“I sent Fetching to go get them,” Jackal replied, recovering quickly enough to keep from stammering. “Mead went with her. Roundth is joining them on the ride up. I heard about his Tine sighting, figured more thrums around the girl the better.”
“That why you bust in here?” the Claymaster asked, his voice gaining a little heat. “You think we’re about to get a visit?”
Jackal’s eyes drifted to the sapper pots on the shelf. “Chief, we were careful on the ride back, but if a Tine doesn’t want to be seen it won’t be. If they saw us with that girl, they know she’s here.”
The Claymaster knuckled the desk and pushed his misshapen bulk to standing.
“Let’s go.”
As they followed the Claymaster out of his solar, Jackal shot a scowl at Crafty and received a wink in return. In the taproom, two slopheads watched them pass with expectant faces.
“Get up on the walls, you bare-balled whelps!” the chief barked as he stomped past. “I want every last slop with a spear in hand and walking the rampart. Go!”
The young half-orcs ran for the door, leaving it open behind them. The Claymaster stepped out into the heat of the yard. His tumid body, heavy with age and swaddled with wrappings, seemed to shrink under the harsh glare. Still, he did not seek shade, but stood upon the hot dust and surveyed the fortress he had built.
“Tines will try to sneak over the walls,” he muttered, “not assault them head-on. If they come, it will be at night. That gives us some time. This girl? She trouble?”
“No,” Jackal replied. “She was frightened, at first. Now she’s just…”
“Resigned,” Crafty offered.
The Claymaster grunted. “Good. Then it shouldn’t take more than a pair of slops to watch her.”
“Perhaps that duty should be mine,” Crafty said.
“Fine. We need the eyes on the walls anyway.”
“What about Winsome?” Jackal asked. “Should we bring them inside?”
“They won’t attack the village,” came a thin voice from behind.
Jackal turned and found Hoodwink leaning against the wall of the meeting hall, right next to the door, keeping to the shadows cast by the building’s roof. He had not been there a moment before, Jackal was certain.
He wore a loose, deep cowl, as was his custom when forced to be in the sun. This garment, along with Hoodwink’s unnerving tendency of rarely blinking, gave rise to his hoof name.
“It’s not their way,” he finished.
“Hood’s right,” the Claymaster said. “Elves aren’t ’taurs. They’ll leave Winsome be.”
From across the yard, Grocer was approaching, his thin, sinewy frame carrying him swiftly despite his age. From the direction of the stables, Hobnail and Polecat were coming as well. The three converged on the Claymaster.
“My slops just got pulled to the walls,” Grocer said. “What we got?”
“Table meet,” the Claymaster said. His eyes were fixed across the yard, toward the unseen gatehouse tunnel blocked by the bulk of the keep. Soon, as if he willed them to appear, Oats, Mead, Fetching, and Roundth rode up. Jackal saw that Fetch bore the Tine girl. The riders reined up in front of their waiting brethren.
Hob, Grocer, and Polecat all stared at the captive elf, puzzlement manifesting in unique ways on their faces. Even Roundth still seemed a bit surprised, though he’d had the entire ride from Winsome to grow used to her presence. The chief gave no reaction. Why would he? Crafty, damn him, had thwarted any chance of catching him off guard. As for Hood, Jackal did not bother to look. A viper would flinch before that mongrel.
“Pen your barbarians,” the Claymaster ordered, “then get your asses to table. We got some lip service to attend. Fetching, give that girl over to the wizard.”
Crafty approached Fetch’s hog and slowly raised his arms to help the elf down. She complied, but her gaze was darting around, taking in the surrounding fortress and the new faces. Her eyes kept returning to the Claymaster, Jackal saw. Was it his deformities unnerving her or something more? Could it be recognition? The chief returned the stare, but his gaze suggested nothing but the sizing up of a new hazard. Yet he was not alone in his scrutiny. Polecat was already stripping the Tine girl with his eyes. Now over his initial confusion, the hatchet-faced lecher bore a naked interest, the corners of his mouth beginning to twitch upward.
