Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) (12 page)

“And you’re willing to bet the lives of all your subjects on that?”

She said, quietly; “We always have before.” She blinked as she said it, as though she didn’t dare take the time to evaluate that decision.

“This is madness,” Heden said. “You’re all mad, you know that right? You deserve to get roasted alive by an army of urq, but those people out there,” Heden said, shouting, stabbing his finger at the window, “haven’t don’t anything wrong except depend on
you
!”

“Listen you piece of shit!”

Heden had forgotten about the guards behind him. The bigger guard clamped his mailed hand on Heden’s shoulder.

It sounded to everyone in the room like Heden swore under his breath in an inhuman tongue, several words as he spun and hit the guard square in the chest with the flat of his hand.

The guard, tall, big, stupid, had the wind driven out of him and his eyes went wide with surprise as the blow lifted him impossibly off his feet and sent him sailing. As he flew backward, his skin, his clothes, his whole body flashed to stone and what hit the ground was a kind of rough-hewn statue that shrieked when the rump of the former guard skidded against the flagstones.

The younger guard swore and fell down, scrabbling to get away from Heden. The priest and the wizard raced to put up wards while the baron looked at the statue that used to be her guard captain.

“By Cyrvis’ thorny prick!” the wizard hissed. “What have you done, man?”

“I told him,” Heden said, upset at himself for losing his temper. “I told him.”

“Arrest him!” the Deacon said and, as realization dawned that the only man who could arrest Heden was now a large piece of art, he looked wildly around the room at no one. “Someone arrest…” He trailed off.

“I needed him,” The baron said, more to herself than anyone. It seemed like Heden’s action had collapsed whatever support she’d been using to hold back despair; she now seemed like someone who’d given up. “His family had been in service to mine for five generations. I was at his wedding.”

“It’ll wear off,” Heden said, looking at the floor. “I lost my temper, there was no excuse for that, milady.” He was angry at himself for getting involved in this in the first place.

“How long will he be like that?” the baron asked, her voice flat.

“Three days,” Heden said.

The baron looked at Heden. “I don’t have enough guards left.”

Heden was upset at himself, but refused to show it. He went on the attack. “You didn’t have enough guards to begin with,” he said, looking her in the eyes. He stabbed a finger at her. “You never had enough. Against five thousand urmen? You never had enough.”

“The order will come.”

Heden remembered his instructions. The ritual that would cleanse the order was in his pack.

“Pray they do,” Heden said, and meant it.

The baron appeared to reach a conclusion. She composed herself and rebuilt whatever defenses against despair Heden had momentarily destroyed. “You are a prelate of Cavall. Even were you to simply heal the wounded your services would be invaluable. And you just cost me my guard captain. I’m pressing you into service. You are a serf on my land, and under the contract between your lord and master you owe service, prelate or no. Consider this payment on all such debts.”

“I’m sorry,” Heden said, shaking his head. “We both know that won’t work. Anyway, I’m already a freeman. I’m going to do everything I can to help you, but not here.”

The baron looked confused. “How then?”

“I’m going to find the Green Order.” Somewhere in the previous conversation, Heden discovered that he was this town’s only hope. These poor idiots, just like the poor idiots he grew up with, the poor idiots his parents were. The poor idiot he was. Whatever he thought before now, he was committed.

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Heden said without conviction.

“The bishop sent you here to liberate the order from whatever prevents it from reaching us?” The baron was skeptical. She obviously didn’t believe Heden.

“Something like that,” Heden replied. He didn’t know what he believed anymore.

He looked at the baron and they shared a moment. He didn’t know why he was doing what he was doing, she no longer knew why she was doing what she was doing. Both of them were going through the motions, hoping some greater meaning would present itself. All either of them knew was they didn’t want these people to die.

“Praise Cavall,” the deacon said, putting his fist into his hand and pulling both up to his mouth. He missed whatever was passing between Heden and the baron.

The baron shook her head. “It won’t work.”

Heden picked up his pack. “It’ll work,” he said.

“The forest won’t let anyone through. They go in, follow the trail, and come out again without any memory of turning around.”

