Polecat’s hatchet face leaned around the doorjamb. “Hhhmm. Oats is hugging Jackal. Annnnnd Jackal’s naked. I’ll tell the boys everything’s normal, chief.”
He slid from view.
“Had me hells damn worried, brother,” Oats proclaimed, releasing his hold to stand with a sheepish expression.
“Me too,” Fetch said, drawing Jackal’s eye.
“Well, if you won’t lie down, you will at least eat,” Beryl said, going for the door. She paused and looked back with a dubious set to her mouth.
“What?” Oats asked.
Beryl peered at all of them. “Just…always makes me a little nervous to leave the three of you alone in a room together.”
The door closed behind her.
Jackal hadn’t removed his gaze from Fetch. “Did I dream you cutting my arm off?”
She could only shake her head.
“Well, you said you wanted to hurt me.” His grin showed there was no ill feeling. “Just tell me that giant orc is dead.”
Oats’s cheeks blew out huge. “Alive. And Fetch’s twin brother.”
“The fuck?” Jackal was astounded.
“Sure as shit,” Oats said. “That huge son of a thick? Her honest, blood-kin, same-orc-was-their-papa brother.”
“You hadn’t already told him?” Fetch asked.
Oats pointed a big, blaming finger. “He wouldn’t let me!”
Jackal’s slack jaw was aimed at Fetch. “It’s true?”
“It’s true,” she replied, and added, “and Starling is our mother.”
That got Jackal laughing, but after a moment of seeing her face, he stopped dead silent.
Raising her eyebrows, she slowly nodded. “Returned. From the dead. Into the body of another elf girl.” She let it sink in. “You got any tales from afar that can beat that?”
“No…” Jackal stated, mouth still open.
Oats had a huge smile splitting his face, his eyes directed at Jackal’s arm.
Jackal leaned away from the scrutiny. “What?”
“I was just thinking,” Oats said, scratching at his beard. “Remember those lizards we used to catch when we were little? The ones that could shed their tail and it would grow back smaller and a different color?”
“Yes,” Jackal droned.
“Well…I was wondering. If you lost a part—not the Arm of I Took a Cock—but another part…would that part grow back smaller and a different color?”
Oats burst out laughing at his own jest and nudged Jackal so hard he nearly toppled off the bed, which set him to laughing.
“Fool-asses,” Fetch said, but by then their mirth had spread and she was joining them.
Oats caught his breath. “I’ll go find you some breeches, Jack, and bring the food with me when I come back. I…might get lost. Still don’t know my way around…”
“That would have been better if he’d resisted the wink,” Jackal said when the thrice was gone.
Fetch slid the latch. She walked back to the bedside and his arms came up to receive her. Exhaling, she relaxed into him, buried her face against the side of his neck. They remained that way for a long time.
“Thank you,” he said, at last.
She straightened, faced him. “Don’t thank me. I don’t know where my mistakes end and my good deeds begin. But that’s being chief, I’ve learned.” Fetch was getting her first good look at him, free from grime and the fear he would die. She traced the tattoos of Tyrkanian script and other strange sigils upon his chest. “These are new.”
“An Uljuk mystic did them. Said they would help protect me from afrite.”
“Afrite?”
“Devils made of fire and dust.”
Fetch’s finger followed the scrawl of ink down to his stomach. “Did they work?”
“Well, the afrite the Black Womb sent to kill me didn’t succeed, so…” He gave a boyish shrug. “Reckon I might have some stories to rival yours, after all.”
Fetch shook her head. “Don’t even aim for that shot. I’ll still best you.”
“You haven’t heard the story—”
She placed a finger on his lips. “Centaurs saved my life.”
“Hogshit!”
“Not. Fed me, tracked my hog down, let me go.”
Jackal performed a hard blink. “Helpful horse-cocks. Why did they do that?”
It was Fetch’s turn to shrug. “You can ask them at Strava when Zirko summons you next Betrayer Moon.” She shook her head, angry at herself. “Shit. Sorry. Thought I’d milked all the venom, but looks like the snake is still quick to strike.”
