Thorns
Rivers Between Us plucked an apple from the tree. It was bright red, the skin almost waxy, but it began to crumble in his hand. The inside was mealy and brown with rot, and hundreds of tiny worms seethed out of it. The youth dropped it to the ground and wiped his hand against his dark cloak. Hachimaru Kotai watched him nervously, but his eyes kept falling to the ravines and gorges below them.
The sorcerer asked, "This is as close as we can get?"
"As close as we dare. Any further and we'll meet patrols."
Rivers nodded and pulled back his hood, his cloak and robes whipping in the breeze that raced in from the sea. Down the coast, almost ten miles distant, the city of Thorns was barely a dark speck on the horizon. He stepped closer to the cliff face to get a better view, but could see little more than the once majestic walls and a handful of sea vessels. He turned back to his ally, his sleeves flapping in the gusty wind, and said, "That's his camp. Twenty dragons went out to fight him, and none returned on the day that city fell. Our enemy at Mishaka, now the pawn of a greater enemy..."
Hachimaru knelt and ferventy asked, "Master, why are we here? It's far too dangerous, especially now..."
"Do you think I'm crazy?" He glared at Hachimaru sideways in the chill light of the setting sun. "Half my Circle does, and I don't blame them. I'd do it again though. All of it. It was the only path I could take, the only path that compassion allows. That's why we're here today."
He stretched out one hand toward the distant city, where at that very moment hundreds were dying of starvation, disease, torture, and terror. "Because I sent men here, and now they are gone." The sorcerer looked down from the city to the barren heath that stretched between them and the black city. The shadowlands extended for dozens of miles in every direction, and every day it spread by leaps and bounds.
"Because when I have finished freeing my love, there will still be thousands that dwell in this darkness," he whispered.
