Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (37 page)

“Watch out!” Heden said, trying to get some distance

The thyrswight threw the huge boulder at Taethan, who deftly ducked out of the way and then leapt into the air. When the rock hit the ground behind him, the impact threw dirt high in the air and knocked several urq off their feet, but Taethan was in the air when it happened and so remained unaffected.

Heden was impressed. Taethan was minding the giant just as Heden was, and needed no warning.

For his part, Heden was dealing with fewer urq. They seemed much more interested in Taethan, the known quantity. Heden slashed and stabbed about him with
starkiller
, the dwarven blade drinking the blood of the urmen greedily. Its eerie light sparked and flashed with each blow.

The three thyrs remained otherwise disengaged. They were watching the knight and the arrogate, looking for weakness, judging strength.

Heden heard an urq barking orders. He knew it was Pakadrask. The urq commander climbed back atop the tree and, seeing the giants doing nothing, shouted at them and pointed at the knight and the priest.

The lead thyrs shouted to his companion who stood on the ground, dead vines at his feet. The shorter thyrs turned and the lead giant tossed him a heavy stone maul. The thyrs waded into battle with it. It was crudely shaped, but so large it needed no special craftsmanship to wreak its havoc.

The giant swung about him trying to hit Taethan. Many urmen were killed in the process. Those remaining didn’t seem to notice. Taethan avoided one blow, two, but the giant surprised him by smashing the ground when Taethan expected another blow, and the knight was knocked into the air. The giant was ready for this, it was a tactic he’d tried before, and as the knight rose in the air, the thyrs swung his maul around again and smashed Taethan in his unarmored chest sending him flying.

Had he landed, wounded, amongst the urmen, it would have been trouble, but through sheer luck the thyrs sent the knight flying to Heden.

Heden ran to Taethan and saw he’d been knocked out. Heden touched the knight with his sword and said a potent prayer. Taethan opened his eyes, no disorientation, and extended his hand to the arrogate.

Heden helped Taethan up and for a moment the two men grasped forearms like soldiers and looked into each other’s eyes. There was gratitude from Taethan, but not for the help, for the kinship. Heden was moved and as the urmen ran to them and the giant strode toward them, Heden felt a bond with this knight, unlike any knight he’d known before.

The feeling lasted only a moment, and then the urq were upon them.

The knight and the former priest fought, back to back, each man’s sword arm acting as the shield for the other. While Heden was nothing like the fighter Taethan was,
starkiller
made up the difference.

Soon they were surrounded by urq with rust-covered skin and Heden knew Pakadrask had unleashed his elite upon them. Bloodwalkers. But he had no patience for this. He spoke a word in Elemental and the whole squad of them, twelve at least, fell as blue-black lightning, almost invisible, arced between them, each arc detonating an urq leaving behind a pink mist before leaping to the next.

In an instant, the elite urmen were down, leaving a confused and frightened army. Their bloodwalkers had died in the blink of an eye without scratching the humans. The urq had seen anything like this power. Many ran.

But the giant did not. He strode forward, banging his stone maul against the ground.

“If you were saving anything for later!” Heden shouted over his shoulder as the two men fought together. “There are two more where this one came from!” The other two mountain thyrs stood on the fallen tree, their leader with his arms crossed, watching to see how one thyrs would fare.

Heden felt Taethan’s left shoulder pressing back against him, and they wheeled until Taethan was fighting and facing Pakadrask, commanding his urmen and the thyrs.

“You wish to see the power of the Green!?” Taethan called out. “You would pit your might against mine?” He killed another three urq, and he and Heden strategically withdrew. Neither wanted the pile of urq bodies to rise so high they couldn’t maneuver.

“The Green is broken!” Pakadrask howled, his long white tusks slicing through the air with every word. “This is your last stand!”

“Prepare to meet your god and be shamed before him!” Taethan hurled back.

He spoke a prayer and Heden was surprised when he heard it. It was just a name. Like one might summon a Dominion. What was the knight doing? What power did he call?

