Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1)

by Matthew Colville

  Taking more care, he followed her down. She had already dropped her pack by the edge of the river, and was disentangling her hair from the links that held her cloak around her neck.

  There was a small waterfall, no more than six feet high, but it broke the river neatly and no one bathing above could see anyone bathing below, or vice versa. It was an easy climb to make.

  “I’ll wash up there,” Heden said. “And meet you on the other side.” He looked up at the light blue Dawn Moon and marked its face. “One turn,” he said. Trying to act like he was in charge of this expedition. “Remember our mission.”

  “I have never forgotten it,” she said with no inflection. No reproach. He nodded to himself—still suspicious of her—and turned, heading upstream.

  Looking around to make sure Aderyn was nowhere in sight, feeling only a little self-conscious, he stripped his armor off. Breastplate first, into the pack. Then his leather armor.

  Pulling the hard leather off, revealing his woolen underclothes, released a potent aroma. He held his breath and stuffed them all into the pack.

  Naked, he held the pack in one hand, and stepped into the water, ankle deep.

  It was cold, as he knew it would be, but a minor prayer and he no longer noticed it. He strode out into the water, enjoying the feel of it on his naked skin. This was something he missed about the life, something he never got to do in Celkirk.

  Keeping his pack over his head, he waded out until he had to swim. He was a strong swimmer, having done a great deal of it as a boy, and soon he was across the river. He dropped his pack on the ground and removed his woolen underclothes, pushing his arm into the pack up to the shoulder to fish out a cake of soap. A product of the city he’d never had with him as a campaigner. He smiled to himself at his foresight.

  Getting his clothes thoroughly wet, he slapped them down on a sun-baked rock, already warm though it was only morning, and scrubbed them down with the soap. Normally he’d have tried to preserve the cake, but he didn’t imagine he’d go through this ritual more than once before he returned home, and so applied it liberally.

  Soaking the wool, he then put his clothes on another rock to dry. They wouldn’t dry completely, but he’d planned for that as well. He stood and looked around, considering getting out the oil and cleaning his armor, but saw the Dawn Moon had already made half a revolution, and so, cake in hand, dove back into the river.

  Its water was clear and clean. Potent enough to wash more than just dirt from him. The pool that formed before the waterfall was deep, and he dove down, scrubbing the soap into his hair.

  He enjoyed the momentary luxury of losing track of time, emerging and floating in the water, his eyes closed. He knew when he opened them the Dawn Moon would be waiting, but he also knew that in the proper meditative state, he could expand that time.

  Eventually, his meditation was broken by memory of the urq they were scouting and the people of Ollghum Keep. He opened his eyes just as the same facing he’d noted before leaving Aderyn. He sighed and willed his limbs to move again, and swam toward shore.

  Heden walked out of the water. Naked. Clean. He felt like a new man. Felt ready to go back to the priory right now and confront Sir Taethan and extract from him the truth about Kavalen. He could be home tomorrow. But first, the urmen.

  He dried himself with a cloth from his pack, and then picked up his still wet woolens. He smelled them, they smelled good. He shoved them, clean, into his pack and pulled out a fresh pair. More insight. He dressed and armored himself. Whatever apprehension he had about Aderyn doing something foolish was forgotten.

  He finished dressing and stretched himself, his joints popping, his muscles relaxing. He breathed the forest air. Strange how you got used to smells. The stink of the city eventually vanished, then the sweetness of clean air eventually became something you took for granted.

  It was approaching midmorning now, and already warm. His breastplate felt heavy on his chest, it would be hot as the day wore on, and he already wanted to take it off.

  He turned to go down and find Aderyn, and startled. She’d been standing only a few feet behind him, watching him. Standing on the yellow grass in bare feet.

  She was naked. He shouldn’t have been worried about the water. He should have been worried about after the water, when she was clean again.

  He expected her skin to be pale from constantly wearing the armor, but she obviously spent a lot of time under the sun naked. Her skin was brown and smooth. Though she had many scars, to Heden’s eye they in no way marred her beauty.

  She wasn’t standing before him like a knight, she was shy. Presenting herself for his approval. Heden could not draw a breath. He felt like a spell had been cast upon him. She took a deep breath and suddenly parts of Heden’s clothing no longer fit properly. For many years as an adult, he believed that an artfully dressed woman could be far more alluring and irresistible than mere nudity. He no longer believed that.

  She was youth and health and sun and innocence and lust. She was like a goddess of summer.

  “I will never be a knight,” she said to him.

  Heden forced himself to look away. He turned around, forgot how to breathe.

  “You can’t know that,” he said. Turning away hadn’t helped, her image was burned into his mind.

  “Go, ah….” he said, pointing downstream. His throat was dry. “Go put your clothes on.” He got the words out quickly.

  He heard her walk up behind him as she slipped her hands about his waist. She pressed herself against him, held him tight. She laid her head against his cloak.

  “It is my oath to break,” she said, apropos of nothing.

  She must bind her breasts, Heden reasoned, when she’s in her armor. He shook his head, these thoughts weren’t helping.

  She took a deep breath. “I watched you in the water. You have the body of a knight.”

