Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (35 page)

“Something I couldn’t figure out on my own?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Let’s call it a piece of advice. Nothing wrong with that.” Heden wasn’t sure who she was defending herself to. Possibly Cavall or the other saints.

She looked at him as though sending a favored son off to his apprenticeship.

“The perfect knight may have no place in an imperfect world. But you do.”

“What?” Heden asked. She was talking about Taethan. Saint Halcyon looked at Heden and shook her head.

“Lynwen likes you too much, she’d never say this. You’re not the hero, Heden. Stop trying to solve the problem and do your job.”

Heden drew himself up at that.

“My job,” he said, perhaps confrontationally, perhaps unwisely, “is to absolve the order of Kavalen’s death.”

Halcyon shrugged, mimicking Heden’s favorite gesture.

Heden’s mind raced as he tried to think of what Halcyon meant. He was afraid to ask a direct question, afraid he’d frighten her off. He noticed a honeybee land on her shoulder and then realized there were several there. He saw many buzzing around.

She nodded, though to what or whom Heden couldn’t know. She was still looking at him. “Well, that’s it,” she said. “Time for me to go.”

She turned and began to walk away.

“Wait,” Heden said. She stopped and turned. “Tell me Aderyn’s going to be okay.”

She looked at him with something like affection and nostalgia. “I can’t tell you that Heden, it’s not up to me. I will tell you that we were all very impressed back there at the river. Don’t waste it. She kept her oath too, remember that. Find a way to honor it, if you won’t honor your own.”

“What does that mean?” Heden asked. He was beginning to feel like he’d forget all this, had she given him any answers? Was this all going to slip away, as his meetings with other saints had, leaving only a memory of light?

“It means,” she said, and brushed the bees off her shoulders. They took flight but seemed to orbit around her. “Chastity is one-sided, but Fidelity is not.”

Heden looked at her blankly.

“You’re faithful to a person, remember. Not an idea.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well,” she said, sighing again. “I don’t talk to mortals that much anymore, it’s probably my fault. Sorry.” She smiled winsomely and turned and walked away.

As she turned and disappeared behind the nearby tree, Taethan came walking out from behind it. He was missing most of his armor, but he seemed otherwise no worse for wear. Someone had tended to him, just as Halcyon had tended Heden.

“That was a bloody great swarm of bees,” the knight said, using what was left of the carpet, in one hand, to ward off the cloud while he brushed them off his linen shirt with the other hand. Shirt, hands, and torn carpet were covered with blood. Heden looked down at himself, and saw that his leather pants were also soaked in blood.

The knight stood before Heden and handed him the carpet before looking at him. There were bees swarming all over the place, buzzing madly, apparently eager to get away from Heden and Taethan. Taethan waved more bees away, annoyed, and noticed they were crawling all over Heden.

“What did you do, land in a beehive?”

They were walking back to the priory. Both men limped like aged war veterans. Heden’s mind was compulsively replaying the conversation with Halcyon, looking for meaning. Taethan intruded on his thoughts.

“You seem withdrawn,” Sir Taethan put forward with some hesitation. Heden didn’t respond immediately. He was looking down at his feet eating up the miles. He’d been in many situations where he had to walk for weeks with no mount, and the only way he could do it was head down, one step at a time.

“I don’t like talking,” Heden said without looking up. “I like quiet.”

“It’s just that,” Taethan said after a moment, “you talked a great deal before we arrived at the lake.”

Heden didn’t reply.

“I had grown used to it,” Taethan admitted.

Heden glanced at him and read his expression.

“That had to be hard to say,” Heden said without sympathy.

Taethan shrugged, trying the expression out.

“You’re not going to tell me what happened to Kavalen,” Heden said. It wasn’t a question. “Not sure what there is to talk about. At this point, we get back to the priory, I can go home. Not sure why I bothered coming back up here, except to almost get killed.”

Taethan, he knew, was trying to bridge the gap between them. Heden was reminding him that Taethan put that gap there and it wasn’t going away as long as Kavalen’s death remained a mystery

The two men continued to crunch through yellow and red leaves. For a while, neither spoke.

“I fear I let you down at the lake,” Taethan said.

“Don’t see how there was anything you could do,” Heden said.

Sir Taethan frowned but said nothing. Heden let him off the hook.

“What did you think of Lynwen?” he asked, taking a guess at what Halcyon had meant when she said Heden’s saint was ‘busy.’

“I found her…” Taethan began. “Difficult.”

Heden nodded. “Yeah.”

“She does not seem to think very highly of you,” Taethan said, his frown deepening with confusion.

