Had he landed, wounded, amongst the urmen, it would have been trouble, but through sheer luck the thyrs sent the knight flying to Heden.
Heden ran to Taethan and saw he’d been knocked out. Heden touched the knight with his sword and said a potent prayer. Taethan opened his eyes, no disorientation, and extended his hand to the arrogate.
Heden helped Taethan up and for a moment the two men grasped forearms like soldiers and looked into each other’s eyes. There was gratitude from Taethan, but not for the help, for the kinship. Heden was moved and as the urmen ran to them and the giant strode toward them, Heden felt a bond with this knight, unlike any knight he’d known before.
The feeling lasted only a moment, and then the urq were upon them.
The knight and the former priest fought, back to back, each man’s sword arm acting as the shield for the other. While Heden was nothing like the fighter Taethan was, starkiller made up the difference.
Soon they were surrounded by urq with rust-covered skin and Heden knew Pakadrask had unleashed his elite upon them. Bloodwalkers. But he had no patience for this. He spoke a word in Elemental and the whole squad of them, twelve at least, fell as blue-black lightning, almost invisible, arced between them, each arc detonating an urq leaving behind a pink mist before leaping to the next.
In an instant, the elite urmen were down, leaving a confused and frightened army. Their bloodwalkers had died in the blink of an eye without scratching the humans. The urq had seen anything like this power. Many ran.
But the giant did not. He strode forward, banging his stone maul against the ground.
“If you were saving anything for later!” Heden shouted over his shoulder as the two men fought together. “There are two more where this one came from!” The other two mountain thyrs stood on the fallen tree, their leader with his arms crossed, watching to see how one thyrs would fare.
Heden felt Taethan’s left shoulder pressing back against him, and they wheeled until Taethan was fighting and facing Pakadrask, commanding his urmen and the thyrs.
“You wish to see the power of the Green!?” Taethan called out. “You would pit your might against mine?” He killed another three urq, and he and Heden strategically withdrew. Neither wanted the pile of urq bodies to rise so high they couldn’t maneuver.
“The Green is broken!” Pakadrask howled, his long white tusks slicing through the air with every word. “This is your last stand!”
“Prepare to meet your god and be shamed before him!” Taethan hurled back.
He spoke a prayer and Heden was surprised when he heard it. It was just a name. Like one might summon a Dominion. What was the knight doing? What power did he call?
The earth began to tremble. The urq stopped attacking. Heden stopped attacking. The thyrs ceased its march toward them. They had to concentrate to keep their footing. They looked around wildly.
The fallen tree the urmen used as cover began to rise.
It was not a man-like thing. It was fallen tree, but a tree could take a long time to die and with the things that lived in and on it, who could say whether it was ever truly dead?
Branches grew like rising smoke. As though time had sped up. Vines grew and lashed out to the other trees pulling the tree upright as more branches pushed from below.
Urq fell from the thing like beetles. The two thyrs lost their balance and fell backward. Behind the tree, Heden could see what seemed like an entire army of urmen, waiting for battle. But this couldn’t be the whole thing; the urmen had a keep to assault. Heden had underestimated the size of the real army, if this was only a fraction they sent to kill Taethan.
The tree rose with frightening speed until it was upright again, it’s leafless branches scraping the canopy of green leaves above. It was alive, it was a raging thing and it hated the urq. Without mouth, without eyes, it radiated hunger for these twisted mirror mockeries of men.
The vines reached out and wrapped themselves around the urq, thrust themselves into the urq mouths, erupted from urq eyeballs and ears. Some urmen were merely picked up, flailing about them trying to cut the vines, and some succeeded. But those were merely grabbed by other vines, sometimes before they hit the ground.
As the demon tree spirit maneuvered forward, Heden unable to see how it propelled itself, black branches would suddenly thrust out, like lances twenty feet long, skewering several urmen at once.
Pakadrask ordered, and many urq attacked the tree god, ran at it and chopped at its crumbling decaying bark. But each blow let off a cloud of black spores from mushrooms covering the bark. The urq couldn’t help but breathe them in, cough once, twice, and then fall to the ground. They died quickly, squirming, their small yellow eyeballs popping out of their heads.
