The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  “You carry elven blood,” Starling said. “The weapons of our ancestors are difficult to wield and require much training, yet they offer gifts to those that carry them. Na’hak Ee’eyo Lya and his brave-sworn fought you as they would a Ruin Made Flesh, using the kurheul to harm. It is possible the song from their clubs granted you power as well as pain, but…”

  “But?”

  “My people will never concede to offer you instruction in such weapons, nor would they part with them. Without them, you have no hope of harming the Ruin Made Flesh. Without Akis’naqam you have no hope of killing the Filth within him. Yet here both can protect you, so long as you remain. Should you leave, he will continue to hunt you. He is drawn to you, though I doubt he knows why. His confusion and curiosity will not restrain him forever.”

  “It already ain’t,” Oats rumbled. “Fetch, I saw him at Winsome. You couldn’t have—”

  “I could have burned him to fucking ash, Oats! The Filth too! Yes, I’d be dead, but the hoof would be free of him. Estefania was right. Hells, Polecat—who told her—was right. The dogs, Ruin, they only wanted me.”

  “Hogshit,” Oats said. “Have you forgotten Slivers? The riders from the Tusked Tide? The Stains? This damn thick is doing what thicks do. He’s killing mongrels. You sharing a mother don’t mean you caused this. Far as I can see, the only thing it’s done is kept him from killing you, which is a stroke of luck we should be grateful for.”

  Warbler stood, took a limping step. “He’s right. Hate to throw your own words in your face, Isabet, but self-pity doesn’t wear well on you. I been in this gorge longer than I expected. Might be you are too.” The old thrice cocked an eye at Starling. “Where I disagree is the notion that this Ruin can’t be killed. Hispartha made this plague that I’m carrying for one purpose. To kill thicks. Their sorcerers too. And it does the job well, none know that better than me. We might need to dig deep for some patience, but once the Tines help me master this shit, we will ride out together and, chief, I swear to you I will show this orc what a ruin the plague makes of flesh. His.”

  Fetch allowed Warbler the bluff, chose not to remind him that he’d confessed he did not think the elves capable of fully ridding Wily of the sorcerous sickness. Perhaps, in the moment, he’d found fresh hope. She wouldn’t rob him of it.

  “We came here to regroup, Fetch,” Oats said, knowing her silences better than anyone. “Give it some time. Dog Fall ain’t the end of the Bastards.”

  “I know.” But it might be the end for her.

  “You need food and sleep,” Beryl said, placing a hand lightly upon her elbow. It was a touch Fetch had often seen her give Oats and Jackal, but not one often received. She met the older woman’s eyes, held them.

  “I’m…sorry,” Fetch told her.

  Beryl gave her arm a gentle squeeze and let go.

  “I, too, must rest,” Starling said. “With your permission, I will pass the night here. My presence among my people causes them discomfort.”

  “Of course,” Fetch replied. “Can you find a place?”

  “Yes.”

  Fetch reached out and stopped the she-elf as she turned. “Thank you.”

  Slipping gently from the grip, Starling made her way around the hut.

  “Can you explain that now?” Oats asked. “That’s not a face I ever expected to see again.”

  “She’s…”—Fetch struggled with an answer—“doing everything she can to survive. You were right, War-boar. We know shit about these people.”

  “We know they’ve saved our hides more than once.”

  “Yes, but not all agree with being charitable. One of them had his warriors try to kill me. Would have too, but for Starling. The Tine chiefs didn’t take kindly to it, but only the leader was punished, this Na’hak Ee’eyo Lya. Ghost Last Sung. His boys are still around and may be holding a grudge. Something our boys need to know in the days coming. We have to stay vigilant.”

  “Na’hak?” Warbler said, looking perturbed. “Older? War paint looks like he’s weeping blood?”

  Fetch nodded. “You know him?”

  “Don’t know any of them. But I’ve seen him before. We all have, though Hood and I were the only ones that rode with him. He led the Tines that charged the orc ul’usuun.”

  “The day the Kiln fell?” Oats asked. “Hells. Means he saved our rumps.”