  Heden understood this was a compliment. He took her hands around his waist and pulled them away, but did not let go of them.

  “Wasn’t there something about your armor? Uh, always…always staying in it except to bathe?” He tried to push her away.

  She pulled her hands back and slowly turned him around to face her. He looked down at the top of her head, her thick red hair curling slightly with the water. She was looking at his breastplate. She slid her hands up his sides, to the buckles that held it on, and began to undo them.

  “I think,” she said delicately, “that there is yet more bathing in our future.”

  Heden was overwhelmed by what she was doing, what she was asking him. His knees went weak and his legs went out from underneath him. He fell to his knees before her, his hands on her waist. She seemed to writhe with anticipation, mistaking Heden’s gesture.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t do this to me.”

  She ran her fingers through his hair. “And what am I doing to you?” she asked, delighted in the effect she was having on him. The more he resisted, the more she was enjoying herself.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I swore.”

  “An oath?” she asked, idly. “Let us break them together.”

  “Worse,” he said. “A promise. There’s a woman….” A woman who, in all likelihood, would not care what happened here. Would think him mad for rejecting Aderyn.

  “But she is not here,” he could hear her smiling.

  “I really wish you hadn’t said that,” Heden said.

  She laughed, and stepped impossibly closer to him. His hands slipped around her. He took a deep breath and almost gave in. Came closer than he ever had in his life to breaking a promise that no one in the world cared about anymore except him.

  He pushed her away.

  “You swore an oath,” he said.

  “It is no matter,” there was a little something in her voice.

  “Stop saying that,” he gasped. “You’re about to do something you’ll regret.”

  He felt her stiffen. “Then it will be my regret to have,” she said. “It will be
something of mine.” She softened, seeing him on his knees. “Besides,” she said. “I know you will not let me regret it.”

  Black Gods, he thought.

  She knelt with him. He didn’t think things could get more difficult, but he found it easier to worship the goddess who stood before him than confront the woman who knelt with him.

  She had never been with a man in her life. Heden realized with a dull ache that there was no way she could understand what he was dealing with. Would take his fidelity as rejection. She had no experience to compare this to and would think there was something wrong with her. She was old enough to know better, but had spent her whole life alone in the forest. Thinking of her confusion and self-loathing if rejected, broke him.

  “I want to do this,” she said, and put her hands on either side of his head. She looked at him, struggling to avert his gaze.

  “And so do you,” she said, pulling him forward and kissing him, delicately.

  They kissed like that for only a moment before she advanced her cause, pressing her body against him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Fuck it, he thought, and unbuckled his breastplate. She laughed and helped him with his leather armor.

  They looked at each other, his armor on the ground clad in his woolens, her armor and clothing nowhere in sight. He marveled at her, not disguising the effect she had on him. She seemed deliriously happy, and that made him smile.

  They embraced and kissed again, this time longer.

  Then, in his mind’s eye, he saw a pair of smiling eyes, and a woman’s cynical, knowing laugh rang out like she was standing there watching them. Calling Heden a manly fool.

  He opened his eyes, and looked at Aderyn again, realizing what they were both about to do. Destroy what amounted to decades of fidelity between them.

  He pushed her away abruptly.

  She looked at him, worried that something had gone wrong. That he was unwell.

  “We can’t,” he said.

  “It is too late for ‘can’t,’” she said, shaking her head and pulling herself back to him.

  He kept her at arm’s length.

  “Listen, please. This isn’t your fault.” He knew saying it was meaningless, but he had to try. “You deserve….” She deserved more than he could give her.

  “Do we not deserve to be happy?” she asked, yearning. As concerned for his happiness as her own.

  “We won’t be happy if we betray our oaths.”

  This pained her. She could see it on his face, could see he was telling the truth about himself.

  “I do not see how we can be happy any other way.”

  Heden had underestimated her. She had thought a lot about this. Probably had been thinking about it since the priory. Heden hadn’t noticed. She had probably run through this scenario several times on the way here and thought through what he might say.

  “You’re going to think,” he said, “that there’s something wrong. With you. But you haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “How not? How have I…how have I failed you, explain to me, say the words and I will…”

  “Aderyn!” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Squire!” he reminded her. She didn’t like being reminded of that. He looked her in the eye, stopped pleading with her and just looked at her until when she looked back in anticipation, he said the words she needed to hear.

  “We only fail if we break our oaths.”

  This angered her.

  “They broke their oaths! There will be no more order! Why cannot you and I…”

  “What do you mean they broke their oaths?” Heden asked. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Ah!” she cried. “Stop it! They are gone, I am here. We are here, now!”

  He shook his head. He had passed the test, and all that remained was trying to get her not to hate herself for it.

  He stood up and started putting his armor back on. She made a sound like a defeated gasp.

  Even facing away from her, he couldn’t get the memory of how she looked, and how she wanted him, out of his mind. I’m going to have trouble sleeping for, he thought a moment, a year.

  “You’re going to be a knight,” he said. “The urq can’t stop it. Even the other knights can’t stop it. Forget them,” he said. Forget me. “Hang on to that. You worked for it your entire life, and you are going to be a knight.”

