Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (38 page)

The body of Sir Idris.

Heden watched, dumbstruck for a moment. He saw Taethan lying, unconscious, a few yards away. He made a quick calculation.

He crawled to the knight and examined him quickly. He was not dead. He was unconscious, ribs shattered, but Heden could fix that. First, he asked Cavall for aid, and strength and health flooded back into him. His wounded shoulder and neck healed and became stiff, almost too stiff to move. It didn’t matter how close to death Heden was, Cavall would not refuse him.

He watched Nudd swinging his sword about him like a whip, urq fell in pieces. Each swing took out two or three of them. Even the wounded tried to crawl forward and attack, but were prevented by fresh urmen stepping on and over them. And Sir Nudd’s horse kicked, bit, and stamped many urq to death, its armor warding against blows.

One urq used his heavily muscled arms to run forward and launch himself over the fray at Nudd, but the knight simply reached out with one hand, the other stabbing his impossibly heavy sword through the fat of another urq, and grabbed the tusk of the screaming, incoming urq as it arced through the air.

Tusk in hand, Nudd twisted and snapped the urman’s jaw in one fluid motion, pulling it down behind him as he twisted out of the way. The entire episode took no more than three seconds. Nudd was impossibly strong. He could have carved up this entire band with his bare hands.

The urmen finally tore Sir Nudd’s horse out from under him. The beast screamed in pain as they ripped it apart. Heden’s heart raced at the terrible sounds.

For a moment, Heden couldn’t see anything but a beating, thrashing pile of urmen tearing into the still-living horse, but then Nudd regained himself. He stood. Though his horse was now mortally wounded, would be alive for only moment more and in pain all the while, Sir Nudd began hewing about him again, defending the dying mount. His face was grim, but his eyes streamed tears. The only sign of mourning for his steed.

Bodies piled around Sir Nudd, but nothing could stop him. No urq, certainly. Heden watched, pulling Taethan’s body as fast as he could, and wondered, as urq after urq fell.
How many would it take?
How many urq were enough? Nudd’s labor seemed effortless.

None
, Heden realized with admiration. No amount was enough. The only hope the urq had was to ignore the knight, he was only one man and now had no horse. But they were driven with hatred for men, hatred for the knights, and hatred for the knight who killed their commander.

Heden stripped off Taethan’s armor, preparing to pray over him and bring him back again. There were still two thyrs. Did Nudd know that?

The urmen tried to bring Nudd down with nets, but this was not possible. He didn’t need his sword, he just ripped the nets apart.

Heden was so fixated on the battle he viewed through the trees, he didn’t see the urq archers who’d climbed back atop the fallen tree, their fear of what it had done mastered. From their vantage point above the battle, they loosed a dozen black arrows. And a dozen black arrows thudded into Nudd. It seemed only to enrage him further, but Heden knew this couldn’t last. The arrows were almost certainly poisoned and Nudd had not warded himself.

Heden started to pray, but stopped when he heard a sound like a thunderclap from behind. It took him a second, looking at the still raging battle, to reconstruct what had happened.

Nudd was still standing, but the arrows that had stuck in him were now burned down to a few inches. His armor had peeled off him and was now smoking in a husk at his feet, some small, lethally sharp scraps still clung to him.

The lead thyrs, his second behind him, had stabbed the ground with his own lightning maul, loosing a bolt that slammed into Nudd, and though it meant killing many urq, burned and blistered Nudd and ripped his armor off him.

Sir Nudd was not down yet, but was now largely unarmored and poisoned, and two thyrs faced him. He was the biggest of the knights, as big as one of the men of the great bay beyond the Iron Forest, but next to the mountain thyrs, he seemed a child.

His flesh smoked. He seemed disoriented. He didn’t seem aware of what had just happened. Though many had urq died when the lightning hit him, there were many more. An endless supply, who ran at the knight in an attempt to avenge their leader.

As the urq blades cut into his seared flesh, he continued to fight. The two thyrs surrounded him and swung at him with their mauls. He deflected one, dodged another, but then the lead thyrs caught him and smashed his collarbone. Heden heard a snapping sound.

