The brothers stood, began shuffling out the door. Polecat lingered a moment.
“Chief…”
“Vote’s decided, Cat,” Fetch said. “You won. Only thing worse than gloating is sulking. We’re still in this together and, unless you want to try your luck with a different challenge, I’m still chief. Now go.”
Once he was gone, Mead and Oats still loitered, both sitting.
Annoyed, Fetch gave them a look. “You two need something?”
“Just seeing if there was anything more I needed to know,” Mead replied, voice as stiff as his body. “About the Sons, or anything else?”
“What did I just say about sulking? I didn’t tell you about being sick, Mead. I didn’t tell anyone. Hood figured it out. You didn’t. Be angry, but find a way past it. And quickly.”
“I’m not angry, chief. I know why you didn’t tell anyone, just like I know why Oats voted against you just now. It would have brought the vote to a tie if he backed you, force the sides to a fight to decide the challenge. With Oats and Hood with you, there was no one Polecat could put forward that could win. We had this won. The two of you think no one can see the looks that pass between you. Sure, you’ve known each other so long they’re all but invisible, but they are still there. I saw it. Oats asked what you wanted him to do and you answered. You gave the vote to Cat.”
“Hoof doesn’t need the strife caused by a fight like that,” Fetch said. “I didn’t see Abri—I didn’t see Culprit siding against me. I can win him over. Snake, too. A few days and I can bring it back to the table. Might need to feel Marrow out about it before offering his name for brotherhood.”
Mead stood. “I know, Fetch. I understand all that. I understand you didn’t tell us about the sickness because you were afraid of looking weak. What I don’t understand is why you thought you were alone in that fear. Why you didn’t talk to…someone who might know a little bit about surviving in a hoof that sees them as weak.”
“Because I never saw you as weak, Mead. None of us do.”
That took him off guard, scattered some of his anger.
“Still. I could have helped.”
Mead lingered for another uncomfortable moment, trying not to look at Oats and failing. At last, he turned and left the shop.
“I think he liked me being gone,” the thrice said. He was attempting to make her smile, Fetch knew.
Instead, she shot him a warning look.
Taking the hint, Oats stood.
“You did the right thing here.”
Fetch did laugh now, but it was a humorless thing. “I was just thinking they would never challenge me. What a fool-ass.”
“Wish you’d told me what you were thinking beforehand. Couldn’t get to grips with it at first. Probably didn’t help.”
Fetch could only nod. She opted to change the subject. “Xhreka settled?”
Oats grunted an affirmative. “Still surprised you offered her a place, being earnest.”
Fetching shrugged. “She may wish she had declined before it’s all done.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I know. Go on. Get to the slops. And take stock of Marrow and Sluggard too. I’ll want to know what you think.”
Oats nodded and stood up. “We’ll turn it around, Fetch.”
The door to the cooper’s shop opened and closed once more, leaving Fetch alone to figure out how she was going to save this hoof, the hoof she had just increased, the hoof that had just openly defied her for the first time and not for the reasons she suspected.
The shadows lengthened across half-finished barrels and coffins, and still she found no answer.
TWENTY-TWO
FETCH, AND THE RAIN, PRESIDED over slop training for the second day. Skirmish drills, tack repair, and practice falls from a tethered hog were all made slick and muddy. Fetch took over the regimen so Oats could lend his strong back at the ditch. The runoff had opposed the dig crew and was now gaining ground by dumping it into the ditch.
By noon the slops were advancing between abandoned houses with aimed, if unloaded, stockbows.
“Watch the angle of that thrum, Tel,” Fetch advised. “You get spooked and pull the tickler, Touro is getting a bolt in the back. Bekir, fan out more. Don’t overtake the hub, Incus, you’re rearguard. Incus. Shit.”
Fetch was trailing the formation, putting her behind the deaf thrice.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Marrow said from Fetch’s right.