The thyrs before them saw the forest spirit come alive, saw his commander and ally fall off it, and saw that Taethan had summoned it. It ran at the knight, needing only three strides to close the distance, and pounded its stone maul into the ground as it did so. Arcing from the point the club struck the forest floor was a brilliant white lightning bolt that stabbed at Taethan. But Taethan was ready.
Taethan dodged as soon as he saw the thyrs bring his maul down, he knew what the mountain thyrswights could do. But leaping out of the way gave the giant the opportunity to grab him in his massive hand after his club had smashed into the ground.
Taethan’s arms were pinned to his side. The thyrs clasped the knight to his chest and began to crush him. The knight couldn’t breathe, couldn’t attack. The other two thyrs stood up, and watched, grinning. While urmen retreated past them, they walked forward without haste. Enjoying watching their friend kill a Green Knight.
Heden ran forward, prepared to attack the giant, but Pakadrask interposed and began assaulting Heden, an axe in each hand.
The urq commander was a skilled fighter. Much more skilled than his men. Heden recognized the fighting style. Pakadrask had been a bloodwalker. Experienced beyond a normal urman and now a commander besides.
In spite of this, Heden was not afraid.
He lashed out with starkiller and one of Pakadrask’s axes exploded, sending shards of metal into the urman’s forearm.
He tried it again with the other axe, but this time there were just black sparks. There was some form of sorcery on the remaining axe. Heden frowned and stepped back. The urmen could not create a sorcerous blade. Where had Pakadrask gotten this axe?
Pakadrask, his left arm bleeding, grinned at Heden, his flat white teeth smeared with blood, his tusks threatening.
Heden was not a swordsman, he had to rely on starkiller to fight for him. But his prayers made up for it. He blinded Pakadrask, but the urq kept pressing the attack and fought by sound until he was able to shake off the blindness. All too quickly, for Heden’s tastes.
The urq feinted with the axe and then caught Heden’s left side, smashing into his ribs and cutting one of the straps that held his breastplate on. Heden spoke a withering prayer, but Pakadrask covered his face with his wounded arm. The arm shriveled and turned black.
The urman ignored it, leaving it to hang from his side. He sneered and slashed at Heden, forcing him back. As capable with one arm as two.
Heden encountered worry, and looked to see if Taethan were still alive.
The knight was unconscious, limp in the thyrswight’s arms. Heden saw this, and began to summon Ailil, a Dominion, to settle the matter. But fate intervened.
Whatever prayer Taethan used to manifest the demon tree spirit, it had worn off. The urq army was decimated, but enough were left to be a problem as long as the three giants still lived, continued to crush the life out of the knight.
The tree ceased moving. Urq stopped dying. It slowly began to topple over. Heden watched as it fell toward the giant. Pakadrask stopped and watched as well.
The mountain thyrs turned at the last moment and saw the huge tree about to fall on him. Mouth open, it tried to step out of the way, the tree would only glance him.
But at the last moment, a pointed branc
h thrust out from the tree and with the entire weight of the two hundred foot tall tree behind it, drove itself into the giant, through its skull and down through its chest, impaling him, ripping him apart, and finally crushing him.
Taethan’s unmoving body fell to the ground next to the dead thyrs and the now lifeless tree.
Heden tried to close the gap again and get beyond Pakadrask, but the urman commander had slipped behind him.
Pakadrask wrapped his remaining massive arm around Heden’s head, twisting and exposing his neck with one arm. Heden began a prayer, and then his shoulder and collarbone exploded in pain. He saw coming into his field of view from below two needle-thin, blood-red tusks.
Pakadrask had pierced Heden’s breastplate with his tusks, which went clean through Heden’s chest and neck. He was biting down at the same time, into Heden’s shoulder.
Heden swung around, pulling Pakadrask with him, and tried to stab the urq with starkiller, but the urq was unreachable.
Heden found he couldn’t breathe, the weight of the urq commander, all four hundred pounds, drove Heden to his knees. The other urq were standing by, watching their master take the priest down. Many were glancing back at the tree, afraid it still had the power to kill.
