Glancing over her shoulder, Fetch was gratified to see her guards squinting and sweating in the oppressive heat of the yard. Their horses had long since been taken into the stables, but such shelter was forbidden them as long as they minded Fetching, for it would never enter the frails’ minds to allow a half-breed any comfort. No, mongrels could stand for hours without shade. That was their place.
As they stood, waiting, scorching, the castile bustled around them. Grooms moved in and out of the stables, some leading horses, others bearing fodder or water. Garrison patrols passed regularly, the eyes of each man regarding Fetch with a stew of curiosity and loathing. Page boys and serving girls hurried to and fro, careful to ignore the half-orc entirely.
Ramon and his men had announced themselves at the gate before dawn. The cavaleros had sought the barracks, leaving Blas and his scouts to keep the prisoner. Now the sun was at its height with not so much as an offer of water. It would be infuriating if it weren’t so damn obvious. Bermudo was trying to soften her with fatigue and thirst. There was no need. She’d allowed her weapons to be confiscated, suffered the placing of the shackles upon her wrists. Her hog had been taken hells-knew-where, though he’d put up more of a fight and knocked over three of the men tasked with leading him away, breaking the wrist of one.
Behind her, one of the scouts uttered an exasperated oath at the heat, the wait. Blas shot a warning scowl, but failed to squash the complaint.
“When’s this gash going to be taken off our backs?”
There were mutters of agreement, but Blas remained silent.
The answer arrived with a cavalero approaching on foot. Bandy-legged and bearded, he stopped in front of the scouts and surveyed them a moment before laughing, amused by some private jest. His loutish appearance was common to the quality of cavaleros now inhabiting the castile. What was not common was the chain-mace he carried thrust through his belt. It was not a weapon usually employed by the king’s cavalry, requiring a marriage of brute strength and cold cunning to wield. Sizing this man up, Fetch determined he reflected his choice of arms.
Removing his helmet, the cavalero made a show of arranging his sweat-soaked hair before producing a wide smile and low bow, the latter made awkward by his rust-stained breastplate. One upper front tooth was missing, the black hole contrasting sharply with the pearl white of its surviving fellows.
“I am Cavalero Maneto,” he announced with amusement. “The captain bids me bring you to his presence.”
Tucking his helmet into the crook of his arm, the man gestured back the way he had come with exaggerated grace.
Chains clattering against her knees, Fetch walked past the cavalero and his outstretched arm. Maneto caught up, falling into step on her left as he replaced his helmet. Despite his bowed legs, he was of equal height to Fetch, something most men could not claim. Leaning back as they walked, he leered for a long moment at her backside.
“Blessed fuckin’ Magritta, but aren’t ye a pert mongrel cunny!” he exclaimed with appreciation. All affected gentility was gone from his voice, replaced with a wet growl. “I’d proclaim ye the comeliest soot-skinned bitch in the kingdom, but such would make a liar a’me, for you’re no ashy mongrel are ye? No, by the sticky linens of all the chaste priests of Galiza, that ripe flesh is green as old mint, yet I would wager it defies appearance and is spicy to the tongue.”
“Poisonous, in fact,” Fetch replied. “Like a serpent. Men attached to grasping hands don’t live very long.”
Maneto chuckled with genuine humor. Winking, he drew a hand up close to his face and pointed at her mouth. “Look’it there! Even them lower fangs is hardly pronounced. I’d say your papi was a man, but no frailing I ever sired was so sage-colored, no! You’re no damn thrice-blood, elsewise. They usually blacker than a negro. Confession, girl. I’d pay a quarter year’s coin in the king’s service to have you suck the spend out my cock. Never had that from a mongrel gal before, too afraid of them teeth.”
“Fear is a good thing to have in the Lots. Especially around mongrels.”
The chuckles kept coming. “No mistake, it’s not my first turn here, not by a furlong. But I’ll gamble whatever is left in my purse—after paying for your mouth—that it will be my last.”
“I’d say that’s a sure wager.” Fetch grinned. “I was just thinking you were going to die soon.”
