The Grey Bastards: A Novel (The Lot Lands)

by Jonathan French

  Oats lifted his heavy brows. “Maybe. Maybe we should have killed them all in the first place. Woulda caused some fuss at the castile, but Ignacio could have smoothed it with enough silver in his palm. Hard to imagine this worse.”

  “What if I told you Ignacio lured those cavaleros to the Kiln, and the Claymaster had me and Hoodwink murder them?” Jackal asked.

  Oats glanced at Fetching.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “That’s worse,” she agreed.

  The thought of the commoner captain made Jackal pause.

  “Sancho lied to Ignacio too,” he said. “He told him he had given the Sludge Man Garcia’s horse, as agreed.”

  “So?” Fetch shrugged. “Everyone in the Lot Lands knows Ignacio takes the Claymaster’s coin. If Sancho is helping Bermudo against our hoof, he has every reason to lie to Ignacio.”

  “I know,” Jackal said, frustration gnawing at the ragged edges of his exhaustion. “But if Bermudo squeezed Sancho for the horse, why not get Garcia’s body too? It still doesn’t smell right.”

  “Let’s get back to the Kiln,” Oats advised, “figure it out there.”

  That made Jackal let loose a short, bitter laugh. “That’s the last place we want to be. I left without orders. The Claymaster will flay me alive.”

  Oats conceded by scratching at his beard. “Then what?”

  “We be good little mongrels and do what we were told,” Fetch said, her voice edged with venom. She bounced a hand off Oats’s chest. “We had orders. To find answers.”

  “Then let’s start with the questions in front of us.” Locking his eyes on the elf girl, Jackal strode toward the fig trees.

  Crafty cut him off halfway there, holding up his pudgy, ring-laden hands in a calming gesture.

  “She remains quite frightened.”

  Jackal stepped around the wizard. “I just need to speak to her.”

  “That is impossible.”

  Jackal stopped and spun on his heel. “Why? You telling me a clever ass like you doesn’t know the elf tongue?”

  “Only a few words,” came the reply. “Enough to convey friendship. But that is not my meaning. She does not speak. Entirely. Perhaps she never could. But more likely it is a result of her ordeal, I am thinking.”

  Jackal turned, frowning. The girl was watching him from the shade of the trees, her knees bunched beneath her chin. Her slightly slanted eyes were fixed on him. Keeping his steps slow and light, he made his way over, squatting down several strides away from the girl. She withdrew further into herself, her tanned, sinewy arms pulling protectively at her legs. Jackal placed her age a few years younger than his own. The eyes contained more reluctance than wisdom, the movements more fright than fight. Still, time spent as the Sludge Man’s captive would have unnerved the staunchest sort. There was strength in this girl, despite her posture.

  Jackal made sure not to smile, to keep his lower fangs as concealed as possible. Half-orcs were not rare in the Lots, but if this elf had lived an entire life of protected seclusion amongst her kin in Dog Fall, she might not be accustomed to the appearance of a soot-skinned mongrel. Despite the flattery of numerous whores telling him he was the comeliest half-breed they had ever seen, Jackal knew he was far from possessing the inherent beauty that manifested in elf-kind. Filthy and haggard from the swamp, he must seem more a demon to this poor girl than even the Sludge Man.

  Scraping the dried muck off his left shoulder with his uninjured hand, Jackal pointed to the tattoo beneath the grime, the track of a swine’s hoof wreathed in broken chains. He said nothing, waiting for the elf girl to look at the mark, and watching for her reaction. With her gaze lingering on the ink, she grew still, but her placidity did not stem from calmness. No, it was a detached acceptance, as if she had embraced her death while continuing to draw breath.

  “Grey Bastard,” Jackal said slowly, tapping his finger against the tattoo. “You know this?”

  The elf’s eyes returned to his, but otherwise she gave no indication she understood. Jackal pointed to the girl slowly, then formed his hand into a rough depiction of antlers, placing his thumb against his temple.

  “Are you of the Tines?”

  He did not even know if that was what the elven hoof called itself, but it was the best he could do. The girl remained silent, but there was no confusion upon her brow.