Jackal stepped up to Crafty, purposefully blocking Polecat’s view.
“Take her to the bunkhouse,” he told the wizard, loud enough so the others could hear. “There’s food in the commons. If she wants to sleep, my room is the second door down on the right.”
Up on her hog, Fetching clicked her teeth. “Across the hall is my room, Crafty. Best for her there.”
“My room!” Jackal insisted, throwing a warning look up at Fetch. She grimaced at his outburst, confused and affronted. Mixed laughter bubbled in the air around them.
“Watch out, brothers!” Hobnail hooted. “Our two prettiest are snapping over the new meat.”
“Don’t fret, Jack,” Polecat wheedled, “I hear elf girls hunger for quim and cock. Likely she won’t mind being a bridge between you.”
Roundth guffawed from his hog and next to him Mead was trying to swallow a snicker.
A bellow from the Claymaster quickly silenced the jeers.
“Enough! I said get those hogs stabled and I meant now! We got a long talk in front of us, so let’s get to it!”
The riders spurred their hogs toward the pens as Jackal’s chuckling brothers ambled back into the meeting hall. He stood outside, watching Crafty lead the Tine girl away. She took one look over her shoulder and their eyes met before Jackal could turn away. He had saved her from the Sludge Man and brought her to the mercy of the Grey Bastards.
And mercy was not something this hoof was known for.
Chapter 14
There was a long silence when the Claymaster finally stopped speaking. He looked around the table, reading the reactions, the axe-scarred wood of the voting stump framing his humped back. Other than the premature revelation of the elf’s rescue, it seemed Crafty had fed the chief the story they had planned. He was supposed to leave out the convalescence at Strava, but Jackal’s confidence in the wizard’s discretion had withered. However, if the Claymaster knew that Jackal had bargained aid from Zirko, he said nothing about it to the hoof.
Polecat was the first to speak.
“So…we think Sancho sold point-ear quim, but don’t know for sure because he’s playing host to cavaleros looking for the one Jack killed, he’s leech food thanks to the Sludge Man, but he went berserk because we took his Tine plaything away, and now we got her people on the sniff, looking to take her back and level some blame?” Polecat’s tongue searched the inside of his mouth and he shook his head. “What in all the hells am I missing? Because I feel like we’re hip deep in hogshit that should hardly have messed a boot.”
The heads around the table bobbed in agreement. Jackal remained still. He didn’t much like Polecat, but in that moment he could have embraced the former Rutter. Those were the questions that needed asking, needed answering. He had to prod his brothers toward the truth and hope they sniffed out the falsehoods. Already, it was happening, but Jackal was careful not to trumpet his thoughts with even the smallest body language.
Next to him, Oats’s large form held a similar tension. On Jackal’s other side, Fetching lounged in her chair, seemingly uninterested in anything that was being said.
“Whatever more there is we will get from Sancho,” the Claymaster said.
From the other end of the table, Hoodwink’s bald head turned. He received a nod from the Claymaster. Whatever more there was would be buried along with Sancho’s gutted carcass.
Jackal could not allow that.
“The brothel is crawling with Bermudo’s men,” he said. “Let me go with Hood. Wat
ch his back.”
In reply, the Claymaster only glanced down the table at his favorite errand boy. Jackal followed his gaze to see what the answer would be. The black pits in Hoodwink’s skull bore into him, and for one horrible instant, a twinkle of life appeared.
“You can come.”
“If,” the Claymaster amended, “we don’t need you elsewhere. We’re going to want every thrum close to home if we got castile cavalry or Tines knocking at our gate.”
“You think that’s likely?” Hobnail asked.
“I’ll send word to Captain Ignacio,” the Claymaster replied, “find out what he knows about his noble counterpart’s intentions. The castile won’t be a problem so long as Ignacio and the commoner cavaleros are on our side. At the very least, they won’t ride against us, and Bermudo doesn’t have the numbers to take us with just his blue bloods.” The chief paused and took a long, deep breath. He looked directly at Mead. “As for the Tines, I’m not the one to say.”