Heden nodded. “I need a horse.”

“A horse?”

“Just a regular horse. I’m sorry about the guard,” Heden said, not changing tone.

The baron looked at him. “Me too,” she said. “I’ll have a horse saddled for you.”

“Station people in the warrens,” Heden said. “The urmen sometimes use kethat sappers. The warrens’ll confuse the shit out of them. They won’t expect to find tunnels or people in them.”

The baron nodded.

“The knight who was killed,” she said. “It was the Knight-commander. Sir Kavalen. He was the….” she faltered. “The head of the order.”

Heden nodded. “Thanks,” he said. It was useful information.

The baron walked around to the other side of the desk and from a drawer pulled a small vellum scroll tied with ribbon and affixed with a wax imprint of her seal.

She walked around the desk again and presented it to Heden. He thought she was trying to knight him or something.

“If you find them, give this to the Lady Isobel.”

“Isobel.”

“She’s the eldest of the order.”

Heden took the scroll. “I will. If she’s still alive.”

“She’s alive,” the baron said.

“You can’t know that,” Heden said. Over the course of the conversation, he’d come to the conclusion the order had been wiped out. If they had a pact with the forest, that would explain the mazement preventing anyone from entering and looking for them. The forest was saying ‘there is no order.’

“I would know if she were dead.” Before she continued, Heden sensed what she was going to say next. It explained her blind faith in the order.

“Lady Isobel is my sister.”

At first the horse was confused. Heden rode it through the gate and when the horse tried to turn right, where the road led south to civilization, Heden pulled the reins to the left. To the forest. Where there was no road, no path.

The horse didn’t know what to make of this. Heden dismounted, fed it an apple he’d brought for just this purpose, and rubbed the horse’s neck absently while it chewed.

Mounting up again, the horse was more willing to accept Heden’s guidance. The two of them struck out north, across the rolling green fields, to the massive trees of the Iron Forest. Even at a mile distant, the trees loomed so high they tricked the mind. They looked like they were toppling over.

The tree line was distinct, sharp. Once they reached it the horse became a little jittery. Remembering the stories his father told him about Sir Ollwen and his knights, Heden turned the horse so it faced due east. The forest on his left, the keep down on his right. The horse should, if it were sensible, turn right and head back home to Ollghum Keep. Probably after standing still for a quarter hour too stupid to realize anything was amiss.

Saying something less a prayer and more a wish, Heden patted the horse’s neck, rubbed its thick, short hairs, took a deep breath and let the reins go slack on the horse’s neck.

The horse sniffed the air and champed his teeth, pulling the bit forward. It shook its head back and forth once, testing to see that Heden wasn’t holding the reins. It murmured a horsey whinny and stamped the ground once. Heden relaxed, didn’t move. Tried to think of nothing. After a few moments, maybe half a turn, the horse gently turned left and began to head into the forest.

Heden’s trick was working. He trusted to fate, let the horse pick its own way. Into the forest, and toward whatever destiny awaited him there.

The wode closed in on all sides, completely denying any opportunity to get one’s bearings. The sun was difficult to find in the sky, there was no sense of distance. And whatever natural connection man had to the cycles of day and night became disjointed.

The trees were taller than any human structure he’d ever seen, wider around than a house. Adding to his disorientation was the fact that the huge trees of the Iron Forest were not packed closely together. Only the tips of their leaves touched. The distance between the trees, and their sheer size, created a sense of space that overwhelmed him. Each tree was like a massive pillar, holding up a green sky made of leaves above. He felt like an ant crawling across the floor of a cathedral.

The horse found a trail. Heden didn’t notice when they started on it. He was daydreaming and then he looked down and they were on a thin trail, probably a foot trail. The underbrush around them, the bracken and ferns and vines was thick, but the trail was clear. He twisted around, looked behind for the spot the trail started, but couldn’t see anything. The horse obviously knew something he didn’t. Probably knew a lot of things Heden didn’t. Probably figured being sat on all day entitled it to an opinion.

