Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (39 page)

Heden reached out and took the torn piece of blood-stained white linen.

He held the cloth limply in his hand and watched the perfect knight turn and tend to the enemy. He didn’t know what to think. His mind was empty but for understanding of Taethan. The knight who had lived such a different life from Heden and yet the two of them had ended up living the same false existence. Fearing what it meant, Heden felt closer to this knight than he ever had anyone in his life.

He looked at the urq. The once strong and deadly creature now seemed feeble and childlike.

Heden bent, his joints popping, kneeled awkwardly on the ground, tore off a strip of white cloth, and began to bind the urman’s wounds.

Neither of them spoke the entire way back to the priory.

It was after noon by the time they stepped out of the forest and entered the clearing dominated by the steeple of the stone building. It had been only three days since he left Celkirk. Three days without sleep. The skies were darkening. The temperature was dropping rapidly. There would be a storm.

The wind picked up, causing the half-built tent Aderyn had never finished to whip and flap. Sir Brys was standing outside, brushing his horse. He saw Taethan and Heden emerge from the wode and called to the priory. Isobel came out and joined him.

The knight and the former knight crossed the clearing to Heden and Taethan. Heden had a hard time looking at Isobel, she seemed small. Lost. She looked to Brys for direction. She stood next to the younger knight like they were a couple, but the two did not touch.

“Where are the others?” Sir Taethan asked.

Brys shook his head. “Dywel and Cadwyr rode off. I did not ask them where.”

“Isobel,” Heden said, ignoring Brys. She looked at Heden as though afraid and confused.

“Isobel, the urq are driving an Yllindir to Ollghum Keep.”

Isobel grasped Brys’ elbow as though for support, looked up at him as though she did not understand what Heden was saying. Brys looked from Heden to Taethan.

“Heden,” Taethan counseled, putting his hand on Heden’s shoulder. “It was just this morning she…”

Heden jerked his shoulder from Taethan’s grasp, and snapped his fingers rudely before Isobel to get her attention. Her eyes swam around to focus on him.

“Taethan says you know the queen of the local fae.” Isobel nodded. Her face gaunt. It seemed she’d aged twenty years since Heden saw her.

“Can you summon her?” he asked.

She looked at him.

“Isobel, there’s a thousand people at Ollghum Keep about four hours away from certain death, are you listening to me? Your sister, Isobel. Remember your sister?”

“The queen,” Isobel said quietly. She started to weep, though apart from the tears she gave no other indication of anything other than disorientation. She had retreated as far as she could from the world around her.

Brys wrapped his whole hand around his jaw and mouth to cover his reaction.

“She would not answer my call,” she said. “I killed…I am no longer a knight. I am not worthy of her attention.” All Heden could see was someone despairing at her own fall from grace while her sister fought and died.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” Heden said, giving up. He tried to rub the headache out from his temples. “You all deserve each other, I swear by Cavall.”

“I attempted to summon mine squire,” Isobel said. “But I,” she began and stopped. “There was no….” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. It seemed to Heden as though she didn’t understand what had happened,

Heden remembered what Halcyon had told him.

“I don’t think you’ll see her again,” he said bluntly. Isobel bowed her head. It was something he thought she knew, but refused to face. Heden was not in the mood for avoiding the truth.

Brys looked at the two of them.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

Taethan began to answer, but Heden cut him off.

“We went to the lake,” Heden said.

“The lake!?” Brys said, alarmed, and looked at Taethan.

“And were ambushed. By the Yllindir. And then we were ambushed on the way back by the urq. And then…” Heden was losing track of everything that happened. “Then we were ambushed one more time. But that…that probably doesn’t count.” He looked around the clearing. The bodies of Idris and the Giant were gone.

“Sir Nudd is dead,” Taethan announced.

Isobel gasped.

“Oh yeah,” Heden said, feeling very tired and letting it show. “I forgot that part.”

“He rode out and saved Heden from Pakadrask. Heden saved me. Nudd gave his life so we could escape.”

Brys and Isobel looked at each other and nodded. Isobel smiled a little. They deemed this a fitting death for a Green Knight. Heden looked from them to Taethan and then back again.

