Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (45 page)

“Thou ‘mongst all the creatures in the wode must know it!”

Kavalen glowered at the ground. He wasn’t going to repeat himself. Wasn’t going to defend his actions. Wasn’t going to answer Sir Perren’s complaint.

“How often does such a command come? Once a generation? Never before in mine own life, and sure never again. It is not ours to choose which command to heed and which to dismiss,” this was Lady Isobel. She looked the queen, but was wreathed in sadness.

The priory loomed behind them. It was just after dawn. Heden walked around the assembled knights. They could not see him. This was not real. Not even a memory. It was something else.

All the knights were there except Aderyn. Heden recognized Sir Perren. Lithe and lanky, with a great green beard. The knights, covered in moss and bracken, their helmets sporting long and lethal blood-covered antlers, looked like spirits of the wode.

Heden watched them and though he recognized each, these were not the knights he’d met before. This was the Green Order before the fall. Each radiated strength and power, and something else besides. Health. Fidelity. They were the strength and implacability of the forest made manifest. Heden experienced an unusual sensation. Fear, mingled with respect. He saw now what the baron saw, that made her think a single member of the order could turn back the army by defeating its chieftain. He remembered Nudd, fighting off three mountain thyrs before he died. He saw what inspired Aderyn.

He saw Kavalen. The knight seemed in his early fifties, and like Heden had what Renaldo called a ‘fell countenance.’ His granite expression brooked no compromise. No half measures. His scarred face and grim bearing spoke of terrible knowledge. Knowledge gained at the extremes of life and death. It was his mastery of it that made him their leader. Now Heden knew what it took to lead the order. And just as much knew why none of the others were ready for it.

“None of us wouldst countenance it,” Idris said bitterly. “But needs must. How now should we refuse? What punishment might be meted out upon us? It is not for me to say…”

“Nor for any of us,” Cadwyr said.

“…but I fear refusing this command makes us traitors. And then Green no more.”

Kavalen said nothing. He didn’t seem in a hurry to say anything. Heden walked around him like an invisible man on a stage, and stared at the Knights clouded face.

Idris looked to Brys.

Brys sensed Idris’ eyes on him, but would look neither at him nor Kavalen.

“We must consider the source,” Brys said. “No reason given. Mayhap in this instance it is proper to let the urmen march.”

Kavalen threw a glance at him, but did not speak. The look said a lot.

Lady Isobel looked at Kavalen.

“I pray thee, stay,” she said. “Should any of us break our oath, ‘tis one thing. But thou art the Knight-commander. Thine actions reflect on us all.”

Sir Nudd only looked at his feet and shook his head.

Kavalen took a deep breath. He looked at Taethan. The rest had made their intentions clear. But Taethan would not speak. Would take no side. Kavalen nodded then, the decision final.

“It falls to thee then,” he said to Sir Taethan. “I charge thee on behalf of thine unwavering commitment, should this be judged a transgression, thou must atone for all. Yea, and meet out justice, no matter the price.”

Even though Heden was looking at the past, was not physically there, he felt the power of Kavalen’s geas just as palpably as if a wave had threatened to pull him out to sea. It was no prayer, it was a curse. The last words of a dying man, given strength and power by the gods.

This, then, was Taethan’s failure. Kavalen charged him to heal the order, but Taethan could not. The crime was too great.

Kavalen knew what was going to happen. Saw the future just as clearly as Heden was now seeing the past. He was going to disobey an order. Ordered to allow the urmen to march on Ollghum Keep, he was going to fight them. Try to stop them.

Kavalen knew his own knights would cut him down. Would have to, to preserve the order. Stop him from committing treason, breaking their oaths. And so charged Taethan to judge them.

But Taethan was incapable of judgment. And so the crime of his brothers paralyzed him. Halcyon sent Heden to help him, not the order. And, so far, Heden had failed.

Kavalen looked at his assembled knights, each proud and full of conviction, then removed his longspear from across his back, turned, and walked away. His horse, in response to no signal, trotted up to him and kept pace.

Once Kavalen was in the wode, Idris looked at Brys. Dywel and Cadwyr watched Idris. Perren looked to Brys as well, waiting. Nudd stood silent by Lady Isobel.

Brys nodded to Idris, and the two knights removed their longspears, and started slowly after Kavalen, in no hurry. Cadwyr, Dywel, and Perren followed.