  Warbler grunted in agreement. “More than that, it was Starling that convinced him to do it. I watched her talk to him, could tell they were familiar.”

  “Her father, maybe?” Oats offered.

  “Hard to say, these rustskins all look ali—”

  “Avram,” Beryl warned.

  Warbler shrank a little. “Point I’m aiming for is, Na’hak rode to war to help us on Starling’s behalf. Now she’s still our ally, but he’s not? Something powerful strange there.”

  “Know what’s stranger?” Oats asked, running a hand along his jaw and pulling at his beard. “They put on these performances in Hispartha where the Claymaster’s a hero.” The withering looks he received left the big mongrel confounded. “What? It’s true! Sluggard told me.”

  Fetching, Warbler, and Beryl all groaned, spoke at the same time. “Shut up, Oats.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THE TINES MADE GOOD on their word.

  Sluggard arrived in the gorge two days later, under his own power, with no escort. He looked thinner, a bit pale and drawn, but was much improved from the last time Fetch saw him.

  “Took me as far as the descent,” he told the hoof a little breathlessly, sitting on a rock in front of Warbler’s hut. “They just pointed down. I reckon they knew there was nowhere else I could go.”

  The top of his head was covered in the same fuliginous fish skin worn by Wily and Warbler, but where theirs were wrappings, Sluggard’s was a single piece fitted over the surface of his ruined scalp, close as his own flesh.

  Seeing their eyes keep drifting, the nomad gave a grin. “They made it clear I was not to remove it. Hoping I sprout hair like theirs.”

  Polecat cleared his throat. “They do anything for…uh…your…”

  “They did,” Sluggard said with good nature. “Gave me a pair of ox balls. Used their magic to do it. I fill hog troughs with spend now.”

  “Fuck yes!” Culprit said, nodding with fierce approval.

  Shed Snake slapped the back of his skull. “He’s jesting, fool-ass.”

  The Bastards heckled their youngest rider for a moment before Polecat looked eagerly at Sluggard. “What did you see up there? Any rustskin girls with feathers in their hair and swaying hips?”

  “Not that came my way,” Sluggard replied. “I was mostly lost in fever dreams. The bitter stuff they poured down my throat made them rather vivid, though nothing so pleasing as swaying hips. After that, my view was limited to the roof of a hut. There were…charms? Fetishes? Hanging ornaments of polished stone.”

  Warbler grunted in understanding. “That’s a medicine lodge. Same as they take me and the boy.”

  “Glad to know I wasn’t in a chicken coop,” Sluggard said, drawing chuckles. “They permitted me out yesterday to see if I could walk. A grey-haired man helped me, and there was always a warrior close by. Once they saw I was able…well, here I am.”

  “We are glad to have you back,” Fetch told him. “Rest and eat.”

  “There’s little else to do,” Culprit told the nomad with a laugh.

  He was right. And that was the problem.

  The slops had made short work of expanding the soil pit and were now tasked with restoring the abandoned hut. The larger domicile would greatly improve the comfort of the exiles. The Winsome folk were surprised when Fetch told them the remaining hut would be for their use once complete, no doubt believing she would take the dwelling for the hoof. But she did not want her boys getting comfortable. This was no
t permanent. A hoof was meant to ride. Their place was in the badlands, spitting in the eye of every danger drawn to, and conjured by, Ul-wundulas. Fetch needed to get them back to that bone-deep purpose. With or without her.

  “True Bastards, open your ears.”

  Taking that for a signal, Sluggard stood to take his leave. Fetch put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Your place is here. If you want it.”

  Reluctance flooded the gritter’s face. The others were looking on. Fetch cursed herself, regretting foisting such a decision on him now.

  “Think on it,” she added, coming to both their rescue. Nodding, the nomad walked away.

  Shaking off the misstep, she regarded her brethren.

  “Clearly, we’re getting stronger. Healing. That’s good and was sorely needed, but our slops need to be trained. That’s still our duty.”

  Shed Snake raked at his arm. “Gonna be tricky, chief. We got no room to run hogs down here, so riding drills are impossible. Stockbow drills will waste bolts we can’t replace. Without a proper forge, sword work will eventually wear our tulwars into pry bars. What can we do?”