“Nono,” Heden said. “Hang on, you don’t get off that easy.”

“Heden!” Taethan said, trying to stop the Arrogate.

“No!” he said. “They’re going to hear the whole…” he turned on Brys and Isobel.

“He died howling Kavalen’s name.” Isobel gasped and covered her mouth. “He was so full of grief and pain it was just ripped out of him. I watched it. He couldn’t control himself. I watched his hair turn dirt brown as he screamed your master’s name. He broke his oath. He died in fear and pain and disgrace!”

Isobel shook her head, trying to wipe tears from her eyes. Brys tried to console her, but she pushed herself away and ran back to the priory.

“Lady Isobel!” Taethan said, and went to stop her.

“No,” Brys said. “Let her go.” He turned on Heden.

“You would destroy her,” he hissed. “She is mortal just like you and I.”

“I watched her kill Idris for no fucking reason, don’t give me that shit! And you stood by!”

Heden was in the mood for a fight, but Brys backed down. His hair was still green, but the fight had gone out of him.

“I had hoped….”

“Yeah? What?”

Brys wouldn’t look at him.

“You thought she’d kill Idris and then magically Halcyon would appear and crown her commander of you lot? By Cavall, I thought the White Hart was bad.”

“If we ride now,” Taethan said to Brys, ignoring Heden, “we can gain Ollghum Keep an hour before the Yllindir. The siege may last days. We can still discharge our duty.”

“It is no matter,” Brys repeated. “We cannot stop the siege. We cannot stop the urmen. We can’t stop anything.”

“Do you think Halcyon will allow you to remain a knight,” Taethan said levelly, “if those people die?”

“How could she not?” Brys demanded. “What have we done but obey…” He stopped and looked at Heden.

Heden was staring at the priory. Taethan saw it too.

Brys turned around.

“What is happening?” he asked, his eyes darting all over the priory.

Smoke was billowing out the archway. A fire was roaring inside, they could see its light flickering through the stained glass windows.

The priory was on fire.

“By Cavall,” Heden said. At the name of his god, thunder rippled across the sky and it started to rain. It would not be enough. Nowhere near enough.

“Where is Isobel?” Brys asked, running forward. “Where did she go!?” he was frantic.

“Taethan!” Heden cried, pointing to Brys. Heden started to run after the knight. “Taethan stop him!! Stop him!!”

Taethan just watched in horror, paralyzed.

Brys ran into the burning church. Heden went after him.

Inside, the wooden prayer benches had been pulled around haphazardly, and several were stacked around the altar.

On the altar stood Isobel, her armor stripped from her. Her clothes stripped from her. She stood there naked, and opened her arms to Brys.

He ran past the burning benches, and leapt up onto the altar, embracing Isobel in his arms.

The benches around the altar burst into flame.

The fire roared, blasting heat out through the archway where Heden stood. He could see no path through the fire. It mirrored Isobel’s despair, raging just as Brys enfolded her in his arms. He saw only their silhouettes through the fire.

They kissed passionately, like lovers, and the fire consumed them both.

Heden couldn’t watch. He turned away just as Isobel screamed. Howled with incalculable pain and fear and more. Heden put his hands over his ears trying to block it out. He heard realization and regret in her mad screaming.

She was trying to get away. She was gibbering, desperate to get away from what she’d started. She’d changed her mind, but Brys clung to her. She realized what she’d done, and as the fire burned the flesh from her bones, she regretted it, and found there was no way back.

There was no sound from Sir Brys.

Heden’s vision had come true. The Wode had twisted time and showed him the place burned when he first arrived. Covered in soot, the soil black, and now Heden was seeing it happen.

He opened his eyes. Taethan stood before him, looking into the blazing church, his face a rictus of hellfire. Orange light and shadow played across his fine features.

Heden grabbed him by the straps across his chest. The knight recoiled.

“How many!?” Heden shouted. “Is this enough?!” He shook the knight. Taethan did not resist, but did not answer him.

“Tell me what happened!!” Heden howled out his pain on the implacable knight as the air filled with the charred flesh of Isobel and Brys. He didn’t even know why he was asking any more. Nothing made sense to him.

