She rode close to him for the remainder of the journey.
* * *
—
THRICEHOLD WASN’T AN IMPRESSIVE FORTIFICATION. The mountain it was built upon, however, was. A massive chunk of limestone, it rose from the surrounding flats, an isolated island of towering rock, dominating the surrounds with its bulk.
As the conjoined hoofs neared the peak, Fetch noticed steaming pools nestled among the boulders, the air heavy with the moisture and smell of hot springs. Like the slaves, it was always rumored the Orc Stains’ fortress sat atop a dormant volcano, but most took that as the useless wind of braggarts.
The riders approached from the southwest, but rode around to the mountain’s northern slope to begin the ascent where a trail climbed through thickets of pine. It was a long, tedious trek and near noon when they reached the summit. The whitewashed walls of Thricehold were only half the height of the Kiln’s when it stood, and possessed none of the artistry. The Claymaster had been a hateful, rotten fuck, but he knew how to construct a fortress. Whoever the founder of the Stains had been, he’d settled for a round barbican, two square towers, a curtain wall, and a central keep to defend the dozen-odd buildings that comprised the rest of the compound.
At the moment, Fetch cared nothing for the quality of the walls.
More bald mongrels stood along the battlements and a shout from Marrow set the portcullis creaking upward. They rode through the gate and reined up in the sizable yard.
A familiar voice called from the walls.
“Chief!”
Touro came down the stone steps two at a time, spear in hand, and rushed to greet her.
“Chief. The slops will be reliev—” Seeing Jackal, the young mongrel’s mouth fell open. “Fucking…hells. Is he dead?”
“He will be if you stand around gaping!” Fetch exclaimed.
“I’ll get Beryl!” Mouth still slack, Touro hurried off.
“Let’s get him inside,” Marrow said.
Beryl emerged from the keep as Oats was lifting Jackal from the skid. For the briefest of moments, she froze. The next instant saw her gesturing them inside.
“Idris!”
Oats carried Jackal up the steps and followed his mother into the keep. Leaving the hogs with the hoof, Fetch followed the thrice’s broad back, hurrying through a gloomy central hall and down a wide corridor. Oats bore Jackal into one of the rooms off the corridor and laid him on a sizable bed.
“We need boiling water!” Beryl told the room. “Wine or vinegar. Needle. Gut string. A sharp knife. And any herbs in this place.”
Touro, lingering in the passage, rushed off once more.
“You two,” Beryl said to Fetch and Oats without looking up from unwrapping Jackal’s stump, “we’re going to need to sew this up. But first we have to make a flap. It’s going to require more cutting. If you can’t bear that, find me help that can.”
“No,” Fetch said. “We’re not doing that.”
Beryl’s head snapped up. “Fetch! He’s going to di—”
“No!” Fetch spun on Oats. “Go. Tend to Xhreka. The moment she’s awake, I need her here.”
Oats’s uncertainty lasted only a moment. Nodding, he rushed from the room.
“Fetch,” Beryl pleaded, “there’s not time!”
“There is! I know Jackal. He never thinks overlong on anything. Any choice! He just makes it. So if he was going to die, he would have done it already. Now I need you to believe that too. Please! Just…believe it. And help me get him cleaned up.”
The two of them got his boots off, stripped what remained of his clothing. Touro, Dacia, and Little Tel brought everything Beryl requested. And more.
The Bastards entered and loitered at the edges of the room until Fetch ordered them out, and then they only retreated to the corridor.
“We need to tend the rest of these,” Beryl said, taking in all of Jackal’s injuries.
Fetch helped wash him, helped clean and stitch the bite wounds, helped change the bedclothes while Incus lifted him. Only when there was nothing more to do but wait did she sink into a chair. It, like everything about the room, was large. The Stains had built with a mind to the comfort of thrice-bloods. When Incus left with Beryl, she’d been spared having to duck beneath the lintel. The bed was wide too, and the space next to Jackal tempted Fetch to lie down. She stayed in the chair, too rank, too filthy, too tired.