  “Anything else,” Fetch told them all. “Everything else. Drill hand signals until they know them cold. Hand-fighting. Knife-fighting. Run hog formations on foot. Get damn creative.”

  There were determined nods of agreement.

  “Whether we stay another day or another year, we are leaving Dog Fall a hoof. I won’t have it any other way. Warbler, Hood, get us all thinking and acting like nomads. We can’t allow our tack and harness, or our stockbows to go to shit. Be diligent about upkeep. Watch the hogs closely too. They get lazy or feisty when they’re not run, so find ways to work them. Go.”

  The boys jumped to it.

  Fetch went to find Starling.

  The she-elf had remained aloof since coming down into the valley. She slept apart, ate apart, and her whereabouts were often unknown. Yesterday, she had remained perfectly elusive. The rest of the hoof thought nothing of it. Those who had known her from the Kiln recalled her taciturn manner.

  Fetch found her sitting on a tall pile of tumbled stones at the western wall of the gorge where the trees did not grow. The morning light slanted down, bathing the rocks with warmth and the elf’s face with serenity.

  “Well, you’ve allowed yourself to be found,” Fetch called up. “Keep thinking you’ve left.”

  She was taken aback when Starling shushed her. It was a slow, gentle sound, the kind used to soothe. But it was still a fucking shush.

  Fetch opened her mouth to rebel, hesitated, closed it, opened it again. Without lowering her face from the sky, Starling patted the rocks beside her in invitation. Feeling oddly foolish, Fetch glanced around for prying onlookers before ascending the pile. The flat perch was small and there was no way to sit without pressing ribs with the elf. Settling down, uncomfortable with their closeness, Fetch waited, drawing her knees up and crossing her arms atop them. The warmth was truly pleasant, however, massaging away a chill Fetch had not known she possessed until it began to dissipate. She grew drowsy.

  “Forgive my reticence,” Starling said, just as Fetch was beginning to doze. “Truly, I had not expected my people to permit me to linger. Returning. Being…home, it is intoxicating. Ul-wundulas had all but banished the notion of safety.”

  Fetch raised her mouth out of the crook of her elbow enough to speak. “So why banish yourself?”

  “I must. The salvation of my child demands I not linger long.”

  “How…how do you know it will be different for you? Different than it was for my…mother?”

  Starling looked at her now. “Because some sorrows are too great to be repeated.”

  Fetch opened her mouth to argue with that. And was shushed again.

  * * *

  —

  THE LIGHT IN THE CANYON was failing when Fetch led the slopheads to the pond to wash. All moved a bit stiffly, sore and filthy from repeated tumbles from the saddle. It was a tedious drill, sitting the back of a motionless hog and purposefully flinging oneself off. It was far from close to the real thing, little more than trying to force memory into the body and hope that when the hog was actually running, the enemy was actually screaming, and death actually hunting, a life would be spared. All because she ordered these hopefuls to take a hundred falls. Besides, it prevented the hogs forgetting the weight of saddle and rider.

  Fetch was trying to keep the barbarians from being spoiled. Hells, she was trying to keep her entire hoof from being softened, but it was hard not to see even the most forsaken of Dog Fall’s gorges as a paradise after the slowly devouring hell of Winsome. Scrubbed clean, sitting on the rocky shore of the pond after a day of work, knowing a meal drew closer with the sinking sun, Fetching could not inure herself completely to the seductive contentment that gripped Starling.

  Most of the slops were lounging on the opposite bank, a few already sleeping. The Bastards were half a turn along the edge of the pond, the distance they had given their chief to bathe born out of an awkward mixture of respect for her position and a powerful need to avoid getting a stiff cod. Fetch had donned her shirt and breeches a while ago, but the separation lingered, waiting for her to break it. She sat, finding no desire to stand and traverse the gap.

  Dacia did it for her.

  At first, Fetching thought the woman was just leaving the company of the slopheads, but she walked the circuit of the shoreline and approached without hesitance. No more than a stride distant, she produced a razor.

  Fetch’s hand darted for one of the kataras in the belt splayed on the rocks beside her.

