Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  As he heard her walked away behind him, Heden tested something.

  “You will be a knight,” he said, his back to her. It was not a question.

  He could hear she’d stopped. Had no idea what she was doing.

  “Aye,” she said quietly. And went back to find her things. Heden put starkiller, for which he had no scabbard, back into his pack. He left the river behind, not wanting to see the ruin of the urmen any longer, and walked back into the forest at a leisurely pace.

  By the time Aderyn found him, it was broad daylight again, thick pillars of sunlight streaming down from the tops of the trees, as though the sunlight itself were holding up the canopy of leaves.

  He heard her, striding toward him through the wode. He turned and saw her and whatever had passed between them before the urq, seemed to be gone. He relaxed. She, on the other hand, did not.

  “We’ve got to get back,” she demanded.

  “What’s wrong?” Heden asked. They had found what they were looking for, had known the army was there and where it was going before they even left the priory.

  “They’re too far south,” she said, “too fast. Someone must be told.”

  Heden did some quick mental calculation. The scouts usually kept a day ahead of the regular army. Sometimes ranging farther afield, but usually a day. Farther meant any situation they came upon would be changed by the time they reported back

  They had just obliterated several units of urq scouts. This would blind the army for a little while at least. But where were they?

  “How far from Ollghum Keep are we here?”

  Aderyn looked to the south. “A day for us,” she said.

  That meant the urq army was at best two days away from the keep. Heden had no idea they were that close. He’d lost all sense of direction as they ran through the evening. And because of the way he’d found the priory, had no real understanding of where the priory was in relation to the keep.

  “I’ve got to go back,” Heden said.

  Aderyn nodded. “The knights must be told. We leave immediately.”

  “No,” Heden said. This brought her up short. “You go tell the knights. I’m done wasting my time with them. I’m going to tell the people of Ollghum Keep that the Green Order has abandoned them. I don’t care what the baron says,” he said mostly to himself. Aderyn had no knowledge of Heden’s argument with the baron. “I’ll start a riot if I have to, but someone’s got to do something.”

  Heden turned to walk away. Aderyn grabbed him.

  “If you speak the ritual,” she said, looking up at him pleading. He found it hard to return her gaze. “The knights will be free to act. To stop the urq.”

  “I can’t,” Heden explained. “It doesn’t work that way. The ritual doesn’t absolve them, I do. I have to know what happened. I have to believe Kavalen didn’t die in violation of his oath. Then the ritual can be affected.”

  “Then there will be no order,” she said, pulling back and looking at his breastplate blankly. “And I will be no knight.” He didn’t know what she meant. They were talking about one knight, their leader, but still only one dead knight. He grabbed her shoulders. She could have stopped him, pulled away, but she let him.

  “Then tell me what happened to Kavalen.”

  “I was not there,” she said, looking at the ground. “And what I know, I cannot say.”

  “Even if it means those people die?” he asked. He realized she probably never met the people of Ollghum Keep. They were an abstraction to her. And now it was too late.

  “If you were right about our oaths,” she said, looking up at him. “Then I cannot tell you.”

  Heden pushed her away. He rubbed his temples. This place and these people were going to drive him mad, everything was intertwined with everything else. It was a huge knot. There was no thread he could pull at that could unravel it. Everything he said and did seemed to make it tighter.

  She stepped closer to him.

  “Take me with you,” she said.

  He swung about, trying to disguise his horror. She had not given up the war, only the battle.

  I underestimated her again.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “If we spent more time together, away from this place,” she began.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  She didn’t disguise her anger this time.

  “I saved you,” she reminded him. “And you saved me.” He saw it in her eyes and realized what was going on. She had lost faith in the order, but found it anew in Heden.

  Heden could not bear the burden of being responsible for destroying Aderyn’s knighthood. He knew if he stayed here any longer, she would say the right thing, or he would talk himself into something.

  She would hate him for it, but maybe she needed to hate him to get on with her life. “Tell the knights,” he said. “Don’t tell the knights, I don’t care. I’m going to Ollghum Keep, and then home.”

  He wasn’t that good a liar. She could tell he cared and it pained her to see him lie to protect her.

  He turned away and darkly said: “You’re on your own.”

  He forced himself to walk away. Leaving her alone in the forest. Whatever her answer was, he knew he wasn’t it. And she would have to find it here.

  He found he was furious at the baron, at Sir Taethan—for reasons he didn’t exactly understand—at Gwiddon and the bishop. But most of all, angry at himself.

  He tromped through the forest, trying to put some distance between himself and Aderyn before wrestling the carpet out of the pack. He wanted a good clearing to take flight from.

  As he looked for a likely spot, not watching where he was going, his foot snagged on a root and he pitched face-first into the dirt. He pushed himself up and brushed himself off, turning to look at what had tripped him, and saw it.

  He’d come back the same way they’d left, and here was Sir Perren, still sitting against the tree. He could see him clearly now in the daylight.

  But now he was dead. Had been dead for what appeared to be weeks. Heden was certain he was still flesh and blood last night. But now his face was a withered, desiccated husk of skin pulled tight over a protruding skull, the only part of him now visible. His body, his arms and legs, were all covered in thick ivy at the base of the tree.