“Only for training,” she replied. “In the field, the goal would be silence. Gosse, face front! What are you looking back here for? You, too, Dacia. None of what I’m saying concerns you! Touro, give the sign to halt.”
The lead slop planted the toes of his trailing foot in the ground. The rest seamlessly stopped the advance. Fetch stepped around to face Incus.
“Keep all your brothers in sight at all times,” she instructed, motioning to show the thrice that she had outpaced the flanks. “Your height is an advantage here, so this will always be your position. Tonight, I want you to talk with Oats. He’ll have better guidance. Learn everything he can tell you.”
“Yes, chief.”
As Fetch went back to her place, she heard an exasperated breath. She spun on her heel.
“Is there a fucking problem, Gosse?”
The slop’s guilty face went blank, his eyes wide with the surprise of being identified. He was in the middle years of training, old enough to know a few things, just enough to make him cocky, but young enough to still be a fool-ass.
“You got something to say, let’s hear it.”
“N-nothing, chief.”
Fetch gave him an iron eyeball. With shit on it.
“Touro,” she said, and the formation was once again moving.
Fetch waited until they reached the cordwainer’s shop and called another halt. She walked up next to one of the beams supporting the awning and addressed the slops.
“You’ve just been set upon by two ulyud. Dacia, how many orcs is that?”
“A dozen, chief.”
“A dozen orcs. And one just broke through to your middle.” Fetch slapped the beam with an open palm. “You all have to resist the urge to feather him. He’s in your hub. You loose bolts and miss, you risk striking each other. And you cease holding back the other eleven thicks. This shit situation falls to one mongrel. Gosse, kill this thick before his cleaver starts taking your brothers’ heads.”
The slop raised his unloaded stockbow.
“Looks like you’re out of bolts, hopeful,” Fetch observed blandly. “Gonna have to fight him.”
Allowing his stockbow to fall to the end of its strap, Gosse drew his tulwar. He took a swift step and hacked into the beam. His blade bit the width of a finger into the wood and held. After a couple of tugs, he pulled it free.
“Your foe is still standing,” Fetch said, taking in the height of the beam, half again as tall as she. “And you’re dead.” She took a long step to her right. “Incus.”
Gosse had to dive away as the thrice charged. She had no weapon drawn, and smote the beam with both grasping hands, bunched tight to her body. As soon as she struck, she shoved, putting all the weight of body and motion behind the blow. The beam snapped a handspan from the ground and toppled, scattering the slops nearest the awning as it buckled.
All stared dumbfounded, including Marrow. Fetch was looking hard at Gosse.
“Incus has just given your patrol a few more moments to live,” she said with a raised voice. “If you use them well, with a little luck, you’re going home with only one dead brother. But with two ulyud, that’s far from certain. Would be for the most seasoned riders. So, I’d rather have a thrice at my back as not. You all can hear. She can’t.” Fetch kicked at the debris. “She can do that. You can’t. She bolsters your weaknesses. See you do the same for hers.
Understood?”
Every slop gave an eager and earnest “Yes, chief.”
“Very good. Return to formation.”
Incus strode back to her place, but Fetch stopped Gosse by clearing her throat. She peered at the fallen beam.
“The sight of this dead orc pleases me,” she said. “I’d like to keep it as a trophy.”
The slophead nodded and hauled the sundered wood around for the rest of the drill without complaint. After, she sent all the hopefuls to the ditch and trudged through the morass of Winsome’s thoroughfare to the stables.
She found Dumb Door in the makeshift farrowing shed tending to Slivers’s hog. The big mongrel looked up from the animal as Fetch stooped into the confines of the low structure. Little Orphan Girl stood calmly as Dumb Door re-dressed the wounds suffered from the dogs. They didn’t look to have festered, a testament to the mute rider’s skill.
“Would have wagered we were going to need to put her down,” Fetch said.
Dumb Door shook his head, looking pleased. He raised three fingers and waved them back and forth. Next, he extended one finger on the opposite hand, reduced the three on the other to two, and used them to straddle the first.
