That admission made her want to smash something.
“You’re right,” Oats said after a moment’s consideration. “We would not be in this hogshit if Jackal were chief. We’d be dead.”
That caused Fetch to turn and look at her oldest friend.
Oats leaned forward on his stool. “I love that mongrel beyond a brother. It might be a bit backy, if I’m honest. But he never could have led this hoof through the shit we are in. Jackal never saw the…daily struggle. He was blind to it. Jack’s idea of the Bastards was the Kiln, and hunting ulyud, and having whores on their knees worshipping his orc-slaying cod. You know that. He has this fucking way of just living that and little else. Made me want to hit him, some days.” Oats took a long drink. Swallowing, he looked hard at Fetch, suddenly reminding her of the face Beryl made when she wanted to be heard. “He loved the Lots and this hoof and he loved us. I hope, wherever he is, he still does. But listen to me when I tell you, in earnest, he could not have led us through that first year. We weren’t at war, Fetch. What would he have seen? He may have handed this hoof to you, but it was because he knew you could do what he couldn’t. Not ever. None of us wrestle the daily struggle to the ground like you. Because you’ve never been allowed to ignore it. So, best start coming to grips with what the rest of us already know. Only you can see us through this.”
He offered the bottle back.
Fetch smiled. And let him finish the wine.
* * *
—
MORNING ARRIVED WITH ANOTHER RAIN, this one heavy enough to darken the sky. It was uncommon to have so much, but at least Winsome’s cistern was getting much-needed replenishment.
Culprit, Shed Snake, and Hoodwink returned from a dawn run to the river as Fetch and Oats were coming in from the dig. The work continued, but would be done before the day was out. Fetch needed to get a crew to the Kiln. Oats had volunteered to help conscript the townsmen.
“Any luck?” Fetch asked the returning riders as they passed through the gate.
Culprit shook his freshly tattooed head. Fortunately, Polecat had given him the traditional hoof wreathed in broken chains. “It seems me and Snake are shit fishermen.”
“Would have wagered that,” Fetch needled.
“Thankfully,” Shed Snake pronounced, and cocked an eye at Hoodwink, “this one has some hoodoo over other cold-fleshed creatures that don’t blink.”
Ignoring the jibe, Hood handed a basket down from the saddle. Inside, Fetching was pleased to see four fat barbels.
“Not enough to feed the town,” Hoodwink whispered.
From any other mongrel such a statement may have been taken as one of regret. From Hood, it was a calculated suggestion.
“Then the slops will eat well tonight,” Fetching decided. She hated dictating what food would go where. It was especially difficult not to send everything to the orphanage, but there was a grim balance to rationing. Hells, even the sworn brethren had to eat at least once a week, though her instincts had them bear the brunt of the hunger pains. The Unyar supplies would not last forever, especially if they were careless.
Graviel and Lopo were standing nearby, ready to take the barbarians from the patrol riders. Both were trying to pretend they had not heard what their chief said, but the excitement over their unexpected reward was dancing across their faces. Fetching waved them over and relinquished the basket.
“Wait until late to eat,” she instructed. “Keep the smell down. Boil them or eat them fucking raw if you have to, but if you cause a stir in town, torturing us all with savory smells, the next thing that gets cooked is you. Understood?”
A pair of hopeful heads nodded vigorously. “Yes, chief.”
Oats leaned down over the slops, beard dripping. “And no gifting the village girls with a fish feast to get your cods wetted by more than rain. Keep this to yourselves.”
More nods.
Fetch dismissed them with a tilt of her head. “Get gone. Hide that basket. We’ll take the hogs.” As the slopheads ran off, the riders began walking their mounts toward the pens. Snake and Hoodwink were ahead. Culprit drifted into step beside Oats.
Fetch bumped the thrice on the arm and raised her chin at the retreating slops. “Hungry as they all are, they would still trade food for sex?”
The thrice grunted. “That young? They’re more full of spend than brains.”
Culprit was thoughtful. “Plus…”
“What?” Fetch asked, leaning so she could see him around Oats’s bulk.
