The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  Something splashed across Fetch’s shoulder and she grimaced against the smell of wine so vile it insulted vinegar. Spying the culprit by the jug raised high in his fist as he screamed and cavorted, Fetch snatched the back of his tunic and jerked him to the ground. The wine jug shattered and the man’s wrathful snarl only burned up from the floor for an instant before Fetch stomped her boot in his face. Nose going the way of the crockery, the fool went limp.

  A small circle widened around the scene, momentarily drawing attention. In the lurid light men with yellowed eyes peered at Fetching, but quickly lost interest in the face of her challenging glower. Wisely choosing to ignore the unconscious man, they turned back to their entertainments. The only stare that remained was Jacintho’s, gleaming with approval. He made another of his theatrical gestures, pointing through the press. Fetch forced her way through. Some of these wretches were taller, but none were stronger. Any angry resistance she encountered was quickly banished. The mere sight of a half-orc caused most to make room.

  Emerging from the crowd, Fetching discovered the source of the strange smell and the rasping sound. Her toes were a handspan away from a deep pit, basin-shaped, with no rail to guard against falling down the steeply angled sides. Fetch would have been hard-pressed to throw a rock and clear the depression. Coins filled its bottom, a tide pool of tarnished, reeking coins, so many they sloshed up the incline. The sour reek of mildewed metal, familiar from the scent of a single coin, was made horribly unknowable when birthed from this uncountable mass.

  Three men occupied the treasure-carpeted arena, wading ankle-deep to come to grips with one another. Two were bearded, wearing unbelted roughspun tunics. The third seemed younger because he was smooth-faced, and naked to the skin. The bearded men were converging on him, trying to keep their quarry from darting away. The coins made the footing difficult, but as Fetch watched, the naked youth darted between his opponents, his run turning into a dive that set the coins hissing.

  Jacintho’s voice leaked into Fetch’s ear.

  “It is said the hole was once bare. Then the emperor came to tour his mines and grew bored. He commanded slaves fight for him. Not the trained warriors of the city arenas, but merely miners, they knew less of battle than they did the sun. They pummeled each other like children, but were not killers. Pleased with their baseness, the emperor threw coins down, proclaiming the man to slay his opponent could leave the pit with all the money he could carry. Soon, the richest families of the Imperium came to see this new spectacle, throwing coins to ape the emperor. Enslaved men fought and died, but none could carry out all the shine that was thrown. The Imperium is a thousand years dead. No more coins are tossed, but men still fight and die, the victor filling his hands, and still the pit does not empty.”

  Fetch found bitter bile settling in her throat, born from Jacintho’s closeness, his breath. Born from the tale he told. Born from the distaste of knowing she sent a brother to take part in this perverse invention of decadent madmen.

  Below, one of the bearded men managed to catch hold of the nude youth, dragging him through the coins by the ankle until close enough to be pounced upon. Thin, pale limbs flailed. The man pushed the youth’s face into the coins, smothering the fight out of him. Hooking an arm up beneath his half-dead prey’s chin, the man lifted. The naked man’s face rose from the pile, coins clinging to his forehead for a moment before falling in tinny tears. Fetch waited for the end, for the snapped neck that would not be heard over the raucous screeching of the crowd. But the bearded man began fumbling beneath the hem of his tunic. His fist emerged, coaxing his cock to harden.

  Fetch threw a look at Jacintho.

  The brigand was amused by her revolted confusion. “This contest is won by the first man to bugger the fop.”

  A cheer went up as the other bearded combatant came rushing across the trilling arena to tackle his competition, knocking him off the youth. The two men began to beat and gnash at each other, rolling and wrestling, as the dazed youth crawled away, eyes glazed, with all the speed of a half-crushed slug.

  Fetch seized Jacintho by his greasy neck. “I said I was looking for a damn thrice!”

  “Ah, but he would not be here,” the bandit rasped, still amused despite his constricted windpipe. “This is the Pit of Flesh. You want the Pit of Greatness.”

  “The Pit of Homage!” Fetch growled, tightening her grip.

