The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  “You’re hells-damned right.”

  And he was. Fetch never wanted to hide behind Jackal for the death of the harelip. She’d been in the man’s presence for all of a dozen heartbeats and it was more than enough to know for a certainty she’d done the Lots a kindness by planting a bolt in his brain.

  Her confession curdled the captain’s face into an ugly mixture of triumph and repugnance. The bead of sweat nestled in the divot beneath his nose quivered. His indrawn breaths grew audible.

  “The Marquesa Punela has long waited to see justice done to the mongrel that slew her son.”

  “Careful, Bermudo. Doesn’t look like you have blood to spare for an erect cod.”

  The man was so enraptured with the thought of justice, the disrespect did not faze him. “The wagons or death. Choose.”

  “The fuck you on about?”

  “My charity stands. You may leave here, free, with supplies for your hoof. Just give me Jackal.”

  Fetch could only marvel.

  “You need not die for your crime!” Bermudo pressed.

  Fetch scratched her nose with joined hands. “You won’t talk to me of crimes, frail. You, who gave command to run down free-riders and stake them to whatever was nearest.”

  Bermudo’s eyes were wide above dark, unhealthy stains, his face incensed. “It is no crime to protect the kingdom of Hispartha, a duty to which I am sworn.”

  “Protect it? By killing nomads? Placing hoofmasters in chains? Your hatred weakens all of Ul-wundulas!”

  “Weakens? We have no need of your kind.” Bermudo scoffed. “You useless swine-straddlers failed to keep the thicks from crossing our borders. No more!” The agitated cripple nearly toppled as he flung an impassioned arm behind him. “These guns will ensure the orcs never again stain civilized land.”

  “What do you think you have here?” Fetch demanded. “Orcs won’t assault this place, not when they can go around it! Keeping them contained requires we see them coming and to see them coming we have to keep an eye on every stretch of scrub and length of bleached canyon. That means mounts, warriors in the saddle. You’re a cavalero, you know this! This is a land of the horse and the hog, it is vast, and only strong hooves can traverse it. Only strong hoofs can protect it!”

  Bermudo bristled. “The hoofs are no longer necessary! You are nothing but watchmen. And your time is ending.”

  It was Fetch’s turn to take a step forward. In her periphery, Maneto tensed, but she drew nose to nose with the captain, undeterred. “Watchmen? We rode out, Bermudo. We. Rode. Out. And bled and died to stop another Incursion, same as you. And we will again. Yet you repay us with persecution. Leave the nomads be, give up this crazed hunt for Jackal. Return to your fucking senses!”

  Bermudo was affronted, bewildered. “You think it is I that so desperately wants him? You think I do not wish to turn my attentions to broader concerns? It is the Crown that demands him. The queen herself! She was most distressed when I wrote to her of the rogue half-orc, ousted from his hoof, left to wander without restraint or master. How he conspired with another outcast to be taken prisoner here, escaped with the help of Ignacio, all so he could seek out the wizard tasked with protecting this castile and slay him. I was, at first, blind to why he would wish to do this. It was only upon surviving the orc raid that understanding came to me, lying on the surgeon’s cot. He was aiding them. The orcs! Abzul was a filthy dotard, but his sorcery had yet to wither and the orcs were right to fear it. When his tower burst with smoke and fire, flinging the wizard to his death, that fear was removed. By Jackal! A half-breed acting as the orcs’ cat’s-paw! To what other lengths would this dog go to help his new masters? Would he not also engineer the destruction of the Kiln, his former home, to sow further discord and ease the orc march?”

  Fetching’s guts soured. Bermudo didn’t know the real truth, not yet, but he could smell it, a bit of rotten meat that lay between them as they circled each other atop this tower. She feared what would happen to the Bastards if Bermudo learned the truth of the Claymaster’s role in Crafty’s scheme to usurp the throne.

  Her fear must have shown, and been misread, for a thin, triumphant grin grew on the man’s face.