Nudd waited. Eventually, without saying anything, Isobel followed, and Nudd went after her, acting like a man heading to a funeral.

Only Taethan stayed behind. Eventually it was just Heden and Taethan in the clearing. Taethan looking like his friends had just gone off to die.

“Well it’s just you and me,” Heden said to the vision of Taethan.

Taethan looked to the sky and said “What else could I do?”

Heden started. It seemed like Taethan was responding to him, but he realized this was not possible.

Heden didn’t know what would have happened if the Green Order obeyed the command to stand down and let the urmen overrun the keep. But that was not the past, this was. And whatever else, the cold-blooded murder of their commander was enough to break the order. Unless Taethan could set it right.

“I am trapped,” the knight confessed in pain. “Halcyon aid me; I canst see no way out.”

“No,” Heden said, and kicked at the illusory dirt. “That was my job.”

And, so far…Heden had failed.

He collapsed in the shallow water once the vision released him. He shook his head. The naiad was gone. Back to the massive lake that was her home.

Kavalen’s lifeless body, skin grey, half rotten, lay beside him. Rain fell down on them both. Spattered on Kavalen’s grey skin mottled black and purple.

“Who gave the order?” Heden muttered. It was the only thing he needed now. He knew the rest.

He splashed around and grabbed the body of Kavalen.

“Who gave the order!?” he yelled at the corpse.

It had to be Halcyon. Who else? Who else had the authority that would make the order bend to their will? But why would Halcyon do it? She gave no indication either way when she manifested before Heden. She must have made a mistake, and appearing before Heden was her attempt to set it right.

He understood now, everything that had happened at the priory. The knights were not mourning the death of Kavalen, they were mourning the death of the order. And they knew they were the murderers. Halcyon had given them a command they could not follow, but they had to follow. The contradiction had destroyed them, inflicted the order with a kind of madness.

They killed their commander. They all took turns stabbing him with their spears until he was dead. He’d received the command to stand the order down. Not move against the urmen. But Kavalen couldn’t live with that. He decided to ride to the keep anyway.

The other knights feared what disobeying an order meant. Feared it would mean dissolving the order. And so, thinking they were preserving the order, all rode out to stop him. All except Taethan.

They had been waiting all this time for Taethan to absolve them. It wasn’t Heden’s ritual they needed, it was Taethan’s forgiveness. And he wouldn’t give it.

Taethan was not the murderer. Heden felt a flood of relief. Taethan had kept his oath. Was the man Heden thought he was. Heden breathed in the moist, cold air. There was hope. Hope for everyone. Hope for Heden. If Taethan was not false, maybe doubt was unnecessary.

This is what Halcyon meant. Heden had been trying to solve the murder of the Knight, and when the order rebuffed him, he attacked Taethan. Made the knight stand in for all his comrades. But the knight didn’t need Heden’s judgment, he needed Heden’s compassion. And Heden was too blind to his own hatred of knights to see it.

Heden plunged his hand into the pack and pulled out the small square remains of the flying carpet. The naiad was gone. Their meeting over. The body of Kavalen lay on the shore. Maybe it would start decomposing now; maybe it would be accepted back into the lake. Heden didn’t care. There were still some knights left alive, and Heden now believed he had the key to save the order.

Having done it before from the carpet, it wasn’t long before Heden saw the clearing and the spire of the priory. It was now a black finger of rock, the stained glass windows burned out. Under the grey sky, it seemed like a bloodless corpse.

Before he landed, he could see something had happened in the clearing.

It looked like an entire war had taken place in the few hundred yards surrounding the priory. He put the carpet down, pack slung over his shoulder, and walked randomly among the carnage. His feet stamped in rain water and blood.

There was blood everywhere. The yellow grass was stained black almost through the whole clearing. Heden walked among small pieces of flesh and saw that most of the blood stains were deliberate. Someone had coated their hands in blood and smeared it on the grass. The faint tang of iron stung his nose. It had happened recently. The rain had not washed the blood away.

The pieces of flesh were so small. Someone had deliberately cut up the bodies and flung the pieces around. He saw a finger. And then a horse’s hoof. And then the heads.

Two human heads were spit upon ceremonial pikes in the center of the clearing. He hadn’t seen them from above. The pikes were only about two feet high.

It was Cadwyr and Dywel.