Maneto guffawed, more than was warranted, mocking her assertion with his jovial acceptance of the threat. “Half a year’s coin, then.”
Fetch looked over again. Maneto brightened, showing his gap-toothed smile.
She had long ago grown accustomed to lusty men. Hells, she had lived her entire life amidst them. She knew their minds, reckoned she even understood them. This was different. This vulgar villain on display was another mask, like the guise of courteousness from only moments ago. And just like with that guise, Maneto wanted her to see through it. Offering to pay while knowing she was in chains—he was baiting her, as much with his insults as with the baldness of his mummery.
Looking into that grinning face she found not a man who wanted to fuck her, but a man who wanted to cause harm. Not just to her, but to everything. His cock didn’t stiffen at the thought of ass or quim, but the sowing of mayhem. She’d known far fewer of his type. Fetch kept her eyes fixed upon Maneto’s, but her mind went to the chain-mace in his belt.
Brutal. Unpredictable. A weapon that need always be in motion to remain dangerous.
“I’ll remember the offer, cavalero.”
Paying no more mind to his dark glee, Fetch turned toward the keep, but was halted by the clicking of Maneto’s tongue.
“We are for the battlements, pretty missy.”
She gave him a dubious squint. “Captain Bermudo is atop the walls?”
The cavalero winked. “There’s all manner of shiny things upon the wall today that weren’t the day before.”
With that he turned his back and sauntered down a narrow lane between two storehouses without waiting to see if she followed.
Finding herself ignored and unguarded was oddly unnerving. Another mummer’s act. Fetch gathered the slack out of her chains and went after Maneto.
The sounds of industrious labor echoed through the alley, increasing as they went. Emerging near the eastern swell of the curtain wall, Fetch discovered a great scaffold had taken the place of a shattered tower. Men and mules pulled at ropes wound through block and tackle, slowly hauling columns of cast bronze up to the battlements. These brazen cumbrances were of various sizes, but most were slightly longer than the height of an average man. All had a hole at one end big enough for the same man to thrust his arm through.
“Beauties,” Maneto declared, raising his voice above the shouted exchanges between the workers above and below. He made for the scaffolding and scuttled into the shadows beneath. Stepping through the same space between two of the beams, Fetch found the cavalero barking at two laborers in the midst of loading heavy black spheres onto a small platform set within a narrow shaft surrounded by planking.
“You sweatbacks fuck off for a tarry. Chief-cock of a mongrel hoof wants to go up same way as the captain.”
The men ceased their task as Maneto gestured for Fetch to step onto the platform. Ducking her head, she entered the shaft. The stack of leaden spheres left little room for her feet, and the slat ceiling prevented her from standing fully upright, making her feel as if she hunkered in a vertical coffin. Her discomfort only increased when Maneto squeezed himself in front of her, close enough to smell the rust upon his armor.
“Perhaps I should have said ‘chief-quim,’ eh?”
Grinning, he reached up and yanked twice on a cord dangling through the slats. After a moment, the platform lurched and began to rise. Fetch could hear the groan and scrape of ropes through the thin boards that served as walls.
As they ascended, Maneto stared dully at her, unblink
ing, and Fetch caught a glimpse of his true face. Sullen. Unfeeling. A pit in the shape of a man. Hoodwink didn’t possess such emptiness.
Light began to intrude upon the shadows of the box as it crept toward the sun. Behind Maneto, the battlements lowered into view. He took a single, ducking step backward, providing Fetch a path to escape the wretched cupboard. Stepping from beneath the scaffolding once more, they began traversing the rampart. Maneto made for a square tower straddling the wall, sidestepping laborers with practiced ease. All along the way teams of men reached out to receive the brass cylinders hoisted up from the yard. Farther on, Fetch saw them being affixed to wooden, wheeled cradles.
She stopped at the first one unattended by workers, peered at it with a growing sense of disquiet. The cylinder’s open end was thrust between the crenellations, slightly raised, pointing out defiantly at the surrounding badlands of Ul-wundulas.