Pakadrask twisted and Heden felt his neck would snap. He looked at Taethan’s unconscious form and thought that if he wasn’t dead now, he would be once the urmen finished with Heden.
As his vision narrowed, Heden found himself feeling guilty over the knight’s death, over his own inability to learn the truth. He had failed here, and it was costing him his life, but more he felt he had failed Taethan, and he wasn’t sure how or why. He would die confused and ignorant here in the forest.
Fitting, he thought.
Something hit him. Something big smashed into him and ripped the urq commander off him, sending Heden spinning and falling on his face.
Face down in the dirt and leaves, he heard hooves beating past him. A horse. A big one. He pushed himself up and looked forward and saw a caparisoned steed with a knight atop it. A Green Knight. Though helmed, given his size, there was only one knight it could be.
Sir Nudd.
His lance had unerringly pierced Pakadrask’s ribs, jutted through his chest, but the urq was still alive. His strength inhuman. Nudd tilted his lance up, and Pakadrask slid down it, impaling himself further, the lance protruding from his back, covered in black oily blood.
The lance held in one hand, Nudd drew a great two-handed sword with the other. Pakadrask’s eye went wide, he gritted his teeth, scrambling to grab the lance, prevent himself from sliding closer to Nudd. He knew what was coming.
As though it were light as a rapier, Nudd’s two-handed swung around, and Pakadrask’s head flew off into the forest, landing where Heden couldn’t see.
Seeing their commander killed, the urmen went into a blood rage. They forgot Taethan and Heden, forgot the deadly tree spirit, stopped running away, turned, and swarmed across the forest floor toward the knight. He and his horse were so large, they made the urq seem small by comparison.
Sir Nudd swung about him with his massive two-handed broadsword. His horse stamped and bit, turning slowly, crushing urq skulls and ribs with its mighty hooves. Apart from Nudd and his pack and weapons, there was a body wrapped in white cloth strapped to the horse’s back.
The body of Sir Idris.
Heden watched, dumbstruck for a moment. He saw Taethan lying, unconscious, a few yards away. He made a quick calculation.
He crawled to the knight and examined him quickly. He was not dead. He was unconscious, ribs shattered, but Heden could fix that. First, he asked Cavall for aid, and strength and health flooded back into him. His wounded shoulder and neck healed and became stiff, almost too stiff to move. It didn’t matter how close to death Heden was, Cavall would not refuse him.
He watched Nudd swinging his sword about him like a whip, urq fell in pieces. Each swing took out two or three of them. Even the wounded tried to crawl forward and attack, but were prevented by fresh urmen stepping on and over them. And Sir Nudd’s horse kicked, bit, and stamped many urq to death, its armor warding against blows.
One urq used his heavily muscled arms to run forward and launch himself over the fray at Nudd, but the knight simply reached out with one hand, the other stabbing his impossibly heavy sword through the fat of another urq, and grabbed the tusk of the screaming, incoming urq as it arced through the air.
Tusk in hand, Nudd twisted and snapped the urman’s jaw in one fluid motion, pulling it down behind him as he twisted out of the way. The entire episode took no more than three seconds. Nudd was impossibly strong. He could have carved up this entire band with his bare hands.
The urmen finally tore Sir Nudd’s horse out from under him. The beast screamed in pain as they ripped it apart. Heden’s heart raced at the terrible sounds.
For a moment, Heden couldn’t see anything but a beating, thrashing pile of urmen tearing into the still-living horse, but then Nudd regained himself. He stood. Though his horse was now mortally wounded, would be alive for only moment more and in pain all the while, Sir Nudd began hewing about him again, defending the dying mount. His face was grim, but his eyes streamed tears. The only sign of mourning for his steed.
Bodies piled around Sir Nudd, but nothing could stop him. No urq, certainly. Heden watched, pulling Taethan’s body as fast as he could, and wondered, as urq after urq fell. How many would it take? How many urq were enough? Nudd’s labor seemed effortless.
