Moth

CHAPTER TWO: THE WATCHTOWER'S SHADOW

CHAPTER TWO

THE WATCHTOWER'S SHADOW

Torin stood upon a green hill under blue sky, the villagers shouting around him.

"We will slay them all!" one man cried, waving a bread knife.

"It's time to kill the savages!" shouted another man, clutching a sickle.

Torin raised his hands and called out, his voice ringing over them. "My friends, calm yourselves. Please!"

Yet they kept bustling and shouting, and Torin sighed.

Five hundred people lived in Fairwool-by-Night, this peaceful village on the border of Eloria. It seemed every one of them now crowded the grassy Watcher's Hill.

The sun shone overhead, the air was warm, and birds sang, and yet a chill clung to Torin. He was back in Timandra, the sunlit half of the world, but his knees still shook and ice still filled his belly. Whenever he blinked, he saw it again--the dusky borderlands withering and fading into the blackness that lay beyond, the barren realms of night. Yana lay in the village temple now, wrapped in a shroud and awaiting her burial, but Torin could still see her glassy eyes, her bloodstained tunic, and the metal shard embedded into her neck.

He shuddered, took a deep breath, and looked down the western hillside upon the good half of the world. The village of Fairwool-by-Night, his home, nestled in a grassy valley. Thirty-odd cottages, their clay walls supporting thatched roofs, surrounded a pebbly square. A brick temple rose above the homes, a stronghold of the new Sailith Order that had recently spread from the capital. The gurgling Sern River flowed south of the village, its banks lined with rushes and wildflowers, its water mottled with sunlight. Several boats swayed, tethered to the docks, awaiting loads of wool for the capital. West of the village spread farmlands, barns, and pastures. A distant flock of sheep grazed like clouds in a green sky.

Home, Torin thought. A place of peace and greenery on the edge of darkness.

A small rye field rustled south of the hill, and a forest spread to the north. When Torin turned eastward, he saw the trees slide toward the dusk, the shadowy strip that still made him shiver. Beyond loomed the darkness, a stain across the sky. He could see the top of the Nighttower rising from the shadows, a lone sentinel, and wondered if any Elorians now stood upon that obelisk, watching Fairwool-by-Night. In all of Timandra, the blessed lands of sunlight, no other settlement lay so close to Eloria, the land of darkness.

We live on the very border of evil, Torin thought, a sheep grazing just outside the wolf's den.

Finally he looked behind him at the Watchtower, a stone steeple that rose from the hilltop. It dwarfed every other building in the village, even the temple, and battlements crowned its top. Torin had climbed the tower many times since joining the Village Guard last autumn. From its crest he could see for miles, past the dusk and into the night itself. For hundreds of years, the Watchtower had guarded the border of night. For hundreds of years, its guard had been peaceful.

And now a child lies dead, Torin thought. And now this peace is shattered.

He returned his eyes to the crowd of villagers. Farmers, shepherds, and tradesmen, they wore woolen tunics and leather shoes, and they clutched what weapons they had--sickles, hammers, and knives. Their faces were pale. Their eyes darted. Some shouted for vengeance, others for calm. One woman wailed that Fairwool-by-Night was too close to the border, and that the entire village should be uprooted and moved upriver.