“Well,” Heden said with some resignation. “That’s only because she knows me.”

“Were you speaking with Halcyon?”

“Not exactly,” Heden said.

This alarmed Taethan.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It was more her talking and me listening.”

This seemed to relieve the knight.

“She said a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me.”

“Saint Lynwen did the same.”

“Did she come on to you?” Heden asked.

“Did she…?”

Heden glanced at him.

“Did she try and seduce you?” he asked.

Taethan blushed.

“Don’t worry,” Heden said. “She knew you’d refuse her.”

“She knew?” Taethan asked, not sure what that signified.

“Yeah,” Heden said. “If she thought you’d, ah…succumb,” he said. “She’d never have bothered with you.”

“That does not make sense,” Taethan said.

“You haven’t known many women, have you?”

Taethan said nothing.

“Well, Lynwen is like most of them, only more so.”

“And you are her only follower,” Taethan observed.

Heden suspected this told Taethan more about him than he found comfortable.

“How did that come to be?” Taethan asked. It was the most personal question he’d asked thus far.

“How far to the priory?” Heden asked.

Taethan didn’t respond at first. It seemed Heden was changing the subject.

“Half a day,” he said.

“Half a day,” Heden repeated. “That’s not long enough for me to tell the story.”

Heden watched the ground being eaten by his boots step by step, but out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Taethan smile.

“We have no mounts,” Taethan said. “I’m afraid we are ill prepared.”

“I was prepared,” Heden said, “before that thing ripped my carpet in half.”

“Can it be repaired?”

“I dunno,” Heden said. “What’s left is still usable, but no more riding two,” he said. “Pity.”

“There was no danger I’d get on that thing again in any case,” Taethan said.

“Feel like walking anyway,” Heden said.

“Myself as well,” Taethan said. Heden was reminded that the knights lived solitary lives.

They continued their slow journey to the priory. Neither had the strength to muster a prayer to grant them speed.

“If that thing,” Heden began.

“The Yllindir,” Taethan offered.

“Yeah,” Heden said. “Let’s say the urq are controlling it or driving it….”

“They could not control it,” Taethan rejected the idea. “They may be herding it south. If there are enough of them. They would need a great many. They would be like gnats to it.”

“Okay,” Heden said. That wasn’t his point. “If it showed up at Ollghum Keep, could the Green stop it?”

“You mean a fight?” Taethan asked.

Heden shrugged. “You tell me.”

Taethan marched with Heden through the forest. They looked a pair.

“Lady Isobel could stop it,” the knight said eventually.

Heden glanced at him, read his expression, then went back to watching where he was going.

“Okay,” Heden said. This was good news. He’d been thinking how futile everything was now. The Celestial siege engine would make short work of the keep, Green Order or no. “How?”

Taethan seemed reluctant to answer. Heden let him work it out. Silence seemed to bother him now.

“Do you know the fae?”

“Yeah,” Heden said, nodding. “Yeah I do.”

“They can influence the Yllindir.”

Heden nodded. “That makes sense.” Both were created by and servants of the Elves.

“And Lady Isobel is counted as an ally of their Queen.”

“Okay,” Heden said. Taethan didn’t seem to mind questions that furthered the rescue of Ollghum Keep. Heden was worried the presence of the Yllindir rendered any attempt at rescue moot.

“Do you think the urq know that?”

“No. Her demesne is leagues away, these urmen have no direct knowledge of her.”

“Whose demesne are we in now?”

“The lake belongs to us all,” Taethan said. “But the priory and the area surrounding were our commander’s. The urq know him best.”

Heden took this in as they walked.

“That lake is holy to you, right?” Heden asked.

“It is our most sacred place.”

“And everyone knows that?”

“All the wode.”

“Even the urq?” Heden asked.

Taethan did not reply. Heden took this as a ‘yes.’

“Do the urmen know Kavalen is dead?”

“I cannot see how,” Taethan said, trying to see what Heden was getting out. “Why do you ask?”

Heden shook his head sharply, trying to dislodge a thought.

“I’m trying to figure out what the urmen are thinking.”

“I think they plan on sacking the keep,” Taethan said.

“No, not what they’re planning,” Heden snapped back. “What they’re thinking.”

“I do not understand the difference,” Taethan said.

Heden glanced at him.

“No, I guess you don’t,” he said. “If they’re planning on attacking the keep, okay. Fine. But what about you?”

“Me?”

“No, I mean the order, what about the order?”

“The order would prevent it.”

“Normally.”

“Normally,” Taethan repeated, beginning to see. “Yes.”

