The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  “Sure was,” Fetch said.

  “You ain’t gonna cry if I keep talking, are you?” Dacia asked, looking worried. And not for Fetch’s sake.

  “Fuck you.”

  Dacia gave a satisfied nod and a relieved breath. “So, just when Fadrique started to get hair on his balls, he up and left. Damn head was shaved into that plume and all. He was bound to find the elves that kept to the old ways, down in Ul-wundulas, he said. Tried to get the old elf to go with him, but turned out that one was all bluster. Too tamed by Hispartha, I reckon. Or just a coward liked to hear himself speak. I dunno, he didn’t live but a year or so after his disciple took off. We figured Fadrique for dead too. The Lots had a solid enough reputation for swallowing the lives of hard men, to say nothing of a moon-eyed mongrel boy looking to join the Tines. Never heard of a more fool-ass notion. Reckon he found out quick that it was, but he still found his place because there he was, astride a hog, sworn brother to a hoof, as at home in the Lots as any. And still with that damn Tine plume! Being honest, it didn’t look so foolish now. It looked…I dunno, right.”

  “Earned,” Fetch said softly.

  “That’s it. Earned.”

  Fetch had known little of Mead’s life prior to the hoof. She doubted if even Shed Snake knew everything, despite their closeness as slopheads and after. Mead never spoke of where he came from. His thoughts were always firmly fixed ahead.

  “You ever tell him?” Fetch asked. “That you’d known him?”

  “Nope. Have to admit, it gave me some small joy to have a secret. Be something that keen mongrel didn’t figure out. Now, though…I wish I had said something. Would have loved to see his face when I told him I’d left like he did on a fool-ass notion.”

  “To find the woman chief?” Fetch threw her own rock into the water. “Far more than fool-ass.”

  “Hells.” Dacia barked a harsh laugh. “Wasn’t even certain it was true. Stories from the Lots are rife in Hispartha. Hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. But somehow, hearing that, I could no longer stay. Life on that damn land was never one of ease. And it could often be one of nostril-deep misery. Never much worried about orcs or centaurs, but…we had our monsters. Worse in ways, because no one wants to fight them. You do and you pay for it. And not with death, but daily, over and again. It’s life they punish you with on a lord’s demesne. Fadrique heard those old elf tales and he couldn’t stay anymore. Thought he was mad. And then I didn’t think about him at all. But one night, I hear about the mongrel woman that became master of a hoof. Next morning, my mind left that farm. The day after, my feet. Just couldn’t stay. Not anymore.”

  “Fortunate for you the tale was true, I reckon.”

  “Fortunate for me I met Incus on the way south!” Dacia exclaimed. “I would never have made it through the Smelteds without her. Ran off from her masters too. And for the same reason as me. When we reached the Lots, we learned from some free-riders that you weren’t no fable. They told us to make for the brothel nearest the castile, that riders from your hoof would come through one day or another. So we waited. Incus had some coin from her winnings, so Rhecia let us a room.”

  Fetch tried not to ask, but curiosity forced the question out all the same. “And Ahlamra?”

  “Ahlamra was already there,” Dacia replied, trying to sound careless, but some tension had entered her voice, the set of her shoulders. “Like you, I figured her for a whore. But no. Just another drawn by the idea of…”

  She trailed off, fiddled with the razor.

  “Me,” Fetch finished.

  “Reckon so,” Dacia said, her jaw working in an aggravated grind as she continued to stare at the razor. “Didn’t know her well enough to say what she’d conjured you to be. Something of worth, to come far as she did. But you didn’t see any in her, so what does it matter?”

  Fetch let that be the final word. She’d gambled on Ahlamra’s worth. Time would see if she’d made the right wager. Time, but possibly not Fetch herself. If she never left this valley, she’d have to tell the next chief what she’d done. Until then, she’d hold quiet.

  After a moment, Dacia bottled her discontent and squinted at Fetch’s head. “No more blood. Let’s finish this job and see if we can avoid making a further pig’s ear of it.”

  Fetch complied, bending her neck and remaining motionless while the razor made its final swipes.