“Ready to ride in a few days?”
Door kept his hands in the figure of a rider and moved them slowly up and down.
“Easy to start. Of course.”
Dumb Door dipped his chin in that slow way. Fetch resisted the urge to broach the subject of leaving Winsome. Swaying this former nomad to her side would be difficult. He well knew the hardships of a homeless wanderer, and she was asking him to take up that life once more. The shadow of orcs and cavaleros was nothing compared to the years he’d spent in the badlands, vulnerable and isolated. Hells, the other brothers said he had yet to take a bunk and continued to sleep on the floor. How could she convince him to return to something that in many ways he’d never left? He still went to sleep hungry most nights. Winsome’s walls, this stable, were what marked the difference between the old life and the new, tethered him to the hoof. Fetch had no counter to that, not yet, so she was left with little choice but to leave him alone and accept that he and Polecat were the staunchest of the opposition.
Shed Snake and Culprit, however, could be won over. Mead was working on Snake. Once they had him, Fetch was hopeful their newest blood would fall into line.
The rain thinned by twilight, just enough to make the air muggy. Hoodwink was leading Touro and Petro through knife drills near the gate. The eldest and most seasoned hopefuls worked hard, the news of Culprit’s rise clearly giving them some added gumption, enough to overcome their innate fear of Hood. Almost.
Fetching watched the training until full darkness brought Polecat and his ditch diggers back within the walls, all begrimed and weary. Dacia and Incus were among the crew, walking side by side. Sluggard and Marrow had also been recruited, no doubt at Oats’s insistence. The thrice came to stand beside her caked with earth.
“Nearly done,” he told her.
Hells, it was good to have him back.
Fetching resolved to spend some time at the dig herself on the morrow. It would feel good to hit something hard with a piece of metal, even if it was only dirt and stones.
“Good work,” she told the grimy crew as they passed. She thumped Oats on the arm. “Come to my solar when you’re cleaned up.”
“I will be happy to.”
It was Sluggard who responded. He’d been passing by and was now walking backward, displaying a bright smile.
“Keep moving, Whore,” Fetching told him.
The nomad did as he was told, letting loose a laugh. Something about that sound, birthed with such sincere amusement after the drudgery of the ditch, caused Fetch to have a thought that needed to be quickly snuffed. Needed to be, but wasn’t. Fetch found she watched Sluggard until he’d vanished into the vintners’ dormitory.
That night, a meager measure of wine passed between Fetch and Oats. It was all she could do not to guzzle the entirety of the paltry ration in one pull.
“Think the Unyar supplies contain any of that vile, glorious milk?” Fetch mused, leaning forward from the edge of the bed, elbows resting on knees.
Oats watched her with poorly hidden concern from his stool.
“I know,” she said. “Not the time to get drunk.” She wondered if the Pit of Homage had provided Oats with much in the way of spirits, but let the question die in her head. It didn’t seem like something he would want to discuss much. “You gain any ground with Polecat today?”
Oats gave a frustrated shrug. “I ribbed him a bit about the challenge. He’s uneasy for doing it.”
“Enough to change his vote?”
“Maybe. With enough bullying. You want to take that path?”
Fetch handed the bottle back, shook her head. “No. But am I wrong for that? Was I wrong in not fighting to win the vote?”
“You know there’s no answer to that.”
There wasn’t. She did know there was no way to be certain Hood wouldn’t have killed whoever Polecat chose as champion. And she couldn’t choose Oats for the same reason, not after the Pit.
“Claymaster would’ve fought.” She took the wine back, swigged.
“Yes. But he wouldn’t have allowed women slops.”
The bitter laugh made her dribble a little wine. She wiped her chin. “The truth? It never occurred to me. Shit. What the fuck does that say? I spent years fighting the Claymaster’s scorn only to discover I’m no different. I took them for whores, Oats.”
“You weren’t fully wrong. One of ’em was, right? You sent her outta here with the Sons so fast, I barely got a look at her. Them other two will think twice about ever disobeying an order.”
