Flight of the Dying Sun (Heirs of Ash book 2

by Rich Wulf

Neither Tristam nor Seren spoke. Dalan gave a very curt bow and strode off.

  “Tristam,” Seren whispered once he was gone. “What did you see in Zul’nadn that you didn’t tell us about?”

  Memories of the Draconic Prophecy stirred in Tristam’s mind. He saw the conqueror rise above the shattered mortal nations once more, but this time he saw the conqueror’s face. The conqueror was not Ashrem, and he was not Marth.

  The conqueror was Tristam.

  “I don’t know,” he said, he slumped to the floor and buried his face in his hands.

  Seren stood her distance for several moments, watching Tristam with a stunned and wary expression. Then she sat beside him and took his hand. Tristam looked up at her, ready to order her away, to leave him in peace. He couldn’t bring himself to speak the words.

  Seren smiled, and the dark visions of the Draconic Prophecy faded back into memory.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Mourning Dawn blazed a trail across the Brelish sky, soaring in wide circles over the forests and plains. The crew assembled, standing in a rough circle on the ship’s foredeck. Seren sat in the ship’s bow and reflected how strangely different the mood was among today. For perhaps the first time since she had arrived here, they were in no immediate danger and had no destination. The uncertainty was making everyone uneasy. Even Gerith was reserved as he fed scraps of fish to his glidewing, murmuring softly in his native tongue. Omax knelt in silent meditation, staring out at the sky toward the Mournland. Ijaac sat near the warforged. The dwarf had given up on his attempts to make conversation and had instead turned his attention to looking pointedly at the deck and pretending to be on the ground. Eraina paced the center of the deck restlessly while Dalan watched her with an annoyed, impatient expression. Only Pherris and Aeven seemed entirely unfazed. The gnome stood in his customary position at the helm. The dryad sat beside him, her eyes closed as she listened to the alien song of the ship’s elemental ring.

  Eraina ceased pacing as Zed and Tristam emerged from the hold. The inquisitive held a sheaf of rumpled papers in one hand, a mix of Devyn Marcho’s speaker posts and Shaimin d’Thuranni’s reports. Dalan winced when he noticed the tangled heap Zed had made of the ordered documents. The inquisitive was still reading thoughtfully as he ascended. Tristam cast about the deck briefly, smiling and moving toward Seren when he saw her.

  “I think we have something,” Zed said. “It isn’t much. Mostly a hunch.”

  “Better than the sorts of clues we usually have, then,” Gerith said.

  “Snowshale,” Dalan said, his tone warning. “Just tell us what you can, Arthen.”

  The inquisitive nodded. “Well, I can’t guarantee that Marth is still where I think he is,” Zed said. “None of these speaker posts Seren stole are newer than six months.”

  “The newest ones would have been useless,” Seren said. “They just would have told us where the Seventh Moon has been chasing us. We already know that.”

  “True,” Zed said. “I’m just qualifying that this information could be out of date. Marth might have moved his base in the last year.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Tristam said.

  “Hopefully,” Zed said dubiously. “There’s a definite pattern here.” He rifled through the stack of posts. “Over one-third of the posts originated from Nathyrr, a village in southern Thrane. Strikes me as odd, as thus far we haven’t discovered anything related to the Legacy in Thrane.”

  “You think Marth’s base of operations is in Nathyrr?” Eraina asked.

  “You couldn’t hide a Cyran army in Nathyrr,” Zed said, “but the village is near the Harrowcrowns. Marth’s base could be in the forest there. What’s more, the forest is close to the southern border, where Thrane meets the Mournland. So old Cyre is right nearby.”

  “I’ve heard legends about the Harrowcrowns,” Gerith said. “Those forests are haunted, aren’t they?”

  Zed laughed darkly. “According to the legends, all Thrane forests are haunted,” he said. “It’s a wild and untamed place.”

  “What of the Thuranni report?” Dalan asked. “Did you learn anything of use?”

  Zed shook the stack of papers, straightening them with a snap, and sorted till he found Shaimin’s letter. “I learned that elves have very messy handwriting,” Zed said. “I think Shaimin holds the pen between his teeth.”

  “Intriguing,” Dalan said dryly. “What else?”

