Empires of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 2) (10 page)

Torin kept moving, darting from
alleyway to alleyway, avoiding the main streets. Stray cats fled
before them and bats fluttered above. Discarded scarves, broken
pottery, and fish bones littered the cobblestones. Few people
normally traveled these alleys, but as Torin and Linee raced here
now, dozens of Elorians ran to and fro. One woman, clutching a gash
upon her belly, stumbled into a house. An elderly man fell onto the
cobblestones, his mouth smashed and bleeding.

"Please, sir!" An
Elorian child faltered toward Torin, his arm a dripping mess.
"Please, sir, mercy."

From the city streets, more
screams rose, boots thumped, and swords whistled. When Torin peered
out into a boulevard, he saw Timandrian soldiers laughing as they
smashed windows and looted jewels within. Their boots stomped upon
the corpse of the shopkeeper. Shards of glass lay strewn across the
street like scattered diamonds.

"Please, sir, mercy,"
begged the Elorian child in the alley. He turned toward Linee.
"Please, my lady, don't kill us."

Torin approached the cowering
boy and held his hand. "Come with me. We'll get you somewhere
safe." He turned toward Linee, who stood staring with wide eyes.
"Linee, help the elder rise! Quickly. I know a safe place."

As Torin held the child's hand,
Linee looked at the fallen elder. She shivered and grimaced, but
approached the old man and helped him rise.

"What do I do, Torin?"
she asked in a whisper.

"Help him walk. We're
taking them to the city hospice. Few people dare enter that place;
it's full of the plague."

Linee looked ready to burst into
tears again. "And you want us to go there?"

He glared at her. "The
plague is safer right now than these streets. Come on."

They hurried along the
alleyways, a queen and soldier of sunlight, taking with them the two
wounded Elorians. All the while, the screams rose across the city.
Whenever they passed the mouth of an alley, they witnessed the
slaughter. Shattered glass, smashed doors, and corpses littered the
streets. A discarded shoe lay in a corner. A basket lay fallen, its
mushrooms scattered. Everywhere Torin looked, the monks led mobs of
soldiers, smashing, killing, destroying.

Torin's eyes stung. Worry for
Koyee and his friends burned within him. He forced himself to move
on. Right now people depended on him. Right now he had to save as
many as he could. He kept moving on through the shadows, holding the
wounded child's hand, as behind him Linee helped the bleeding elder
hobble forward.

It seemed ages before they
reached an alley's end, peered around a bronze brazier shaped as a
toothy spirit, and saw the Hospice of Pahmey loom across a square.

Koyee
is in there,
he thought, throat burning.
Stay
safe. Stay put. I'm coming.

"That is where we go,"
Torin said to his companions.

Linee stood at his side, her
gown and hands splashed with blood. Her shivering had finally ended,
and though red still rimmed her eyes, they were now dry. The wounded
old Elorian leaned against her, his teeth knocked out; Linee held him
wrapped in her arms.

"But . . . that means
crossing this square." She winced. "It's lit with
lanterns."

Torin stared, eyes narrowed,
listening. The din of screams, cheers, and smashing glass still rose
across the city, but no sound seemed to rise from the square ahead.
When Torin peered around the brazier, he saw only a single cat scurry
along the cobblestones. Across the shadows, the hospice rose like a
tombstone for a god, its columns dark, its doors and windows closed.
At his side, the wounded child whimpered and clung to Torin's leg.

"The Sunlit Curse,"
the boy whispered. "It dwells here."

Torin nodded. "The soldiers
fear to walk near this place. We'll be safe inside." He took a
step into the square. "Follow. We—"

Shouts rose.

Hooves thudded and light blazed.

Torin whipped his head to the
left. From a boulevard, a dozen monks emerged, riding horses and
brandishing lanterns. Ferius rode at their lead, the lamplight
painting his face a demonic red. Ropes ran from the horses, dragging
the mangled corpses of Elorians like mules tugging plows. As the
procession rode forth, the corpses trailed along the square behind
them, smearing the cobblestones with blood.

"Behold the justice of the
sun!" Ferius cried; his horse dragged the corpse of a woman, her
face crushed into a red pulp. "Behold the punishment of Eloria."

