Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  Aderyn saw Heden freezing up. Though unarmed, she was not afraid. They were, after all, just urq. The fact that each of them weighed four times her hundred and twenty pounds meant nothing.

  The urmen knew her by deed and reputation. They didn’t bother sending one down to test her as they would any other enemy. A dozen of them loped out of the forest, ready to tear her apart.

  “Heden!” she shouted.

  She ran forward to meet the urmen, engage them as far from Heden as possible. Protect him from whatever was happening to him. She didn’t understand it. She could not reconcile what she knew of him with someone who would be gripped by terror at a few dozen urmen.

  What armor the urq had was makeshift. They could pound and shape metal, and some could smelt it, but not this tribe. They, like most urmen, relied on slave races to mine and smelt metal. And they traded and stole for what they could not make. Their weapons were axes taken from men, and huge two-handed swords that no man could wield.

  She identified one urq using a shield, small for him, perfect for her, and launched herself at him, speaking a prayer as she did so.

  Her right heel connected with the urq’s head, and hit it like a battering ram. The attack had to be precisely aimed to avoid the urman’s tusks, as they would deflect and absorb any such attempt. For one blow, her limbs were like stone mauls, and the blow threw the urq back, his shield flew up in the air. She grabbed it before he hit the ground and whirled on another urq closing in on her.

  She swung the metal shield, given an improvised serrated edge by the urq who stole it, and slashed first at his eyes, then kicked him in the chest avoiding his axe swing, and sliced again through the thick layer of muscle and fat that had until this point protected his pink intestines. He went down instantly.

  Now she had an axe.

  And still Heden did not move. She was effectively keeping the urmen off him, but there were too many. Eventually they would swarm her and have him.

  “Heden!!”

  This was a bad one. He was with the Sunbringers going out into the forest to preempt the sack of Hoddenhill. In the real battle, his company was victorious but he was badly wounded, his ribs crushed. Heden grasped his chest with the memory of it.

  He was seizing up, his arms and legs locking in a whole body clench. He wasn’t even aware of it, only the vision of explosions as huge trees snapped like twigs and men screamed as an army of urq, their blood red flame empowering them lay waste to all. Heden was impotent to do anything. There were screams and the blood-soaked smiles of urq stamping in the blood of the townsfolk.

  “Heden!!” a voice cried. It was Stewart Antilles, the Hospitaller. A troll had swung his terrible mace and crushed Heden’s breastplate. Stewart was running in full plated mail across the field to save him. He wouldn’t arrive in time. Heden was dying.

  “Heden, it’s me! It’s Aderyn!”

  It was the nightmare logic of the dream, events happening out of order, repeating. He felt the slam of the troll’s great maul hit his chest and bear him through the air.

  But this time, instead of hitting the ground, he splashed into water. He gasped and swallowed water. He was drowning, his clothes heavy and soaked with water, his breastplate bearing him down, and several thick arms grappling him down and under the surface.

  He looked down through the murk, grabbed the arms and felt them. They were urmen. Urq had attacked him. He was drowning.

  He was drowning in the river, and the urq were attacking him. He started to panic and thrash about. He wasn’t sure what was happening or how he could stop it, but he was drowning.

  Aderyn watched as Heden, under the water, suddenly burst into action. He might have been able to save himself but she wasn’t taking any chances. Five urmen had slammed into the Arrogate and born him into the river. She hacked at the neck of an urq that stood in her way and in spite of its great strength and the thickness of its skin and density of its bones, more than a match for any normal man, it was no match for the power of the Green. The urman’s skin split from its collarbone down to its beating heart, and it fell while Aderyn leapt into the water.

  She dove into the air dropping her axe and shield, they would only hinder her, and breathed deeply before hitting the water.

  The current was strong, but clear and not especially deep here, only about twelve feet. Her divine armor hindered her not at all. The urq could hold their breath for up to ten minutes, all they had to do was outwait Heden and their opposition would be halved.

