CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RONAN
Anticipation sharpens Ronan’s nerves like a whetstone. He’s helpless to resist the light in Karis’s eyes, or the urgent whispered plan. He hasn’t felt this excited about a job in years. Now, the two of them crouch between the roots of a massive tree, uphill from sounds of confrontation. Ronan rolls a few dice on a patch of stamped-flat earth.
He’s walked these woods before, and he knows the area well; he and Dansa secured a nearby farmstead’s unused barn three full years ago, and they’ve been back since to lay more groundwork for an assault on the Bower. This feint operation has been percolating in Ronan’s mind ever since he learned that his teacher had the true flute in the first place.
Every element of this operation has been meticulously planned—except for this.
“Only one vaidkos,” Karis breathes in his ear. The sword at his hip was taken from Leth’s collection, and the green-blue shirt was the least elaborate option from Coira’s wardrobe. Borrowed blade, borrowed clothes, borrowed purpose—yet he carries himself as if they all belonged to him in the first place.
Ronan doesn’t bother asking if he’s sure. Karis’s magic hasn’t gone wrong yet. Really shows up the downsides of contracting with the Trickster, in comparison.
For example, his barely-informative dice. Ronan brushes the dirt away and pockets them. “Anywhere from three to ten Dravans. I’m hoping for three, but even ten should be manageable if we move quick.” He stands and reaches a hand down towards Karis. “If we don’t see any loose horses, we turn around immediately.”
Karis grins brilliantly up at him. “Got it, boss.”
He takes Ronan’s hand, a heated kiss of palms, and leaps to his feet. Instead of letting go when he’s up, he tightens his grip and leans closer. His chin lifts. “Kiss for luck?”
Ronan wonders if anyone else would notice the nervousness in Karis’s face, hiding behind his smiling bravado. As if he thinks Ronan might refuse.
It doesn’t stop him from asking.
They’re alone in the dappled gold forest, only the calling birds and silent trees to witness them. Ronan’s all out of excuses, and his self-restraint has frayed thinner with every stolen kiss over the journey. He brushes Karis’s hair back from his brow, lets his fingertips fall to that pointed chin. Holds it delicately in place while he takes what Karis offers. The lightest kiss, the softest breath.
When they break apart, Ronan says, “Good luck.”
“Radiance guide us,” Karis answers, with a dimpled grin.
Karis hadn’t been able to scry out the exact location of the Dravans or the vaidkos. Ronan hadn’t expected him to be able to—he doesn’t have an object tied to either of them, or even a good eyewitness description. But Karis seemed surprised and annoyed that he couldn’t pin them down more narrowly thanprobably this wayandmaybe about a mile. He said with a frown, “The vaidkos’s aura is interfering.”
Now, they make their way carefully down the hill. Karis holds his sword, and Ronan a handful of coins. The occasional crackle of leaf or twig doesn’t matter when before them, the forest air rings with steel, shouts, and unearthly screeching.
Five soldiers and a vaidkos face off at the crook of an old deer trail. The vaidkos’s fetid aura permeates the air, a burned edge of smoke easily sensed even by the ungifted. Just like Karis predicted, the soldiers’ horses are violently unhappy with the situation. Only one of the armored soldiers is still mounted, and two riderless horses snort and prance nervously at the edge of the scene. If the remaining two soldiers ever had horses, they’ve clearly long since bolted.
The vaidkos only has four heads, instead of the seventeen Mistress Johanna promised. Four heads are more than enough, with slavering skull-like jaws on serpentine necks. The creature moves fluidly, red and gray scales gleaming in the sun. Scraggly fur crawls down its spine, ruffs its chest, stiff with dirt and other matter.
If it has eyes, Ronan can’t see them. Fresh blood stains the fangs of two heads, and one of the soldiers is on his knees. His comrades close in front of him, showing caution but no fear. The mounted soldier begins chanting a Dravan battle spell to shore up their swords.
“You know,” Karis whispers behind him. His hand rests briefly on Ronan’s shoulder. “Last time I saw a vaidkos, it took three paladins to kill it.”
Ronan raises an eyebrow. “You want to stay back?”
Karis laughs a little too loudly, his eyes flashing gold in a trick of the light. “I just want you to have context for how awesome I’m about to be.”
Then he takes off towards the fray, and Ronan follows him into the dark miasma.
The brat lasted a minute against Leth,Ronan reassures himself. He knows Karis has training, and enough speed and daring to propel him through the start of a fight. But he’s still eighteen, flinging himself towards a four-headed demonic beast. Keeping him back would be the smart thing to do.
But the light in his eyes has Ronan by the throat. He wants—he needs—to see what Karis is capable of. He wants to believe in someone besides himself and his fickle god.
The soldiers are startled at the sight of them. One pivots to face Ronan, her shield up, while the others stand steady to meet the vaidkos’s next swerving attack. Ronan raises an arm and barks, “Reinforcements!”
They don’t have time to doubt him. A snakelike head strikes past a shield and crashes into the soldier in front of Ronan. Despite the blow, she keeps her feet and pivots to thrust her sword towards the grotesque jaws.
Closer in, the reek is overwhelming. Ronan’s never been this close to a vaidkos before—his foes have always been humans, not monsters. At least, human-shaped monsters. The foul odor and the corrosive aura darken the edges of his vision. He feels too slow. They need to finish this fast.
The Dravan soldiers are in no better shape. If they had true contracts with an unfettered Ka Dravos, they would have stood a chance. Just one of them would be enough to slay a single vaidkos. But the war god’s power is far too diluted—there are more Dravan soldiers than contracted paladins and clergy of the other four orders combined.