Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
ZANDYR
“ I f either of you mention this to anyone , I will forsake you,” Ryker muttered and laid down on his stomach between the blooming flowers. This was one of the few areas surrounding the Crimson Dam which still had life in it, even with the Serpents so dangerously close.
“Scared you’ll lose your fierce reputation?” Elysia whispered, tucking herself between the tall grass until she was no longer visible.
“Warriors should fight.”
“This is a different way of fighting.”
“Nobody can know or else–”
“Quiet,” I said. The water from the dam thundered, but we couldn’t take any chances. “Tracking now, threats later.”
Jagged rocks dug into my stomach as I readjusted my position, gaze focused on the pile of grass, acorns, and wildflowers we’d gathered in the middle of the lone meadow under the cover of night.
Ryker had been grumbling about it for hours. He’d been in a state since he’d lost that young warrior.
Understandable. My own shame and disappointment clung to me still, but on the battlefield, emotions got people killed.
We would mourn after the war, once we’d saved as many lives as possible.
Elysia peeked through the grass, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Nothing is happening.”
“Patience, Viper. Our human scent needs to be carried away by the wind first,” I said.
Just for a second, I allowed myself to caress the bond between me and Evie. Back in camp and out on the battlefield, I tried my best to keep my thoughts away, to shield her as much as I could from the stress and carnage.
But here, out in the wilderness and relative calm, I could picture her smiling up at me. The taste of her lips on mine and the fierce glint in her eyes.
She was…happy? Not quite. Content.
That meant she was as safe as she could be with everything the war and the advisors kept throwing at us.
I retreated from the bond gently, to not break her concentration, already anticipating the next meeting in our dreams.
I told myself she hadn’t had time to reply to my confession last time. That hadn’t been the way I’d wanted to tell my menace I loved her, but the words had been threatening to split out for weeks, if not months.
If the gods were truly merciful, I would see the day when we were face to face and had all the time in the world, to tell and show her I loved her in all the ways I hadn’t so far.
For that to happen, I had a war to win.
From my armor, I took out my prized binoculars, one of the few useful gifts my parents had given me. Crafted by the famed gearwrights in the Fair Isles, with lenses carved out of ocean crystals and small runes inscribed on the darkened brass, they helped me see even farther away than my trained eyesight.
In the distance, beyond the tops of the trees guarding the meadow, I watched the violent rivulets of water cascading from the massive Crimson Dam into the Obsidian River. Constructed out of dark, weathered stones, its towering arches were adorned with intricate runes that whispered of long-lost magic. Throughout the eons, the water had eaten away at the stone and grooved the mortar, but the dam still stood in all its glory, like I’d suspected.
I growled as my eyes fell on the rows upon rows of rock slabs and cement waiting on the other side of the river.
“What is it?” Ryker’s voice whipped the stillness. “Did they discover Myron?”
“No.” And they wouldn’t. For this part of the plan to work, Myron didn’t need to get dangerously close to the Serpents’ camp. Just close enough .
Kylian had stayed behind and was currently raising our side of the riverbank along with the warriors. They also embedded new traps into the dirt, so the Serpent spies and traitors would have something to report to Kleonos without raising suspicions. The higher ledge would also make it more difficult for the snakes to slither from the river.
We needed all the advantages we could get for the next battle.
Every part of this strategy needed to work for us to survive.
“It looks like The Serpents want to create a barrier next to the dam.” I grit my teeth. Our dam. Our river. Our land. “Probably to drain the river.”
If the angry currents vanished, their soldiers could cross much easier, without the help of their beasts.
So why hadn’t they begun building the barrier yet? The grass at the edges of the stone rows was brown and faded. Weeks had passed since they’d been hauled here, at least.
So why ?
I got my answer only a moment later, when one of their monstrous snakes jutted out of the river, a humongous crocodile flailing between its fanged mouth.
“The snakes are hunting in the river,” I muttered.
“Bullshit,” Elysia hissed like a true viper. “That ancient book clearly states magicked snakes prefer warm-blooded animals to help with regulating the temperatures in their bodies and–”
“You can either believe what someone wrote hundreds of years ago or what I’m seeing right now,” I said as the snake splashed back into the river, delving into its depths. The Serpent soldiers watched anxiously from afar. No animals meant they might become dinner. I’d seen the snakes devour Serpents alongside my warriors in battle. Flesh tasted the same, no matter the color of the armor.
I wondered why the Serpents had scorched the valleys in their wake. Perhaps the snakes secreted venom that withered everything in their path.
That meant the Serpents were dealing with their own unforeseen problems.
“Then what in Xamor’s name are we going to do now?” Elysia asked.
“We hope the book was right and that Kleonos wasn’t lying,” I said. The Butcher didn’t know it, but he’d actually given me an important clue during that sham of a negotiation while he’d gloated about killing my people. “We just need one.”
One snake.
Three of them loitered on the edge of the river, snapping their jaws, as if waiting their turn to hunt.
The bushes at the edge of the forest rustled. Through my binoculars, I saw the moist nose of a doe, sniffing the air. Behind her, a pair of massive antlers peeked through the leaves.
