Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  “I watched you run after Idris, a man you had every reason to despise. Trying to will the joust to stop. In that moment, I believe you would have given anything to save his life, including your own.”

  Heden found the memory of it difficult. And it reminded him of something worse, something Taethan could not know about. Elzpeth.

  Taethan looked at him with compassion.

  “Do you know how I know that?”

  Heden was having trouble breathing. The air had become thick. He nodded. He remembered Taethan crying out the name of Idris and Isobel.

  “Because you felt the same way,” Heden said thickly.

  Taethan nodded, smiling ruefully at Heden.

  Something had opened up between the two men, some shared pain or grief. It was powerful and Heden didn’t like it.

  “Don’t,” Heden cleared his throat. “Don’t read too much into that.” He found the sudden intimacy with the knight difficult. Found any such intimacy difficult. It seemed this knight suddenly knew him too well.

  “I would have behaved like that with anyone. I’m an Arrogate. It’s my job. I just enjoy it less when knights are involved.”

  “Did you ever wonder why Culhwch never became a saint?” Taethan asked.

  “Can we stay on one subject?” Heden asked.

  “Who’s the greatest Knight who ever lived?” Taethan asked.

  Heden knew Taethan was trying to make a point. He gave in.

  “Culhwch I guess,” Heden answered. “He was my father’s favorite, and my brothers’.”

  Taethan stood before the lake, like it was an altar, and he was waiting for his god’s judgment. A sparrow landed on the ground before him and hopped around, searching the edge of the water for worms.

  “Culhwch wanted to be the greatest knight on life,” Taethan said. “It was all he thought about. He hungered for it, the thought nourished him.”

  Heden wasn’t stupid. He knew Taethan was also describing himself.

  “But he was weak,” Taethan said with a shrug. “He was perfect, physically. No man could defeat him in battle. But he was vain and, in his vanity, he broke his oath. He lay with a woman who was married to another. Two transgressions. One against his oath, one against the law. They say she seduced him. As if that mattered.”

  “I never heard this story,” Heden said.

  “There was a tournament,” Taethan continued. He had entered into some kind of reverie, and Heden found himself borne along. The lake, the air, the timelessness of the place mesmerized him. “At a place called Tabernan.

  “Culhwch jousted for his illicit lover’s favor, knowing she could not award it to him. He defeated seven knights in a row. He challenged them all, a dozen knights, and they were honor bound to accept, even though they knew they could not beat him. And he knew it too. He would beat every knight at the tournament in his passion and frustration. You would call him ‘bloody-minded.’” Taethan smiled, but did not look at Heden. It was as if he couldn’t see the Arrogate. Couldn’t see the lake. Only the tournament in his mind.

  “The eighth knight, before he rode out, removed his helm and gave it to his wife, bent down to kiss her and his son. He left his helm with his wife and rode out with his face bare, his wife screaming. He knew the gods had chosen him for a purpose. He knew it meant his death,” Taethan said with a reverence Heden had never heard before, “he found himself unable to resist.”

  Heden remembered Idris doing the same. The knight had been reenacting this story and everyone at the joust knew it except Heden.

  “He rode out against Culhwch, whom all considered the greatest knight on life. To ride out without one’s helm is to admit that you are the weaker knight. It shames your opponent in the hopes of making him yield. For who would joust against a man who was so vulnerable? But Culhwch was blind; his passion for love consumed him.”

  Heden knew what happened next. He felt like he was there.

  “Culhwch rode out, heedless of his opponent’s state. His lance pierced the knight’s breastplate. Ran him through. Lifted him up, off his horse. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.”

  Heden saw Idris’ lifeless face staring at him.

  “Seeing the dead knight on the ground, his wife and son weeping over him, his face bare, Culhwch saw what he had done. He had broken his oath. He broke it when he lay with the woman, broke it when he challenged the knights. He rode out against a lesser knight who’d declared his unworthiness. Killed a knight who’d deliberately rode out displaying his weakness,” Taethen’s face held a mixture of puzzlement and awe.