Culprit gave a little shrug. “Being the hero, I dunno, providing for the girl with the sweet smile, giving her your ration. Likely that feels better than the short rut they might get.”
“Hells,” Fetch said with a laugh, “you may have something there. For a whole fish spitted over a fire? I might let some shivering hopeful climb atop me for the six heartbeats it would take him to spurt.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Oats said.
Culprit gave an exaggerated shiver and stuck his tongue out. “Hells, chief! Yelch.”
Fetch didn’t know whether to be offended or amused. “The thought of fucking me disgusts you, mongrel?”
Culprit shuddered again. “Be like bedding my mother, except I know who you are. Right, Oats?”
Oats’s nose wrinkled. “More like my sister, but yes. Let’s stop talking about this right damn now.”
It felt good to walk in the rain, especially after grubbing in the ditch. Fetch was overdue for a bath and the steady drops invading the air, shrinking the world, would serve well enough. She’d have to tend her weapons carefully tonight, but that was a small chore.
Fetch found her mood lifting. Ul-wundulas was a land of mostly unchanging clime, each day looking much like the next, just another of its slow tactics to wear thin the sanity of its inhabitants. The change, the break from the sun, the heat, it had an enlivening effect. Plus, the rain had sent the villagers inside, removing many of a chief’s cares from immediate sight. It was a fleeting, illusory relief, but Fetch would take it while it lasted. An amusing thought occurred. She gave Oats’s shoulder a goading punch.
“Is that what you and Jackal did as slops? Bribed Winsome girls to—”
She stopped short.
A dozen strides ahead, Hoodwink and Shed Snake had halted. Hood’s hand was raised in a warning sign, water running from his elbow. He and Snake were already bringing their stockbows around. Instinctively, Fetch and Oats did the same. Culprit was a moment behind. The three of them approached quick and quiet until drawing even with their brothers. All eyes fixed on the hog pens, a stone’s throw away, grey in the rain.
Something was very wrong.
In the main pen, the hogs were clustered in and around the stables, most trying to crowd the western side of the building, farthest from the breaking yard. Within, a lone hog stood, still and quiet. Its wet hide shone, slick with water and sticky blood, covering it from tusks to hocks. Lying just outside the fence, the rails smeared with crimson where he’d crawled over, was Dumb Door.
“Shit,” Shed Snake breathed, and made to rush the fallen mongrel, but Hoodwink shot out a hand, stopping him.
The pens sat beneath the northern bend of the stockade. Keeping her stockbow tight to her shoulder, Fetching swept the palisade walkway. The slopheads on sentry for this section of the wall were still on patrol. They kept watch on the land beyond as they walked, but Sence was just now circling back to the pens and noticed the turmoil in the breaking yard. Fetch shot a pointed whistle at the sentry, and when he looked down, she raised a splayed hand, then put her fingers together and made a sharp dipping motion.
Hold. Look for scalers.
Obeying the commands, Sence readied his spear and began cautiously craning over the wall, searching for signs of intruders. The other three sentries in sight, alerted by the whistle, did the same, trusting the Bastards on t
he ground to deal with whatever had occurred at the pens.
“Oats, Snake,” Fetch hissed.
That was all they needed. While she, Culprit, and Hood covered their approach, Oats and Shed Snake hustled forward. When they reached Dumb Door, they knelt to check him.
Without warning, the hog in the yard charged the fence, causing Oats and Snake to recoil as the beast’s tusks impacted the wood. The rails buckled.
“Get out of there!” Fetch yelled.
Grabbing fistfuls of Dumb Door’s brigand, Oats and Snake dragged him away from the enclosure. The hog had launched another charge upon the fence. It was not going to hold.
“Keep going,” Fetch commanded when her retreating brothers reached her position. “Get Door to safety. Culprit, bring the others! But tell Mead to secure the gate!” She did not take her eyes from sighting down the runnel of her thrum, not daring to relinquish her aim on the crazed hog, not wanting to see if Dumb Door was still alive.
The next charge splintered the upper rail. As it collapsed, the gory hog leapt what was left of the fence, barreling straight for Hood and Fetching.
