Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  Taethan opened his eyes.

  “We’re alive,” he realized.

  Heden nodded.

  “You saved me,” Taethan said. He held out his arm. Heden grasped it at the elbow. A fraternal handshake. “I owe you my life.”

  “It was Nudd,” Heden said, releasing the knight.

  “Sir Nudd?” Taethan asked, confused.

  “You were out,” Heden said. He explained what happened.

  “We must aid him,” Taethan said. Heden nodded.

  “We can’t,” he said.

  “Cannot?” Taethan said. “You would leave him to….”

  “Nudd is no longer a knight,” Heden said.

  Taethan gaped at him.

  “Nudd?” he asked, almost like a child. His face fallen.

  “He saved me,” Heden said, sitting back on the rock. “He killed that urq commander. He…he called out.”

  “Oh, Nudd!” Taethan cried.

  “He called out Kavalen’s name as his battle cry. His last words.”

  “This world!” Taethan said, looking to the sky. “Halcyon aid me!”

  It seemed the knight wanted to weep but his own pain overwhelmed him.

  “I don’t know how much of Pakadrask’s unit will survive,” Heden said, trying to ignore Taethan’s pain. “Some of them were running as soon as you brought up that tree thing. We’ve got to get back to the priory if we have any chance of…” Heden thought about how much had been lost already. “Anything,” he said finally.

  Taethan didn’t seem to be listening. Heden didn’t blame him. He extended his arm again. Taethan took it reflexively, and Heden lifted him up.

  “You ready to go?” Heden said, examining him for any permanent damage.

  Taethan just looked down at him.

  “How do you bear it?”

  Heden didn’t want to look the knight in the eye, wanted to pretend he didn’t hear what the knight had said. But he felt he owed him something. What, he wasn’t sure.

  He looked into the eyes of the Green Knight.

  “It’s not easy,” he said. He knew it sounded glib, but it was the truest thing he could think of.

  Taethan wouldn’t drop it.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  Heden didn’t know how to answer questions like this. He remembered the lake, its beauty, and then the Yllindir arriving. He remembered Elzpeth and everything they had, and then Aendrim. He remembered asking his father a similar but much less meaningful question and, not for the first time, found himself quoting a farmer in his seventies who’d never been more than five miles from home.

  “You have to take the good with the bad,” Heden said simply.

  Taethan looked like he’d been poisoned, like he might throw up at any moment. Heden knew what he wanted to say.

  “Some people get a bigger helping of bad,” Heden agreed with the knight’s unspoken objection. “Not much you can do about that.”

  He knew the answer didn’t satisfy. But then, what answer could?

  “Complaining about it doesn’t seem to help,” he said tersely. “Come on,” he turned and climbed down the rock.

  When he was on the ground again, he looked up and saw Taethan looking down at him. The knight hadn’t moved.

  “I no longer think it matters,” Taethan said.

  Heden looked around the forest impatiently, and looked back up at Taethan waiting for him to explain.

  “Whether you speak the ritual,” he said.

  “Maybe it never mattered,” Heden allowed himself, remembering what the polder and Halcyon had said.

  “You may be right. It is a kind of tragedy. I would undo it, if I could.”

  “You should have thought of that before Kavalen was murdered.”

  Taethan surprised Heden.

  “You are right,” he said simply. He paused in thought and then began to climb down the rock. Heden wondered if that was as close as he’d get to a confession.

  Once both were on the forest floor, they began heading south again. Neither spoke.

  Heden didn’t know how much time passed, maybe an hour, before Taethan spoke again.

  “There are only five of us now,” he said.

  Heden kept his mouth shut.

  “Four dead.”

  “Going to be a lot more than four dead,” Heden said, “if we don’t get Isobel to stop the Yllindir.”

  “The keep,” Taethan said, nodded.

  “Yeah. What, did you forget?”

  “Not exactly,” Taethan said. “I…I admire your ability to focus on the next problem.”

  “Thanks,” Heden said with no gratitude. “Wouldn’t mind five thousand urmen fighting for survival and territory instead of killing humans they don’t give a shit about, either.”

  Taethan absorbed this, saying nothing.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Heden said. “I don’t mind a dead urq, I don’t mind that at all, but I like to think they’re off somewhere in the wode fighting the trolls and the brocc.”

  At this, a war scream sounded just behind them, and an urq launched itself at Taethan. It had followed them alone from the battle.

  Both men, exhausted, were surprised. But it was just one urq. The blink of an eye and the thing lay against a tree twenty feet away, unmoving.

  Heden and Taethan walked up to it, sheathing their weapons. It was still alive, breathing. Its eyes open, but unseeing.

  Taethan took off his linen shirt and began to tear it into bandages.

  “What are you doing?” Heden asked.

  Taethan didn’t answer.

  The urq wheezed, black blood, thicker than human blood, oozed from its wounds. Its yellow eyes were wide and unfocused. It was in shock.

  This is what the dragons thought of us, Heden thought.

  “This thing would kill you if it had the chance; you know that better than anyone.”

  “It’s helpless.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” Heden said thickly, looking around the forest.

  Taethan continued to minister to the creature. He tensed and his movements became jerky, angry at Heden.

  “You realize that what you’re doing right now probably means the death of more men.”

  Taethan surged to his feet. He stopped himself from assaulting Heden.