  Though the Arrogate struggled, he had no air and could not speak a prayer or reach any weapon. Add to this his disorientation, the heavy pack on his back adding to his weight, and he was almost dead.

  Aderyn expelled some air in a prayer and the five urq holding Heden down stopped worrying about him, and grabbed at their throats. Each started to kick its tiny legs and swim up to the surface, but Aderyn knew that air would do them no good. She ignored them and swam down to Heden, whose struggle had lessened. He was drowning.

  The river water started to cloud. Great billowing gouts of black ink erupted from the mouths of the urq. They were bleeding out gallons of their black ichorous blood into the river. Twisting and writhing in the clouds were the thorny vines summoned by Aderyn’s prayer. The vines erupted from the urmen’s throats, ripping their way out of their mouths, tearing out their tongues and breaking their jaws with the strength of growing trees.

  In moments, the urq were dead, their bodies floating to the surface. Aderyn swam under the cloud of blood and found the limp form of Heden. Grabbing him by the edge of his breastplate, she pulled him up and began to swim to the other side of the lake.

  She heard a distinct sound, unmistakable. It sounded like dragonflies zipping past her ears. The urq were firing their heavy black arrows into the water, trying to stop her getting away. The arrows lost all their power and momentum as soon as they hit the water, she knew she was in no danger. The urq probably did as well, but wanted to make sure she knew they were there and she wasn’t getting away.

  She stayed underwater as long as she could, and swam as far as she could. Eventually she had to come up for air. She wasn’t sure if Heden was alive or not, he’d been underwater some time without moving, but she couldn’t leave him behind. She had to make the attempt.

  As she kicked with her legs and strove through the water with one free hand, she felt the sudden flood of water against her skin, and realized Heden’s divine armor had faded abruptly. She was naked again. But maybe far enough away now.

  She needed air, and surfaced. The urq still loosed their arrows. She looked to the far shore. There were roughly four dozen urq archers. Four units firing black arrows at the water. Their massive bows could easily clear the river, wide though it was. But at the moment, only Aderyn’s head was above the surface. A small enough target to keep the odds in her favor.

  As she swam, she pulled Heden’s head above water. She didn’t know if it would help, but she knew keeping it underwater was no good. The pack on his back made pulling him through the water difficult, but there was no easy way to remove it.

  She reached the far shore, and dragged Heden’s waterlogged body out of the river and onto the wet ground, laying him down on a bed of moss and decomposing leaves.

  She knew what the urq would do. They didn’t like water, but didn’t fear it. They wouldn’t cross it if they didn’t have to. If they couldn’t hit with an arrow, probably several, enough to slow her down, they wouldn’t bother coming after her. And they saw she was naked. They weren’t going to stop trying.

  Arrows thudded into the ground near her. She didn’t have long. An arrow or two she could deal with, but each one would slow her and make more arrows likely until eventually the urmen decided to ford the river.

  She stopped, looking at Heden’s breastplate, and suddenly didn’t know what to do. An arrow struck less than a foot from his head, its black, raven-feathered shaft buried six inches in the ground.

  She couldn’t tell if his heart wa
s still beating without listening for it, and she wouldn’t be able to hear it through the breastplate. But she was completely naked. His breastplate was the only armor between them. And he needed armor more than she did.

  She put her hand on his neck and felt for a pulse, trying to concentrate as arrows rained down around her. Were they getting closer? More accurate?

  She felt a faint throb. His heart was dying, but not yet dead. He wasn’t breathing. He was turning blue.

  How to get him breathing again, how to get the water of his lungs without stripping of his only protection? In a flash, she had it.

  She pulled his body so his head was facing downhill, rolled him onto his stomach and pushed down on his back under his pack. Water gushed out of his mouth. She did it again and this time there was water and a sound, like vomiting.