He watched in silent horror as something appeared ready to burst out of Nudd. His chest swelled, his face turned red as though he were about to vomit, and then as if torn from him violently, Heden heard something he would never forget.

“KAVALEN!!” Nudd cried at the last. His tears mingling with blood. Though one arm was now useless, he hewed about him mightily, his two-handed blade a blur.

“KAVALEN!!” he shouted again, the first words he’d spoken since swearing his oath. Heden saw the knight’s hair slowly bleed its green out, revealing dull brown. Nudd was a knight no longer. He seemed to physically diminish, but Heden couldn’t be sure if it was just a trick of his perception. The thyrs hit him again. And again.

Summoning the last of his strength, he continued to fight. His oath broken, his unnatural power deserted him. His massive strength waned, but it seemed it would take hours to bring him down. Moment ago, he could not be stopped by any number of urq. Now, there was no way he could survive.

Heden looked around. The urq were ignoring him. They wanted a piece of the green knight’s flesh. To eat the body of the man who killed their master.

Using the kind of logic one acquired over a decade of campaigns, Heden picked up the unconscious form of Sir Taethan and slung the knight over his shoulder.

Around him, the bodies of a hundred urq, two hundred, lay dead or dying. The urmen swarmed over him and Sir Nudd disappeared under a pile of stabbing, slashing, beating blue-black arms. Heden could see the knight no longer.

He turned and, with Taethan on his back, ran for the priory.

The sound of battle faded until eventually Heden could hear it no more. He alternated walking a few paces, then jogging a few, Taethan on his back, until he felt safe. He found a large boulder without any trees growing around it, and laboriously climbed atop it, eventually resting Taethan’s body on top of the rock. From this vantage point, it would be very difficult for anyone to sneak up on him while he tended to the knight.

Normally he would be concerned over how much aid he had asked Cavall for thus far, but all such concerns fled at the sight of the man, almost dead before him. Being roughly carried by Heden for over an hour hadn’t helped.

Heden prayed, and Taethan’s wounds mended quickly. He could sense the presence of Cavall’s power, and someone else’s. Halcyon’s.

Taethan opened his eyes.

“We’re alive,” he realized.

Heden nodded.

“You saved me,” Taethan said. He held out his arm. Heden grasped it at the elbow. A fraternal handshake. “I owe you my life.”

“It was Nudd,” Heden said, releasing the knight.

“Sir Nudd?” Taethan asked, confused.

“You were out,” Heden said. He explained what happened.

“We must aid him,” Taethan said. Heden nodded.

“We can’t,” he said.

“Cannot?” Taethan said. “You would leave him to….”

“Nudd is no longer a knight,” Heden said.

Taethan gaped at him.

“Nudd?” he asked, almost like a child. His face fallen.

“He saved me,” Heden said, sitting back on the rock. “He killed that urq commander. He…he called out.”

“Oh, Nudd!” Taethan cried.

“He called out Kavalen’s name as his battle cry. His last words.”

“This world!” Taethan said, looking to the sky. “Halcyon aid me!”

It seemed the knight wanted to weep but his own pain overwhelmed him.

“I don’t know how much of Pakadrask’s unit will survive,” Heden said, trying to ignore Taethan’s pain. “Some of them were running as soon as you brought up that tree thing. We’ve got to get back to the priory if we have any chance of…” Heden thought about how much had been lost already. “Anything,” he said finally.

Taethan didn’t seem to be listening. Heden didn’t blame him. He extended his arm again. Taethan took it reflexively, and Heden lifted him up.

“You ready to go?” Heden said, examining him for any permanent damage.

Taethan just looked down at him.

“How do you bear it?”

Heden didn’t want to look the knight in the eye, wanted to pretend he didn’t hear what the knight had said. But he felt he owed him something. What, he wasn’t sure.

He looked into the eyes of the Green Knight.

“It’s not easy,” he said. He knew it sounded glib, but it was the truest thing he could think of.

Taethan wouldn’t drop it.

“Tell me,” he said.

Heden didn’t know how to answer questions like this. He remembered the lake, its beauty, and then the Yllindir arriving. He remembered Elzpeth and everything they had, and then Aendrim. He remembered asking his father a similar but much less meaningful question and, not for the first time, found himself quoting a farmer in his seventies who’d never been more than five miles from home.