Taethan would not answer. Could not. Heden gave up. Pushed him away. He looked at the burning priory in dull horror. Then turned to Taethan, holding his clenched fist before him, the tendons on his arms and neck standing out.

“I swear by Cavall and Llewllyn, if I had the power I would curse you, I would lay such a curse upon you it would strike you blind and dumb. Your skin would boil off your bones, your eyes would cook, you’d shit your own entrails out and you would know that
judgment
had been passed upon you!” he hissed, furious.

“Heden, please….”

Heden pushed himself away and looked at Taethan as though for the first time. What had he come here for? What had he achieved? He raised his hands as though to protect himself from attack. He remembered the giant, the grimace of Perren consumed by the wode. Idris, Isobel, Brys.

He looked at Taethan, unable to understand his unwavering denial of everything that had happened, and he hated the knight.

“Cyrvis take your bones,” Heden abjured with a wave as he turned. It was not a thing a man of Cavall could say.

“Heden!” Taethan called.

As Heden strode away, he turned and, walking backward, pointed at the knight.

“You knew!” he called out, and waved to the blazing priory. “You knew and did nothing!” Eyes red with tears and anger, he pointed at Taethan. “This be upon your head,
knight
!” He spat the word out. He was shaking with rage. He could not master it. He could only leave it behind. Cut it off and jettison it to survive.

He turned his back on the knight and the priory, its fire casting a long shadow. He opened his pack and yanked out the square of carpet that was left.

He stared into the bottomless pack, rain matting his hair to his face. Remembering something Taethan had said. He had the power, though he tried to avoid admitting it. He could save the people at Ollgham Keep.

Heden lay the carpet on the wet ground, stepped on it, and draw
Starkiller
from his pack.

Armed with the ancient dwarven elf-slayer, Heden willed the carpet to rise, up, out, over the forest, speed through the rain toward the doomed keep.

The keep had been almost completely razed to the ground. Heden wondered if the
Yllindir
had been here. If it was under the control of the urq. That seemed improbable, but no more improbable that the near complete destruction of the keep.

The walls had been pulled down. The town surrounding the keep was still on fire, but the flames were dying, whether from time or the rain or both, Heden didn’t know.

The motte and bailey that formed the core of the town and gave the keep its name was now a burned out husk. It was the main source of the black smoke. Bodies, Heden knew, provided the fuel.

Heden landed, got up, and walked off the carpet, leaving it behind. No one else could use it in any case, and he was certain there was no one left alive here.

There were many heads spit upon pikes. He could see dozens in every direction. Probably hundreds overall. Each urq, killing a human, would use a specially prepared ceremonial pike for the purpose. Heden didn’t look at their dead faces. Didn’t want to see someone he’d met here.

There were no bodies, though. Just heads. The urmen knew that the fat from the bodies was the best fuel for firing the keep.

He walked down the town’s main road to the motte and bailey, the wet soil black with soot. But he could not attain the ruined keep itself, it was still too hot. The stones in a heap were glowing faintly, had once been red hot. Heden guessed this had all happened the day before. Possibly around the same time Lady Isobel had immolated herself. The same time Sir Brys had run in to die with her.

Heden now wondered if the Lady had known the timing of the urq army’s march, and knew her sister and the town and people she had been born to rule were dying, and had chosen to die with her. He felt a heavy weight pressing down on his chest, he was suddenly certain this was what fueled her grief. How could it be otherwise?

She was dead, though. Heden wondered if the Baron died in flames just as her sister did. Heden couldn’t bear to think about it. There was nothing now here to do. The urq army was nowhere to be seen. Their tracks went nowhere but the keep, which meant they’d marched back into the forest once their raiding was done.

Was there any connection between the keep and the knights? Heden wondered. There had probably been a time where he could have saved the keep, though he hadn’t wanted to face that. Was there a time when he could have saved the knights?

How much of this was he responsible for? He didn’t know. Just the thought of it made him sick. There was someone who knew. Someone who could tell him. And he no longer had any reason to stay here. His failure was complete.