. A vision rooted in dreams, but not necessarily in reality. He had believed in that vision so strongly when he was waiting for it to come to pass. He had never doubted it, never questioned that he would be the one to do what it had shown.
For the first time ever, he was wondering if it had played him false.
LOGAN TOM PARKED THE AV at the lee of a long, low rise that snaked through the barren, empty land. When he was satisfied that it was safe, he climbed out to look around. The sun boiled down out of the cloudless sky, a ball of fire that had baked the surface of the drought-starved terrain until it was riven with cracks. From where he stood, gazing out across the flats, he might have been alone in the world.
Using the directions Cat had given him, he stood by the outcropping amid the wilted sage and measured off the twenty-nine yards north-northwest on his compass that led to the burial site down inside the shallow ravine. Then he walked it off, black staff held ready. On reaching the final steps, he saw where she had dug, the earth already beginning to harden anew in the heat. Chalk and the other children, all jammed together, less than three feet down. He felt renewed rage for the thing that had done this. A demon of the worst sort, a killer that enjoyed playing games with the helpless and unprotected.
But just another demon, as well, he told himself. One he intended to hunt down and destroy before it could take any other lives.
He thought suddenly of Fixit, another casualty of the madness that had enveloped them. Dead without knowing what had happened to his best friend. Gone in the blink of an eye.
He had sent Cat on ahead with the surviving bridge defenders, telling her to let Hawk and the others know what had happened, asking her to warn them to stay close together and inside the camp perimeter until this was over. She had refused at first, unwilling to leave him. But this was something he knew he must do alone, and he had told her so in no uncertain terms. She had been hurt by his insistence, but she would be safe. There was no room for argument.
They had stood looking at each other in the aftermath of his insistence, the silence between them uncomfortable, and then she had walked right up to him, put her arms around him, and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Don’t make me go,” she had pleaded again. “Let me stay with you.”
He relented enough to hug her back, to put his hand on her hair as he held her. “We’ve had this discussion,” he replied. “It won’t help to have it again.”
“There was no discussion. You told me what I had to do, nothing more. But you’re wrong. You shouldn’t make me go.”
“The others need to be warned. Right away.”
“You will be alone,” she insisted. “It’s too dangerous.”
He almost laughed, but instead he simply patted her head. “I’ve been alone for a long time, Catalya. I’ve been alone for more than ten years. I know how to take care of myself.”
She shook her head in denial. “Not with this thing. This thing is different. Worse than Krilka Koos or anything else we’ve come across. You almost died the last time. Do you remember who saved you?”
He backed her away. “I remember. Now go. Do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same.”
He turned then and walked away, ignoring her calls to turn around, to come back and stop being foolish. Before he was far enough away to miss it, he heard her crying.
He remembered it now. She was so strong, so confident in what she could do, but she was still emotionally vulnerable, whether she cared to admit it or not. It was in the nature of who and what she was. It was a part of being human.
He should know. When the bridge went up and the world exploded in fire and smoke, he had cried for Fixit.
He broke away from his reverie and began circling the burial site, searching for tracks. He found them easily enough; others would have missed the telltale scrapes entirely. There were several sets of tracks, all identical, but it was the ones that led off to the northeast in the direction of the caravan that determined his path. These were the ones that mattered. He had already decided that the demon would follow the caravan and its children, would continue to pursue its culling of those unwary enough to get within reach, always hoping its efforts would eventually bring Hawk out to face it.