“Your problem is you’re too uptight. You need to hold the sword a little more gently, so you can maintain flexibility.” Seren glided through several mock swings, parrying and thrusting against an invisible foe.
“Don’t I already do that?” Tristam asked. “I thought I was pretty relaxed.”
Seren laughed. “No, not really,” she said, and she lifted the sword in a one handed stance, holding it at an angle above her head. “You fight like a lumberjack, hewing wildly. That’s fine if you’re fighting a tree, but if your focus is too narrow, you won’t be free to adapt to an opponent’s movements.”
“Lumberjack?” Tristam asked, hurt.
Seren sighed, lowering the blade. “Don’t pout, Tristam,” she said with a laugh. “I’m trying to help you. If you take criticisms personally, you aren’t going to learn anything.”
“Well then maybe you should stop making fun of me,” he replied with a crooked smile. He lurched to his feet and moved close to her.
Seren looked into his eyes with a challenging grin, but it vanished as her gaze moved past him, fixing on something far away. Tristam looked at her in concern, then followed her eyes. A plume of column smoke rose in the distance, scarring the flawless sapphire sky. They exchanged worried glances.
“Seventh Moon,” he said. “That must be where she crashed.”
“Do you think anyone survived?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said. “Soarwood is naturally quite buoyant in the air. With a decent pilot, an airship can float to a crash, the same way ours did.”
“But what about the rogue elemental?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it want to destroy the ship?”
“At first,” Tristam said, “but it would ultimately want to return home to its own world. Even if it remained, elementals aren’t invincible. The Moon’s crew would eventually defeat it.”
“So there are likely survivors,” she said.
“Definitely,” Tristam answered, still studying the smoke.
“So we should avoid the wreck,” Seren said.
“We should,” he said, but his eyes still stared at the distant plume.
“But you don’t want to,” Seren said.
“I know it’s dangerous,” Tristam said, “but I want to know how Orren Thardis survived the Day of Mourning and became the monster that he is. I want to know who those soldiers are that work for him. I want to know how he brought back Ashrem’s flagship. I want to know how much he knows about the Legacy. We still really don’t know anything, Seren.”
“We might not learn anything,” she said.
“But if we don’t investigate, we’ll never know.” He was quiet for a long time. “At the very least, I have to see how many of those soldiers survived. I didn’t want to blow the Moon’s containment and release that elemental. I … I probably killed a lot of people. Whoever those men are, whatever brought them under Marth’s command … they didn’t deserve to die, Seren. I have to know what I’ve done.”
“You feel sorry for Marth’s soldiers?” Seren asked. “Those are the same men who murdered Jamus, Kiris, and the Ghost Talons. They tried to kill us, too.”
Tristam nodded. “And if things had turned out differently, I might have been one of them,” he said.
Seren’s smiled sadly. She clearly didn’t agree, but she understood. “Very well, then,” she said, handing him back his sword. “We’ll check it out, but you’ll follow me, got it? You aren’t very sneaky.”
“Lumberjack, I know,” he said, nodding, sliding the blade into its scabbard with a crack. “I’ll do what you say, Seren.”
“And promise me that if you see Marth you won’t do anything stupid,” she said, “until you’re powerful enough to face him. His magic is still much stronger than yours.”
Tristam looked crestfallen but mumbled his agreement.
She nodded pertly and set off toward the distant plume, gesturing for him to follow. They stepped over a small rise and saw the wreckage of Seventh Moon sprawled in a shallow valley before them. A long gouge split the earth, carved by the ship’s violent landing. The airship looked to be in relatively good condition considering the chaos she had endured. Two of the four struts that once held her elemental ring in place were now shattered. One lay in two pieces in the gouged earth. The other was nowhere to be seen. The ship lay half buried in the ground, her hull covered with ragged burns. A few dozen soldiers in Cyran armor patrolled the valley, sorting debris or laying bodies on a burning pyre. Seren kneeled in the grass and Tristam nearly collapsed beside her, staring at the pyre.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Seren said.
“Then who should I blame?” he said bitterly.
“Marth,” she said. “He started this.”
“Did he?” Tristam asked. “Do we really know that?”
Seren shrugged. “Let’s go see what we can find out,” she said, crawling away through the tall grass.
Tristam looked around awkwardly and followed, moving with less grace than she. Seren looked over her shoulder with an irritated frown.
“You’re jingling,” she whispered. “Stop it.”
“Jingling?” he asked, confused. “What do you mean?”
“What in Khyber do you have in your pockets?” she said.
“Some flasks, mostly potions, and a few focusing crystals,” he said, looking away sheepishly.
“How many?” she asked.
“Um … a few dozen?” he said. “I guess I never noticed how much noise they make. I’ve grown accustomed to it.”
“Take off your coat and leave it here,” she said.
Tristam stared at her, aghast. “What if I can’t find it again? Some of the things I’m carrying are irreplaceable.”
“Then leave yourself here,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll sneak ahead by myself.”
Seren started off again. Tristam watched her in silence for several seconds. With a pained expression, he shrugged out of his long coat, folded it in a tight bundle, and hid it among the grass before following. He crawled after her for several minutes, stopping to crouch next to her in the shadows beside a large boulder at the outskirts of a small camp. He winced at the pain in his knees. He wasn’t used to crawling around like this. Seren looked back at him curiously, and he offered what he hoped was not an obviously pained smile. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the camp. Three soldiers sat in a semi-circle against the boulder, staring into the pathetic little blaze. Two of them nursed small cups. The third occupied himself by continuously scratching at or adjusting a bandage on his right leg.
“I feel a little foolish,” Tristam whispered to Seren.
She looked at him curiously.
“They aren’t even talking,” he said. “We aren’t learning anything. Did we really expect them to be discussing Marth’s master plan or something?”
Seren shrugged. “Sometimes you can learn more from what people don’t say,” she said. She looked at them again.
Tristam studied the soldiers as well. They seemed bored, unconcerned. Many, in the manner of career soldiers, were seizing the opportunity to catch up on sleep. Despite their flagship crashing deep in unfriendly territory, none of them seemed particularly worried. The truth sank in. He backed away from the camp slowly, gesturing for Seren to follow so that he could share his conclusions.
“They’re expecting a rescue,” Tristam whispered as she joined him. “And if Marth can rescue them here, then the Moon is only the beginning of his resources.”
“Who are they?” Seren asked.
“Cyran soldiers,” he said.
“I know they’re Cyrans,” she said, “but Cyre is dead. Where do they come from? How did they organize? How do you just build and equip an army without anybody noticing?”
“I don’t think it would be so difficult,” Tristam said. “Most people don’t even want to think about the war or about Cyre in particular. Didn’t Dalan say most of them used to be in a Cyran legion stationed in Karrnath at the end of the war? If someone like Marth wants to take in a bunch of Cyran refugees, no one will miss them. If he wants to buy up surplus military gear to outfit them, most merchants would be glad for the business. People are happier pretending that the Last War never happened and that Cyre never existed. It would be very easy.”