“First sight of guns, eh girl?” Maneto asked. “Don’t right know what they are, I see, but a warrior knows a weapon at a glance, don’t she?”
“Guns,” Fetch repeated, not liking the taste of the word. “Sounds fucking orcish.”
Maneto spat over the wall. “Nah. Call them cannons if you find that less offensive. Invention of the swaddleheads, I hear, along with the powder they need to spit death. Come now, the captain don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Neither do chief-quims.”
Maneto scratched at his beard. “Well, I’ll be in for some entertainments, seeing you take that up with him.”
They continued on until they reached the tower. An arched doorway led into the gloom of the structure, but Maneto eschewed it for a flight of stone steps set into the exterior tower wall, leading to its top. Fetch followed his quick boots, slowing when she spied blood droplets on the steps and smears low on the wall.
The hot wind played freely atop the tower.
The castile was built upon an escarpment, its formidable walls adding to the imposing height of the natural rock, affording an untrammeled view to every horizon. Bulbous clouds sailed across the blue, gifting Fetch with a moment’s dizziness. Leveling her gaze, she waited for the sensation to pass.
Teams of half a dozen men fussed over a pair of guns installed atop the tower. These were larger than the others, at least twice as wide and half again as long. They were set at the southeast and southwest corners. A lone figure stood near the battlements between them, ignoring the guns entirely to stare over the dun land. Maneto escorted Fetch over and the fawning courtliness returned to his words.
“Fetching, chief of the True Bastards, as you requested, my lord Captain Bermudo.”
“Thank you, cavalero.”
“My pleasure and honor, my lord.”
Bowing crisply, Maneto turned on his heel and removed himself several strides.
Bermudo lurched slightly as he pivoted, thumping sounds coming up from the stones as he maneuvered the long crutch beneath his right arm. His once hale complexion was sallow, sharp features blunted by a year of constant pain. Sweat sheened his face, the stubborn moisture of a fever that would not yield, even to the wind. He wore no armor, his wasted muscles and remaining leg unable to bear the weight. Fetch knew Bermudo had led his cavalry against an encroaching ul’usuun, an advance force of marauding thicks, during the last attempted Incursion. He was victorious, but lost nearly all of his men, over three hundred cavaleros of noble stock cut down by orc scimitars. One of those blades had lopped off the captain’s leg below the knee, killing his horse with the same stroke if the rumors were true. The beast had fallen atop him, crushing his opposing hip. And though he survived, his torment had not ended. What was left of his leg refused to heal, plagued by infection. The barbers had been forced to cut twice more, finally taking the knee.
Fetch saw that the pinned leg of his breeches, buffeted by the wind, was darkly stained.
That accounted for the blood on the stairs. Also for her long wait in the sun. No doubt it had taken the crippled captain hours to reach the tower, the stage where he wanted to receive his prisoner. She could only hope such foolish exertion would finally put this arrogant fuck in the grave.
“There is a pair of wagons in the yard,” the captain said. He faced her, but did not deign to look her in the eye. Instead, his eyes cocked sideways, to the guns and their crews. “One is loaded with…?”
“Wheat, beans, cured meat, Captain!” Maneto barked.
Bermudo looked unimpressed. “Food. The other wagon, cut stone. They are part of a caravan arriving from Hispartha every…?”
“Six weeks, Captain!”
“The stone is for maintenance of the castile. The food is—was—for Sancho’s filthy establishment. My castellan informs me our walls are sound and the stone will need to be stored. As for the food? Well…”
Fetch was losing her patience and did not bother to hide it. “Why am I here, Bermudo?”
The captain neglected to answer, instead raising his chin toward the crew to his left and calling over the wind.
“Are you ready?”
One of the men shouted an assent.
Bermudo raised a hand over his head, the motion challenging his balance, and let it fall.
Thunder blasted the tower.
Fetch’s shoulders jumped and she flinched against the sudden, explosive bark. An invisible fist punched her in the chest, causing a swift pressure to batter her heart. The mouth of the southeast gun spewed a torrent of smoke, the entire weapon pushed backward on its wheeled cradle by the violence of its own power. The top of the tower was briefly lost in smoke before the wind carried away the afterbirth of the gun’s aggressive declaration.