  “There was definitely someone watching the gates of New Cyre over the course of the last several days,” Zed said. “Marth does a lot of recruiting there, so he must have suspected we’d come there looking for clues.”

  “Paranoid,” Eraina said.

  “And organized,” Zed said. “We still don’t know how many people Marth has working for him, but if he can spare them to spy on his own city, that’s a bad sign. I mean, granted, we’ve increased the size of our own crew by ten percent in the last few days,” he nodded at Ijaac with a grin, “but signs indicate we’re still enormously outnumbered.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Eraina said. “Our fight is with Marth, not his army. Once he’s been brought to justice, all of this will end. He’s the only one with the knowledge to rebuild the Legacy. Without him, his soldiers will return to obscurity.”

  Seren noticed Tristam glance away nervously at that. She worried about him. He’d been so distant since he returned from Zul’nadn. What had he seen?

  “Speaking of Marth,” Zed said, “Shaimin wrote quite a bit about him.”

  Tristam looked back at Zed, suddenly attentive. “What?” Tristam asked. “How did Shaimin find information on Marth?”

  “Marth claims to be a Cyran soldier,” Zed said. “So, Shaimin looked into Cyran military records.”

  “Where would he find such things?” Omax said. “Cyre is no more.”

  “Prince Oargev has a strong interest in restoring and preserving his lost nation’s history,” Zed said. “He’s spent the last few years hiring small salvage teams to sneak into the ruins of Metrol and recover anything with the royal seal of Wynarn on it. Everything they bring back is stored here, in New Cyre. There’s a substantial cache of Cyran military records. Apparently Shaimin accessed it.”

  “Broke into it,” Pherris corrected.

  “Probably,” Zed said. “I don’t really care how he learned what he did—it’s interesting.”

  “Tell us,” Dalan prompted.

  “Getting there,” Zed said, growing impatient at the interruptions. “Apparently there have only been three changeling officers in the Cyran military within the last sixty years.”

  “Unsurprising,” Eraina said. “I think most armies would find it difficult to trust an officer whose very identity was suspect.”

  “Or at least have the wisdom to use such duplicity to their advantage,” Dalan said. “Changelings make terrible generals but excellent spies. It would behoove an army to keep such assets secret.”

  Zed frowned as he studied the papers. “The story of this changeling, Captain Eover Halloran, seems to be exactly what we’re looking for.”

  “Eover Halloran doesn’t sound like a changeling name,” Dalan said.

  “It isn’t,” Zed said. “Eover was a human, stationed in the city of Melthir on the southern border of Cyre. During a siege by the Darguun goblin armies, Eover was placed in command of a commando unit, sent outside the walls to harass and delay their attackers. During a particularly brutal part of the siege, Eover’s wife, Kresthian, was wounded by a goblin arrow. She took fever, reverting to her natural changeling form. The townspeople panicked, believing that she was a Darguuni spy. Her two sons, also changelings, died failing to protect her from the angry mob. Three days later, Eover Halloran returned. The goblin assault had been turned aside, but rather than a hero’s welcome, he returned to find that his commanding officer, Lieutenant Kieran, had condoned the murder of his wife and sons as necessary casualties of war.”

  “By the Host,” Eraina whispered.

  “Eover was to b
e detained for questioning, but he fled,” Zed went on. “Over the course of the next several days, Lieutenant Kieran and six members of his command staff, all of whom had supported the changeling deaths, were methodically murdered. Eover, also secretly a changeling, assumed the identities of the men he killed as he worked his way through the chain of command. He was ultimately captured and brought before the Cyran military court by Ashrem d’Cannith. During his trial, Eover demanded to be recognized by his true changeling name.”

  “Marth,” Tristam said.

  Zed nodded.

  Seren looked up at Tristam. The artificer stared at Zed with a mix of confusion, surprise, and anger.

  “What happened next?” Tristam asked.

  “The records are incomplete,” Zed said. “By Cyran law, the changeling should have been executed, but there’s no record of it. I’m not sure if that part of the record simply wasn’t recovered from Cyre, if Shaimin just didn’t find it, or if it never happened.”

  “Crimes?” Gerith asked. “What crimes? Marth’s own comrades killed his wife and children while he was saving their city. Killing those soldiers wasn’t a crime. That was justice. I feel sorry for him.”