The urq had been here, and reveled in the destruction of the green knights. They’d been driven into some kind of blood frenzy. And Heden noticed the knight’s hair was now brown, and black. Green no more. They’d fallen from grace before they died. Their hair was stuck to their pale faces by the rain that now did the same to Heden’s face. Their faces were each a rictus of despair, swollen bulging eyes turned to the grey sky, mouths agape, frozen as though in the act of howling out their plight.

Heden reached a hand out, preparing to pray and receive a vision from Cavall of what happened here, when he saw Cadwyr’s mouth had something fleshy stuffed into it, covered in blood. Heden didn’t bother to find out what. He suspected they were the knight’s genitals, but it wasn’t something he needed to confirm. Aderyn hated Cadwyr for some reason, maybe the urq knew why. But the knight was dead now, and Heden knew whatever it was, it didn’t matter anymore.

With the dastards dead, that meant the Green Order was now….

He heard a sound coming from the empty priory. He turned, and saw Taethan’s horse walk out from behind the priory wall. It neighed at Heden, recognizing him. Heden just stared at it through the rain.

The horse turned and drank from the trough of water, but stopped. Heden thought he saw body parts in it. Then the horse just lifted its head and stared at the priory’s archway. It neighed again.

Taethan.

Sir Taethan was still alive and was now the last Green Knight. He was in the priory. Heden knew it, knew it like he knew his own name.

He dropped his pack without thinking, and ran into the burned husk of the priory.

Grey light flooded through holes that once held stained glass. The stained glass windows had melted when Isobel and Brys had immolated themselves. The light coming in was no longer multi-colored. The burned, charcoal-like prayer benches were still there, like the black bones of a burned carcass.

Heden could sense Taethan was in here. Could feel the priory was not devoid of all life, but he could not see the knight.

He walked slowly down the nave, his boots ringing out on the flagstones leaving puddles. The rain fell heavily outside. Steam boiled off Heden’s wet clothes. Part of him wanted to run, look wildly for the knight, part of him was afraid that when he found Taethan, his hair would no longer be green.

“Taethan,” Heden said, dropping the honorific. Aderyn said only a relative could call a knight by his given name. His voice echoed off the walls. He looked down each burned bench as he walked toward the bare altar.

“Taethan I know you didn’t kill Kavalen,” he called out.

No reply.

“It was them,” Heden continued. “They all did it. They hunted him down like a boar and took turns stabbing him with their spears until he was dead.” Heden found it hard to talk. Hard to finally pronounce judgment.

Heden looked to the altar. By rights, Taethan should be there, but Heden could see he was not. Where was he?

“I couldn’t figure out why Halcyon didn’t strip the murderer of his knighthood. But now I know. Kavalen gave the matter to you. And Halcyon counted on you to absolve them. That’s why they didn’t kill you, too. They knew you were their only chance at redemption. They craved it. They needed justice even if it meant their deaths!”

Heden stopped for a minute and listened as his voice echoed off the stone walls. Could he hear breathing? He wasn’t sure and couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

“But you wouldn’t do it,” he said. “You refused. They hated you because you didn’t join them in murdering Kavalen, and then they hated you because you wouldn’t judge them.

“That’s why she sent me. To take that responsibility from you. But you wouldn’t give it.”
And I couldn’t see it
.

“Taethan!” Heden called out. Was he in one of the rooms? “Taethan I’m here to forgive you. No man could shoulder that burden, do you understand me? I know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t your fault.” Even the perfect knight. “It wasn’t your fault!”

Heden stepped up onto the base of the altar. He was going to turn and look down the nave he’d just walked up and see if he could see anyone, when he saw the font, the ancient font behind the altar.

It was filled with blood, and a man’s hand was resting on it.

Heden pulled himself around the altar and saw the recumbent form of Sir Taethan behind it. His wrists were slit, two garish gashes like gasping mouths. There was tacky blood all around him sticking his armor to the floor. But his hair was still green. The Last Green Knight. Heden was not too late. He started forward but Taethan’s words froze him in place.

“It doesn’t matter,” Taethan said, reading his mind. It looked like he was fighting to stay awake. “I am a servant of Cavall like you.” Heden realized what this meant. Tragedy. One servant of Cavall could not save another who’d attempted his own life. Cavall would not permit it. That’s why the slit wrists. Taethan knew Heden was coming, and wanted to make sure the Arrogate couldn’t save him. He’d done it hours ago. He was taking a long time to die.