Torin cursed and leaped back
into the alley, pulling the child with him; the boy wept and clung to
him. Linee and the elder held each other, eyes closed. They waited in
the shadows until the ghastly procession rode by and vanished down
another street.

Like feral cats scuttling from
hideout to hideout, they hurried into the square. Torin held the
wounded child close; Linee held her hobbling charge. As they moved,
Torin kept staring from side to side, breath held. Three roads led
into this square, and in each one, he glimpsed the slaughter;
hundreds of troops were now moving down the streets, tugging Elorians
from their homes and slitting their throats. With every step, Torin
expected more monks or soldiers to burst into the square and attack,
plague or no plague. The hospice couldn't have been more than a
hundred yards away, but that distance seemed endless now.

As they stepped over the trail
of blood Ferius and his monks had left, the grisly ghost of their
slaughter, Torin grimaced and Linee whimpered. Behind them, the
chants of soldiers rose louder. They quickened their pace. A few more
steps and they reached the hospice steps.

Most of Pahmey was built of
glass and crystal, but the hospice's stairs rose harsh, stony, and
cruel as a dead mountainside. As they began to climb toward the
columns that loomed above, Torin glanced over his shoulder back at
the square. He cursed.

An Elorian family—seven or
eight souls—burst out from a street and began running across the
square. One of them, a grimacing woman, held a dripping wound on her
belly; her children ran at her sides, and her husband shouted and
urged them on. They had taken only several steps into the square when
bowstrings thrummed behind. The Elorian family fell, pierced with
arrows. Two children managed to rise and limp on, arrows in their
shoulders; a second volley slammed them onto the cobblestones. In the
road behind them, Timandrian troops laughed and pointed at the dead.

"The savages die like
cockroaches!" one shouted.

His friend snickered. "Look,
there are more on the hospice stairs."

The soldiers stared across the
square. Torin stared back, holding the Elorian child with one hand,
the hilt of his sword with the other. The murderous soldiers, still
holding their bows, looked directly at him across the bloodied
expanse.

"Get away from there!"
the soldiers called to him, daring not leave the road. "Soldier
of sunlight—that's the hospice there! The plague lives inside. Come
here; join us."

Torin stared at them, frozen.

Join them? His eyes stung. He
had joined this army a year ago. He had joined to . . . to what? To
save his friend Bailey from the dungeon? To serve his king? To fight
an invisible enemy, a demon that lived only in sermon and nightmare?
He winced, feeling close to tears. Yes, he had joined them, and he
had killed for them; the blood of battle still stained his hands.

But
no more,
he thought.
No
more will I join you, my fellow soldiers of sunlight.
He breathed raggedly, each breath burning.
Now
I am the night.

Chest tight and eyes blurred, he
spun away from the square. Leading his companions, he stepped between
columns and into shadows.

Across a portico they reached
towering stone doors. A Sister of Harmony stood here, clad in her
robes of leather and metal, wide brimmed hat, and beaked mask. She
stared through lenses, eyes nearly invisible behind the smoky glass.
She blocked the doors, holding a spear.

"Open the doors!"
Torin said. "These people need help."

The humanoid vulture of leather,
glass, and metal stared at him, tilting her head. She looked at his
side, seeming to regard the shivering queen, the wounded Elorian man,
and the bleeding child.

"What happened?" she
said, voice a ghostly whisper inside her mask.

Torin panted. "The Sailith
monks have slain King Ceranor. They are slaughtering everyone they
can find—Timandrian nobles and Elorians alike." His throat
burned. "Please—protect these people behind your walls. The
enemy fears this place. I bring with me Queen Linee of Timandra,
hunted by the monks, and two wounded city folk. Please, Sister of
Harmony, harbor them."

The Sister of Harmony stared at
him a moment longer; he could hear her gasp, a hiss like steam,
behind her beak. She turned toward the doors and shoved them; they
creaked open on hinges the size of her head.

The sister reached out her arms;
each hand ended with a leather glove tipped with metal thimbles,
barriers against the diseased skin of patients.

"Come, children!" said
the sister. "Enter the shadows. You will find safety here."
The strange vulture looked over her shoulder into the shadows of the
temple. "Sister Xia! Sister Jinyu! Patients arrive; we will heal
them."