  “Stop testing me,” Taethan said, staring at Heden, their faces inches from each other.

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Heden asked.

  “Why are you so blind?” Taethan demanded. “Why can’t you see what’s happening right in front of you? You know why I’m doing this, by the Gods, stop acting like you don’t.”

  “You’re aiding the enemy.”

  “Don’t act like you don’t understand! Don’t blame me because you don’t know what’s happening at the priory!”

  This threw Heden. He tried using his ignorance like a weapon.

  “There are a lot of things I don’t know,” he said. “I came up here to find out and I get ‘talk to Taethan.’ Well that didn’t do a lot of good, did it? You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to tell me what happened. You sure as shit don’t care if it destroys the order, but by Cyrvis’ thorny prick you care about a fucking urq.”

  “I’m helping this creature because I have to!” Taethan shuddered with barely controlled violence. Finally, Heden thought. We’re down to it.

  “Why do you call it a creature, why don’t you call it an urq?” Heden was not intimidated. The opposite. He felt he and Taethan were both walking the same awful path, but only one of them could see it.

  “Do you think that I am doing this for the urq?”

  Heden didn’t reply.

  “I’m doing this because of who I am. Because I’m not going to give that up. Not because of the urq. Not because he deserves it, not because of what he’s done or what he might do. Not because of what they think,” he shouted. Heden knew he meant the rest of the order.

  “And later?” Heden asked. “When it’s killing the innocent people at
the keep?”

  “Damn it, man! Why are you doing this?! Why are you pretending like you wouldn’t do the same thing? Why are you acting like them?” he demanded, pointing in the direction of the distant priory.

  Heden shook his head. Trying to preserve his sense of self in Taethan’s onslaught.

  He looked at the dying urq. It heard none of this, its body desperately trying to maintain life for another few moments. Heden saw the giant, Nudd’s spear sticking out of its back, make one last vain horrible attempt to save itself, push itself up, and only end up turning its head to look at Heden. Pleading. Terrified. It didn’t know why it was dying. Heden didn’t know why Nudd had killed it.

  “It’s a creature born and bred to hate and kill,” Heden said slowly, trying to keep perspective. “You took an oath…”

  “My oath? Do not dare to speak of my oath, thou base and churlish knave,” he said. “You defame it by your presence. I swore to preserve life.”

  “Human life.”

  “All life!”

  “Is that what you told Kavalen before you killed him?” Heden dared.

  Taethan lunged at him, his speed remarkable. Heden braced himself and the knight grabbed him by his breastplate at the shoulders, lifted him off the ground and bore him backward, slamming him into the trunk of a tree. Heden’s head hit the bark and he almost lost consciousness again. When he’d shaken the impact off, he heard Taethan shouting at him.

  “What kind of man are you?!” Taethan roared. “Why did you come here, why are you doing this?”

  “I came to absolve the order of…” Heden began.

  “No!” Taethan said, pulling Heden’s body away from the tree and then slamming him back into it. “You! What do you want?! Is there nothing left of the priest? Is there no man in there?” he howled, and slammed Heden into the tree again.

  Heden looked into Taethan’s face, twisted with rage, his eyes red.

  “I don’t know,” Heden confessed, and the confession took something out of him, took away some defense he had stored. He was afraid of what it meant, and his fear showed. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  In a flash, the hate was gone. As quickly as it arrived. Taethan shrunk. Like a puppet whose strings were cut, he sagged but did not collapse. He let Heden go. He looked beaten.

  Heden felt the same. He’d deliberately provoked the knight and felt like shit because of it, and he’d still not gotten what he wanted.

  Heden watched Taethan’s reaction to him, and something clicked. Heden peered at the Green Knight.

  “Compassion,” he said.

  “What?” Taethan asked, uncomprehending.

  “That’s what Halcyon meant. What she hoped I’d figure out.” What gave Taethan his power.

  Taethan ripped some cloth in two and handed a strip to Heden.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” he asked.

  “The other knights must hate you,” Heden said. The sheer weight of Heden’s understanding of the knight struck him like a blow. Taethan bowed his head.

  “Every time they do their duty, they see you judging them,” Heden pronounced. Taethan seemed to diminish with each sentence.

  “You were a priest,” Taethan said miserably.

  “They love it. Defending the forest, killing the urq and thyrs who push things too far.”

  “Have you no mercy?” Taethan pleaded.

  “But you’ve got so much compassion you can’t stand it. You do it, and it kills you a little each time.”

  “You were a good man once,” Taethan said. “What happened to you?”

  “They hate that. They hate being reminded of how awful it is. Hate being reminded of what it’s like being human. And you hate reminding them. But you don’t know how to stop it. You’d give anything to stop it. You’re so full of compassion, you’re sick with it.” He pointed to the dying urq. “You can’t help but feel what it feels. And it’s destroying you.”

  Taethan didn’t look at Heden, he just held out the strip of white cloth, and waited. Waited to see how much Heden understood.

  Heden knew what the offer meant. It meant all of Heden’s judgment of the knight was judgment of himself as well. Meant admitting that whatever Taethan had done, whatever had brought Heden up here, whatever happened to Kavalen, it was exactly the same thing Heden would have done, and for the same reason.

  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.

  Chapter Forty Five

  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 tol
d 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!”