Moth

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: OLD GHOSTS

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

OLD GHOSTS

The gateway loomed above him, carved of indigo bricks, their facades sporting golden reliefs of moons and stars. The walls towered above Torin, a hundred feet tall, ending with battlements scarred and smashed by war. The doorways, forged of bronze, lay shattered and bent, mere scrap metal. Ahead of Torin, his fellow soldiers marched into the city, boots thudding in unison, banners and swords raised.

"Victory!" they shouted. "The city is ours! Slay every enemy soldier you find."

Torin stood in the wreckage of the docks, covered in blood and ash, arrows in his shield. After losing his armor in the river, he now wore a new, ill-fitting breastplate; he winced to remember pulling it off a corpse. His friends stood beside him, similarly clad in scavenged armor, their faces sooty and their wounds dripping.

"Torin . . ." Bailey said and clutched his arm, fear in her eyes. "Will they kill everyone inside? Will they attack only soldiers, or will they destroy the city?"

He swallowed, throat tight. "I don't know. But we must enter with them. We must do what we can to stop this city from crumbling. I cannot let this be another massacre . . . not as I wear this armor, bearing this sigil."

Bailey lowered her head. A tear drew a line through the dirt caking her cheek. "Are you sure? Maybe we should just run. We can grab a boat. We can sail home." She looked up at him, eyes damp. "You don't have to do this. You can still turn back."

He stared at the smashed gates and the soldiers marching through. From within the city, he heard the clanging of swords and screams of dying men. They were still fighting in there, the last survivors of the Elorian defense clashing against the enemy, fighting even now with the gates smashed, with all hope for them lost.

"She's in there," he whispered. "I saw her, Bailey. I saw her on the walls and she met my eyes. The girl with the scarred face."

Bailey shook her head, braids swaying. "What girl, Torin? Who?" She clutched his hand. "Who are you talking about?"

She no longer stood upon the walls, but Torin could see her again in his memory. A young woman, hair long and white and smooth, eyes large and lavender. Three scars rifted her face. The pain seared through him.

"It was last spring. Do you remember when I wheeled the bones into the dusk, the remains of the Elorian our village burned?"

Bailey nodded. "Of course."

"I saw her then. A young Elorian woman. I left the bones near her, and she seemed . . . haunted, in mourning. I've often wondered if she was the daughter of the man we burned. Bailey, I cannot let more die. Part of this blood is on our hands. I must do what I can to protect that woman . . . to protect everyone I still can."

She grabbed his shoulders and stared into his eyes. "How?"

"The greatest danger to Eloria is not swords, not arrows, not catapults--it's words. Words ignite the fires of war. Words kill more innocents than swords. Those evil words still spill from Ferius's lips into the king's ears."

"The king will not listen to you," she said. "If Ferius urges genocide, the king will obey . . . like in the village." She shook her head. "How can we stop this?"

Torin looked at the bodies that lay around the city walls. His voice was low.

"If I cannot preach peace, I must silence the words of war. I must kill Ferius." He looked back at Bailey and saw the horror in her eyes; the same horror churned in his belly. "In the chaos of battle, if Ferius sends soldiers to slay the innocent, I must slay him. I must."