“I’ve given you another ability. Hold out your hand, palm up.”
Cranton did as instructed. I took a gold coin out of my purse and dropped it into his hand.
His eyes lit up, and I figured he was thinking about how much greenfoil he could purchase with a single gold coin.
I held up Grave Oath in front of his face and tapped the demon’s head pommel. “Look at this demon head, study it closely, and keep the image in your mind.”
“Got it, man,” he said, furrowing his brow.
“Good. Next, close your hand around this coin, shut your eyes, and focus on the power of death. It’s difficult to explain, but you need to channel all of your focus into this coin. Keep the image of the demon’s head in your mind the whole time. Things might start to feel strange, but don’t stop, and don’t open your hand until you get a sense that the process is complete.”
“Uh, okay, man.”
“Just let instinct and your intuition take over.”
Cranton closed his eyes and scrunched his face up with intense concentration, gripping the coin so tightly with his bony hand that his arm started to tremble.
“I… I can feel some weird shit happening, man!” he gasped.
“Concentrate,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t fuck this up.
He gritted his teeth and gripped the coin even harder, and his trembling became even more violent, almost to the point of convulsions. He suddenly stopped, and a calmness washed over him. His eyes opened and so did his hand as he beamed a triumphant grin at me.
I looked down at the gold coin in his hand and saw that it had been transformed. Now, like the coins that Rami and Elyse had, it was emblazoned with a demon’s head.
“Now, there’s another thing I want to show you. We just need to find a corpse.” I paused to think. “We could return to the town.”
“I may have a solution,” Isu said. She’d been so silent, I had almost forgotten she was there.
I raised an eyebrow. “You have a corpse?”
“I was keeping one for later.”
I considered asking her why she was saving a corpse for later, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “Can we have it?”
“Is this another favor, Vance?” Isu smiled, and it seemed like she was actually making a joke.
“Lead the way,” I said.
We pushed through the bushes and found a soldier lying against an oak tree. His back was twisted, but strangely, his chest rose and fell as though he was breathing, albeit poorly.
“I thought you said you had a corpse?” I asked Isu.
“He wasn’t far away from being a corpse.”
Cranton knelt beside the man and poked a wound in his ribs. The man groaned in response, and Cranton grinned.
“Should we question him?” he asked. “He probably knows all sorts of shit.”
“I doubt he can speak.” I gestured at his face, which was half-caved in. “Get your dagger out, and put the coin I gave you in your pocket.”
Cranton still had the ornate dagger that he’d taken from the sentinel statue in Xayon’s underground temple in Erst—yes, the dagger that nearly got us all killed—and he pulled it out of its sheath on his hip.
“Kill this soldier with it,” I said.
Cranton looked down at the wounded man, who was still groaning and in agony, and a look of unease came over his face.
“Uh… Vance, I’ve never killed anyone before. Shit, I haven’t even killed a rat or a mouse or anything.”
“Well, it’s pretty easy. You take that dagger, stick it into him, then pull it out.”
“Well, uh, I know the mechanics of how to do it, of course, but…”
“If you can’t do as simple a task as putting a wounded enemy out of his misery, then I might as well take back the powers I’ve given you and strip you of your Fated status. This asshole’s back is broken, and he’s going to die anyway.”
Cranton’s squint eyes steeled over, and his jaw tightened. “Then killing him would be a mercy. I can be merciful, man.” He darted forward and slammed his dagger into the side of the soldier’s neck.
Cranton was weak, but the blade was razor-sharp, and it sank into the man’s neck up to the hilt. The soldier gasped and shuddered, and blood gushed out of his mouth. As he died, his body began to wither up and shrivel like an apple left in the summer sun. In my hands, Grave Oath buzzed as the man’s soul was sucked into it.
“It worked,” I said, elated. “Your kill gave me his soul.”
The soldier’s shriveled body slumped onto the ground as the last of his life energy was extinguished. I was already feeling a little stronger now, after having weakened myself with everything I’d done for Cranton.
“There’s one final test for you,” I said to him. “Raise this asshole’s skeleton.”
He plucked his dagger from the dead man’s neck. “How?”
“The same way you transformed the coin. Focus hard.”
Once again, Cranton closed his eyes and exerted a great deal of effort, doing his utmost to concentrate. After a minute or two, the soldier’s body burst open in a grisly shower of blood, shredded meat, and torn viscera, and his skeleton jumped out.
“Holy shit!” Cranton yelled. “I did it!”
I felt another little surge of power as more of my strength was restored. The skeleton bowed its head slightly to Cranton, but it bowed all the way from the hip at me. It seemed this undead minion was loyal to me first and foremost, even though Cranton was the one who had raised it. It would obey his commands, yes, but I could easily override them if I desired. And I could draw on its strength just as easily as I could draw on the strength of any skeleton I’d raised myself.
I would let Cranton have this one, though. He wasn’t a fighter, so he needed a bodyguard, and this skeleton would be perfect for the job.
“Nice work, Cranton,” I said. “Keep this skeleton