The last days caught up to her in a stampede of fatigue.
She stirred a few times. Once when Beryl entered the room to light candles, check Jackal’s fever. Once when Culprit kicked the leg of the bed by accident and swore. Once when Thistle put a blanket over her. Exhaustion and the deep furs covering the chair tugged her back to slumber each time.
Sleep fled with the swiftness of a frightened hare when she awoke to find Marrow standing in the room with a loaded stockbow. Behind him, the door was closed and latched. Beneath the blanket, Fetch’s hand slid to the handle of her katara, still sheathed along her thigh. She tried to draw it without the motion giving her away.
“You won’t need that foreign knife,” Marrow told her, not moving away from the door. She would never cover the distance before he shot her and they both knew it. “Rather my end come from a good thrum if you’ll give me the choice.” Holding the weapon one-handed at the foregrip, he offered it out.
Confused and unnerved, Fetch could only shake her head.
“I’ve come to give you the chance to kill me,” Marrow said. “My hoof will not seek retribution, so long as you allow them to vote a new chief from among their own. You and the Bastards may remain here for as long as needed.”
“Marrow…what? Why would I kill you?”
“Because I told Knob how to take Winsome.”
The confession was bluntly made, but the shame of it covered the nomad’s face. He had more to unburden, so Fetch waited.
“They waylaid me. Questioned me about your defenses, the watch patrols, asked where the hoof was housed, where…you slept. I told them.”
Marrow’s voice was quavering.
“They tortured you,” Fetch said, trying to thrust sympathy in front of anger.
“No. They threatened Dead Bride. Threatened my hog! Said…they were going to blind her to start. Said I’d be eating her by the end. How could I…?” His shame increased with the arrival of his tears. He cleared his throat, rallied. “Knob vowed I could straddle the razor and ride on if I told what he wanted. So I did. I told him all. He broke his word, made me a prisoner…and fed me my hog. I am the reason your hoof has suffered. Because I was too afraid to watch my sow die. Too afraid to die myself, I reckon. So…” He held up the stockbow once again.
Fetch took her hand off the knife. She studied Marrow, saw his need to absolve himself. The easy way. She took a long breath, let it out.
“You didn’t cause this shit, Marrow. You just helped it along. Doesn’t mean what you did wasn’t the path of a coward. It was. You feel a need to die for it, point that bolt beneath your chin and jerk the tickler. You want my forgiveness? Earn it.”
The stockbow lowered. “Tell me how.”
“Helping me and mine is a damn good beginning. Continuing to help through the shit that’s coming, one way or another, will make an end.”
“The Thrice Freed are yours.”
“No, chief. They’re yours. But I need your loyalty.”
Marrow’s jaw set, turned to stone. “You have it.” After a moment, he filled the silence with a question. “Did you make Knob suffer?”
Fetch considered lying, thought better of it. “Thrumbolt through the heart. Quick.”
Marrow’s tongue rolled around within his tightly shut mouth, bulging the skin. “Pity. But a greater one had he not died at all.”
He startled as the door thumped behind him, trying to open.
Oats’s voice came through the wood. “Fetch! I got Xhreka!”
Shooting to her feet, Fetch opened the door. Oats came in, eyed Marrow with confusion as he slipped out. Xhreka and Beryl followed the thrice. The sight in the room froze the halfling at the jamb, but the half-orc matron pushed past and went straight to Jackal’s bedside.
Fetch placed a hand on Xhreka’s shoulder. “Help him.”
Xhreka tore her eye off Jackal long enough to give Fetch an incredulous glare. “I’ve told you before, girl, I’m no healer.”
Fetch leaned down and thrust a finger at Xhreka’s eye patch. “Help him.”
“Have you lost your mind…?”
“Let’s find out.”