They loosed at the same moment.
Dull impacts sounded. Bolts striking meat. The hog never slowed.
Fetch rolled away from death. Not quite quick enough. She took a savage blow to the hip and ribs, turning her roll into a graceless tumble, the wet ground giggling with each impact until she came to a stop. Wincing, she looked at her side, finding only mud. The curve of the hog’s tusk must have struck her, but fortune spared her a goring.
Looking up through eyes bedimmed by pain and rainwater, she saw the beast coming again. There was no time to reload. Fetch tensed, readying herself to spring. A spear came hurtling down from above, striking just to her right.
A gift.
Wishing Sence a cock-sucking every day for the rest of his life, Fetching snatched the spear from the mud and charged the oncoming hog.
Leaping, she struck, stabbing down into the shoulder, twisting in the air and throwing herself away. Landing on her feet with a squelch she saw the hog’s momentum continue to carry it forward. Barbarians were a damn hardy animal, bred to take punishment. By rights, it should have at least stumbled, but it remained solidly on its hooves.
Fetch could not muster much surprise. Fuck all if she wasn’t growing used to ensorcelled animals.
The hog made a slow turn, bristling with the spear shaft and a trio of thrumbolts. Hood must have put another bolt in its flank during its last attempt to trample Fetching. He came running to her side now, quickly handing over a bolt. Her own quiver was empty, contents scattered. The hog had stopped just beneath the wall, facing them, watching. It afforded Fetch a long look.
“It’s Little Orphan Girl,” she said grimly, reloading her stockbow.
“Slivers’s mount,” Hoodwink agreed.
“Damn.”
They never should have brought the beast inside, should have put her down when they had the chance. It had been too much of a blessing that the sow survived the ravaging by the dogs, even for all Dumb Door’s skill. Barbarians were tough, but they still gave voice to pain. Orphan Girl had just suffered grievous wounds and not uttered a single squeal.
Culprit, Oats, and Shed Snake returned with Polecat, Marrow, and Sluggard in tow. Fetch and Hoodwink stood near the pens, their brothers far to their right, Orphan Girl forming the apex of the triangle. The sow had again adopted the unnerving stillness that she displayed in the breaking yard.
“Feather her!” Fetching cried out, and the Bastards responded.
Bowstrings snapped, fletched shafts thudded into the hog. They may as well have been pulling their ticklers at a practice butt. A chill went down Fetch’s spine at the horrendous sight of the animal, struck with shots that should have slain, rocking slightly with each impact, only to stand firm when the volley ceased.
“Enough of this,” Fetch hissed, and threw her thrum down. She drew the kataras from her hips and quickly ran each blade across her shoulders.
“Chief?” Hoodwink said, seeing her cut herself, his voice taking on not the barest edge of alarm.
“Stay here.”
Fetch strode away from the pen, getting no closer to Orphan Girl, but putting herself squarely between Hood and the other Bastards. Oats took a step forward.
“Don’t move!” Fetch declared, stopping him.
“Fetching…the fuck you doing?”
“Killing this damn thing. All of you stay put!”
If Ruin was going to continue to assault her people within their own damn home, she was going to ram his sorcery back down his throat. Nothing had seemed capable of stopping the Sludge Man until Crafty had slashed Fetching’s flesh, exposing her blood, equal parts orc and elf. It had worked then, it might work now.
Warm rain and hot blood ran down her arms, dripped from the ends of the kataras. Little Orphan Girl, or whatever resided in the sow’s skin, watched her deliberate approach with the dauntingly intelligent eyes possessed by all barbarians. Fetching swiped the flat of her blades across her seeping wounds, inwardly cursing the rain for diluting the flow.
Displaying none of the natural, agitated signs of aggression, the hog charged, transforming from perfect stillness into a barreling mass of muscle. Droplets sprayed from her hide in a swarm, the multitude of protruding shafts quivering with each hoofbeat. Fetching matched the beast step for step, boots stomping the sodden ground. At the last moment, she dove, feet leading, plowing waves of mud. Her course was just a handbreadth to the right of the oncoming beast and Orphan Girl’s head jerked downward, trying to catch Fetching with a tusk, but struck only the ground.