He was trying to make her feel better. She didn’t want to feel better. And she didn’t want to dwell on Ahlamra. She’d done her no favors with the task she’d placed on the girl. A task she did not dare speak about, even to Oats.
Fetch took another pull, relinquished the bottle. “What’s worse. Even when I realized their aim…fuck, all I could think was that there was no chance any of them would succeed.”
Oats grunted. “Well, one of them did the work of ten today in the ditch.”
“Says one thrice about another.”
“Not her. The one with the scars…Dacia.”
Fetch credited that with a nod. “She’s got grit. But enough? Looks like she’s used to hard work, but digging ain’t riding. It’s not fighting thicks and keeping formation while straddling a razor, loosing a thrum on the gallop and killing your mark.”
“And it’s likely neither of them will be able to do that, even with training.”
Fetch shot him a look. “Seems I’m not the only one that thinks like the Claymaster.”
“You were never a slop.”
“I fucking know that!”
Oats held up a hand, wordlessly asking for patience. “When Jackal and I were coming up, there was this other slophead.” He paused a moment, concentrating until he fished the name from his memory. “Joam. Good rider. Tough fighter. Steadiest aim with a thrum among us. And one night…we found him dangling from the rafters in the barracks. Hung himself. No signs it was coming. Another pair a bit older than us—can’t even remember their names—they failed to get the votes for brotherhood, so they left on foot to try their chances with the Skull Sowers. Never made it to the Furrow. There’s a reason Winsome…hells, all the lots, don’t contain more mongrels that ain’t hoof brothers or nomads. Most don’t survive training or don’t survive the shame of failing. The odds weren’t against those three from the very beginning because of what’s between their legs, Isa. Swinging cods have been failing and dying for years because it’s just damn hard.”
“Never thought about it, really,” Fetch admitted.
“We don’t talk about it. Slops are no one u
ntil they prove themselves. Those that die, or desert, may as well have never lived. But that’s not something you know. You taught yourself to shoot, to fight. By the time me and Jack were Bastards and got you in the saddle, you took to that swift too. None of it was a hardship for you, Fetch, except the old puss pot himself.”
Fearing where that hog would carry them, Fetch deflected. “Wasn’t a hardship for you. Or Jackal either.”
“Shit!” Oats blurted, laughing. “The chief was easy on me. Wanted a thrice so badly he overlooked that I was barely passable with a stockbow. And Jackal? He nearly never wore a brigand.”
Fetch couldn’t help but smile. “Always rebelling.”
“Wasn’t that at all.” Oats took a drink. “He couldn’t keep the signals in his head. Never seen a better mongrel on hogback, but Jack was useless as soon as the lead rider gave commands. Tusker. Shank shot. Snails. He couldn’t remember any of them. And that’s saying nothing of the patrol paces!”
Fetch was enthralled. She didn’t think there were any secrets left between the three of them. “So what did he do?”
“Him? Me! I stayed awake with him every night drilling them. Took weeks! You’d never know it now, thank all the hells.”
“No,” Fetch said, sobering. “No, he can do no wrong now. Small wonder Father has such a stiff cod for him.”
Oats scratched at his beard when she was done. “So…what’s got you bothered?”
“That Father was right. Is right. If Jackal had stayed, he’d be chief right now, instead of me.”
Oats dismissed that with a belch. “But he couldn’t stay. He’s the Charm of Azhulthickhan…or whatever the fuck.”
“I know!” Fetch said, springing up from the bed to get some distance from her own foolishness. “That’s not…it’s not that I’m angry it might have been him and not me. It’s that had it been him, the Bastards would not be in this pile of hogshit. If he were chief, the Orc Stains would not dismiss us, the Sons would want to help us. Hells, Father looked ready to turn his entire hoof over if only…it were Jackal. It would all be so different if it were him and, most days, I wish it were.”
The True Bastards Page 29