  He could hear her stand up. She was staring at him. He didn’t want to turn around and see her expression.

  “Go put your armor on before I change my mind.”

  She didn’t move.

  There was a sound like a saw biting wood.

  “Ragh! Ragh! Ragh!” It was urq laughter.

  Heden turned and saw a dozen, more, hairless blue-black figures emerging from the woods, each wearing light armor, carrying various weapons. Larger than a man. Each covered in blood-like red powder. He recognized them. Bloodrunners. Elite scouts.

  The urmen had found them.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Of course, Heden thought. The urmen would have scouts too. Heden and Aderyn had tarried here too long.

  The urq were each larger than a man, but hunched over. At night, their deep, dark-blue skin looked black as pitch, but here in the sunlight it seemed like blue ink. Their long, massively muscled forearms stretched from their shoulders all the way to the ground. They used these more than their tiny legs to move and run. They could run upright like a man for short periods, but preferred to lope along on all fours with much greater speed. Their build gave them the use of heavy weapons and bows no man could lift or fire.

  They were covered in a thick layer of hard fat that acted like natural armor, and so some wore no armor at all. Most left their pot-bellies unarmored, it was a sign of masculinity among them. They had small, piggish yellow eyes and huge mouths full of wide, flat teeth. Two white tusks, each needle-thin and perfectly straight, jutted up out of the lower jaw and rose up to their temples, acting as natural protection from injury to the face or eyes.

  They each had a dull red powder caked onto them, some on their shoulders, some along their forearms, some all over their bodies. It was meant to look like blood, but Heden knew it was rust. It was a ceremony the Bloodwalkers went through that involved destroying iron. But they liked giving the impression of being covered in blood.

  Heden could not count how many of them there were. They leered from behind every rock and tree. Dozens. Heden was apprehensive. His rational mind understood that they were just urq, no real threat to him even ten years ago. But seeing them here, being outnumbered was unsettling. The Bloodwalkers were fierce and intelligent and knew how to effectively use cover and squad tactics, but Heden could call upon the incarnate power of a god, should it prove necessary. And it would not. He had many other tricks up his sleeve. The only problem was Aderyn.

  The urmen had probably been watching them for a while. Both Heden and Aderyn had been concentrating on other things. They had seen Heden put his armor back on, but interrupted once it looked like Aderyn might go do the same. Naked, she was vulnerable enough, even a squire of the Green. But, Heden thought, they’d lost the initiative. Their chance had already gone, and they missed it. Maybe they weren’t expecting to find Heden and Aderyn, and certainly not in that particular situation.

  Aderyn was looking around frantically, calculating the paths that led her back to her armor. She was trying not to panic. Heden sensed this, and spoke her name.

  “Squire Aderyn,” he said, and she turned to look at him. Her eyes wide. She was about to speak, but Heden interrupted her. He put his left hand on his breastplate out of habit, over the point on his chest where the talisman of Saint Lynwen hung, held up his right hand, and prayed to his saint.

  Aderyn, naked, gasped and shivered as though she’d just been dunked in ice-cold water. Her sun-browned skin flashed with goose bumps, and then a flash of light. When Heden’s eyes recovered from the glare, she stood before him in a full set of golden, ornamental plate armor. She had no weap
on, and her head was exposed, but the articulated plate armor covered the rest of her body like no real armor could. She was a warrior goddess. The plate had winged filigree. She looked like she’d stepped out of a stained glass window.

  It was a gift. From Heden’s saint to Aderyn. A reward. For what, Aderyn could not know. But Heden knew. Aderyn could not have worn that armor if she and Heden had succumbed to temptation.

  “How long will it last?” she asked him, marveling at her hands and arms covered in flexible, impenetrable golden metal. The only sound was the urq marshaling. He could hear them. The battle was about to start. They had only moments before the bloodshed.

  Seeing her outfitted thus, she was no longer an object of desire. More than anything, he wanted her to succeed. To become a knight. To become the kind of knight she believed in. He had no idea if this was even possible now.

  “Nothing lasts forever,” he said cryptically. Her eyes shot up to him, reacting to an answer to no question she had asked.

  The sun sparkled on the river behind them, and the moment was over. He turned, hand reaching to the pommel of his sword to draw it from its sheath, and saw the full might arrayed against them.

  He reeled. There were hundreds of urmen, all Bloodwalkers. They’d been pouring out of the forest while he prayed. Heden wouldn’t have guessed there were this many Bloodwalkers in all the tribes in all the thousands of miles of the Iron Forest.

  One of them held aloft a great torch, a great red guttering flame. It was their battle standard. It was a sorcerous thing, and fed on the blood of their enemies. Heden had seen one before, and he suddenly couldn’t see anything else. His eyes fixed on it, and he stopped breathing.

  It was like unmooring a boat. His eyes were no longer seeing what was in front of him. His mind was drifting to another episode like this.

  Aderyn smiled a wolfish, feral grin, and crouched, ready for battle. Glad for the challenge. Ready to prove herself, test the mettle of the Green against the might of the Bloodwalkers. And she looked forward to battle next to Heden. But he was already lost. She turned and saw there was a problem.