Punching upward with her left hand, Fetch drove her blade, her blood, deep into the hog’s belly. Its own forward momentum caused the blade to tear along the gut, eviscerating the beast. But no blood fell, no guts spilled. Ripping the katara free, Fetch flipped up, going from her back to her feet in one snapping motion. Spinning, she rushed Orphan Girl before the sow could turn, and leapt astride her back. Hammering down with both fists, she drove the kataras hilt-deep into the barbarian’s back. The pig bucked and spun, trying to dislodge its murderous rider, but Fetch twisted the vicious daggers and held firm. Gripping with her legs, she removed one weapon, again swiped it across her bleeding shoulder before driving it back down, pulling the other hand free and repeating the attack.
Again and again.
But the hog was not flagging. Nothing could extinguish its dread vitality.
Ignoring the barrage of puncturing blows, it ran for the pens, straight for an intact section of fence enclosing the main paddock.
Fetch heard her brothers yelling for her to jump clear.
If they struck and the fence held, she would likely be thrown. If it broke, Orphan Girl would be rampant among the hoof’s hogs. She could maim all their mounts and they would be powerless to stop it.
Leaving the daggers embedded in the beast, Fetch gripped the spear still in its shoulder. Using the shaft for balance, she jumped up to stand on the hog’s back. Screaming as she bent every muscle to the task, she thrust downward on the spear. There was a heartbeat of resistance before the blade plunged the rest of the way. Fetch felt it punch through the animal and sink into the ground, sending her flying as the hog’s charge was arrested, turned into a violent, headlong collapse.
Fetch landed hard inside the paddock, tumbling through a quagmire of mud and hogshit. Rolling, she saw Orphan Girl sprawled on her side, kicking hooves battering the fence.
The Bastards rushed the fallen creature, Polecat, Marrow, and Shed Snake bearing spears thrown to them by the sentries on the wall. They thrust at the hog, trying to pin it before it could again gain its feet.
Scrambling, Fetch ran into the stables and retrieved the heavy knacker’s maul from its hook. This morose instrument was sometimes needed to put a hog out of its misery
, the heavy tapered head delivering a killing blow between the eyes. Fighting not to slip in the muck, she crossed the paddock and yelled for Oats, tossing the hammer over the fence. The thrice snatched it from the air and the other Bastards danced away to give him room. Stepping to get at Orphan Girl’s head, Oats brought the maul up and swung with all the force in his brutish arms. There was a sickening, dull crack.
Fetch had seen half a dozen hogs so dispatched. Done correctly, they went limp and dropped. Oats’s blow had been precise, strong, enough to fell a fucking elephant.
Little Orphan Girl fell, but only from the impact. No sooner was she down but her legs again began to scrape for purchase.
Even Hoodwink’s eyes went wide with disturbed disbelief.
“Ropes!” Sluggard cried out. “Lasso her to our hogs and drag her outside the walls!”
“Good!” Fetch replied. “Oats, we’re going to need Ug!”
Oats nodded. “Keep it pinned if you can!”
As the thrice ran for the stables, Hood rushed back toward the village proper, Culprit following. Shed Snake tossed his spear to Sluggard and went after them. Their mounts were still saddled, left on Winsome’s thoroughfare.
Polecat and the two nomads tried to keep the hog down with their spears, but it was fruitless. The beast felt no pain and was undaunted by the thrusting steel. She pushed against the blades, uncaring that they sank deeper into her hide. The mongrels strained with every sinew, but not even the considerable might of three half-orcs could keep her down. The sow stood, twisting savagely, tusks swinging at her attackers. Sluggard was nearest her head and tried to maintain hold of his spear, but the haft snapped under the pressure. The gritter stumbled forward just as the tusk whipped around, catching him across the chest and neck. Blood spurted into the rain as Sluggard was tossed aside.
“Get back!” Fetching yelled at the others. “Get to the walls!”
Marrow and Polecat abandoned their spears, leaving them in the beast, to make a run for the palisade stairs.
The True Bastards Page 30