  Abandoning the antler, Jackal ran his knuckles along the sides of his filthy hair, miming the act of shaving his scalp.

  “Tine?”

  There was the scantest flicker of comprehension in the eyes.

  Jackal lowered his hand and sighed through his nostrils. Standing, he backed away, trying to give the girl a reassuring look, all the while watching her for any sudden act. He stopped when he reached Crafty, then used his head to signal Oats and Fetching over. All three looked at him expectantly.

  “She’s a Tine,” Jackal told them, just above a whisper. Oats growled and Fetch swore, pacing a little circle.

  Crafty watched their reactions, his mouth slightly open in puzzlement. “I am afraid I am not understanding.”

  “The elven hoof here in Ul-wundulas,” Jackal explained, “we call them Tines, because of the stags they ride. They drew a rich parcel of mountains and highland forests during Hispartha’s lot draw.”

  Recognition seeped into the wizard’s plump face. “After the Incursion, yes? I recall from my reading.”

  “They hole up in a gorge called Dog Fall,” Oats rumbled. “Mostly keep to themselves, but they don’t suffer trespassers.”

  “On their land or on their women,” Fetching threw in, giving Crafty a pointed look.

  “Ahh, I see.”

  “No, you don’t see,” Jackal told him, leaning down until he was talking directly in the wizard’s ear. “We all have to watch her close now. Because mark me, that point-ear waif will kill herself the moment we flinch.”

  He waited for the words to sink in, then straightened. Crafty’s face was placid.

  “And here I thought he’d be…nonplussed,” Fetching snickered.

  “No. No, not at all,” Crafty replied. “It is reasonable. The elves are known throughout the known world as insular. Indeed, they are a race of refugees since their homeland was—”

  “Put a cock in it, jowly,” Fetching said. “Jackal, what are we supposed to do with her?”

  Jackal did not have a ready answer.

  Fetch did. “Best to leave her here. Put a knife in her hand and ride away. Tines might kill us all if they see us with her.”

  “Leaving her here alone is the same as cutting her throat ourselves,” Oats said.

  Fetching rolled her eyes. “So forget the knife and let her leap off a cliff the moment our backs are turned. Point-ears don’t suffer to be sullied. You can’t change that.”

  “What if we’re wrong?” Jackal shook his head. “For all we know of Tine ways, she has to die in Dog Fall.”

  “Now you’re just inventing shit,” Fetch said.

  “What if, Fetch? She’s got water close at hand and the sun still rising in the east. She doesn’t kill herself, she’s going back to her kind. If she finds her tongue, what’s the story she gives her people? That a gaggle of half-orcs saved her from the Sludge Man, sure. But how did she become his captive in the first place? Because I’m willing to wager her tale will involve a hairless, scarred mongrel the color of a snake’s belly. Not many fit that description.”

  “You think Hoodwink was part of this?” Oats asked.

  “If it was at the chief’s order, who else?” Jackal replied. “Hood’s reputation is well known amongst the nomads. It won’t take the elves long to discover where he’s lurking these days. And we took her from the Sludge Man. Sludge Man does business with the mongrel hoofs, all the Lots know it. And where was the girl being held when he picked her up? At Sancho’s. Sancho!
Another man known to be a friend to the Grey Bastards. Every turn of that girl’s tale points to us. She talks, it’s war. Do you think the Tines will care that the three of us saved this girl when they raid the Kiln? We’ll just be three more half-orcs that need to be reckoned with. You both still want to let her go?”

  “Hells, Jackal,” Fetching shot back, “she’s half a corpse already. No way she makes it to Dog Fall.”

  “We can’t risk that. She needs to stay with us.”

  Fetch wasn’t ready to let it go. “You don’t think we have enough to handle?”

  “We do. And we’ll need her if we want to get it all sorted.”

  “She looks brain-addled, Jackal. What good is she if she can’t talk?”

  “I don’t need her to talk. Just point. One look at Hood, she’ll see who took her to Sancho’s and no one in the hoof will be able to deny that the Claymaster ordered him to do it, risking a war with the Tines and showing he is no longer fit to lead! This is our chance. We can finally be rid of him!”