  “I’m sure we all share varying degrees of sympathy, but it does not change the truth,” Dalan said. “The fact is that Marth was a war criminal well before he began his pursuit of the Legacy. Further, my uncle clearly knew him for what he was. Why would Ashrem knowingly associate with such a person, much less give him command of one of his airships? I knew the old fool was idealistic, but embracing a murderer seems excessive.”

  “Excessive?” Gerith asked. The little halfling’s face was hot. “In Marth’s place I’d have done the same thing. I’d have killed every one of them.”

  “Then you’re a fool as well, Snowshale,” Dalan said. “There are avenues of revenge that do not involve wanton murder.”

  “None of this has anything to do with what we’re doing here,” Tristam said sharply. Gerith and Tristam looked at Tristam in surprise. “We need to figure out what we’re doing next.”

  “I confess it would grant me a degree of comfort if I knew where I was flying this ship,” Pherris agreed.

  “Well, we know Marth has an unstable replica of the Legacy,” Eraina said. “It won’t be long before he uses it again.”

  “But we still don’t know what he intends to do with it,” Dalan said. “While he is certainly an individual quite capable of wanton destruction, such random violence does not seem his style. He must have a greater plan.”

  “Marth is working to fulfill a part of the Draconic Prophecy,” Tristam announced. “I saw the future in Zul’nadn.”

  The crew all looked at Tristam in surprise. Even Gerith peered over from his course, if only momentarily.

  “What are you talking about, Tristam?” Dalan asked.

  “Ijaac, you remember the vision I had in the ruins?” Tristam asked.

  Ijaac nodded silently.

  “I saw a mortal conqueror,” Tristam said. “He tempered the Legacy in the Dragon’s Eye and used it to strike down the mortal nations in the name of peace.”

  “Seems an odd way to find peace,” Ijaac said, scratching his beard thoughtfully.

  “Graves are peaceful,” Aeven noted.

  “I still don’t see it,” Dalan said. “Marth is a logical, methodical person. Why would he follow some vague shadow of what might be?”

  “It’s the Draconic Prophecy, Dalan,” Eraina said. “It isn’t what might be. It’s what will be.”

  “So say a thousand street corner prophets,” Dalan said. “I still don’t see it. You can twist any happenstance to fit a prophecy, if it is vague enough. The Draconic Prophecy is not known for clarity. Why would he embrace such nonsense?”

  “Marth isn’t working alone,” Tristam said. “The dragon who guarded Zul’nadn mentioned Marth’s master, a prophet named Zamiel. Zamiel has somehow convinced Marth that this vision of the future is reality.”

  “I remember the dragon saying that,” Ijaac said, smiling happily for having added to the conversation.

  “Marth mentioned the name ‘Zamiel’ before we escaped Seventh Moon,” Seren said.

  “Marshal Killian spoke of a Zamiel shortly before his death,” Eraina said. “He said that the prophet would ignite the war anew, and the world would be as we remembered it.”

  “You are all children in the eyes of this world,” Aeven said, her cool voice carrying easily over the rushing wind. “Your Last War raged for more than a century. To a warrior such as Marth, this age of peace is a strange and alien thing. The War was all he knew. He wishes to return the world to what he believes is its natural state.”

  “An intriguing observation, Aeven,” Dalan replied. “Still, I don’t know why Marth would reignite the War unless he stood to benefit.”

  “Not everyone thinks the way you do, Dalan,” Zed said.

  “They do,” Dalan replied. “They just don’t realize it.”

  “I don’t really care,” Seren spoke up. “Does it really matter why Marth wants to start a new war? Or why this Zamiel is helping him? Or whether the Prophecy is right or wrong? All that matters is that we stop Marth before he kills anyone else.”

  The crew said nothing for several moments.

  “Well said, Miss Morisse,” Gerith said at last. “I think we can all agree on that. So what is our next move?”

  “If we want to find Marth’s base of operations, the Harrowcrowns seem our best bet,” Eraina said.

  “No,” Tristam said. “We need to go to Metrol.”

  “The Mournland?” Zed asked, shocked. “Why in Khyber would we go there?”

  “Tristam is determined to locate the wreckage of Albena Tors,” Dalan explained.