“You’d have made a good knight,” Taethan said, and gasped for breath. His fine-boned face and delicate features were beautiful, even in death. He slumped down further, head resting on the short pillar of the font. “Better than me…do you see why?” he asked in desperation. He needed Heden to see.

Heden found it hard to focus, his eyes filling with tears. He was rooted to the spot with impotence and rage and grief. It was like the priory itself was dying before him.

“Because,” Taethan said, his voice becoming quieter with each phrase. His face was twisted in pain, but Heden couldn’t tell if it was physical pain or something else. “Because you know the world, and can stay here in it. You’re strong enough.” The words were being pulled from him in surges. “This awful horrible world. All the pain. You hate it too,” the knight said, and Heden watched the color start draining from his hair. The green was vanishing, replaced by blonde. Beautiful blonde hair framing a dying face.

“You hate it,” Taethan said, breathing shallow, his eyes closing. “But you’re strong enough to take it. I couldn’t….” He stopped, he was weeping.

“Why?” Heden asked, and it took all he had to get the words out. “Why did Kavalen have to die? Who…who ordered it?” Heden’s rage was growing and he couldn’t stop it. “
Who gave the command?
”

Taethan was fading fast. It was killing Heden. Both men were dying.

“The bishop,” Taethan whispered.

Heden’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

“What?” he asked, his voice a graveyard.

The bishop gave the order. Who could have commanded the Green Order to stand down? The bishop. He lied when he told Heden he’d never heard of them. That’s why the knights all instantly hated him. He’d been sent by the same person who commanded them to let Ollghum Keep fall. And then he sent Heden to the forest to…what? Why?

Because the bishop had to send someone. Had to be
seen
to send someone. So send the man least likely to make a difference. The man the bishop could be sure would be completely ineffective. The most damaged man the bishop knows.

Taethan reached out with a thin arm, bright red blood painted on chalk-white skin.

Heden, bishop forgotten, surged forward, fell to the ground and wrapped his hands around the man, pulling him forward. He clasped Taethan’s body to his own, as though he could grant Taethan some of his own health and keep him alive. He pressed his ear to Taethan’s breast, listening to the heartbeat fading, struggling.

“No!” Heden cried, holding Taethan tighter. “No!” Heden couldn’t see through his tears anymore. He loved this man. As much and as strongly as he loved anyone.

“Heden,” Taethan whispered, and bent and kissed Heden’s rain-matted hair.

Heden heard Taethan’s heart beat once, twice, and then no more.

“Gods!” he cried, hugging the dead knight. “Cavall!” he cried out in unending desperation. “Please!”

He pulled himself up and held Taethan’s perfect face in his hands, his skin was already cooling, his lips blue. It was happening so fast. The knight’s eyes were still open but his jaw hung slack and his pupils were completely dilated, wide and black with no life behind them. It was the giant again, and Heden could do nothing. Again. Taethan’s dead visage was a nightmare Heden could not wake from.

All his pent up anger and frustration poured out of him and he couldn’t stop it. The desperate feeling that he could at least save one of them. That he could save someone. Anyone. A man he loved, a man he thought of as a better version of himself, his brother, everything Heden would never be. Every hope flooded out of him and he sobbed. All that work, all that pain and struggle for nothing. He couldn’t stop himself. Everything that was important to Heden had just died in his arms. His chest was being crushed by it, and he knew he was dying. Taethan’s death was his death.

He couldn’t be inside the priory. He couldn’t stand it. He lurched to his feet, unsteady, like one of the deathless, and ran outside, pushing himself into the rain. It no longer felt cold; it felt hot on his skin. His legs gave out, and the rain beat him down until he collapsed in the mud. His fists sank into it, his tears disappeared into it.

He vomited, not even realizing it. Then he choked. He was numb. There was nothing left but tears, weeping, his whole body convulsing and he couldn’t stop it.

He couldn’t save Taethan. He couldn’t save Isobel or Nudd, or Ollghum Keep, or the Giant, or the boy in the jail a year ago, or the people of Ǽndrim. And he couldn’t hold it back anymore. In killing Kavalen, the knights had killed the order, and with it, Taethan. And Taethan’s death was Heden’s death. The man he had been for three years died in the mud outside the priory.

What was left was something older, something almost unrecognizable.

A weapon, aimed at the bishop.