  “You’re in it,” Jacintho coughed out. “The whole mine.”

  Hells, why hadn’t she known? Inwardly cursing Hoodwink for the taciturn fuck he was, Fetch released Jacintho.

  “I’ll find it myself.”

  As she shoved back through the crowd, wails of violation rose up from the pit at her back.

  The search revealed more arenas, all equally filled with coins and nightmare. Fetch was a child of the Lots, but the cruelty of those pits was difficult to stare full in the face.

  At last, the insanity of the mine working its way into her skull, she found what she sought.

  It was the largest arena yet. Nearly twice the width of the Pit of Flesh and half again as deep, it was oblong, dug at the back of the cave, so that the crowd could only gather at the short ends and the long side opposite the cavern wall. The other pits had been nothing but craters, but this one contained a pair of tunnels, each set into the long slope beneath the wall. They were separated by only a few arm spans, the left barred by a thick metal grate. Other than the coins, the floor was vacant, but the mass of men bordering the edges was tense with anticipation.

  “Should prove a good fight,” a deep voice tolled at Fetch’s right.

  She looked up to find the scowling profile of Knob staring into the arena. It was no surprise. She had seen his hog on the way in.

  “Won’t be,” Fetching told the Orc Stains’ chief. “Soon as my boy enters, I’m stopping it.”

  Knob smiled. “Do that, and these frails will chew you to pieces. They put great importance on this pathetic ritual.”

  In these confines, with this many men, Fetch knew he was right, and that got her venom flowing.

  “What are you doing here, Stain?”

  “I’m here to offer a brother-thrice a place in my hoof.”

  Before Fetching could respond, the crowd erupted. A tall figure emerged from the open tunnel, bare-chested and hulking, bald head wrapped in a kerchief, a fierce beard thrusting from a shovel-jaw.

  Oats.

  Fetch’s breath caught.

  His bulging torso hosted a colony of new scars. Some of the wounds were still adorned with stitches. But it was not the cuts, healed or fresh, that hurt to look upon. It was the empty eyes, the dull stare that would not rise toward the roaring men above.

  Fetch had to bite her cheek to keep from calling out. It would not have done any good. She would never have been heard. The men were shaking the cave with a chant.

  “BIG! BASTARD! BIG! BASTARD!”

  With bare feet, Oats moved across the coins. He went slowly down the length of the pit, ignoring the adoration. The audience began to howl as the grate of the remaining passage began to rise.

  Fetch went cold.

  The only reason for such a grate was to prevent something from escaping, something kept caged. Oats had walked out freely, and he would not be matched with some underfed prisoner. No, in a place this horrible, this inured to death, few things would be feared enough to keep under lock. In the other pits, Fetch had caught glimpses of feral boars, wolves, bulls, and mountain lions. Whatever was about to be released was a much more dangerous beast.

  The creature that stepped forth made the men burst with jeering calls.

  “Hells!” Fetch exclaimed. “A fucking cyclops?!”

  She’d never seen one in the flesh, only a skeleton that had once been a prized possession of Grocer and Creep before they lost it in a fire that claimed the Kiln’s original supply hall. Fetch had
hated that damn thing, but sneaking to look at it was a favorite game of Jackal’s when they were children. Adding meat to those ponderous bones only made it worse.

  The cyclops in the pit was a big-bellied, umber-skinned brute. Shaggy black hair, streaked with grey and twisted with filth, hung in ropes beside its wide, chinless face, framing the great, yellowed single eye set deep beneath the slab of a sloping brow. The cyclops stood stooped even after leaving the confines of the tunnel for the open space of the arena.

  “The flesh merchants will sometimes risk raiding Aetynia,” Knob said without feeling. “They can subdue the older one-eyes. Bring them alive to the Pit.”

  The sight turned Fetch’s stomach. “Gaggle of fucking slavers.”

  Hunched back aside, the cyclops was well over half the height of the arena hole. A looming savage clad only in a soiled hide clout. Slowly, the eye revolved upward to stare at the men. Contempt for the frails was imbued in the brute’s stillness.