  “Would Jackal have wrought such treachery had he not been banished? I posed to Her Majesty, outcasts from so rough a society as the mongrel hoofs can only bring further peril. Were we ever wise to allow them such freedom? Difficult enough convincing loyal subjects to settle here without the danger of begrudged nomads. Though I think it was the knowledge that these same nomads were now spying for the orcs that finally swayed the queen. I was most clear that last year’s encroachment would never have occurred if the thicks had not been guided by Jackal and other vengeful free-riders.”

  Petty. Lying. Fuck.

  The words gathered on Fetch’s tongue, but they went unuttered, for she saw that Bermudo wasn’t lying. He believed everything he said. But belief makes men blind. If Jackal betrayed the Bastards, why would she hide him? Why would she die for him? Again, she said nothing. Fingering the holes in this man’s sanity would only provoke him to look deeper, harder, and that wouldn’t save the hoof. Better to let him float in his own delusions and hope they drowned his weakened mind.

  Bermudo was enjoying himself now. “And so, Her Majesty acted. All Crown lands in Ul-wundulas are hers by rights, through her father. Her husband, while king of Hispartha, has no claims in the Lots, yet only he is bound by the terms of the charters which formed them. In essence, the hoofs are not obliged to recognize the king’s sovereignty, but can do nothing to dispute that the lands upon which you reside fall under the queen’s inherited holdings.” Bermudo made a hum of amusement. “Forgive me. I forget that all of this is no doubt impossible for a mongrel to understand.”

  “I know useless cruelty disguised as law when I hear it,” Fetch said. “Changes nothing. You frails have mistreated us without cause from the beginning.”

  “Yes, but it was unlawful. Distasteful. A thing best done by a malfeasant like Captain Ignacio. With him gone—and I am glad of it—I was left with none of low enough repute to stain their hands such.”

  Fetch tilted her head back toward Maneto. “A rare breed, I’m sure.”

  Bermudo’s thin smile curdled. “Oh, the cavaleros left to me are lowborn curs to a man. Villains, pillagers, rapers every last one. The very reason they must be leashed by decree. Ignacio had rank if not title. He kept his cavaleros well-heeled, and he was from the same stock. I don’t carry the stain of peasantry nor can I ride among the men, keep them accustomed to the commands of their betters. Rather than attempt to rein in yet another raucous band of killers in the Lots, I took steps to ensure that all they do falls under royal sufferance. There is a difference between a wild dog and one whose master allows it to bite. The threat of the rod still looms, a ward against notions of sole reliance. That’s where we erred with you mongrels, allowing the belief that you were no longer ruled.”

  “We aren’t ruled,” Fetch declared through her teeth.

  The captain smiled. “You will soon discover how wrong you are. If you choose to live.”

  “You won’t get Jackal from me, frail. Stop wasting what little strength you’ve got. Go ahead and condemn me, send me to this Marquesa cunt. I’ll use my last breath to tell her what a pleasure it was to turn the spoiled fruit she squeezed out into rancid meat.”

  Bermudo gave an earnest smile. “You think I would send you north? I am not such a fool as to admit I was wrong to one such as the Marquesa. Not when the truth is so odious. She expects to make the execution of Garcia’s killer a spectacle for the common folk. Maneto, can you imagine the lady’s shame if she were to put forth some mongrel hussy as the hand that snuffed her noble line?”

  “An untenable disgrace, my lord.”

  Bermudo leaned closer to Fetch, his voice dropping to just above a whisper. “You will die here. Today
. The hunt for Jackal will continue. And with all free-riders now deemed in defiance of the king no matter where they are found, sanctuary among the hoofs no longer protects them. Jackal may indeed be gone from the Lots, but should he ever return there is nowhere he can safely rest. I will have him, and it is he who will die on a scaffold in Hispartha before a raucous mob. Your choice…Fetching…is whether you will greet him in whatever foul hell is put aside for mongrels.”

  “The Bastards will seek your blood for this,” Fetch said. It was no empty boast, though she wished it were. Her brothers’ need for vengeance would be the death of them.

  Bermudo knew it, too, for his face brightened with relish at the thought.

  Fetch tried one more truth. “You’ll set all the hoofs against you, Bermudo. None of the mongrel chiefs will let this go unanswered for long.”