  “There,” Dacia pronounced. “You look a proper elf now.”

  “Thank you,” Fetch said, feeling the smoothness.

  Dacia stood, considered something.

  “How did he get that name?” she asked. “Mead?”

  Fetch looked up. “I’ll tell you the reason for his hoof name the day you get yours.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  The gorge hummed with the now-familiar sawing noise of a Tine war club. Fetch jerked her head skyward. The sound grew in intensity, the sharp waves of its song overlapped by answering clubs.

  “The hells?” Dacia said.

  Starling appeared through the brush.

  Fetch jumped to her feet, threw the elf a questioning look.

  “Intruder,” she said. “Within Dog Fall.”

  Shit.

  Fetch shouted across the pond. “Weapons!”

  Most of the hoof—brethren and slops—were already on their feet, roused by the noise. Dacia ran to shake Incus awake.

  “Slops!” Fetch called out. “Gather our folk. Get everyone to the main hut. Stay together. Go! Bastards, with me!”

  She took off running for the hog enclosure.

  “What we got, chief?” Polecat asked, hoisting his saddle. The alarms continued, rallying and insistent. “Rustskins sound spooked.”

  Fetch snatched up her own tack and threw it over Womb Broom’s back. Starling came up on the other side of the hog. Her normally placid face was frozen in a twist of dismay. She’d said Ruin would not risk coming here. Her error had left her stunned.

  Fetch cinched the girth strap tight. “Is it him?”

  “None could trespass this far,” Starling replied.

  “Get back to the hut.”

  “No. You will need me to read the warning songs.”

  Fetch gave an accepting shrug. The Bastards were mounting, awaiting instruction.

  “We found any other path into this gorge?” Fetch asked.

  “No,” Shed Snake replied. He pointed at the nearby trailhead. “Anything not a bird that wants in will have to come down that.”

  “What about those dogs?” she pressed. “Can we wager our lives they can’t manage another way?” There was a pause. “Shit. Hood, get moving. Check every damn cranny.”

  He rode off into the thicket.

  “The rest of us are staying right here,” Fetch ordered. “Feather anything that comes down that trail.” She swung up onto the saddle and loaded her stockbow.

  They took a position set back from the defile with clear sights. They would get maybe two volleys before being forced to charge. The Tine alarms kept sounding, but they seemed to be moving, the patterns fluctuating. Starling stood at Fetch’s knee, focused intently on the reverberating notes.

  “The warriors are searching,” she related after a time. “The intruder eludes them.”

  Stockbows trained, the Bastards kept guard. Fetch considered sending a runner to Warbler’s hut, cursed herself for not telling the slops to send a report. She turned to tell Culprit to go, but her command was swallowed by a thunderous roar. It filled the gorge, stirred the air. It was different from the song of the Tine weapons, though no less familiar.

  It was the wrathful Voice of Belico.

  Fetch met Oats’s eye.

  “Xhreka,” he said, and tugged Ugfuck around.

  “Stay here!” Fetch told the others. “Watch for dogs!” She ki
cked Womb to follow.

  The gorge howled from its core, as if a storm had fallen from the sky and landed among the trees. As their hogs surged through scrub and around swollen logs, charging for the source, Fetch was relieved it was not leading them toward the hut but into the marshy center of the hollow. Choking bracken, mud, and thorns impeded their way until they were forced to dismount, leave their hogs, and continue on foot. Oats crashed through the underbrush, ducking branches, jumping boulders, using his bulk to clear a path when nimbleness failed. Fetch stayed on his ass.

  The sound ceased, as swiftly as it came.

  They halted for a moment, looking at each other, panting. Xhreka had repelled the orc once before. They could only hope she had again. The alternative to the cessation of Belico’s rage did not bear thinking upon. They kept going. This deep in, the gorge was veiled with gloom. Without the voice to follow, Fetch worried they were doing little but running about in a blind, desperate search. But Oats must have known the halfling’s habits, for he led them to a clearing veined with the shallow rivulets of a broken stream. A basket laid there, the snails spilled from it already making their sedate escape. From there the trail was easy to follow. Trees were bent and leaning, some uprooted, the sodden turf replete with fallen branches. The results of a god’s breath.