  Quick as a panther, it struck, darting for the nearest slope and reaching. Men recoiled from the edge, but one unfortunate had his leg seized by the grasping cyclops and he was dragged squealing down the slope. Monster and man slid back onto the jingling floor. The cyclops barely lost its footing on the friable surface of coins, but the panicking brigand was sprawled on his back. The cyclops took a single step, stomped upon the man’s chest. Blood burst from his mouth, followed by nothing but a rattling wheeze.

  Wine jugs and refuse began to be flung down upon the creature, not in any attempt to save the fallen fool, but to deter it from attempting another leap. Several of the jugs struck, breaking against the swarthy body, but it remained heedless of the bombardment. It watched the man beneath its foot die before turning to face its opponent.

  From the other side of the pit, Oats had witnessed the killing with a detached stare.

  He began to move now, slowly at first. He quickened his pace once his feet found purchase on the treacherous floor, becoming a steady, aggressive advance. The cyclops strode to meet him.

  Oats was a large mongrel, even for a thrice-blood. His father must have been a truly monstrous thick, and it was a miracle Beryl survived the ravaging that left her carrying the orc’s get. As Fetch watched the cyclops draw closer, she saw something dwarf her friend for the first time. Hells, the damn thing was at least two heads taller.

  Fists still clenched at his sides, Oats barreled forward. The cyclops lunged for him. He twisted and delivered a crushing punch to the ribs. The old one-eye barely twitched. Spinning, it bent low and rushed in, weathering an elbow to the skull and slamming into Oats’s midsection. Before he could adjust, the brute’s powerful legs straightened, heaving Oats into the air and tossing him bodily over its shoulder. He hit the ground hard, coins crunching, but rolled as soon as he struck, avoiding a stamping foot.

  The brigands bellowed as Oats quickly gained his feet. The cyclops was already upon him. Oats’s arm dashed out, throwing a fistful of coins hard into its face. The large eye was pelted with metal and clenched shut. Stalled, the cyclops swung with a millstone fist.

  Oats wasn’t there.

  He had pivoted to its exposed back, seized it about the waist, tried to wrestle it down.

  “Get out, Oats,” Fetch whispered.

  But he committed. Briefly releasing the beast, he jumped to wrap his legs around its hips and caught hold beneath its shoulders, wrapping its armpits and trying to lock his hands behind its head. The cyclops fought the hold, pressing down with its own powerful arms.

  Oats moved his right arm around its neck and hauled backward. The cyclops thrust one leg back to remain standing, but its foot slipped in the coins, forcing it to a knee. Oats’s left arm now encircled the neck. Any other opponent would have died of a snapped spine, but this brute merely tucked forward, reached back, seized Oats by the head, and threw him off.

  Fetching flinched.

  The biggest hells-damned thrice alive and he had just been tossed as if no more than a child.

  Twice.

  The cyclops left its crouch in a charge and was upon Oats before he even landed, ramming him into the slope. Feet over head, Oats began to slide, but the cyclops planted a foot on his chest to hold him in place before hammering at his guts and groin with its fists. Grunting against the horrendous blows, Oats paid the old one-eye back by reaching up under its clout to seize it by the fruits. Howling, the monster scuttled backward, away from the pain, trying to dislodge the hand tearing at its cod.

  Oats hung on until he was dragged off the slope. Soon as he touched the ground, he let go, allowing the cyclops to retreat. As the thrice got to his feet, movements labored, the cyclops kept stalking backward, lowing in pained anger. Fetch realized its intention only a moment before.

  “Dammit, Oats, rush him!”

  But her voice was one in hundreds of bloodthirsty encouragements.

  The cyclops reached down and seized the man it had killed by both ankles, one-handed. Grinning, it began advancing, dragging the corpse. Oats waited, brow furrowed. He didn’t see it. Could not conceive of it until it was too late.