  Too late, he realized what he’d said. Anger and fatigue and broken bones had put his caution to sleep. Fetch and Oats were rigid, neither looking at him. Jackal followed their gazes to where Crafty stood, regarding them all with mystified amusement. If he was spying for the Claymaster, he hid it well.

  “Or you’ve just given him everything he needs to finally be rid of you,” Fetch said, her quiet tone somewhere between regret and disgust.

  Jackal looked hard at the wizard. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you brain-addled?” Fetch said. “He’s been nested with the chief since he arrived. You can’t trust him!”

  “You said it yourself, we have him to thank for getting out of the marsh.”

  “He was also saving his own fat carcass!”

  Tired of the argument, Jackal turned to Crafty. “Can we fucking trust you?”

  “You can, friend Jackal.”

  “What else is he going to say?” Fetch demanded.

  “What other choice do we have?” Jackal shot back. “He’s heard. It’s been said! Nothing for it now! What do you suggest, Fetch? That the three of us try to murder him here and now?”

  “I will not be accepting that solution,” Crafty said.

  “There it is.” Jackal’s finger pointed at the wizard, but his gaze remained on his friends. “We all saw what he can do today. You feel up to defying that? Because I don’t.”

  Fetch looked at him with an expression of pity. “I can’t tell which one has you more bewitched, the little elf gash or the swaddlehead sorcerer.”

  Crafty cleared his throat. “If I may—”

  “Quiet, paunchy!” Fetch snapped. “You don’t have a say in hoof matters.” Tearing out of her brigand, Fetching tossed the heavy vest in Jackal’s face. “You need to remember who you are! A Grey-fucking-Bastard, in case you forgot. Sworn to the hoof! Not to the protection of some elf slut and not to some tubby Tyrkanian!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Jackal warned.

  “Easy, you two,” Oats said.

  But Jackal was mad now, and took an aggressive step toward Fetch. She met him halfway, baring her teeth and pressing her forehead roughly against his. The heat from their breath danced in the tiny space between them.

  “You think you’re reminding me of something?” Jackal snarled, his voice low and menacing. “All this is for the hoof!”

  “All of this is for you to lead the hoof!”

  “Someone has to. The Claymaster’s time is done. He stays and the hoof dies. You know it! Do you want to help me figure a way through or do you want to just keep trying to prove that there’s something different between your legs? I need your brain on my side, Fetch, not another swinging cod!”

  They remained pressed together for several moments, neither relinquishing the growing pressure. Jackal pushed and Fetch pushed right back, the sweat on their brows mixing. Their eyes were locked, hers burning. Jackal watched as Fetch gnawed on his words. At last, she grinned and drew back quickly. On her face was a look of triumph.

  “You want a way through?” she asked. “Here it is, straight from the brain above my cunt. We kill the elf. Dump her back in the bog. No story told the Tines. No war. We are away from here on hogback, well and done. And before you balk at getting blood on your hands, consider if you’re right. If it was the Claymaster that gave her over. What do you think he’ll do when we show up with her and she starts pointing? You think he’ll even let us reach the voting table? Or will we find ourselves in the farrowing shed with Hood? You think this is a chance, but I’m telling you it’s the wrong one to take.”

  “Jack,” Oats said slowly. “She ain’t wrong.”

  Jackal did not bother looking at his big friend, keeping his glare on the one who truly needed convincing. Her jab about him fearing blood on his hands had rankled and he couldn’t keep the bile from rising. “Yes, she is. It’s our Fetch, swift as a thrumbolt and near impossible to sway once she’s loose.”

  He watched Fetching squirm at his words. Her discomfort was subtle, well suppressed, but it was there. She wanted to embrace his opinion, take pride in his words, but she feared a trap. She knew him as well as he knew her.

  “We killed a man,” he said flatly. “And he deserved it. Now, six more are dead and a girl sold, all to help bury that first killing and all at the Claymaster’s order. He thinks he’s helping the hoof, but he’s burying the Bastards along with Garcia, making an enemy of the Tines to stall making an enemy of the castile. We don’t fix this now, there won’t be another chance.”

  Fetch had quit listening, gnawing on his first words, unable to get them out of her teeth.