Surprise and instinct had caused Fetch to duck, and she was just beginning to straighten when the second gun roared. Her ears were ringing, yet she could still hear more distant booms discharging from atop the castile’s other towers. Coughing against the singed air, feeling the sludge encouraged to stir, Fetch waved the smoke from her eyes and looked out to see fountains of dust erupting erratically across the badlands.
When the angry echoes dwindled and the ground around the castile ceased to shake, Bermudo regarded her with a sickly gloat.
“With the Kiln gone, this fortress is now undeniably the strongest in the Lot Lands. I intend for it to remain so. However, your hoof need not continue to live behind a fence.”
Fetch clenched her jaw, not knowing where this hog was trotting.
“One wagon will not build a fortress,” Bermudo went on. “A start on a proper gatehouse, perhaps, but with regular resupply it is only a matter of time before the Bastards once again have a stronghold.” The crutch thumped forward. “I will offer trade. You can ride out with your wagons full of bricks and beans the moment you tell me where he is.”
Fetch clutched the chains. There it was.
Bermudo did not appreciate her silence.
“I want to know where you are hiding him! Where is Jackal?!”
“Don’t know. Not in the Lots. He’s no longer sworn to my hoof.”
Three answers. And only the last was a lie.
Unconvinced, Bermudo gave a sneer of loathing.
“Make ready!” he called over his shoulder at the gun crews. The soot-stained men jumped to the order. Fetch watched the process of the reload. And started a count in her head.
Bermudo went back to working the shovel full of hogshit that was his mouth. “So you see, Maneto? I tried to be charitable, but, as ever, these mongrels are too mulish. So now, the rod. Your crime at the whorehouse is enough to condemn you, mongrel. I could execute you here and now. And I will. Mark me, half-orc, I will! But I would rather have Jackal. I would rather return you to leading your band of ash-coloreds and place those chains on him. Far better to send him back to Hispartha to answer for his far greater offenses than to have you die here for him, and for little gain.”
“I com
mitted no crime.”
Bermudo’s nose crinkled. “You slew a cavalero in the king’s service and conspired to cover the deed.”
“That man was a fucking deserter! And I covered nothing. The brothel was still standing when I put heel to hog.”
“Of course it was,” Bermudo said, speaking to her as one would a simpleton. “It was I that ordered that vile den razed.”
That took Fetch aback.
“Hells overburdened,” she swore. “You have lost your mind.”
The captain’s eyes flashed. “Letting it stand for so long was the true madness. Nothing but a haven for rogues and outlaws. A bolt-hole for deserters and nomads. Ul-wundulas will no longer suffer such places.”
“Rhecia didn’t know those men had deserted, you fuck.”
“Yes. That was her claim. All the whores said the same…right up until the moment their warren was put to the torch. Then they said much more, did they not, Maneto?”
“A chorus of eager birds, my lord.”
Bermudo’s mouth turned downward. “Yes. And so you find yourself here, bound for killing a cavalero.”
“They can lie,” Fetch said. “You and your gap-toothed eunuch back there can lie. False ain’t made true by the number of wagging tongues.”
“And yet it takes only one tongue to sweep away a lie.” Bermudo held up a single, victorious finger. “One whore in desperation to name you as Cavalero Garcia’s killer.”
Fetch’s mouth suddenly tasted of stale piss.
Fuck.
Bermudo leaned forward quizzically, aping as if she’d spoken and he hadn’t heard. “What? No claim that it was Jackal who did the deed? Should that not be your response? He is not here. He remains free and elusive. No reason to avoid placing the blame on his head where it has rested comfortably for near two years. Yet you are silent. Because pride will not allow you to give him credit for a killing you committed. I can see it in the set of your jaw! It is one matter to allow me to believe it was Jackal, but you will not name him the slayer. No! That would be cowardice. More than that, it would be denying an act for which you are proud!”
The True Bastards Page 13