The earth began to tremble. The urq stopped attacking. Heden stopped attacking. The thyrs ceased its march toward them. They had to concentrate to keep their footing. They looked around wildly.

The fallen tree the urmen used as cover began to rise.

It was not a man-like thing. It was fallen tree, but a tree could take a long time to die and with the things that lived in and on it, who could say whether it was ever truly dead?

Branches grew like rising smoke. As though time had sped up. Vines grew and lashed out to the other trees pulling the tree upright as more branches pushed from below.

Urq fell from the thing like beetles. The two thyrs lost their balance and fell backward. Behind the tree, Heden could see what seemed like an entire army of urmen, waiting for battle. But this couldn’t be the whole thing; the urmen had a keep to assault. Heden had underestimated the size of the real army, if this was only a fraction they sent to kill Taethan.

The tree rose with frightening speed until it was upright again, it’s leafless branches scraping the canopy of green leaves above. It was alive, it was a raging thing and it hated the urq. Without mouth, without eyes, it radiated hunger for these twisted mirror mockeries of men.

The vines reached out and wrapped themselves around the urq, thrust themselves into the urq mouths, erupted from urq eyeballs and ears. Some urmen were merely picked up, flailing about them trying to cut the vines, and some succeeded. But those were merely grabbed by other vines, sometimes before they hit the ground.

As the demon tree spirit maneuvered forward, Heden unable to see how it propelled itself, black branches would suddenly thrust out, like lances twenty feet long, skewering several urmen at once.

Pakadrask ordered, and many urq attacked the tree god, ran at it and chopped at its crumbling decaying bark. But each blow let off a cloud of black spores from mushrooms covering the bark. The urq couldn’t help but breathe them in, cough once, twice, and then fall to the ground. They died quickly, squirming, their small yellow eyeballs popping out of their heads.

The thyrs before them saw the forest spirit come alive, saw his commander and ally fall off it, and saw that Taethan had summoned it. It ran at the knight, needing only three strides to close the distance, and pounded its stone maul into the ground as it did so. Arcing from the point the club struck the forest floor was a brilliant white lightning bolt that stabbed at Taethan. But Taethan was ready.

Taethan dodged as soon as he saw the thyrs bring his maul down, he knew what the mountain thyrswights could do. But leaping out of the way gave the giant the opportunity to grab him in his massive hand after his club had smashed into the ground.

Taethan’s arms were pinned to his side. The thyrs clasped the knight to his chest and began to crush him. The knight couldn’t breathe, couldn’t attack. The other two thyrs stood up, and watched, grinning. While urmen retreated past them, they walked forward without haste. Enjoying watching their friend kill a Green Knight.

Heden ran forward, prepared to attack the giant, but Pakadrask interposed and began assaulting Heden, an axe in each hand.

The urq commander was a skilled fighter. Much more skilled than his men. Heden recognized the fighting style. Pakadrask had been a bloodwalker. Experienced beyond a normal urman and now a commander besides.

In spite of this, Heden was not afraid.

He lashed out with
starkiller
and one of Pakadrask’s axes exploded, sending shards of metal into the urman’s forearm.

He tried it again with the other axe, but this time there were just black sparks. There was some form of sorcery on the remaining axe. Heden frowned and stepped back. The urmen could not create a sorcerous blade. Where had Pakadrask gotten this axe?

Pakadrask, his left arm bleeding, grinned at Heden, his flat white teeth smeared with blood, his tusks threatening.

Heden was not a swordsman, he had to rely on
starkiller
to fight for him. But his prayers made up for it. He blinded Pakadrask, but the urq kept pressing the attack and fought by sound until he was able to shake off the blindness. All too quickly, for Heden’s tastes.

The urq feinted with the axe and then caught Heden’s left side, smashing into his ribs and cutting one of the straps that held his breastplate on. Heden spoke a withering prayer, but Pakadrask covered his face with his wounded arm. The arm shriveled and turned black.