Two more Sisters of Harmony
emerged from within, took hold of the wounded Elorians, and guided
them inside. Seeing the blood on her gown, one sister tried to hold
Linee's arm and guide her indoors; the young queen whimpered and
leaped back.

"I'm scared," Linee
said to Torin, her lips wobbling. "What are these creatures?
They look like birds." She shivered wildly. "They're so
ugly."

"They will help you,"
Torin said softly and touched her cheek. "Be brave. Not all
those who are ugly are cruel. Not all who are fair of skin are fair
of heart. The Sisters of Harmony will protect you. Enter their
domain."

Tears rolled down to her
quivering lips. "Aren't you coming with me?"

"I'll join you soon. First
I must save more. I must save whoever I still can."

With another whimper, Linee
allowed herself to be guided into the shadows of the hospice. The
doors closed behind her, leaving only Torin and the spear-wielding
sister outside.

Torin paused for a heartbeat,
torn between seeking more Elorians to save and entering the hospice
in search of Koyee. He took one step toward the stairs, meaning to
race back into the streets, then looked over his shoulder at the
sister who guarded the doors.

"One of your sisters is
named Koyee," he said. "A young woman with lavender eyes.
Is she safe?"

The sister regarded him through
her smoky lenses. With her clawed glove, she reached behind her head.
She pulled off the beaked contraption of glass, metal, and leather,
revealing purple eyes, long white hair, and a scarred face.

She smiled at him tremulously.
"Are any of us safe now, Torin?"

Torin's heart leaped. "Koyee."

A lump filled his throat and his
eyes watered, but they were tears of joy and relief. He took several
great steps toward her, pulled her into his arms, and held her tight.
Her suit felt hard and cold against him, but when he touched her
cheek, she was soft and warm. Before he could stop himself, he was
kissing her, a deep kiss that tasted of fear and love and tears.

"Thank goodness you're
safe," he said. "Koyee, it's madness out there. I'm going
to find more people and bring them here."

She bit her lip. "Torin, be
careful. Don't let them hurt you."

"I won't." He kissed
her again; her lips tasted of the spices inside her mask. "I'll
be back with more people. Goodbye, Koyee."

She nodded, eyes damp. Torin
turned, raced downstairs, and left her there outside a house of
disease—the only safe haven in this city of blood.

 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN:
OF CLAY AND COURAGE

Bailey raced up the exterior
stairs toward the hospice portico, dragging the boys behind her. She
glared over her shoulder at them.

"Hurry!" She snarled
at the pair. "Stop stumbling over your boots and climb faster.
We have to find the babyface."

The boys stared back, eyes
haunted and faces pale. Hem's lip wobbled; the beefy baker looked
ready to burst into tears. Half his friend's side, Cam wrung his
hands, his dark eyes darting from side to side. Bailey felt some of
her rage seeping away. Despite their armor and swords, her friends
from Fairwool-by-Night were no warriors, only frightened villagers.
She let her voice soften.

"Just climb as fast as you
can. Remember how we joked that the hospice is the only place Ferius
would never slither into?" She looked back up toward its looming
columns. "Torin will remember too. We'll find him there."

The three continued climbing the
stairs, leaving the bloodied city streets behind. Bailey grimaced to
remember the slaughter she had seen there. She had been patrolling
outside the library as the convoy rode by, Ferius upon his horse, a
hundred monks behind him. They had lifted the corpse of King Ceranor
upon pikes, the moonstar of Qaelin etched across his bare torso.

"The Traitor King is dead!"
Ferius had chanted, riding through the city, his thugs slaying any
Elorian they came across. "Sailith rises and Eloria falls!"

Bailey kept climbing, dragging
the two boys by the collar. For perhaps the first time in her life,
she didn't know what to do. She missed her grandfather and fear
knotted her belly, but she would not show it. For now she just had to
find Torin. She had to keep him safe.

At the thought of him, her eyes
dampened. Since the plague had ripped through Fairwool-by-Night,
killing so many, Torin had lived under her roof. A year younger, a
little shorter, and nearly blind in one eye, the boy had seemed
pitiful, a lost puppy she had brought into her home. Since then, he
had grown into something else. In the shadows and blood of the night,
she had watched him become a man. A friend. A brother at arms.
Perhaps even . . .