“But Kavalen’s death makes things different.”

Heden stopped without realizing it. He was swimming down several different streams at the same time. Taethan stopped as well.

“They don’t know Kavalen is dead. They’re expecting the order to try and stop them at the keep, so they go round up the Yllindir to even the odds. But first they send it to the lake. Why? How could they have guessed you and I would be there?” He looked at Taethan and presumed the knight was wondering the same thing.

Taethan looked at him blankly.

“The only reason they’d send it to the lake,” Heden reasoned, “is if they thought the knights would be there. Which maybe you would after the death of your leader. Go have some ceremony at your holy place. But if they know Kavalen’s dead, why bother with the Yllindir? Why not just go sack the keep while you’re all sitting around mourning at the priory?”

Heden shook his head.

“Doesn’t make sense,” he said.

“I hope you figure it out,” Taethan said raising one eyebrow.

“Well someone has to,” Heden shot back. “And you’re sure as shit not going to do anything.”

Heden was trying to figure it out. He was doing exactly what Halcyon told him not to do. He was trying to solve the problem. Figure out who killed Kavalen and why. But the order was Taethan’s challenge, that’s what the knight said, and Taethan was Heden’s.

Heden looked at Taethan’s bloody clothing under what was left of his armor. They had almost died at the lake. At the lake Taethan led them to.

“You took us to the lake,” Heden said, his eyes flitting to Taethan and then away, afraid of what he was discovering, dread coming over him.

“You took
me
to the lake.”

Taethan looked at Heden, his face somewhere between fear and hope. Heden knew he was right.

“I’m the only one trying to do anything about what happened,” Heden said. “And you took me to the lake.”

Taethan tilted his head expectantly.

“You knew the Yllindir was going to be there,” Heden said flatly. “You had planned to go get killed fighting the urq alone. But you hadn’t reckoned on me. The two of us might be able to stop the urq army,” he said. “So that plan was out. So we go to the lake, where you knew the Yllindir would be. It would make short work of both of us. Then your problem is solved. The urq get Ollghum Keep, the gods only know why, I can’t interfere if I’m dead, and you get to satisfy your self-obsession and guilt by being killed in the process.”

Taethan looked confused. “What a horrible way to think,” he said. “Lynwen was right about you.”

“You killed Kavalen,” Heden concluded, ignoring him.

Taethan turned in disgust and continued walking back to the priory as quickly as he could.

Heden ran to keep up with him.

“You killed Kavalen so the urq could sack Ollghum Keep,” he said.

“I was wrong about you,” Taethan said. “You are a fool.”

“What’s so damned important about the keep that it was worth murdering your commander? Why is your silence more important than those people? Why isn’t anyone trying to save them!”

Taethan wheeled on him.

“Why do you pretend to care for the people of the keep?” Taethan asked.

“Have you met any of them?” Heden shot back. “When was the last time you met anyone who wasn’t another knight?”

“You have met the people of Ollghum Keep, yet you are here.”

“Yes!” Heden said. “I’m here, trying to get you lot to do your duty.”

“But you do not need us!” Taethan said. He pointed to Heden’s backpack. “I saw what you did to the Illyndir. And I saw the sky go black when you fought the urq, though I was leagues away. Do not pretend impotence, you have power enough to stop an army!”

This brought Heden up short. He put his hand on the pommel of his sword, though
Starkiller
was in his pack.

He remembered his speech to Aderyn. ‘
It takes men to hold the field
,’ so said Duke Baede. But Heden had
Starkiller.
The ancient dwarven blade could turn the tide. Why had he brought it?

He’d brought it to defend himself. That’s what Taethan forced him to see. He’d brought
Starkiller
because he needed something to rely on, so he wouldn’t have to rely on Cavall. Because he didn’t trust his relationship with Cavall. Because he was afraid that asking his god for help would mean…having to do the right thing.

This was not a truth he was prepared to face. He evaded.

“The people of Ollgham Keep,” he said slowly, “are your duty. You are mine.”

“You are a bumbling knave,” Taethan said, containing his anger. “You deserve that harlot as a saint, and she deserves you.”

Whatever else was true, Taethan was not acting like a man who was guilty of the crime Heden just accused him of. Heden could read his face and see truth and what he saw was frustration, which frustrated Heden.

Heden nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I could have told you that. Maybe you didn’t kill Kavalen, okay, but you know who did and right now knowing and not telling me makes you a coward.” It was the strongest insult Heden could think of, designed to provoke the knight.

“Draw your sword,” Taethan said mildly.