  They found her not far from the worst of the havoc in a flooded dell. The halfling was on her knees, waist-deep in the stagnant water, chin touching her chest. Sliding down a stony embankment thick with moss, Oats reached the bottom of the dell, stomped through the pond, and came to Xhreka’s side. Fetch stayed at the water’s edge, stockbow sweeping the surrounds.

  “She’s alive!” Oats announced.

  Fetch sloshed into the pond, still vigilant. The halfling was barely coherent, mumbling something and swaying as if drunk. Oats had the back of her neck cradled in one great hand, steadying her.

  “Xhreka! Where did he go?”

  She pointed. Her hand wavered and wandered, encompassing half the surrounding thicket before steadying. Looking, they discerned a rough corridor of crushed scrub and snapped limbs leading away from the pond’s far end.

  “Get her out of here,” Fetch said, moving toward the place Xhreka had clearly flung the orc.

  “You’re not fighting that thing alone.”

  “What choice is there? Maybe I can stall him until the Tines arrive. Get going.”

  Unhappy, Oats stood, scooping the halfling up.

  Fetch entered the tunnel of punished foliage. If Ruin was injured, perhaps she could finish him. See if he could shrug off a bolt through the eye. She came to the end, found an empty depression of blackthorn. He had fallen here, but was already gone, on the move.

  “Shit!”

  She whirled, doubled back to the pond.

  Across the way, Oats was ascending the embankment, leaving the dell. A dark shape was coming across the top, moving quickly, preparing to converge on the thrice when he crested the rise. He did not see it.

  “OATS!”

  He turned at her call, saw her gesture, and immediately reversed his course, sliding more than running, Xhreka held protectively to his chest. The shadow pursued.

  Fetch pressed the stockbow into her shoulder and loosed. The charging figure lurched and fell, tumbled down the embankment with a bolt through the thigh. Oats had reached the bottom, turned to look at the fallen form, too small to be Ruin.

  “It ain’t no orc!” he called across the pond. “Some damn swaddlehe—”

  The figure jumped up, darted at the thrice. Oats went for his sword, but was hampered by the dazed halfling. Cursing, Fetch sprinted to help, boots crashing through the pond. Oats’s tulwar was half drawn from its scabbard when his black-clad opponent flung an arm forward, arcing an azure powder at his head.

  Fetch had seen that blue shit before. Crafty threw it in her face at the Kiln when she came to kill him. It had done nothing but briefly sting her eyes.

  Oats dropped as if struck in the forehead by a mallet.

  His attacker was dressed in the garb of the east, a head scarf covering the face. A powerful frame moved fluidly beneath the dark, loose garments, bending to seize Xhreka, now toppled beside Oats.

  But Fetch was upon him, yelling in a fury, ripping her tulwar free and slicing in one motion. Her foe ducked, rolled, and sprang up at her flank. Her sword arm was seized, twisted. She moved with the pressure, crouched swiftly, and slipped the grip. Straightening, she launched a shoulder, knocked the masked figure back, and slashed again. Steel rang on steel, her tulwar parried by the figure’s own swiftly drawn, curved blade, wider and heavier than hers. Fetch had seen similar swords on the hips of the Zahracenes.

  Xhreka had said Zirko would come for her. It seemed the conniving priest had named his price for warning the swaddleheads of the Betrayer Moon and turned them into his errand boys.

  Fetch sent cuts whipping at the man, keeping him on the defensive. He turned or avoided the strokes with skill, wielding the larger blade with the speed of a true swordsman. Only, he wasn’t just a swordsman. Fetch remembered the powder, the thrumbolt that did not even hinder, and kept wary for further sorcery.

  As they fought around the edge of the pool, shouts could be heard in the distance, coming closer. Oats’s name and cries of “chief” became distinguishable. The hoof was looking for them.