“Fetch…I don’t think I’ll be at Strava.” Jackal raised his left arm, continued to hold her with his right. “It’s difficult to explain, but Zirko…he was always there, in the back of my mind. Not his voice, but…his awareness. That’s gone. I don’t feel it anymore. Reckon your cut severed more than my arm.”
“And Attukhan’s gifts?” Fetch asked, leaning back a bit to take in his injuries. The bites were much improved.
“They are returning,” he said. “Slowly.”
“Then Zirko’s hold may return too.”
“It may,” he conceded, dropping the arm.
“Even if it doesn’t…Xhreka warned us, Jack. Belico would not give aid for nothing. You may be bound to far more than Zirko now. And for that, I don’t think you’ll be thanking me.”
“What was it you said about mistakes and good deeds? For now, how about we just be glad I’m alive.”
Fetch grinned. “That all?”
Jackal started as her hand brushed along the inside of his thigh, just enough to bring his mouth to hers.
“We don’t have long,” she whispered when his lips moved to the spot just behind her ear and the familiar tingles put a smile on her face.
Jackal only hummed in agreement and continued his blissful gnaws down her neck.
She put encouraging hands in his hair.
Suddenly the door was hammered by obnoxious banging, the kind Oats had mastered when he wanted to startle them.
“Mop up, I’m coming in!”
“Just in time!” Jackal yelled back, vexed.
Fetch smacked his face affectionately and opened the door to admit Oats. He bore a tray in his hands and garments over his shoulder. Seeing Jackal, he closed and averted his eyes.
“Hells overburdened! How can you have a stiff cod? You were just eaten by dogs and fucking dismembered!”
Laughing, Fetch took the tray from him, freeing Oats to throw the clothes at Jackal.
“Cover your pride, you rutting mongrel!”
The tray was burdened with an entire roast fowl, two wheels of cheese, bread baked with raisins and cherries, a string of sausages, a basket of walnuts and figs. There was even a milk pudding. And there was wine. The first pouring solicited groans and entranced stares from Fetching and Jackal.
Oats filled his own cup. “Say one thing for the Stains, they kept a good larder. Marrow says their stores are filled to the crucks.”
Any more words were forced to wait. You learned to eat quickly when you ate with Oats. The three of them sacked the tray, drained the wine jug. Halfway through the meal, however, Fetch was no longer tasting anything. She couldn’t be seduced by this, by feasts and fucking and strong walls. She couldn’t let the Bastards be seduced by this. This was what they conceived when their thoughts turned to notions of a hoof. This was what they knew from better days. Dog Fall had been a haven, but alien, untamed. Comfort there remained skittish as a hand-fed fox. But in this fortress of stone, bolstered by wooden furnishings and glutted with cherished, half-forgotten foods, the brethren’s ease would swiftly return, along with old, futile habits.
Fetch looked at the fig in her hand, tossed it back to the platter.
Oats frowned. “Would y
ou stop with the black, unblinking stares? Starting to look like Hood.”
“I woke up to that,” Jackal said, throwing back the last of his wine. “Please don’t make me relive it.”
Fetch would not let his smile reach her.
Oats leaned in. “Fetch. What the hells has got you bothered? You did it. Our folk, the foundlings, they’re here. Safe. The boys are here. Jackal’s back. We’re together. Whole. None are trying to kill us. All that tried were beaten. Tomorrow may be different, but today’s struggle? Chief, it’s over.”
Fetching stood. “No. It’s not. We’re not whole. Not yet. There’s one more of our own still out there. One more enemy that still needs to be put down.”
“Fetch,” Jackal said. “Warbler is where he—”
“Not Warbler. Oats, gather the hoof. I need to call a vote.”
* * *
—
THEY LEFT BEFORE NIGHTFALL. Ears filled with the thunder of hooves, teeth with flung grit, the True Bastards charged the rising sun. Their hogs, unhindered, dared the badlands to impede them. Scrub and boulder, ridge and rift, nothing slowed their eager, powerful forms. With no wagon to pull, no people to guard, the barbarians were free to run, their riders basking in near-forgotten speed.
Fetch gave herself to the rhythm of the gallop, the wind in her face a deliverance from doubt. No longer were they fleeing. They were chasing a reckoning.
FORTY-TWO
THE CASTILE BROODED BENEATH the threat of rain.