None, Heden realized with admiration. No amount was enough. The only hope the urq had was to ignore the knight, he was only one man and now had no horse. But they were driven with hatred for men, hatred for the knights, and hatred for the knight who killed their commander.
Heden stripped off Taethan’s armor, preparing to pray over him and bring him back again. There were still two thyrs. Did Nudd know that?
The urmen tried to bring Nudd down with nets, but this was not possible. He didn’t need his sword, he just ripped the nets apart.
Heden was so fixated on the battle he viewed through the trees, he didn’t see the urq archers who’d climbed back atop the fallen tree, their fear of what it had done mastered. From their vantage point above the battle, they loosed a dozen black arrows. And a dozen black arrows thudded into Nudd. It seemed only to enrage him further, but Heden knew this couldn’t last. The arrows were almost certainly poisoned and Nudd had not warded himself.
Heden started to pray, but stopped when he heard a sound like a thunderclap from behind. It took him a second, looking at the still raging battle, to reconstruct what had happened.
Nudd was still standing, but the arrows that had stuck in him were now burned down to a few inches. His armor had peeled off him and was now smoking in a husk at his feet, some small, lethally sharp scraps still clung to him.
The lead thyrs, his second behind him, had stabbed the ground with his own lightning maul, loosing a bolt that slammed into Nudd, and though it meant killing many urq, burned and blistered Nudd and ripped his armor off him.
Sir Nudd was not down yet, but was now largely unarmored and poisoned, and two thyrs faced him. He was the biggest of the knights, as big as one of the men of the great bay beyond the Iron Forest, but next to the mountain thyrs, he seemed a child.
His flesh smoked. He seemed disoriented. He didn’t seem aware of what had just happened. Though many had urq died when the lightning hit him, there were many more. An endless supply, who ran at the knight in an attempt to avenge their leader.
As the urq blades cut into his seared flesh, he continued to fight. The two thyrs surrounded him and swung at him with their mauls. He deflected one, dodged another, but then the lead thyrs caught him and smashed his collarbone. Heden heard a snapping sound.
He watched in silent horror as something appeared ready to burst out of Nudd. His chest swelled, his face turned red as though he were about to vomit, and then as if torn from him violently, Heden heard something he would neve
r forget.
“KAVALEN!!” Nudd cried at the last. His tears mingling with blood. Though one arm was now useless, he hewed about him mightily, his two-handed blade a blur.
“KAVALEN!!” he shouted again, the first words he’d spoken since swearing his oath. Heden saw the knight’s hair slowly bleed its green out, revealing dull brown. Nudd was a knight no longer. He seemed to physically diminish, but Heden couldn’t be sure if it was just a trick of his perception. The thyrs hit him again. And again.
Summoning the last of his strength, he continued to fight. His oath broken, his unnatural power deserted him. His massive strength waned, but it seemed it would take hours to bring him down. Moment ago, he could not be stopped by any number of urq. Now, there was no way he could survive.
Heden looked around. The urq were ignoring him. They wanted a piece of the green knight’s flesh. To eat the body of the man who killed their master.
Using the kind of logic one acquired over a decade of campaigns, Heden picked up the unconscious form of Sir Taethan and slung the knight over his shoulder.
Around him, the bodies of a hundred urq, two hundred, lay dead or dying. The urmen swarmed over him and Sir Nudd disappeared under a pile of stabbing, slashing, beating blue-black arms. Heden could see the knight no longer.
He turned and, with Taethan on his back, ran for the priory.
Chapter Forty Four
The sound of battle faded until eventually Heden could hear it no more. He alternated walking a few paces, then jogging a few, Taethan on his back, until he felt safe. He found a large boulder without any trees growing around it, and laboriously climbed atop it, eventually resting Taethan’s body on top of the rock. From this vantage point, it would be very difficult for anyone to sneak up on him while he tended to the knight.
Normally he would be concerned over how much aid he had asked Cavall for thus far, but all such concerns fled at the sight of the man, almost dead before him. Being roughly carried by Heden for over an hour hadn’t helped.
Heden prayed, and Taethan’s wounds mended quickly. He could sense the presence of Cavall’s power, and someone else’s. Halcyon’s.
Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) Page 33