  “Down here!” Fetch called out, sending another reaping cut at the Zahracene. He swayed from the steel, snapped back in, catching her cross-cut with his scimitar. Within a heartbeat, he was on the attack. A cut came for her head, but it proved to be a feint, the blade twisting away to chop at her leg. Side-stepping to avoid a severed limb, Fetch was forced into the pond. It hardly reached her knees, but it was enough to slow her down. The Zahracene’s hand went into his robe, flicked out again, and tossed something small that plopped and sank beside Fetch’s leg. The water erupted. Fetch was picked up by the force, thrown backward. Her spine slapped the water. She went under for a moment, came up sputtering, sword still in hand.

  The Zahracene went sprinting back toward Xhreka. Up on the lip of the dell, three familiar figures appeared, stockbows in hand.

  Fetch pointed to the running man with her tulwar. “Bring him down!”

  Culprit was the first to loose, but he hurried and his bolt went wide. Polecat was on the edge facing the Zahracene, and let fly. Without breaking stride, the swaddlehead cut the bolt out of the air. He was four strides from the halfling when Shed Snake’s bolt took him in the back, just above the hip. The force spun him around, tripped him up. He fell within reach of Xhreka, and Fetch was no longer surprised to see him begin to stand. She plowed through the pond, knees cutting the water. The Bastards above were reloading their thrums.

  Oats came to just as the Zahracene rose to a knee. The thrice growled and pounced from the ground, spear-tackling the man. Pinning him, Oats rained down punches from fist and elbow, but he was still stupefied from the powder and the blows were clumsy.

  Polecat was shouting for him to get clear. Culprit was scrambling down to help.

  “Stay back!” Fetch commanded, knowing the young rider lacked the skill to take this opponent. She was a few strides away when the Zahracene grabbed the hand holding him to the ground and wrenched it, upsetting Oats’s balance. The thrice fell forward, his last punch pounding nothing but mud as his captive rolled out from beneath him.

  Culprit rushed in, heedless of Fetch’s yelled protests, swinging his tulwar. The Zahracene caught his wrist, hammered his guts with a knee, grabbed his stockbow harness, and threw him to the ground, breaking the strap. He threw the thrum at Polecat, sending it spinning into the mongrel’s own trained weapon. Grunting, Cat stumbled back, his bolt loosed into the air. Oats was up and grabbed the man from behind just as Fetch reached them. He kicked out, booted her back into the water. Struggling to stand once more, she saw Oats’s massive arms wrapped abo
ut the smaller combatant, but his hold was yielding. Emitting a guttural sound of exertion, Oats windmilled his captor, hurled him over Fetch’s head. He landed in the center of the pond.

  On his feet.

  He started forward and Fetch readied her tulwar.

  “Girl.” Xhreka’s voice from behind. “Get clear.”

  Knowing what was coming, Fetch dove to the side.

  Belico howled his displeasure, turning the world into a shrieking gale. Raising up from the muck, squinting against the onslaught of debris, Fetch saw the halfling woman standing, feet planted, head thrust forward, the lids of her missing eye gaping to reveal a screaming mouth. The pond rippled out from the power pouring forth, blasted to a fine mist. Buffeted by water, wind, and the brutal tumult, the Zahracene braced himself, wet robes billowing and snapping. His left arm came up, shielded his face from the brunt of the maelstrom.

  Fetch cursed when he managed a step forward.

  She stood, not knowing how they were going to prevail if Xhreka failed. The halfling was flagging, already fallen back to her knees. The Zahracene continued his slow yet inexorable strides. The din was weakening, enough for Fetch’s own voice to be heard.

  “Get ready!” Bringing her thrum around, she reloaded.

  Xhreka collapsed. Belico was silenced.

  Stockbows were aimed, but as the Zahracene lowered his arm, no bolts were loosed. The head scarf had blown back and the face revealed beneath caused Fetch’s fingers to freeze upon the tickler.

  In the stunned silence, Oats was the one to say it.

  “Jackal?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  JACKAL. HE WAS BACK.

  And chaos arrived with him. Chaos within and without.

  The Bastards were shouting.

  “Jack? The fuck you doing, brother?!”

  Oats. Demanding answers. Large form hovering between rushing to his friend and staying to protect Xhreka.