Unlike Thricehold, where the mountain provided the greater defense, the last Hisparthan citadel in the Lots dominated the hill upon which it rested. The weight of its fortifications seemed to subdue the rocky rise; a man in full armor standing upon the back of a dusty, steadfast peasant.
Fetch watched the walls as her hoof moved across the expanse of badland toward the great stronghold. She could not see the guns, but knew they need not be visible to kill every one of the mongrels behind her. She’d ordered they approach in a single column, the hogs at a walk. Their formation, their pace, their slung stockbows, all were an obvious display. The hoof was well within the reach of the guns now. Fetch had cautioned her brethren against their fury. Every rider knew to scatter if the walls belched smoke and thunder. Incus was put at the rear with only Oats behind her, so she could see if the column broke. Fetch had drilled the maneuver along the way and after three days she was confident every rider could perform it without difficulty. She was less confident it would save them should the order be given to discharge the guns.
So, she watched the walls.
And exhaled when they reached the start of the trail leading to the gatehouse. The hoof maintained their column along the switchbacks. A quarter of the way up, the dark shapes hanging from the battlements became discernible as corpses. As the first to make the turns in the trail, Fetch could see the looks of all her riders as they caught sight of the dangling ornaments. They faced it with grim determination. Three turns more proved what Fetch suspected. The bodies were half-orcs. The heat and birds had been to work, but there was enough grey tattooed flesh remaining on the freshest corpses.
The gatehouse greeted them at the top, a castle of its own. The gates were closed, the portcullis lowered, and the helms of archers could be seen through the embrasures along the battlements above the high arch. Fetch pulled Womb Broom to a halt and half turned the hog, so the hoof could see a patient face. They were strung out down the sloping trail, which cut left a dozen strides from the gate.
“Ho, ho! If we’ve not been blessed with a visit. The chief-quim and her pack of ash-coloreds.”
The hoof looked to the bartizan overhanging the left corner of the gatehouse. There, leaning out from the crenellations of the open-topped turret, was Cavalero Maneto. The bartizan was lower than the battlements, allowing them to see the man’s smile within the dark mass of his beard, the black space of his missing tooth a gloating hole. Fetch had warned her brethren to keep their tempers, no matter what was said. None bristled, though she could feel the tension born from their restraint. They all waited for Bermudo’s new hound to finish his yapping.
“Seems you’ve forgot you’re a wanted mongrel, pretty cunny.”
“Haven’t forgotten,” Fetch said, pitching her voice. “I just don’t care a fuck. Besides, I ain’t the most wanted one down here.” She hooked a thumb behind her at Jackal. “Reckon this one’s bounty is twice mine.”
“At least,” Jack said.
Maneto shifted to look at him. “Looks same as any other half-breed to me.”
“Likely you’re more familiar with my name. Fair wager Bermudo screams it out when he’s milking his cod.”
“You’re Jackal, then.”
“I am.”
Dismissing that with a throaty, labored sniff, Maneto returned his attention to Fetch. “Looking to trade this one for your own clemency?”
Fetch didn’t respond. The question had been a mocking one. Maneto spit, the gob falling on the snout of Culprit’s hog a little farther down the trail.
“So what could it be, I wonder? Ah! Can’t run the thicks off yer lot. Here to beg for Hispartha’s gallant men of arms to see to it!”
This one had been for the benefit of the guards above the gatehouse, drawing rough laughter.
“The gallant men of Hispartha won’t need to journey to our lot for a fight,” Fetch replied. “We’ve just brought you one.”
Maneto added his guffaw to the mirth of the men. “Come to lay siege, mongrel queen? ’Tis but seven I count sniffing the divine cleft of your arse. That won’t do.”
“Let us in. See if you’re right.”
“And admit a whole sty of shit-reeking pigs inside the gates? To say nothing of the hogs they’re riding!” More laughter. “Nay, missy. I think you’re where you need to be down there. Pity about these clouds. I do enjoy watching soot-skins sweat. But!” Maneto loosed an overwrought sigh and hung his shaggy head. “It would be a shame for the captain not to know his prize half-breed was at the gates, begging to be let in after so much time beating the scrub for him. Best we remedy that, eh?”