The urman ignored it, leaving it to hang from his side. He sneered and slashed at Heden, forcing him back. As capable with one arm as two.

Heden encountered worry, and looked to see if Taethan were still alive.

The knight was unconscious, limp in the thyrswight’s arms. Heden saw this, and began to summon Ailil, a Dominion, to settle the matter. But fate intervened.

Whatever prayer Taethan used to manifest the demon tree spirit, it had worn off. The urq army was decimated, but enough were left to be a problem as long as the three giants still lived, continued to crush the life out of the knight.

The tree ceased moving. Urq stopped dying. It slowly began to topple over. Heden watched as it fell toward the giant. Pakadrask stopped and watched as well.

The mountain thyrs turned at the last moment and saw the huge tree about to fall on him. Mouth open, it tried to step out of the way, the tree would only glance him.

But at the last moment, a pointed branch thrust out from the tree and with the entire weight of the two hundred foot tall tree behind it, drove itself into the giant, through its skull and down through its chest, impaling him, ripping him apart, and finally crushing him.

Taethan’s unmoving body fell to the ground next to the dead thyrs and the now lifeless tree.

Heden tried to close the gap again and get beyond Pakadrask, but the urman commander had slipped behind him.

Pakadrask wrapped his remaining massive arm around Heden’s head, twisting and exposing his neck with one arm. Heden began a prayer, and then his shoulder and collarbone exploded in pain. He saw coming into his field of view from below two needle-thin, blood-red tusks.

Pakadrask had pierced Heden’s breastplate with his tusks, which went clean through Heden’s chest and neck. He was biting down at the same time, into Heden’s shoulder.

Heden swung around, pulling Pakadrask with him, and tried to stab the urq with
starkiller
, but the urq was unreachable.

Heden found he couldn’t breathe, the weight of the urq commander, all four hundred pounds, drove Heden to his knees. The other urq were standing by, watching their master take the priest down. Many were glancing back at the tree, afraid it still had the power to kill.

Pakadrask twisted and Heden felt his neck would snap. He looked at Taethan’s unconscious form and thought that if he wasn’t dead now, he would be once the urmen finished with Heden.

As his vision narrowed, Heden found himself feeling guilty over the knight’s death, over his own inability to learn the truth. He had failed here, and it was costing him his life, but more he felt he had failed Taethan, and he wasn’t sure how or why. He would die confused and ignorant here in the forest.

Fitting
, he thought.

Something hit him. Something big smashed into him and ripped the urq commander off him, sending Heden spinning and falling on his face.

Face down in the dirt and leaves, he heard hooves beating past him. A horse. A big one. He pushed himself up and looked forward and saw a caparisoned steed with a knight atop it. A Green Knight. Though helmed, given his size, there was only one knight it could be.

Sir Nudd.

His lance had unerringly pierced Pakadrask’s ribs, jutted through his chest, but the urq was still alive. His strength inhuman. Nudd tilted his lance up, and Pakadrask slid down it, impaling himself further, the lance protruding from his back, covered in black oily blood.

The lance held in one hand, Nudd drew a great two-handed sword with the other. Pakadrask’s eye went wide, he gritted his teeth, scrambling to grab the lance, prevent himself from sliding closer to Nudd. He knew what was coming.

As though it were light as a rapier, Nudd’s two-handed swung around, and Pakadrask’s head flew off into the forest, landing where Heden couldn’t see.

Seeing their commander killed, the urmen went into a blood rage. They forgot Taethan and Heden, forgot the deadly tree spirit, stopped running away, turned, and swarmed across the forest floor toward the knight. He and his horse were so large, they made the urq seem small by comparison.

Sir Nudd swung about him with his massive two-handed broadsword. His horse stamped and bit, turning slowly, crushing urq skulls and ribs with its mighty hooves. Apart from Nudd and his pack and weapons, there was a body wrapped in white cloth strapped to the horse’s back.