  The captain backed away, crutch tapping, eyes dancing above a grin. “They can come. The voices of these guns shall be my envoys. Their reach secures the castile. All that falls within their range is Hispartha. Not the Lots, not even Crown land, but Hispartha. Reclaimed! Only the short-sighted see limits to that reclamation. Look beyond where the cannonballs fall if you can, half-orc, and you will discover not the end of my reach, but the beginning.”

  Taking a pompous breath, Bermudo winced, pivoting on his crutch to look out over the battlements once more. He raised his voice over the wind.

  “I give you one last chance to tell me where he is.”

  “I don’t know. Fucking hang me!”

  That same damn hum. “Oh, I’m not going to hang you.”

  ELEVEN

  LITTLE MURO WAS CURLED on his side next to the upset stool, hands pressed to his ears. He was rocking and issuing a steady series of moans, his simple mind overwhelmed by the continued roar of the guns. Fetch could not hear Maneto’s chuckling at the boy’s plight as they stood waiting for the horses to be readied, only saw the gap-toothed mirth stretching his face. The reports were worse in the yard, trapped and rendered sharp by the encircling stone buildings. A second salvo, and a third, was completed by the time Cavalero Ramon and a troop of ten men were mounted in full gear. A horse was brought out for Maneto as well, and the big man pulled himself astride.

  He made one of his courtly gestures. “After you, Chief Cunny.”

  Fetch started walking. Horseshoes clacked on the cobbles behind. She was shepherded to the gatehouse. Twenty men from the garrison were assembled in its shadow, surrounding a group of prisoners, halberds leveled.

  Fetch knew the faces of the guarded, and was surprised to see them still living.

  Eva and Red Ynes. Violante and Black Ynes. Rhecia and the stooped stable hand.

  Cissy.

  The terrified denizens of the brothel numbered nearly two dozen and Fetch was brought into their whimpering, trembling company. All were filthy, hard-used. There was no time for talk. They were shoved toward the gate, given no choice but to walk for the sunlight.

  The guns were quiet now.

  As the shadow of the tunnel seized them, Fetch suppressed a shudder, glancing up at the large murder hole set into the arched stone. She wasn’t going to hang. Didn’t mean a cauldron of boiling pitch wasn’t about to come vomiting out that insidious trap. Yet all passed beneath unharmed. Emerging from the barbican, they reached the sun-smote trail and, at the prodding insistence of their escort, began descending the escarpment. The switchbacks made the journey a long one.

  Fetch could feel the nerves of her fellow captives buzzing, almost hearing them as clearly as a passing bee. Her chest tightened, the grip cold. Fear was never something lightly admitted to in the Lots, but she found herself wishing that it was only the growing dread of approaching death. If the sludge induced another fit now she’d die weak and feeble. Unable to fulfill her oath, she at least wanted to meet the hells on her feet.

  They reached the bottom.

  Thin plumes of smoke sprouted from the plain ahead, the blossoms of implanted cannonballs.

  “Keep moving!” came a shout.

  The halberdiers kept pushing, but Maneto, Ramon, and the other mounted men reined up at the base of the cliff. The brutal lean of their minds was clear. Lead the prisoners far out onto the plain, send them scurrying, and make sport of the hunt.

  Cunts.

  Fetch kept a steady pace and pulled ahead of the shuffling gaggle of condemned. Swift movement and panting breaths to her right heralded someone catching up.

  “It wasn’t me,” Cissy said. “I told them nothing. It was Hilde that squawked.”

  Fetch had to laugh, short and bitter. “Guess she knew enough Hisparthan after all.”

  Cissy was less forgiving. “Spineless Guabian.”

  Fetch didn’t bother with a response. Pregnant women had a heap to lose. Hilde had saved more than herself, as long as Bermudo’s men left her alone. Far from certain. Maneto seemed just the sort of evil fuck to prey on one so vulnerable.

  Cissy was still gnawing on useless regret. “If she’d just gone with you…if I hadn’t warned her off.”

  “Don’t go thinking you’re that important, Cissy. Wouldn’t be here if Slivers hadn’t killed that cavalero. Wouldn’t if those men hadn’t deserted. Or had and just gone straight to the hills. Leagues of links in this chain and you’re far from the weakest.”