  Vines were growing out of his gaping mouth and eyesockets. They were already flowering, drinking in the sun. They were beautiful.

  He feared what it meant. It was an omen, and more, a terrible reality. A knight had been killed here and as far as Heden could tell, the murderer surrounded him.

  The forest itself.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Heden spoke a prayer, and five men, each red-faced, shouting, holding various improvised weapons, in various stages of drunkenness, fell to the ground. The inn went silent as all eyes turned to Heden, everyone thinking he’d just killed five men.

  In concert, the men on the floor all started to snore loudly. The inn relaxed.

  Renaldo had frozen in place as his attackers slumped before him, his rapier still pointed where the lead ruffian had been standing. He had one leg on the back of a chair, another on a table with food and drink now scattered over it, and his off-hand reaching up for the candleholder than hung from the ceiling.

  “There were only five of them!” he objected.

  Heden walked up to him, gingerly stepping over the sleeping idiots, as Renaldo uncurled himself from his fighting pose.

  “Playtime’s over,” he said to the Riojan troubadour.

  Renaldo looked away, disgusted, and then turned a scowl on Heden. “Good entrance,” he admitted reluctantly. “Terrible sense of timing, though.” He sheathed his rapier and smoothed the ruffles out of his expensive silken tunic, the red vest matching his red hose.

  “It’s time for you to get out of here,” Heden said.

  Renaldo’s look changed. He stared at Heden.

  “If it were anyone but you saying it, friend. Give me time to collect my earnings
. There are many in town who owe me for a week’s gambling profits.”

  Heden grabbed his tunic and pulled the little man forward. Initially, Renaldo tried to object but once Heden started to whisper in his ear, Renaldo stopped struggling and listened.

  “There are five thousand urq less than two days march from here.”

  He released Renaldo. Taking time for one perfect, comedic beat, Renaldo replied; “They can keep their money. When do we leave?”

  “We?” Heden said. “No.”

  “We!” Renaldo said, turning and gathering his lute. “Yes!”

  “No, I’m serious,” Heden said. “You can’t go where I have to go.” For one thing, Heden hated flying two on the carpet. He looked around the packed room at the people still seeming to enjoy themselves. “You don’t seem to have had much effect on these people.”

  “No?” Renaldo asked. “I doubt there is a man here who was present last time we met. These are farmers and tradesmen from outlying villages, newly arrived. I have spent my time inspiring the citizenry to take matters into their own hands and travel south to safer lands.” He stopped suddenly, looking past Heden, mouthing the words he had just spoken. His hands assumed positions on the fretboard and strings of his lute and he mimed played a few fictitious notes as he mouthed the words again, his head moving back and forth.

  “Not bad,” he said, and looked back at Heden. “In any event,” he slung his lute over his shoulder and draped his cape over one hand. He pointed accusingly. “You owe me a tale, and as I surmise you are not yet dead, it is not too late.”

  “Listen, Renaldo,” Heden said. “That army…I just stopped here to tell the baron the order isn’t coming. And give you the word so you could get out.”

  “How did the baron react to that?” Renaldo asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Heden said darkly. “Let’s just say it’s me here telling you to leave and not the baron telling everyone to leave. I’m caught up in this now so unless you really hate urmen and want to kill a few before you die, you’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You’re staying?” Renaldo asked, suspicious.

  “I’m…it’s complex.” Heden didn’t know what he was going to do.

  “You and I against five thousand urq?” Renaldo pondered the issue. Heden was getting impatient. “I know many withering insults in urqish.” He appeared to make up his mind. “You don’t happen to know three more dependable men? I would feel more comfortable with five against five thousand. It is more...dramatically it has…” the Riojan waggled his hand. “You understand.”

  Heden stared at him.

  “I’m leaving,” Heden said, turning to leave. “You’re on your own.”

  “Ahp!” Renaldo held up one hand, interrupting Heden. Heden gave him one last chance.

  “Now before you turn and stride away purposefully like a man exiting stage left, which you are very good at, I might add. You’re a natural entrance and exit man, audiences love that. Before you go I want to point out that I am a far more subtle and clever man than you. More handsome as well, but that is no matter.’

  “What?” Heden asked, confused.

  “I would never grab you in front of all these people to whisper some point critical to the plot in your ear. Far too obvious.”

  Heden stared at him for a moment, parsing what he just said.

  Renaldo’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly behind Heden and to his left. There was no way anyone else in the room could have seen it even if they were looking for it.

  Heden didn’t acknowledge Renaldo’s meaning, but Renaldo smiled widely as he realized Heden had it.

  Heden grabbed a passing patron, easy to do in an inn packed with townspeople and refugees, pulled out his hand and plunked a crown in it. “Get to the stables,” he told the bearded farmer, “and get me the fastest horse in town. There’s another crown in it for you if you’re back in half a turn.”

  Heden didn’t even pay attention to the man’s response but having turned to stop the man, used the opportunity to look as discreetly as possible in the direction Renaldo indicated.