  “I killed a man. Not you, not Oats. Me! I killed Garcia. And we wouldn’t be standing here now if you had just allowed me that!”

  “You’re right. Me and Oats and Crafty would all be standing in the Kiln without consequence because the chief wants a wizard in the hoof far more than he wants a woman!”

  That last cut her to hear, and cut him to say. Jackal steeled himself against the hurt in Fetch’s eyes and the greater amount in his chest. She doused her pain so quickly, Jackal was unsure he had seen it all. Sharp as the truth was, she knew he was right. Fetch took a slow breath.

  “Seems you get a say after all,” she told Crafty. “Welcome to the family.”

  The wizard said nothing, but Jackal could feel his eyes on him.

  “What’s the move then, Jack?” Oats asked during the short silence.

  “We go back to Sancho’s,” he replied. “Confront him with the elf girl. Make him squeal about the Claymaster’s little slave trade.”

  Oats raised his shoulders in nonchalant agreement. “And Bermudo’s soldiers?”

  “We will figure that out on the ride. For now, we need to get that Tine girl looking less like a tortured prisoner, in case we’re seen by her folk.” Jackal looked to Fetching, tensing for another fight. “I need you to help her wash.”

  There was the barest flash of defiance, but Fetch’s pride would not allow her to balk at so simple a task.

  Without breaking eye contact, she unbuckled her sword belt and let it fall to the dust. “I could use a scrub myself.”

  “We all could,” Jackal said, smiling, but Fetch ignored his feeble attempt to mend fences. She sauntered past him and approached the Tine girl. Hating himself for not trusting her, Jackal waited and watched as Fetch slowly made progress convincing the elf to stand. When they began making their way to the riverbank, Jackal thumped Oats on the elbow.

  “Let’s give them some room.”

  “Fetch is just as likely to drown that girl,” Oats said, his heavy steps falling in next to Jackal.

  “Crafty will watch them.”

  Oats grinned and lowered his voice. “I envy him the show.”

  “I think he would rather see you naked, Oats.�
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  The big thrice ran a hand over his bald pate and fought not to look over his shoulder. “You mean…he’s backy?”

  Jackal chuckled quietly. “I really don’t know. Maybe.”

  Oats was more intrigued than offended. “Makes sense. They say women rob your strength. Bet it goes with being a wizard, swearing off quim. Wonder if grappling with other cods makes him more powerful? You think?”

  Jackal cast a look of exaggerated horror at his friend. “I am not going to help you find out if you’re a wizard!”

  With a scowl and a noise of disgust Oats shoved Jackal away, knocking him over. He landed hard, unable to properly catch himself with his broken arm.

  “Shit, Jackal!” Oats exclaimed. “Sorry, brother.”

  Laughing through the pain to ease his friend’s guilt, Jackal allowed himself to be helped up.

  “You need to get that tended,” Oats said, frowning at the splint.

  “After we’re done at the brothel,” Jackal told him. “But first, I want to get the Old Maiden off of me. Help me down to the water. And don’t get any more ideas!”

  Oats snorted. “You ain’t that pretty, Jackal-boy. If it came to it, I’d rather have the fat wizard. Least he’s got tits.”

  Later, Jackal sat nude on a sunbaked rock overlooking the Alhundra, letting the heat of the day dry his skin. He was having some difficulty tying his damp hair back. He had not removed the bandage from his arm and the silk was now loose and sodden. Oats was still chest deep in the river, rinsing the muck from his beard and trying to get a look at where Fetching and the elf still bathed in an inlet pool screened by some boulders. Any other day, Jackal would have been out there with him, trying to spy something pleasing, but he was too damn tired, with no end to the toil in sight.

  Keeping the Tine girl was likely a mistake. Going back to Sancho’s was too. But Jackal saw no other options. Fetch was right. To confront the Claymaster, injured, with all his bets resting on a mute elf girl, would be a desperate gambit. It could undo every chance he had of replacing the chief. So, he needed to discover all that he could before facing the rest of the hoof.

  A shadow fell across Jackal’s back, and he felt his hair being gathered up by a pair of steady hands. Quickly, deftly, his wet locks were tied into a tail and allowed to fall down his neck. Craning around, Jackal squinted up at Crafty.