Reaching into her saddlebag, Fetch removed the bundle. Unveiling the severed arm, she carried it close to Xhreka. Beryl expelled a curse and Oats retreated a step when the hand began to spasm and clench. A wet, resonant whisper filled the room. Xhreka clapped a hand over her missing eye, recoiled from the severed limb.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“I know you got Belico in there,” Fetch said. She raised the jerking arm. “And I got Attukhan here. They were brothers in life, yes?”
“Near enough,” Xhreka muttered, keeping her face averted.
“Closer than, I wager. You going to tell me your god won’t help his warrior? Because he sounded eager just now.”
The halfling remained motionless and silent.
Oats’s deep, strained voice reached out to her. “Xhreka. Please.”
The little woman straightened, faced them, but her hand stayed fixed.
“You never struck me as happy this one was pledged to Zirko,” she told Fetch, pointing at Jackal. “You don’t think the Master Slave will demand a price far greater than the Hero Father? ’Cause he will, girl. He will!”
Fetch heard the wisdom in those words. And ignored it. “Like Belico, I’m willing to do all that I can for the man that’s bled for me.”
She went to the bed and placed the arm flush with Jackal’s stump. Stepping back, she made room for Xhreka.
The halfling approached with slow steps, removing her eye patch. “Whatever befalls is on your head, girl.”
The whisper returned, sibilant and lustful. As Xhreka reached the bed, the lids of the missing eye parted and the tongue emerged, searching the air. It stretched toward Jackal, and the halfling gave a noise of discomfort, seemed to resist as her head was drawn downward. The tongue began to drip, tears of slaver running down Xhreka’s face, falling upon Jackal. Across the bed, Beryl’s face curdled. Xhreka’s nose was nearly brushing the wound as the tongue licked along the ragged gap above Jackal’s elbow. The flesh sizzled as it joined, reknit. When the upper curve was complete, Xhreka lifted the arm off the bed so the lapping tongue could complete its work. A thin, encircling strip of darkened flesh was all that remained. The tongue withdrew and Xhreka lowered the mended limb, replaced her eye patch with deliberate dignity, and moved toward the door.
Oats reached a grateful hand toward her.
“Leave me be!” Xhreka snapped, and left the room.
Oats made to follow but was stopped by Beryl.
“Idris. Leave her.”
Breathing out hard, rubbing a hand down his face and beard, he did as told.
Fetch stared down at Jackal. She’d hoped for an immediate change, for the blessings she had long resented to take hold, but the dog bites remained angry, some leaking. Jackal still looked a cunt hair away from dying.
“You two get some rest,” Fetch said. “I have this.”
When they were gone, her eyes fell on a bucket filled with fresh water, a rag draped over its rim. She’d asked for it at one point, couldn’t recall when. Sighing, Fetch removed her clothes. She scrubbed with the rags, cleansing her flesh, but her thoughts became as murky as the water in the bucket. Latching the door, she lay down beside Jackal, put her hand on his chest to feel its rise and fall.
Sleep did not return.
A need to be free from the chamber drove her from the bed and back into her clothes.
Oats was on a stool in the corridor. Hoodwink stood leaning against the opposite wall.
“I need some fucking fresh air,” she told them.
Looking both directions, Fetch realized she did not remember from which way she had come when arriving. Seeing her hesitation, Oats stood up.
“I’ll show you.”
Fetch looked to Hood. “Stay with him for me?”
Hoodwink nodded.
Fetch followed Oats down the corridor, through the great hall, and out into the fortress yard. Members of the Thrice Freed walked the rampart, and that’s where Oats took Fetch. The shave-pate mongrels did not challenge them, merely glanced when they reached the walk and continued to patrol. It was nearly dawn on the mountaintop and Fetch was struck by the vastness of the sky. This high, with the sun’s light still preparing to invade the sky, the badlands were hardly visible. The stars were still entrenched upon a sloe field draining to blue.
Beneath, Thricehold was an ugly, inelegant necessity.
Fetch leaned on the edge of a merlon and inhaled deeply.
Oats aped her, bumped her elbow with his. “You need to swear to me, if Jackal…dies, you won’t blame yourself.”
“Why not? You will.”