  “I believe Ashrem used Dying Sun’s elemental core to stabilize and sustain the Legacy,” Tristam said. “We need to find that ship, or at least keep Marth from finding it. Now that Zul’nadn is gone, Dying Sun is Marth’s only hope to complete the Legacy.”

  “It is too great a coincidence that Marth was already in New Cyre when we arrived,” Omax said. “Even he cannot travel so swiftly. Perhaps he is preparing to enter the Mournland as well?”

  “If he does, we still have an advantage,” Tristam said. “Marth still doesn’t have an airship. We can get there first.”

  “Assuming Marth doesn’t simply teleport there ahead of us,” Dalan said. “He’s proven capable of such feats.”

  “Unlikely,” Tristam said. “From what I’ve read, magic is dangerously unstable in the Mournland. Metrol is said to be particularly wild zone. Teleportation is risky even under normal conditions. Blindly teleporting that far into the mists would be suicidal.”

  “Then wouldn’t we be taking similar risks, flying an airship in there?” Dalan asked. “Karia Naille is powered by magic.”

  “No,” Pherris answered. “Mourning Dawn’s elemental core is well-shielded. I’ll give us a safer trip than anyone else can guarantee in that twisted place.”

  “Interesting,” Dalan said. “Now we’ve gone from having no options to having too many. Do we search for Marth’s base or recover Dying Sun?”

  “This isn’t a choice, Dalan,” Tristam said. “It’s only a matter of time before Marth recovers the Sun himself.”

  “But while he’s busy there, he won’t be watching his headquarters,” Zed said. “There’s no reason why we can’t do both.”

  “Split the group?” Omax asked.

  “I can handle the Harrowcrowns alone,” Zed said. “I’ll just be looking around. There’s an inn I know in Nathyrr called the Kindled Flame. You can catch up with me there when you’re done in Metrol.”

  “I’ll go as well,” Eraina volunteered. “It would be unwise to go alone.”

  “Fine,” Zed said. “Both of us will go.”

  Eraina looked mildly surprised that the stubborn inquisitive accepted her help, but said nothing.

  “Then it’s settled,” Tristam said. “We can put in at Vathirond,
at the edge of the Mournland. From there, Zed and Eraina can continue north into Thrane while we fly east into the Mournland and Cyre.”

  “Aye,” Pherris said. “I’ll plot a course.”

  “Dalan, are you sure you don’t want to go to Thrane with Zed and Eraina?” Tristam asked as the others began to filter back to their posts.

  Dalan looked back as he prepared to enter his cabin. “Hoping to be rid of me, Tristam?” he asked.

  “No,” Tristam said, “but you stayed behind when we went to the Frostfell because it was too dangerous.”

  “I stayed behind because I would have been a useless burden,” Dalan corrected. “Remember that I am Cyran. I was born in Metrol. I may be able to guide us through what remains.”

  “Have you been to Cyre since the Day of Mourning?” Seren asked.

  “No, Miss Morisse,” Dalan said. “For much the same reason that I avoid funerals and graveyards. Such places hold nothing for the living save grisly reminders of the fate that awaits us all. I do not relish the prospect of visiting that wasteland, but I believe I can help.” Dalan forced a tight smile and closed the hatch behind him.

  “And what about you, Pherris?” Tristam asked quietly. “You know as well as I do that there’s no guarantee the ship will be completely safe from the Mournland’s wild magic.”

  “Perhaps,” Pherris said, “but I trust Ashrem d’Cannith’s work and I trust you. There is no safer ship, no finer artificer to maintain her.”

  “I appreciate the confidence, Pherris,” Tristam said. “I only hope that I prove worthy of it.”

  “See that you do, Master Xain,” the captain said with a chuckle.

  Seren laughed at the captain’s ceaseless good humor, but her laughter trailed away when she saw Aeven’s emerald eyes. She followed the dryad’s inscrutable gaze, fixed on the eastern sky. On the distant horizon, blue sky gave way to an endless line of dead, gray mist.

  The Mournland was waiting for them.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  For two days they had soared through the mists. Tristam spent as much time as he could at the ship’s rail, staring down at the Mournland, trying to understand how magic could unleash such destruction upon the world. Seren was always close beside him, her hand covering his own when his thoughts were bleakest. It was strange. She always knew how he was feeling. Tristam was comforted by the thought, but also afraid.