I sighed in relief.
It was an insane plan.
Insane enough to succeed, hopefully.
Elysia had concocted her new poison for the snakes’ cold-blooded bodies and splashed enough of it onto the plants we’d gathered to attract them, but not enough to affect the deer themselves. If a snake ate enough deer with this poison in their system, Elysia swore the toxin would build up in its body, day after day.
The animals sniffed and gingerly approached the mound. I caught a glimpse of a mighty deer munching on the grass, a pink wildflower hanging from his mouth, before I focused my binoculars on the Serpent soldiers by the river.
“Come on Myron,” I muttered.
The sun was in the right position.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two–
Three loud booms, one after another, erupted on the banks, blowing huge sand clouds in the air.
The Serpent soldiers shouted and rushed toward the commotion.
I was more interested in the snakes–and how they slithered away angrily from the noise.
The smallest and youngest of them all, judging from the luster on its blue scales, fled toward the trees on our side.
“One’s coming,” I muttered.
Elysia smiled. Ryker groaned.
My smirk morphed into a frown as the trees shook in the snake’s path, but leading toward the dam, not the meadow.
The fucking snake was going the wrong way.
“We need to get him here,” I said. “Ryker?”
He sighed morosely. “I knew you’d do this.”
“That’s what makes you such a good strategist,” I said. “Usually.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“That you’re in a foul mood,” Elysia murmured. “And that makes you less efficient.”
“This isn’t right.” He jerked his chin at the deers. “These animals are defenseless.”
“If you don’t like this part, you’re going to hate what he has planned for those rotting bodies in the boats,” she said.
Ryker, may his gods and mine bless him, had been raised to respect nature above all else and had a much tighter connection to it than most in the Blood Brotherhood Elite.
Still through blood, he could control animals much better than all of us. I’d even seen him control plants with their sap at times.
“It’s like blood,” he’d said then. “That’s what my mother used to say and I listened. If it’s alive and has liquid, I can command it.”
The entire plan hinged on that ability of his–and his willingness to use it.
“The snakes would eat them whether we intervene or not. This is just helping us even the odds,” I said patiently.
Ryker sighed and clenched his jaw, closing his eyes. “Fine.”
“Great,” I said. “Now make the birds near the dam sing and scare the snake.”
His lips moved fast, muttering incantations or prayers, I couldn’t tell. Dozens of birds began chirping like they’d been impaled.
The snake changed course–coming straight for the meadow.
“It worked,” I said, hearing the relief in my own voice.
Ryker released a great big gust of breath as his eyes popped open.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked.
“We die.” My gaze slashed to his. “Will you stop complaining then?”
“We’ve never done battle like this.”
“Because we’ve never faced such a war. We do what we can to avoid as much bloodshed. WE adapt or we die.”
“That sounds like Protectorate talk,” Ryker grumbled.
“No,” Elysia said. “That sounds smart.”
I jerked my chin at him. “Well?”
Ryker nodded reluctantly. My eyes narrowed on him and didn’t move until the deer stilled. Their heads whipped in the direction of the snake, who’d picked up its pace. He must have smelled them.
On the bank, the soldiers were still shouting and looking for the source of the disruption, and nobody paid any attention to this monster. They wouldn’t find anything–Myron was probably already back on the boat, heading for camp.
Chaos erupted in the clearing as the snake burst through the trees.
“Time to go.” I allowed myself one small smile before the three of us crawled backwards, spidering our way down the side of the hill before the snake sensed us.
Elysia scuttled back the fastest. Ryker made a move to follow her, but I stopped him with a steady hand on his shoulder.
“I need to know you’re fully committed to this,” I said, steady and determined. “We’re facing a situation unlike any before. None of our ancestors fought a war like this. We can’t rely on our Blood Brotherhood powers, our training or our usual strategies for this. We need to improvise and do things we never dreamed of doing.”
“I know,” Ryker said.
“Do you?” I tightened my grip on his shoulder. “Because you’ve been fighting me all the way in this. I need you to trust this tactic.”
Because I barely trusted it myself. I was playing with odds not even Soryn could calculate.
I needed Ryker, as my second-in-command, to believe .
“I do,” he said fiercely, meeting my gaze head-on. “I went against all the other Northern Clans and pledged allegiance to you for a reason, Zandyr. If anyone can win us this war, it’s you.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I need you to be ready when the time comes.”
Everything hinged on Ryker’s abilities during the next battle.
If he had doubts, I needed to know now.
Our unflinching stares fought each other for a few moments, neither of us backing down.
“I will be,” he said at last. “Trust me just like you’re asking me to trust you.”
I nodded. I did trust him, with my life and thousands more.
He managed a grin. “Just don’t ask me to make birds sing again.”
“I won’t. Though your Huntress might enjoy something similar.” I returned the smirk. “And don’t worry, most of those deer will be fine.”
“Hopefully.” Ryker raised his gaze to the sky and muttered one of his Northern prayers. “Their fates are in the gods’ hands now. As are ours.”
I finally let go of him. “We make our own fates.”
If this plan failed, my entire Clan was doomed.