“You have to take the good with the bad,” Heden said simply.

Taethan looked like he’d been poisoned, like he might throw up at any moment. Heden knew what he wanted to say.

“Some people get a bigger helping of bad,” Heden agreed with the knight’s unspoken objection. “Not much you can do about that.”

He knew the answer didn’t satisfy. But then, what answer could?

“Complaining about it doesn’t seem to help,” he said tersely. “Come on,” he turned and climbed down the rock.

When he was on the ground again, he looked up and saw Taethan looking down at him. The knight hadn’t moved.

“I no longer think it matters,” Taethan said.

Heden looked around the forest impatiently, and looked back up at Taethan waiting for him to explain.

“Whether you speak the ritual,” he said.

“Maybe it never mattered,” Heden allowed himself, remembering what the polder and Halcyon had said.

“You may be right. It is a kind of tragedy. I would undo it, if I could.”

“You should have thought of that before Kavalen was murdered.”

Taethan surprised Heden.

“You are right,” he said simply. He paused in thought and then began to climb down the rock. Heden wondered if that was as close as he’d get to a confession.

Once both were on the forest floor, they began heading south again. Neither spoke.

Heden didn’t know how much time passed, maybe an hour, before Taethan spoke again.

“There are only five of us now,” he said.

Heden kept his mouth shut.

“Four dead.”

“Going to be a lot more than four dead,” Heden said, “if we don’t get Isobel to stop the Yllindir.”

“The keep,” Taethan said, nodded.

“Yeah. What, did you forget?”

“Not exactly,” Taethan said. “I…I admire your ability to focus on the next problem.”

“Thanks,” Heden said with no gratitude. “Wouldn’t mind five thousand urmen fighting for survival and territory instead of killing humans they don’t give a shit about, either.”

Taethan absorbed this, saying nothing.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Heden said. “I don’t mind a dead urq, I don’t mind that at all, but I like to think they’re off somewhere in the wode fighting the trolls and the brocc.”

At this, a war scream sounded just behind them, and an urq launched itself at Taethan. It had followed them alone from the battle.

Both men, exhausted, were surprised. But it was just one urq. The blink of an eye and the thing lay against a tree twenty feet away, unmoving.

Heden and Taethan walked up to it, sheathing their weapons. It was still alive, breathing. Its eyes open, but unseeing.

Taethan took off his linen shirt and began to tear it into bandages.

“What are you doing?” Heden asked.

Taethan didn’t answer.

The urq wheezed, black blood, thicker than human blood, oozed from its wounds. Its yellow eyes were wide and unfocused. It was in shock.

This is what the dragons thought of us
, Heden thought.

“This thing would kill you if it had the chance; you know that better than anyone.”

“It’s helpless.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Heden said thickly, looking around the forest.

Taethan continued to minister to the creature. He tensed and his movements became jerky, angry at Heden.

“You realize that what you’re doing right now probably means the death of more men.”

Taethan surged to his feet. He stopped himself from assaulting Heden.

“Stop
testing
me,” Taethan said, staring at Heden, their faces inches from each other.

“Is that what I’m doing?” Heden asked.

“Why are you so blind?” Taethan demanded. “Why can’t you see what’s happening right in front of you? You know why I’m doing this, by the Gods, stop acting like you don’t.”

“You’re aiding the enemy.”

“Don’t act like you don’t understand! Don’t
blame
me because you don’t know what’s happening at the priory!”

This threw Heden. He tried using his ignorance like a weapon.

“There are a lot of things I don’t know,” he said. “I came up here to find out and I get ‘talk to Taethan.’ Well that didn’t do a lot of good, did it? You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to tell me what happened. You sure as shit don’t care if it destroys the order, but by Cyrvis’ thorny prick you care about a fucking urq.”

“I’m helping this creature because I have to!” Taethan shuddered with barely controlled violence.
Finally
, Heden thought.
We’re down to it.

“Why do you call it a creature, why don’t you call it an urq?” Heden was not intimidated. The opposite. He felt he and Taethan were both walking the same awful path, but only one of them could see it.