“I won’t.” He nudged her again, hard enough to make her fight for balance. “I’ll blame you.”
“That’s what I meant, fool-ass.”
Oats nodded, sniffed as he took in the sky. “I know. But me blaming you won’t kill you, so you gotta swear.”
She looked at him, lied. “I swear.”
He gave a satisfied nod. “Good.”
Oats was wrong, confusing her nature for his own. Jackal’s death would bring guilt and pain that would never fade, but it wouldn’t kill her. The knowledge made Fetch a little sick and she would never admit it to Oats. Still, the bitter fucking fact was she would keep striving. She knew that in her bones, wondered if it made her heartless. More than that, she wondered if death was the only end to the struggle. She tried to imagine the Lots without the hardship, the bloodshed, found she couldn’t.
And that was the answer.
Oats was peering at her. “The hells is your mind whittling away at?”
Fetch blinked. Somehow, morning had come. “Shit.”
“What?” Oats stood away from the merlon. “What have you been thinking about?”
“Corigari.”
“Cori—? The fucking Sludge Man?”
Fetch nodded. “Kul’huun said Ruin was the last of the uq’huuls. That he killed the rest.”
“Thought you said this was about the Sludge Man!”
“It is. He was trading for elven women, believed he could use them in some sacrifice to heal the Old Maiden. He was killing orcs too, thought both were needed. When he found out about me, a mongrel with elf and orc blood, he came for me. Thought I was the answer.”
Oats leaned in, gave a flummoxed shrug.
“But he was nothing but a puppet, Oats! The sludge was driving him. The Filth. It was trying to make more uq’huuls. More Ruins! They must not have been able to communicate too well, or Corigari’s madness got in the way or…fuck, it must have taken them years to herd his wriggling mind in the right direction. Like a damn hog trying to get its rider to sit backward in the saddle and settling for sideways.”
“You can’t know th—”
Fetch shushed him. “The orcs committed many of their strongest to the Incursion and they were all killed in the marsh, becoming sludge, which found a vessel and began clumsily trying to replenish the ranks because the uq’huuls still in Dhar’gest were killed by U’ruul Targha Bhal. My fucking twin! The orc the Fangs questioned said there were none left but him.”
“Fetch, we can’t trust some or
c getting his guts torn out would speak earnest. Hells, it also said my mother was a witch that disappeared! To say fuck-all of Kul’huun and his bunch getting stiff cods when it comes to anything orcish. A thick could tell them all orcs fight with their nut baskets stuffed up their assholes and the Fangs would be shoving their hanging seed sacks between their cheeks the next day.”
“What about Crafty?”
“Well…yes, I’m sure he’d be willing to do that too. Still fair certain the chubby fuck was backy.”
Fetch clutched at the air in front of Oats’s face. “No! Crafty made a bargain with the orcs. Promised the plague would not be used against them. And they came, Oats! Do you truly think the thicks would make a pact with a fat, foreign, half-breed wizard if their own sorcerers were still leading them? The uq’huuls would have killed him before he could get his jowly mouth open.”
“Say you’re right. I still don’t see which horizon this crazed hog you’re riding is heading for.”
“This could be our one chance, Oats.”
“Chance for what?”
“To—”
A voice from the yard cut her off. “Chief.”
Hoodwink.
Fetch’s breath caught. She stepped to the edge of the wall and looked down at the pale mongrel. “Jackal?”
“Awake.”
Rushing into the room, Fetch found he was not only awake but sitting up, bare legs hanging over the bedside. Beryl was trying to keep him from rising and losing.
“At least allow me to put some breeches on,” he complained.
“You got nothing I haven’t seen before, and bigger,” Beryl said. “You need to lie back!”
“Fetch, would you call her off?”
She forced herself not to go to him, crossed her arms. “You can listen to her or we can have Oats put you back in bed.” Soon as the words left her mouth she got bumped by something big and heavy. Having no need for restraint, Oats barged right over to his friend and wrapped him in a crushing embrace.
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