Fetch took a steadying breath as the cur of a cavalero ducked back out of sight. Womb Broom stamped beneath her, growing restless. Getting the hog in hand, Fetch twisted in the saddle.
“Steady now,” she told the hoof.
“Chief!”
Shed Snake’s warning gesture caused her to look up. She flinched as a large shape fell from the battlements above the gate. The snap of a chain made several of the hogs squeal, and Fetch was showered by something sticky and evil-smelling. She guided Womb back a few steps. A body swung directly above, the foot of its single leg just brushing the top of the gate’s arch. Unlike the others, it wasn’t stripped. And it wasn’t a half-orc.
Bermudo.
Only the missing limb and the captain’s cloak spoke to who the man had been in life. The corpse was bloated, slimy, and dripping with the juices of rot.
Maneto hopped atop the wall and sat down in the embrasure above the horrid remains. His feet kicked a little in the air.
“I know, your lordship,” the cavalero said with a ponderous shake of the head. “I know you did not fancy being dragged up here. But look! The half-orc hussy brought you your greatest desire. No, not a new leg! The skulking mongrel what humiliated you time and again.” Maneto feigned listening to the corpse, head bobbing. “You’re right, sir, you’re right. It was, yes, it was perfidious of me to neglect to tell the hoofmistress that you were hosting a dinner for the crows. I agree, I do, I most certainly should be, yes, yes, indeed, excoriated—fine word, lord—for such a lapse. The shame will follow me to the grave, lordship, that I have so dishonored myself while in yer service.”
Fetch’s mouth was sour.
“Fucking mad dog,” Culprit growled from behind her. She hissed him quiet.
“Dog? Dog?” Ma
neto sounded earnestly injured, acting as if Fetch had been the one to speak. “Loyal and mindful, you mean. That is my nature, I suppose. Always willing to do as I’m commanded after the proper, harsh, repeated training. In that, yes, yes, ladyship! I am a dog. But do not mistake, like any good dog, I do yearn to play. Always eager to fuck. Always eager to…fetch. In that, I warrant, we are beasts of the same hide.”
The angle was steep, but there was noticeable movement along the battlements where Maneto sat. Fetch could see little of the second tier set farther back above him save the merlons, but knew with cold certainty men were gathering up there as well. The inward-facing curves of the towers were replete with arrow slits, thin eyes hiding death within their blackness.
Maneto stood and balanced atop a merlon. Nimble for a big man with bandy legs, he began stepping over the embrasures, using the merlons to pace the battlements.
“Loyal. That’s what I am. Takes a loyal man to hold a fortress when his captain dies. Takes a loyal man to send missives back home informing of his passing. The letter of deep regret I sent to Hispartha telling how the good captain at last succumbed to his injuries would have made your eyes wet with emotion. Perhaps yer quim too, if poetry stirs yer mongrel passions, eh? ’Course—with a mind to sparing the delicate feelings of the dainties at court—I didn’t relate how noble Bermudo’s injuries worsened when I kicked him for half a night as he crawled on his belly through the castle.” Maneto paused, balanced on one leg, arms stuck out childishly. “Not certain where he thought he was going…his horse, maybe?”
Putting his foot down, Maneto sniffed again. He scratched idly at his crotch and slid the chain-mace from his belt. Working his wrist, he spun the weapon in lazy circles at his hip.
“This is the part where you cozen me. Express joy that a better man has command. A common man! No more blue bloods, just villains and mongrels. That’s the throbbing cock of the Lots anyways, hey?!” Maneto mimicked milking his cod. “Thicks will choke on such grit! The captain’s mouth was full of commands, so I invited the maggots to take their place. Losing a shank to the thicks didn’t teach him. Still of a mind to fight, that one. Only he wasn’t going to be riding glorious at the van, was he?” The mace quit spinning. “Sending us sure and certain, though. Cavaleros, aye, but those of low birth with too many debts o’ blood and coin to run back north. Reckon if we have to die in these fucking lands, best do it behind solid walls. The Crown’s content to allow us too. So long as my pretty missives deliver horseshit tales of our valiant efforts in its defense.”
The True Bastards Page 57