Mead grew visibly nervous, but no more than any other fresh Bastard would under the chief’s attention. Jackal couldn’t recall being spoken to directly by the Claymaster during his first year as a sworn brother.
“Well…I talked to her,” Mead ventured. “And I didn’t have a lot of time, so…I mean, she’s scared.”
“So you didn’t find out shit,” Grocer said.
Mead fidgeted and made a hopeless gesture. “I got her name.”
Jackal found himself leaning forward. Thankfully, the others were too busy berating Mead to notice.
“Well, I call that a victory,” Roundth said, roughly pawing Mead’s head. “Our backy little elf-speaker managed to coax a woman’s name out of her.”
“Now, remember, boy,” Polecat joined in, “when you bend her over, you won’t see a pair of balls hanging down. Don’t get confused.”
Mead adopted the tense smile and slow nod long proven to help weather such sport. Oats’s laughter made Jackal aware of his lack of participation. For appearances, he leaned farther over the table and grabbed a fistful of Mead’s Tine mane.
“Don’t worry, she’ll show you what to do. You did know that’s why the point-ears wear their hair like this, right? So their women can guide the head!”
The brotherhood erupted at the jest as Mead knocked his hand away. Jackal sat back, receiving an approving back slap from Oats. Fetching remained withdrawn, idly spinning her voting axe on the table. When the laughter died down, she looked across at Mead.
“But she didn’t exactly speak.”
That brought the laughter to a puzzled end. The hoof peered at Mead.
“No,” he agreed with Fetch. “She gave a call.”
Hobnail looked disturbed. “A call?”
Mead hesitated a moment, not wanting further attention. “A birdcall. It was perfect…unmistakable. A starling. So, I asked if that was her name. And…she nodded.”
“Starling.” Polecat wrinkled his nose. “That doesn’t sound…elfish.”
“Well, that’s not how’d she say it if she could, fool-ass,” Mead said, happy to retaliate. “But it’s what it means, in her tongue. You mongrels would sound like that halfwit stableboy at the castile if you tried to say it.”
“The one that got kicked by the donkey?” Oats asked. “Fuck you, Mead, he can’t help the way he sounds!”
Seeing the brute’s frown, the younger half-orc raised his hands apologetically.
Hobnail snorted. “Oats. Champion of simpletons everywhere.”
“I get out of this chair and hit you, Hob, you’ll be one of ’em,” Oats said.
The Claymaster was not amused. “Shut it, all of you. Mead? You telling me that right now we don’t know anything else about her?”
“I will talk to her again, chief. With more time…” Mead trailed off as the Claymaster lowered his bandaged head into a swollen hand, rubbing at the rheumy eyes nestled within the stained linen. It could have been a gesture of frustration. Or relief.
“We may not have more time,” the chief said, still cradling his face. “That Tine Roundth saw points strongly to the elves looking for this girl. If they spotted her coming in, we could have trouble by tonight. That means we stay vigilant. Slops on the walls, Bastards in the yard riding circuits. Meantime, we have to decide what to do with her.”
“I say we chain her up outside the Kiln,” Grocer said. “Let her people take her back. Mead can sit out there and be ready to gibber at them if needs be, tell the point-ears we didn’t harm her. Simple as that.”
Hobnail and Roundth nodded at this.
The Claymaster pondered.
Jackal, too, was weighing the outcome. The chief wouldn’t let her go back. He’d kill her rather than risk what she might reveal. Another innocent killed. Jackal found his little finger touching the handle of his voting axe.
Starling. Mead had said her name was Starling.
“We can’t let her go yet,” the Claymaster decided. Jackal’s hand twitched away from the axe haft. “She might be the only proof we have of Sancho’s scheming. If the Tines want our blood for this, I need the girl to be able to point to the whoremonger and place the blame where it belongs. We give her back now, we lose that chance.”
“Not gonna have that chance anyways if they come tonight,” Grocer pointed out.