  “He dismounted and went to the man. Culhwch was already a legendary knight. Everyone believed it was only a matter of time before Adun granted him a miracle and made him a saint.

  “The perfect knight would be able to perform a single miracle. He had waited for this all his life. The spectators had been waiting for it. The sign that the Gods recognized his virtue. But in order to be the perfect knight, one must be devoid of all vanity. All pride. Want. Desire.

  “Culhwch’s vanity had led him to murder. And the guilt of it, the knowledge of it and everything he’d done, everything he’d failed to be, consumed him. He knelt beside the fallen knight. The widow, her child, stepped forward. All the tournament gathered around, pressed in.” Taethan used his hands to emulate their motion. Heden watched as Taethan, transported, reenacted the scene. “They were waiting to see him perform his miracle.”

  “He lay his hands upon the dead knight, and prayed.” Taethan held out his hands as though laying them on the breast of Idris. “‘Adun,’ he said to himself. ‘I thought I served you all my days, but now I see I served only myself. I was vain, and I was prideful. I should be punished. But this man is innocent. He did no wrong. Do not punish him for my failure. Oh lord, I beg thee, spare this man’s life. Spare this man’s life.’”

  “The crowd, of course, heard none of this. It was for the ears of Adun alone.

  “Moments of silence passed, and the dead knight gasped a heaving breath. And then another. And then another. He breathed normally and his eyes opened. He saw the crowd assembled, saw his wife and son, and knew not why they looked on him with wonder.

  “The crowd proclaimed ‘a miracle!’” Taethan threw up his hands and turned, as though praising the forest. Reenacting the scene from his mind. He smiled widely, caught up in the reaction the crowd must have felt. Exulting at the knight who performed a miracle and would be sainted. “They cheered and stamped and with the wife and son, bore the once-dead knight away.” He stretched a hand out to the forest as though he could see them.

  After a moment, he dropped his hand and dropped his smile and turned back to face the lake like a judgment.

  “Culhwch remained on the field. He remained, kneeling, weeping, sobbing, where he’d laid hands on the knight.

  “He cried,” Taethan said. “While the others cheered. Because he alone knew the truth. He alone knew there had been a miracle. The miracle was that Adun had permitted Culhwch, who was not worthy, to perform a miracle. He alone knew that Adun had judged him, and found him wanting. His life wasted. All his oaths broken.

  “Culhwch could be a knight no more. Adun had meted out his punishment.”

  Heden didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t sure Taethan could hear him anyway. The sounds of the lake intruded, breaking the reverie.

  “Do not judge my fellows too harshly,” Taethan said, looking down at the water lapping at his feet. “It is I alone who bear the burden. I liked what you told Squire Aderyn.”

  “What?” Heden asked, rattled by the change of subject.

  “’A man is better than the worst thing he’s done.’” Taethan said wistfully.

  Heden just stared at him, trying to understand the meaning of Taethan’s story. He knew it wasn’t about Sir Idris. It had something to do with Kavalen and Taethan. Something to do with the overwhelming guilt Taethan bore and which he was awakening in Heden. There was something Taethan wanted to do, but couldn’t, and so looke
d to Heden to solve.

  “I know why you brought me out here,” Heden said suddenly.

  This piqued Taethan’s interest. He looked to Heden with something like hope.

  “You want me to figure out what happened.”

  Taethan said nothing.

  “You set out to stop the urq on your own. You had no idea I would follow you and when I did you tried to lose me. But when you changed your mind you brought me up here.”

  Heden took Taethan’s silence as affirmation.

  “You brought me up here and told me that story because if I can figure all this out without you breaking your oath, then we can go back to the priory. I can speak the ritual, and then the Green can ride out and save Ollghum Keep.”

  Taethan picked up a rock and skipped it across the lake. He ignored Heden.

  “Well you’re going to have to give me a little more help,” Heden bit the words off. “I know this has something to do with your guilt. You’re blaming yourself for something and you’re obsessed with….”

