Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  “See,” she said. “Be. Believe. Free.” Each word was like the entire lake taking a breath. Like the tide coming in and rolling out.

  Heden gritted his teeth. She wanted to trade. More; she wanted Heden to give something up. He knew how these things worked. Knowledge at no price had no meaning. The rain continued to fall.

  Heden reached back into his pack. This was going to make the dwarf more angry at him. Well, he thought, that’s not true. He’s already maximally angry at me.

  He took out Starkiller and presented it to her.

  She smiled widely. “You believe in things that you cannot see,” she reiterated with approval.

  She didn’t take the sword, she just nodded her head behind her. Heden knew what was expected. With his mailed gloves, he grabbed the dwarven blade near the tip with both hands, and swung it back over his head and then with all his strength, threw it overhand into the lake. Its hum oscillated and faded as it spun through the air, the weight of the hilt causing it to spin and turn in a strange, almost organic way, like it was writhing and then sank with a splash into the center of the lake.

  She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. The sword had lain undisturbed for thousands of years when Heden and his friends had found it. Now it would lay for another thousand.

  “Okay,” Heden said. “Now. The body.”

  The naiad opened her eyes, and took a breath, as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “For the service of the Terrans, they brought forth fruit, to make wine, that makes glad the heart of man.” She was thanking him.

  The water in the middle of the lake began to boil, froth. Something was being dredged up from far below. Slowly, the tumult moved toward the edge, to the shore of the lake where Heden stood. He didn’t know what to expect. The Celestials gave their servants great powers in some arenas. Was Kavalen going to walk out of the lake like some kind of watery ghoul? No. No, there were no more Deathless. This Heden knew.

  A bulbous watery mass oozed up onto the shore of the lake. The water splashed away, covering Heden’s already soaking boots, and revealing a mass of what appeared to be vines and leaves, dark green, brown, and black.

  Then this too disintegrated, revealing a perfectly preserved body.

  Kavalen had been tall and strong in life. He looked a little like the king. He shared with Lady Isobel a noble bearing, even in death. He had a square jaw and solid brow. Heden wondered if he was a good leader. His hair was short, but still green.

  “He died valiantly,” Heden said. The naiad said nothing.

  He bent down and examined the body. Standing in the rotting lake vegetation, he pulled Kavalen’s clothing away and saw several wide wounds cut into his torso. Heden frowned. He rolled Kavalen over, splashing around in the ankle-deep water. There were precisely seven wounds, and all in the ribs, or stomach, or back. None on his hands, or arms or legs. He didn’t appear to have tried to defend himself. Heden dreaded what this meant.

  His left foot ached because the heel of his boot was standing on something hard and unyielding. He bent down to clear away the vegetation and caught a glimpse of something man-made.

  It was a spear. Also preserved. A short wooden spear with a wide flat tip like the one Aderyn had first confronted him with. Exactly like it. Like the one hanging below Taethan’s device in the priory. Like the weapons that had cut fatally into Kavalen’s body.

  Heden fell to his hands and knees and amidst the rain, splashed around in the shallow water, revealing several other similar objects all around the body, also disgorged by the lake.

  They were the spears of seven knights. All the spears except Kavalen’s, Aderyn’s and Taethan’s. He remembered Taethan at the priory placing his spear under his crest. Which the other knight’s couldn’t do.

  Heden stood up and stumbled back a step. They had come here to bury Kavalen, and throw their own spears in with him. The spears they used to kill him.

  “They killed him,” he said. The naiad watched but the words were not for her. “They all killed him. They stabbed him like…” Heden was reeling at this. Why would they do it? What had Kavalen done? His hair was still green. He had kept his oath.

  A feeling came over Heden, a swelling, like something lifting him up from the inside. It was a sickening feeling. He started to panic, fearing another attack in the middle of the forest. New images replaced the lake and the naiad, and he knew this was no memory, called up from the fear and horror of his past.

  Chapter Fifty Five

  “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.”

  Chapter Fifty Six

  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.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  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.