  An arrow slammed into her, just under the ribs. It came in from just under her right elbow, and protruded several inches out from her stomach. She looked down at the sharp obsidian arrowhead in shock. There wasn’t much time. She’d been hit by arrows before, but never while so defenseless.

  The urq shouted a triumphant war cry that carried sharp and clear across the water.

  With Heden now recovering, Aderyn said a prayer over him and rolled him over. He coughed, more water came out of his mouth, but he wasn’t breathing normally.

  Another arrow pierced her right calf pinning her leg to the ground.

  “Ugh!” she grunted, and worked to pull herself free. She snapped the arrow so she wouldn’t be pulling the muck-covered head through her leg.

  The urq shouted again, this time a different shout. A battle cry. They began leaping into the river. Their quarry would be wounded, and they now had a chance.

  She looked down at Heden, his lungs working to draw in air, and was gripped with a wave of nausea.

  She looked down at the arrow still protruding from her stomach and felt the tip. There was no need. She wouldn’t be able to tell by feel with it covered in her own blood, more pouring down it every moment, but she could tell by the blood in her veins. She should have known.

  Poison.

  The arrows had stopped, but the urq were coming. She slumped forward, losing control of her muscles. She put her hand next to Heden’s head and looked down at him, trying to stay upright, trying to stay conscious.

  His seemed to be breathing, but he was not yet conscious. Her prayer had worked, but not fast enough.

  Aderyn collapsed on his unconscious form, and the river, clogged with madly swimming urq bodies, roared behind them.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Heden opened his eyes, and felt paralyzed. His arms and legs would not obey him. It took him a moment to realize this was because they were pinned under a weight.

  Aderyn.

  She was lying on top of him, still breathing but unconscious. He blinked a few times. His mind was clear now. He felt like a tree had fallen on him, but the attack that took his mind from him was over.

  He gingerly pulled her off him, and surveyed the area. He saw the urq. He didn’t remember what happened, but seeing Aderyn’s naked body and the arrows sticking out of it, and them back on the other side of the river, he reached a quick conclusion.

  He sat up, and held Aderyn in his arms. He surveyed her body and saw the problem, knew she’d been poisoned. This was no matter, as Brys would say. He unceremoniously ripped the arrow from her torso and cast it aside. Pulled the broken arrow out of her leg.

  He heard a sound, like the sound of the running river, but louder, rougher. The urmen were getting closer.

  He stood up, the naked woman in his arms. There were something like two hundred urq swimming across the river, shouting and goading each other on, the closest only a moment from shore. This was a small army in itself, and this was only a scouting party. Only one scouting party, there would be at least two.

  “Black gods,” Heden said with dread marvel.

  She’d single-handedly saved his life. He wasn’t going to let her down. But he needed time to think and room to maneuver.

  He carried her to the tree line, placed her body against an oak, and turned to see how much time they had. The urmen climbed ravenously out of the water and laughed at the frightened man and the naked women.

  Heden’s problem was his experience. It had been so long since he’d fought urq, since he fought anyone, he suddenly couldn’t remember any prayers. Or rather, could remember too many, and most useless.

  Then he remembered his pack. It had many easy solutions within. The leather was wet, but waterproof.

  He prayed over Aderyn, a more potent prayer than the one she’d said over him, and her wounds closed, the poison purged from her veins. Her eyes flashed open, instantly awake and aware.

  “Heden,” she said.

  “Hello,” he said smiling.

  They could both hear the urq coming toward them. They could be quiet as flying owls when they wanted to, but this time they wanted the humans to know they were coming. It was a terror tactic.

  She tried to cover her nakedness. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Are the urq dead?” she asked.

  Heden reached into his pack and pulled out the long thin blade of starkiller.

  He turned his back on her, wanting to give her some privacy, and faced the urq company with the dwarven artifact blade in his right hand. There was no eerie light, no alien hum, just the grayish-purple metal and the crossguard a riot of geometric shapes.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  The urq were loping toward them now. They bristled with weapons.