  His obsession with death.

  “I know how Kavalen died,” Heden said abruptly.

  This intrigued Sir Taethan. “Indeed?” He said. “Prithee.”

  “He killed himself,” Heden said.

  Taethan just stared at him. Once again, Heden found himself unable to read the knight’s reaction.

  “He killed himself and you could have stopped it but you didn’t.”

  “Why,” Taethan began. “Why would I stop him, should he wish to end his own life? Is there no reason….”

  “No,” Heden cut him off. “No, I don’t buy it. Death is never the answer.”

  “Never? A man can see such things,” Taethan said, shaking his head. “Commit treachery by action or inaction. And sometimes, methinks, understanding alone can consume a man with misery.” Heden noticed he was dropping into the cant.

  “Cavall’s teeth!” Heden said, invoking his own god unusually. “How are you still a knight?” he gestured to Taethan’s curly green hair. “You’re so obsessed with death and guilt and judgment. The one time I think one of you bastards is going to actually do something, take some action, even if its suicide against the urq, and you come up here instead. You asked me why I hated knights. This is why! You’re so self-absorbed. Like your pain and your guilt is the only thing that matters. You’re paralyzed.”

  “That is no matter,” Taethan said. “The matter is why you, who know as much as I, are not.”

  “Because I’m not as convinced of my own importance as you are!” Heden threw the words at him like an assault. He was coming to understand the knight. He thought the statement would affect him. He was right. Taethan didn’t take it well.

  “You are a man of fell insight, Arrogate.” Taethan said for the second time. “If your judgment weighs so heavily on me, how much more heavily it must weigh on you.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “It is as much about thou as I,” Taethan said, shaking his head. “I hope you pass your test.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t have anything to do with Kavalen.”

  “Is it not plain? We are being tested you and I. We have each offended our god, betrayed our friends and our oaths. There must be a reckoning before absolution. The order was my test. I have already failed, I fear. For the sake of us all I hope that you pass your test.”

  “Which is?” Heden asked, afraid of the answer.

  Taethan looked at him with a mixture of sadness and affection.

  “Me.”

  Heden was speechless.

  They stood there by the lake for some time. Taethan taking it all in. Meditating on the perfect beauty of the waters and the forest and the sun and the sky. Heden just staring at him.

  “I…” Heden opened his mouth to speak, and heard a terrible noise.

  It was the sound of thunder far off, but there were no clouds in the sky. It came again. Heden remembered the giant. Were they under attack?

  Again, the thunder. And this time the whole surface of the lake, miles across, rippled with it. The water flooded up to them, soaking them up to their knees before rushing back out. They backed away from the lake.

  Taethan’s eyes were wild, he was searching the tree line.

  The pattern of the explosive sounds was irregular. Inhuman. Six heavy explosions in rapid but uneven succession, then a pause. Then the pattern repeated.

  The trees deep in the forest to the west swayed, something was looming over them. Something larger than the massive trees, two hundred feet high. Heden’s heart beat rapidly. The sound was becoming deafening. He was starting to panic, he felt it creep over his skin and clutch at his hammering heart.

  “I thought you said no one would attack us here!” Heden shouted over the din. The sound suddenly stopped.

  Taethan turned and gave Heden a look. He drew his sword.

  “We may be in trouble,” he admitted.

  Chapter Forty One

  The creature loomed over the trees. It had to be close to three hundred feet high. Inarguably the largest creature Heden had ever seen. There was, he had to admit, a kind of thrill in seeing something new. And feeling frightened for the first time in years.

  “What is it?!” Heden asked.

  “It would not come here but to find us!” Taethan said. “I fear I have led us both to our deaths, Arrogate!” He had his shield and sword at the ready. Heden wondered what possible use they could be.

  The trees bent and then snapped in explosions of wood and sap. Whatever it was, it stepped out from the forest.

  It was made of vines and thorns and trees. Mostly thorns. It was like the forest come alive. It had six legs and a massive body with a short neck and eyeless dog-like head. Its head alone was a large as the whole priory.