  There was, among the press of people, a small table in the corner at which sat a polder. A small man-like creature about three feet high. He had a mass of curly blonde hair atop his wide face and appeared to be sleeping, his head lying back against the wall, his mouth open, a half-empty bottle of strong liquor in front of him.

  Heden would have thought nothing of it, but for the fact it was the only table at the inn with only one patron at it.

  Heden turned back to Renaldo.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to go.”

  “Very well, if you insist. I heard tell you were a Prelate,” Renaldo said. “Where are you from?”

  “Celkirk,” Heden said. He didn’t bother telling Renaldo about the Hammer & Tongs. He’d enjoy finding out on his own more anyway.

  “I have not been there. A week’s ride on a fast horse, I hear. Too far, I think. Perhaps I shall continue east.”

  Heden extended his hand.

  “I hope we meet again,” he said awkwardly.

  “Oh we will,” Renaldo said, doffing his elaborate cap and taking the proffered hand. “The gods are terrible at second drafts. And once they cast a man in a role, they never change their minds.”

  With a smile and a discreet flourish, the Riojan troubadour was gone.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Heden sat down at the table and for a moment, the polder pretended to wake up, then saw who was sitting across from him and clucked his tongue. All pretense gone.

  The little man gestured for a barmaid’s attention and indicated he and Heden would both have a drink. Heden noticed he was ordering another drink without having finished his own.

  The polder was short and fat, typical of his race. He had dark green eyes and a small button nose in the middle of a face framed by blonde locks. He looked young, but his skin was weathered. Most polder couldn’t grow beards, but this one had light blonde stubble on his chin and jaw.

  “Figure you know who I am,” Heden opened. He didn’t ask the polder’s name and they both knew why.

  The polder looked around the room, taking a reading of it. He registered everything and everyone. Heden had seen it before.

  “The minstrel,” the polder said. His voice was an odd mix of age and youth. Weary in expression, light in tone.

  Heden nodded, confirming the polder’s suspicions.

  “Figures,” the little man said.

  The barmaid brought their drinks. Heden studied his opponent. There were many reasons why someone might send an assassin to kill him. But this was more like a spy making contact.

  “Why don’t…” the polder stopped to reconsider what he was saying. He finished his first drink while he talked. Downed it in one smooth gulp. It didn’t appear to have an effect on him. Heden noticed a degree of unease. Unfamiliarity. Probably not faked. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about the Green Order?” he asked.

  The Green Order.

  How many people knew Heden was up here working on the order? And of those people, who could possibly care? No one had heard of them in…Heden cut the thought off. Obviously someone had heard of them. Kavalen’s death was more complex than Heden guessed. It was a situation he already had only a tenuous grip on, and now for the first time in many years he felt like he might be in over his head.

  Heden stared at the little man. ‘Man’ was, he knew, technically incorrect, but people treated polder as smaller humans, even though they were no more humans than the urq.

  Heden picked up his glass and took a drink. It was powerful stuff. He coughed once, discreetly, and put the glass down.

  “You’re from Celkirk,” Heden made an educated guess.

  The polder didn’t say anything. He just sat there, eyes wide and bright, waiting.

  “Someone in Celkirk hired an assassin to come look into the order,” Heden said. The reality of what he was saying, the sheer enormity of what was happ
ening around him, was too large to take all at once. He had to break it up into little bits.

  The polder screwed up his face.

  “I’m not an assassin, man.”

  Heden raised an eyebrow.

  “You kill people for money?” he asked.

  “Well, yes,” the polder said, annoyed. “I mean, sometimes. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “If there’s any other definition of assassin, I’ve never heard it.”

  The polder shook his head, his ringlets dancing in a manner that belied his serious bearing.

  “My contacts were wrong about you,” he said. “Ah well.”

  Heden raised his eyebrows. “A spy?” he asked.

  The polder twisted his mouth and shook his head. “We’re terrible spies.” He meant members of his species. His people were stereotyped as jovial cooks and often…

  “You’re a thief,” Heden realized.

  The polder sniffed. “Proud to say it,” he said.

  Heden nodded. Thieves and assassins hated each other and this little man obviously felt very strongly about the subject. This meant he was guilded. Unguilded thieves worried about guilded thieves, guilded thieves worried about assassins. There were only three thieves guilds in Celkirk, that narrowed it down.

  “But you’re not here,” Heden said, “to steal anything.”

  “No,” the polder said, starting on his second drink, “my vest buttons down over many duties.”

  “Like killing people,” Heden said.

  “Sure,” his opponent said, as though it weren’t an important point.

  “But not me,” Heden said.

  “You think I could?” the polder asked, cocking his head, smiling.

  “No.”

  “Pretty sure I could,” the polder said, smiling wider.

  “Nope.” Heden explained. “The minstrel saw you. I don’t know what kind of thief you are, but I know you’re the kind who was sniffed out by a man who plucks a lute and begs for a living.”

  The polder’s smile fell away. The room, though packed with drinking men and women, suddenly got colder.