  Taking one mighty step forward, twisting its great torso, the cyclops swung the body forward, sending a torrent of coins flying as the dead man was hauled through them before lifting off the ground. Oats jumped back, barely avoiding the reaping swing. Still held in the cyclops’s fist, the corpse slapped back down, eliciting groans of amused disgust from the crowd. But there was hardly a pause and the cyclops again struck, bringing its arm back around, launching its grisly flail once more into the air. With the slope now at his back, there was nowhere for Oats to go. He tried to duck, but was clipped by the corpse’s head. Skulls collided with a wooden noise heard over the brigands’ astonished adulation. Dazed, Oats tried to recover, but managed only a few stumbling steps before the corpse came careening into him once more, sending him flying into the slope.

  The broken body in the monster’s hand was flinging blood now as well as coins. With Oats pinned, unable to escape the reach of the awful weapon, the cyclops merely stood in place, preparing the next—the final—swing. Adjusting its grip, the brute held an ankle in each hand now, taking a few sidelong steps until the corpse trailed out behind. Battered and bleary, Oats could only lean against the side of the pit and watch as the cyclops tensed, hauling the corpse into the air for a vicious hammering chop.

  Fetch’s bolt sunk to the fletching in the single eye, punching through the jelly to the skull beyond. Brain pierced, the cyclops went limp, the man’s body leaving its nerveless fingers to hang for a moment before falling atop its former wielder. A dead frail fell atop a dead one-eye, the meaty sound of their mating clearly heard in the stunned silence.

  All eyes turned to her, but Fetch returned only one wide stare.

  “Time to go home, Big Bastard!” she called down.

  Oats’s jaw was slack.

  The crowd shook off the stupefying interruption as resentful murmurings grew into shouted protestations.

  “No homage!”

  The first cry went up right next to Fetching, voiced by Knob. It was quickly taken up by the rabble.

  “No homage! NO homage! NO HOMAGE!”

  They were screaming down at Oats, accusatory fists pumping.

  The grate blocking the tunnel again began to rise. Something else was being set loose.

  Cursing, Fetch began to reload her stockbow, but Knob’s meaty hand slapped down over the runnel. The thrice-blood chief jerked the weapon from her hands just as the men at her back surged, pushing her over the edge of the pit. She slid down into the coins, landing in a crouch.

  Across the width of the pit, Oats had gained his feet, eyes moving slowly between her and the grate. Out of the shadowed tunnel, ducking under the teeth of the grate before it was fully raised, walked a centaur.

  Agitated horse hooves stamped the coins. The man’s torso ato
p the beast legs was thickly muscled, the face beneath the matted hair full of malevolence for being caged.

  “Fucking hells,” Fetch hissed, and drew her Unyar sword.

  In response, jeers and wine jugs were flung in objection. The barrage left her no choice but to let the weapon fall. She made to rise, but saw Oats holding a staying hand in her direction. Their eyes met, his no longer dull.

  He winked.

  Screeching a war-cry the centaur charged, coins spraying from beneath pounding hooves. The thrice-blood bent low, spread his bulging arms, and surged forward. Half-orc and horse-cock met in the center of the pit, the impact of their bodies concussive. Fetch narrowed her eyes, waiting for her brother to be trampled, but Oats wrapped his arms about the waist of the man-half, stiffening his legs out behind him. Pushed backward, metal hissed as Oats’s feet dug furrows in the coins. With a lung-busting bellow he dug his toes in and hauled backward, lifting an impossible weight of man and horse flesh into the air, the creature’s own speed serving to carry it over his head. Oats extended his arms, fell flat on his back, and drove the centaur into the ground, bringing all of its weight crashing down upon its own head. Bones snapped, the spine loudest of all.

  As six limbs twitched in death-throes, Oats rose. He walked over to Fetch as the crowd burst with cheers, freeing itself from fresh amazement.

  “Let’s go home, then,” Oats grunted, and bent to scoop a pile of coins into his huge hands.

  NINETEEN

  OATS SAT UPON an overturned bucket, listening, while a halfling woman tended his injuries. Even with the thrice on so low a perch, she still had to stand on a stool to reach his face.