  Taethan stared up at the thing in a kind of awe.

  The creature’s head turned this way and that, orienting on what, Heden didn’t know. Until it faced Heden and Taethan and its mouth opened and the thing convulsed like it was shouting. There was no sound. It was still at least a mile away.

  Heden watched as the sheer force of the creature’s report caused the surface of the lake to ripple outward. When the bow of the disturbance reached Heden and Taethan, they heard a clarion call wash over them. Like the sound of a thousand trumpets blowing. It blew Heden and Taethan’s hair back and smelled of bark and flowers.

  Heden recognized the sound.

  “That’s a Celestial horn,” Heden said. The elves sounded it before battle, but this was a hundred times louder. He turned to Taethan, grabbed the man, tried to shake him and make him forget his awe.

  “Why is that thing sounding the battle call of the Sky Elves?”

  “It is an Yllindyr!” Taethan said.

  “An…” Heden translated in his head. It meant ‘lifedeath’ but life in the sense of the place you lived. And death in the sense of ‘an assault.’ Heden had never heard the proper term before, nor seen one, but he knew the Celestials made such things. He knew they were large, but had no idea how large.

  “It’s an Elven siege engine?” Heden said.

  “Aye,” Taethan said, bracing himself for battle.

  Heden stared at the thing and for a moment could not maintain his terror. He sighed and his face betrayed his exhaustion. This fucking forest

  “Typical,” he said.

  “What?” Taethan called out.

  “Why aren’t we running?” Heden asked, the terror returning.

  The creature began to walk forward on its six legs. The ground shook terribly. It stepped once in the lake, but then pulled its foot out as though the water burned it. It was absurdly fast for something so massive. Then it continued towards the knight and the Arrogate.

  “We could not outrun it. And after it devours us, it would head to the keep. The urmen must be driving it south.”

  “Okay,” Heden said, looking around. “So what do we do?”

  “Do you have a shield?” Taethan asked. He was looking warily at
the siege engine as though he might have to leap aside at any moment, in spite of the fact that the thing was still half a mile away and so big there was no reasonable way to evade it.

  “No!” Heden said.

  “That is unfortunate,” Taethan said.

  Heden grabbed his pack and opened it, wondering if there was anything in it he could use as a shield. Then he wondered what good a shield could possibly be.

  “It will be no matter soon,” Taethan called out. “Ready yourself!”

  Heden looked up at the thing. Though still hundreds of yards away, it towered over them. It had stopped moving and reared up on his four hind legs.

  It spread its two front legs outward and then convulsed in one massive shudder. It seemed to Heden as though dust fell off it in great gouts, but he quickly realized it was too far away for dust to be visible, and whatever it was, the spray of material was arcing menacingly toward them.

  They were thorns. Each as big as a horse. This was how the siege engine assaulted its targets.

  Heden turned and ran for cover. The nearest tree was thirty feet from him. He didn’t think he was going to make it. The ground under his feet darkened as the sky above was clouded with falling thorns.

  Heden didn’t reach the cover of the trees before the thorns started to fall. They hit the ground all around him, driving deep into the earth. Wherever one hit, once embedded in the ground, it erupted in twisting, blossoming vines that prised the ground apart like a drill.

  A thorn stabbed into the ground only a few feet behind Heden and the impact threw him up and flung him through the air. Somersaulting as he fell, he smashed into a tree upside down, and then flopped onto the ground. The tree, though large, suffered several thorn impacts, each one doing serious damage and then further weakening the tree with its twisting vines. This was the weapon that felled the indestructible walls of the Elementals. A tree stood no chance against it, even one of the massive trees in the Iron Forest.

  Heden pushed himself up, his ears ringing, just in time to hear the tree he’d just bounced off crack and splinter under its own pressure. He got up and ran as fast as he could.

  Taethan ran up to him, his shield dented. They both stood and watched as the tree started to fall. It was huge and most of it would fall into the water.