He used the meditative time to think, go over events in his mind: Gwiddon, the Carter, Vanora. The baron. He replayed the scenes over and over again. Not for any reason, just out of habit. It was something he couldn’t turn off. Occasionally he would think of something he should have said, or upon remembering something someone else said, gain some insight into their motivation. Their real meaning. Also, sometimes, his own.

After a turn in the forest, the horse plodding along at a steady rate, he was startled by something out of the corner of his eye. Motion as though something had run off behind a nearby tree. And then the bottom began to fall out from his world.

It was possible, he reminded himself, even likely, that a rabbit or some other small game was startled by his passing and took flight. But as soon as the sensation passed, it was replaced by a growing suspicion. As he rode, every tree became a place behind which some enemy could be hiding. The woods were silent, were they unnaturally silent? Were they silent because of hostile humanoids laying in wait? There were birds, small noises…were they normal? Heden found he couldn’t remember. He could imagine anything.

It was madness, he tried to tell himself. It didn’t work. His nightmare scenarios seemed all too plausible. He’d been in a dozen situations, exactly like this, where the trees
had
concealed urmen or worse. No one knew he was here. There was no way, no reason, for ambush. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. He could be trespassing on some inhuman creature’s territory. That tree there was big enough to hide a thyrs. He stared for what might have been a full minute thinking he was seeing the hilt of a spear sticking out from behind a distant tree. Then the horse moved and he saw it was only a branch from another tree, farther in the distance.

He wished he could blame the tightening, the senseless fear, on the forest and its power to confuse, but Heden knew this was going to happen. Happened every time he left the city.

His heart was hammering in his chest and for the thousandth time he feared it would burst. He realized he was completely, utterly alone. There was no one to help him if something happened to him. If his heart burst in his chest, there was no priest to aid him, no one to go and get a priest. The fact that he lived alone and had done for years didn’t mean anything. In Celkirk, he felt safe, and so didn’t think about such things.

He was suddenly gripped with fear that he had turned around, was heading back to Ollghum Keep. He twisted in the saddle, staring back the way he’d come, wondering if it was the way he should be going.

He remembered Gwiddon offering to give him help and for a little while, seriously entertained the notion of going back to Celkirk, going south almost a hundred miles, a whole day’s travel, and asking for help getting the last few miles. The temptation to return to the known, to get away from this place of danger, was almost overwhelming.

He found the saddle constraining. As much as he had to get out of the forest, back to the inn, he had to get out of the saddle.

He swung his leg over, and dropped clumsily to the forest floor. He staggered, then grabbed the leather of the saddle with one hand and steadied himself on the flank of the horse with the other. He felt normal again. Felt the madness, the fear, evaporate.

He sniffed once. Breathed heavily. Straightened up and looked around, wiping sweat from his brow.

The horse seemed to have taken no notice of the episode. Heden remembered being a young man, with no sense of fear or mortality, and a wave of sadness passed over him, not for the first time, at what he’d been reduced to. What campaigning for 12 years had done to him. It was this that Gwiddon knew made this assignment so difficult. Eventually the episodes would get longer and more frequent.

He didn’t want to get back on the horse, and didn’t want to think about why. He hit the horse with the flat of his hand, signaling the beast to lead the way again.

The horse neighed and wouldn’t budge.

Heden grunted a question and walked up to look the horse in the eye.

The horse shook its head. No.

Heden grabbed the reins and tugged, but the horse had the bit between the teeth and was having none of it.

“What?” Heden asked.

The horse waggled its lips at Heden, showing its big horse teeth.

Heden felt incredibly tired. He was too far from home and too much at odds with himself and his mission to fight with the horse.

“Fine,” Heden said. He dropped the reins. “You stay here and let the brocc find you. They love horse.”

Heden turned to show the horse he was leaving, and noticed what the horse had seen.

He turned back around and looked behind the horse. Walked around the horse and look back the way they’d came. Then he strode back around the horse and checked in every direction.

The trail was gone. The trail they were following had disappeared. It had been here when he’d stopped, and he hadn’t moved, but it was gone.

“Shit,” Heden said to no one and everyone.

The horse neighed.