The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [25]
“For what crime?”
“Pardon me to leave. I’m the king’s holter. The forest is in my charge. I have to see this for myself.”
“Yes, to that second point I agree. As to the first—you are no longer the king’s holter.”
“What?”
“I petitioned His Majesty to have you placed under my command. I need you, Aspar White. No one knows the forest as you do. You’ve faced the Briar King and lived—not once, but twice.”
“But he’s been a holter all his life!” Stephen exploded. “Your Grace, you can’t just—!”
The praifec’s voice was suddenly not soft. “I most certainly can, Brother Darige. I can and I have. And in point of fact, your friend is still a holter—the Church’s holter. What greater honor could he hope for?”
“But—,” Stephen began again.
“If it’s all the same, Stephen,” Aspar said quietly, “I can speak for myself.”
“Please do,” the praifec urged.
He looked the praifec straight in the eye. “I don’t know much about courts or kings or praifecs,” he admitted. “I’m told I have few manners, and those I have are bad ones. But it seems to me, Your Grace, that you might have asked me before telling me.”
Hespero stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Very well. You have a point. I suppose I was letting my anxiety for the people of Crotheny and the greater world muddy my concern for the personal wishes of one man. I can always ask the king to change his decree—so I’ll ask you now.”
“What exactly is it Your Grace is requesting?”
“I want you to go to the King’s Forest and discover what is really happening there. I want you to find the Briar King, and I want you to kill him.”
A moment’s silence followed the praifec’s words. He sat there, watching them as if he had just asked that they go hunting and return with some fresh deer meat.
“Kill him,” Aspar said carefully, after a moment.
“Indeed. You killed the greffyn, did you not?”
“And it nearly killed Aspar,” Winna interjected. “It would have killed him, except that the Briar King somehow healed him.”
“You’re sure of that?” the praifec said. “Do you discount the saints and their work so easily? They do keep an eye on human affairs, after all.”
“The point is, Your Grace,” Stephen said, “that we do not know precisely what happened that day, what the Briar King is, or what he truly portends. We don’t know that the Briar King should be slain, and we do not know if he can be slain.”
“He can be slain, and he must be slain,” Hespero said. “This can slay him.” He lifted a long, narrow leather case from behind his desk. It looked old, and Aspar saw some sort of faded writing stamped on it.
“This is one of the most ancient relics of the Church,” the praifec said. “It has been waiting for this day, and for someone to wield it. The Fratrex Prismo cast the auguries, and the saints have revealed their will.”
He opened one end of the case and gingerly withdrew an arrow. Its head glittered, almost too brightly to be looked at.
“When the saints destroyed the Old Gods,” Hespero said, “they made this and gave it to the first of the Church fathers. It will kill anything that has flesh—beast canny or uncanny, or ancient, pagan spirit. It may be used seven times. It has already been used five.”
He replaced the arrow in the case and folded his hands before him.
“The madness Ehawk witnessed is the doing of the Briar King. The auguries say it will spread, like ripples in a pool, until all the lands of men are engulfed by it. Therefore, by command of the most holy senaz of the Church and the Fratrex Prismo himself, I am ordered to see that this shaft finds the heart of the Briar King. That, Aspar White, is the charge and the duty I am asking you to take up.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SARNWOOD WITCH
WE CAN’T TAKE THEM all,” Anshar said grimly as he drew back the string of his bow. There was nothing to hit—the wolves were nothing more than shadows in the trees, and he was certain every shaft he had fired thus far had missed its mark. The Sarnwood was too dense, too tangled with vines and creepers for a bow to have much worth.
“Well, no,” the one-eyed Sefry to his left said