“Do you think that I am doing this for the
urq
?”

Heden didn’t reply.

“I’m doing this because of who I am. Because I’m not going to give that up. Not because of the urq. Not because he deserves it, not because of what he’s done or what he might do. Not because of what
they think
,” he shouted. Heden knew he meant the rest of the order.

“And later?” Heden asked. “When it’s killing the innocent people at the keep?”

“Damn it, man! Why are you doing this?! Why are you pretending like you wouldn’t do the same thing? Why are you acting like
them?
” he demanded, pointing in the direction of the distant priory.

Heden shook his head. Trying to preserve his sense of self in Taethan’s onslaught.

He looked at the dying urq. It heard none of this, its body desperately trying to maintain life for another few moments. Heden saw the giant, Nudd’s spear sticking out of its back, make one last vain horrible attempt to save itself, push itself up, and only end up turning its head to look at Heden. Pleading. Terrified. It didn’t know why it was dying. Heden didn’t know why Nudd had killed it.

“It’s a creature born and bred to hate and kill,” Heden said slowly, trying to keep perspective. “You took an oath…”

“My
oath
? Do not dare to speak of my oath, thou base and churlish knave,” he said. “You defame it by your presence. I swore to preserve life.”

“Human life.”

“All life!”

“Is that what you told Kavalen before you killed him?” Heden dared.

Taethan lunged at him, his speed remarkable. Heden braced himself and the knight grabbed him by his breastplate at the shoulders, lifted him off the ground and bore him backward, slamming him into the trunk of a tree. Heden’s head hit the bark and he almost lost consciousness again. When he’d shaken the impact off, he heard Taethan shouting at him.

“What kind of man are you?!” Taethan roared. “Why did you come here, why are you doing this?”

“I came to absolve the order of…” Heden began.

“No!” Taethan said, pulling Heden’s body away from the tree and then slamming him back into it. “You! What do you want?! Is there nothing left of the priest? Is there no man in there?” he howled, and slammed Heden into the tree again.

Heden looked into Taethan’s face, twisted with rage, his eyes red.

“I don’t know,” Heden confessed, and the confession took something out of him, took away some defense he had stored. He was afraid of what it meant, and his fear showed. “I don’t know what else to do.”

In a flash, the hate was gone. As quickly as it arrived. Taethan shrunk. Like a puppet whose strings were cut, he sagged but did not collapse. He let Heden go. He looked beaten.

Heden felt the same. He’d deliberately provoked the knight and felt like shit because of it, and he’d still not gotten what he wanted.

Heden watched Taethan’s reaction to him, and something clicked. Heden peered at the Green Knight.

“Compassion,” he said.

“What?” Taethan asked, uncomprehending.

“That’s what Halcyon meant. What she hoped I’d figure out.” What gave Taethan his power.

Taethan ripped some cloth in two and handed a strip to Heden.

“Are you going to help me or not?” he asked.

“The other knights must
hate
you,” Heden said. The sheer weight of Heden’s understanding of the knight struck him like a blow. Taethan bowed his head.

“Every time they do their duty, they see you judging them,” Heden pronounced. Taethan seemed to diminish with each sentence.

“You were a priest,” Taethan said miserably.

“They love it. Defending the forest, killing the urq and thyrs who push things too far.”

“Have you no mercy?” Taethan pleaded.

“But you’ve got so much compassion you can’t stand it. You do it, and it kills you a little each time.”

“You were a good man once,” Taethan said. “What happened to you?”

“They hate that. They hate being reminded of how awful it is. Hate being reminded of what it’s like being human. And you hate reminding them. But you don’t know how to stop it. You’d give anything to stop it. You’re so full of compassion, you’re sick with it.” He pointed to the dying urq. “You can’t help but feel what it feels. And it’s destroying you.”

Taethan didn’t look at Heden, he just held out the strip of white cloth, and waited. Waited to see how much Heden understood.

Heden knew what the offer meant. It meant all of Heden’s judgment of the knight was judgment of himself as well. Meant admitting that whatever Taethan had done, whatever had brought Heden up here, whatever happened to Kavalen, it was exactly the same thing Heden would have done, and for the same reason.