  “Peace, woman! Damn,” Dacia said, grinding to a halt and holding up her hands. She was more perturbed than alarmed. “Any trying to kill you are going to need more than a cock’s length of sharp steel to do it.”

  Fetching relaxed, moved her hand back to her lap. “Reckon I’m less certain about my vulnerabilities.”

  “Well, I’ve only a mind to cut hair, not throats,” Dacia said, still galled. “That head of yours is getting prickly. You want to keep the elf coif, it needs seeing to.”

  Fetching rubbed a hand along the side of her bristly scalp. “I dunno. Not sure why I did it in the first place. Seems a fool-ass thing to do now.”

  “You wanted to honor your rider. Nothing foolish there. Keep something of him around. He’d have liked it.”

  Fetch felt her lips tighten. Mead would have loved it.

  “You want me to see to it or not?” Dacia goaded.

  “Yes,” Fetch told her. “Please.”

  Mouth curling down with curt approval, Dacia came and squatted beside her.

  Fetching eyed the small razor in her hand as it came up. “Cock’s length of steel?”

  “You’ve clearly never fucked a frail,” Dacia grunted, and pushed Fetch’s head into a tilt. The blade scraped, smooth and straight.

  “You’ve done this before,” Fetch said.

  “I’ve sheared more sheep than you can fathom,” Dacia replied. “Gelded them too. Shaved a man’s face a time or two.”

  “Geld any of them?”

  The razor scraped. The woman did not answer. Finishing one side, she stood, took a step, and squatted again to begin work on the other.

  “He’d have liked this place too,” Dacia said, her breath brushing the skin along with the blade. “Being in elf country.”

  Fetch focused on remaining still. “Who? You mean Mead?”

  “Hard for me to think of him as anything but Fadrique, but yes.”

  “He told you his birth name?” Fetch was surprised.

  Dacia made a careless noise in her throat. “Only name he had when I knew him.”

  Fetch craned away from the razor a bit too quickly. The blade nicked her scalp and Dacia cursed.

  “Hells, you! Hold still! You want to be as sca
rred as me?”

  “You knew Mead?” Fetch demanded, glaring.

  “Half a lifetime ago,” Dacia said. Licking her thumb, she daubed at Fetch’s head, pressing the tiny point of pain. “I’ll finish when that quits leaking.”

  With an accusatory look, Dacia settled down next to Fetching.

  “We worked the same lord’s land in Hispartha,” she explained. “I had a dozen years on him or more. Was already letting the handsomer field hands get their fingers sticky in my quif before he was old enough to reap a swath of wheat. No reason for him to remember me. Plus, I didn’t have these yet.” Dacia swirled her hand in the air in front of her scarred face. “My hair liked to have turned white when I saw him at Winsome. He’d grown up, filled out, lost a hand, but it was him…that little mongrel boy in love with the elves. Fadrique. Couldn’t believe it. But I took it as a sign.”

  “A sign?”

  “That I was doing the right thing, seeking the Bastards.”

  Fetch smiled a little. “Because he’d left to do the same.”

  “Fuck no. That boy had left to join the damn elves. Here! In Dog Fall!”

  Fetch peered dubiously at that.

  “Sure as shit!” Dacia proclaimed, holding up a hand in a mock oath. “One of our harvesters was a rustskin. Kind sort. Tireless. Loved to tell stories, elven legends and whatnot. Tell them to anyone who’d listen. About how his people had once lived, about the orcs coming and destroying their lands, how only a few elves kept to the ancient traditions and were the proudest, strongest, wisest of all point-ears. He was right backy with love over these savage sorts, saying that the elves had forgotten how to live, that civilization had made them traitors to their traditions. On and on!”

  Dacia made a wet noise that managed to convey both amusement and disgust. She picked up a rock and flicked it into the pond.

  “After a few years, none of us cared to listen anymore. Except little Fadrique. He ate it up and asked for more. They’d work side by side all day, that old elf’s tongue never ceasing to wag and the mongrel boy’s ears never tiring to hear. Legends turned to lessons and soon all the words that passed between them were in elf-speech. That boy was sharp as a bailiff’s whip and twice as quick.”