  “You pardoning me because we’re about to die, Isabet?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Silent now, they trudged on.

  Soon, Fetch could see the blackened, pitted border that charted the limits of the castile’s guns. When the broad strip of churned earth was beneath her boots, the guards yelled for her to stop.

  Understanding brought a strange calm.

  Fetching turned, saw the others bullied to keep moving by men not willing to take another step. With a few final coaxing thrusts of their halberds and threatening shouts, the guards began withdrawing, walking backward, demanding the prisoners not move. The cavaleros at the base of the trail were rendered invisible by distance. As the footmen, too, dwindled away, one of the clustered whores spoke, voice strangled with worry and confusion, yet loosed by hope.

  “Are we being let go?”

  “No,” Fetch said, firm and clear. “We’re not.” Nostrils filled with the rough edge of smoke, she looked down, kicking at the gun-tilled dirt. Three volleys, yet still there were broad patches untouched. What were the chances of that? The guns didn’t strike her as all that accurate, but there might be gaps in where the balls fell. Fetch began snatching at the brothel folk, pulling them to huddle in one such wishful island.

  “You’ll all want to run,” she said. “Don’t. Stand firm. Stand still. No matter the dread, do not move.”

  Cissy remained beside her.

  Fetch reached, took hold of her wrist. “What happens if you run through hornets?”

  Cissy’s brow creased. “You get stung.”

  “And if you stay still?”

  “You…might not.”

  Fetch nodded, insistent. “Do not run. None of you! No matter what. Until I say.”

  Cissy’s arm twisted, broke Fetch’s hold. And took her hand, fingers intertwining.

  Fetching raised her eyes to the castile and glared at the tower where she knew Bermudo stood, unable to see him, but over the gulf of air she could feel his fucking smile.

  The walls thundered.

  The prisoners gasped, flinched. A heartbeat. An unnerving hollow shriek.

  And the ground became a living, enraged beast.

  Unseen giant fists smote the plain, shook it, transformed it into a deafening hell. Roaring, thrashing waves of earth crested before Fetch’s horrified eyes, crashed over her, blinding, stinging, choking. Screams filled the space between the booming impacts. Acrid, pelting dirt rained down. A blast to Fetch’s left. A hunkering woman on the edge of the group ruptured, head and tor
so jerked backward, an arm snapping free to spin in the air. A piece of someone struck Fetch in the shoulder, the face. Heavy and meaty, it nearly knocked her over, slapping her with blood and pain. The guns no longer drowned out the screams as people were torn apart. The knot of prisoners, frayed by the reaping, began to come apart.

  Someone ran. Another.

  Through the onslaught, Fetch saw the stable hand fleeing, terror lending speed to his crooked body. A gun blast struck a bow shot away, the ground slowing the ball enough to make it visible, skipping across the ground as a rock would on water. Barreling into the stableman, it took his feet out from under him, throwing him head over heels, his body a floppy windmill. His leg broke off at the knee in flight.

  Hazy phantoms fled in all directions, many changing course as the guns’ fury cut them off.

  Fetch was pulled to join them, by instinct and by Cissy. She quashed the one and hauled back on the other, forcing them both to remain planted within the tumult of ravaged earth, smoke, and the tossed body parts of the unfortunate. Ears pummeled to empty caverns where sound was unwelcome, she barely knew when the barrage ended, barely heard her own lung-busting cry.

  “NOW!”

  She and Cissy dashed directly away from the castile, their steps hindered by smoke, shattered ground, and shattered bodies. They weaved around singed scrub and splintered rock, jumping charred depressions, stumbling, crawling back to their feet.

  The cavalry would be coming.

  Breaching the smoke, they surged onto unspoiled plain. The land surrounding the castile was rippled with the lesser kindred of the great escarpment upon which it sat. Legs pumping, Fetch made for the nearest ridge, still a taunting distance across the flats. Impossible to outrun the horses, but if she could reach rougher terrain, something to impede the cavaleros, her stand would fare better. She might be able to kill that twisted fuck Maneto before they took her down. Ramon too. Hells, she would try for them all.