  He raised starkiller to the sky, and spoke a single word.

  “Starfall,” he said in Elemental. His sword flared violet, and he and Aderyn saw the blue sky above turn instantly black, revealing a night sky studded with stars.

  The urq stopped, some still crossing the river, and looked up in awe at the darkness. It was the last thing any of them would ever see. The stars above began to rain down like small white comets, making a hissing, slashing sound in the sky. Each unerringly striking a single urq. Each urq evaporated by the impact, leaving only a scorched and smoldering crater, and the smell of burnt flesh.

  The starfall lasted a while. There were a lot of urmen to kill. Eventually Aderyn stood up to get a better view, and still the stars came down. She looked up in awe at the black sky and the falling stars, and then looked at Heden, sword upraised to the heavens, summoning their power to earth.

  Once the spell was done, Heden looked around, the sky still dark. It would slowly lighten, was already lightening. He had no real understanding of how it worked, and whether the knights at the priory or even the people at Ollghum Keep saw the night sky.

  The river was choked with urq corpses, the ground before them sizzled, hot with cooking meat and fat. Satisfied that the urq were all dead, and feeling a little self-congratulatory that he had remembered what the sword could do and so did not need to call on his god or saint, he smiled to himself and then turned to Aderyn.

  She didn’t smile back. She was still naked and looked at Heden with open fear. He turned away. He fished into his pack and pulled out some of his clothes. He held them over his back. He heard her walk up to him, and take the clothes.

  “If you can do that,” she said as she dressed, “you could save everyone at the keep.”

  He shook his head. Everyone looked to him to do the impossible.

  “It doesn’t make that much of a difference,” he said, referring to the sword. “It just saves me from asking Cavall for more help than he’d give.”

  He could feel her eyes on his back.

  “I could bring down a few hundred before I was done. They have five thousand.” He quoted Baed. “’It takes men to hold the field.’”

  There was silence as she considered her next question.

  “What happened to you at the river?” she asked. “Was it the wode?” The wode, they both knew, could pervert perception.

  The question gave him goosebumps. He didn’t like t
o remember, but knew he had to talk about it. Not talking about it gave it power over him.

  “Just me,” he said, coughing. He didn’t turn to look at her. “Just me.”

  He thought he must have seemed a fool. Unmanned. Completely unmanned there at the river facing the urq. Impotent and useless.

  He sensed she was dressed and turned. She had tied his too-large shirt tight around her, and had rolled up the legs of his leather pants.

  “This…this happened to you before?” she asked.

  “Any time I leave the city,” he said, looking at her. She was pretty. She affected him. He couldn’t help it.

  “Are you…” she started. She was confused. “What possesses you?”

  “Just fear,” he said. “And memory. I can’t always control it”

  “What memories?” she asked, fear and awe mixing.

  “This place,” he said. “The wode. Any forest. It’s difficult for me,” he said. “I spent a lot of time, years, in places like this. A lot of terrible things happened.”

  “Nothing will happen while I am here,” Aderyn urged. Hearing her say that, hearing this young girl trying to comfort and assure him made him reel. It was like intoxication, the reality of her presence conflicting with the unreality of his memory.

  He didn’t want to look at her, his face was twisted with shame and a wry smile as he pictured himself from her point of view. “You don’t see anyone but knights for years and then me. What you must think of me.”

  “I think: I wish I had been there,” she said, “when these things happened to you.”

  Heden coughed and laughed at the same time. What kind of women would say that? Then he reminded himself. The kind who’d been a squire for thirteen years.

  He was overwhelmed with emotion. This often happened after an episode. Though there was not usually anyone there to see it. Thankfully.

  “I…” she said, and turned away. “I must go find my armor,” she said, as though recovering from a dream. “It is not seemly for a knight to be seen thus.” It would be a while before she could talk about what just happened. Probably she would feel better with her armor.