“We’ll handle that if it happens,” the Claymaster said. “But I want all hands here in case it does. Once we see daylight, Hoodwink will go invite Sancho to join us.”
Jackal did not fail to notice his name was left out of that task.
“What about the Sludge Man?” Roundth asked.
“What about him?” the Claymaster pressed.
“Sounds like it ain’t certain that the Tyrkanian killed him. If he is dead, that leaves the Old Maiden wide open. If he’s not, that leaves him with powerful ill feeling for us. I mean…which do we hope for? Thicks coming through the marsh or the Sludge Man seeking vengeance?”
“That’s a saddle made of thorns,” Hobnail agreed.
Jackal waited for the fault of that situation to fall on his head, but again the chief surprised him.
“Sludge Man slithers this way, we’ll see him off. As for orcs, the hoofs will deal with them the way we always have. For now, you have your orders. Anyone unclear?” The Claymaster’s head swiveled and he gave a satisfied grunt at the nods coming from his riders. “Get to it, then!”
Chairs squeaked on the floor planks as the Grey Bastards stood.
“You three,” the Claymaster pointed at Jackal, Fetch, and Oats. “Wait a while.”
Oats sat back down, while Fetching leaned on her chair back. Jackal continued to stand, waiting for the others to clear the room and close the doors.
“This wizard,” the Claymaster began slowly, “tell me about him.”
Oats blew out a bemused breath. “He’s a genuine sorcerer, chief. Seen him do queer stuff. But he saved our hides in the Old Maiden.”
“He’s fat and can’t ride for shit,” Fetch threw in carelessly.
The Claymaster wasn’t listening. His ugly, half-concealed face was fixed on Jackal.
“Oats is right. You would have been short three Bastards if Crafty hadn’t come with me to the marsh. I believe he wants to help the hoof. But I can’t figure out why.”
None of that was a lie, but it contained little truth.
The Claymaster seemed amused by his answer. “Well, you convinced him to ride with you, Jackal. Gave him a hoof name. Now you credit him with saving your life. Sounds like a brother to me. I’m thinking of putting his name forward as a Grey Bastard.”
That caught Jackal off guard. He hesitated, but his friends were quick to respond. They spoke almost at the same time.
Oats slapped his large hand on the table. “Damn right!”
“Fuck that!” Fetching exclaimed, springing upright.
The Claymaster gave them each a glance, but his eyes immediately returned to Jackal. The chief waited, patient as a spider.
“I think it’s too soon for that,” Jackal told him, trying to sound casual. “The others should get used to him first.”
The Claymaster was silent for a long, uncomfortable span, his grin creeping all the while.
“Hells,” he said at last, sounding pleased. “I guess I’m not too old to be surprised. Because I cannot remember a time you three weren’t of one mind.”
Savoring his little victory, the Claymaster dismissed them with a wave of his swollen hand.
Out in the yard, Jackal let his anger rise to the surface.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded, whirling on his companions.
“It’s called an ambush,” Fetch replied, striding past him.
“And you two blundered right into it!”
“Only because we were led there, Jack.”
Seething, Jackal quickened his pace and cut Fetching off.
“If you had been following my lead you would have kept your mouth shut,” he told her.
Fetch’s hand darted out and caught Jackal’s stockbow strap. She pulled him roughly forward and her words were delivered on a forked tongue.
“I don’t speak only by your leave, Prince Jackal.”
Shoving him away, Fetch continued on. Only a restraining hand from Oats prevented Jackal from going after her.
“Leave it, brother.”
Sick of being manhandled, Jackal threw off the thrice’s grip, but he stayed put. He watched Fetching cross the yard and disappear into the distant bunkhouse. With a snarl, Jackal snatched the kerchief off his head and scratched irritably at his hair.
“And what were you doing?” he barked at Oats. “Shouting support for Crafty like that?”
“Didn’t know it would get me hanged,” the brute replied lightly. “And I don’t see the trouble. Hoof needs new blood, and one that can do the things Crafty can won’t hurt us.”
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