The True Bastards Read online

  The girl took a breath to answer, but Fetch cut her off.

  “Uhad Ul-badir Taruk Ultani.”

  Ahlamra was unaffected. “You think me something I am not. That name is not known to me.”

  Fetch sneered. “I suspect he’s got more than one.”

  “I do not serve any.”

  “And I’ve a second cunt!” Fetch stepped away. “Mead. We’ll be escorting these strangers out of town. Now.”

  “Please. I can prove myself. I can be useful, given a chance—”

  The girl’s words trailed off at the sight of Fetch unslinging her stockbow.

  “No chance, Tyrkanian.” Fetch loaded a bolt. “Just a choice.”

  “Chief,” Mead cautioned.

  Refusing to heed, Fetch pointed her weapon. Ahlamra quailed, retreating a step from the thrumbolt now trained upon her chest.

  “Choice is this,” Fetch said. “Leave my walls and live. Or stay. And I put this bolt through your heart here and now. Your traveling companions can make their choice after they see I’m not bluffing.”

  Dacia took a step, placed herself between Ahlamra and the thrum.

  “I don’t think you’re bluffing,” she said. “But I am starting to think you’re fucking mad.”

  “Neither quality bodes well for you, does it?”

  “No. Means I’m likely to die today. Either from you or those cackling curs lurking outside. Also means I was wrong to come. Wrong to leave Hispartha, to wait in that fuckhouse until a rider came along to lead us here. And one did. Not some nomad, neither, but Fetching, the chief herself. The one we all came here to find, the three of us, from different roads. But she thought us whores and refused to listen and left us standing. We had a choice then too. To give up or press the fuck on! Well…” Dacia gave a bitter shrug. “Slivers wasn’t welcome at the brothel no more, so we offered him what coin Incus had left and were picking your dust out of our teeth before it could settle. He was to get us close and ride on, seeing as he believed you’d kill him, same as I believe you’ll kill us now. But then those dogs attacked and it was his turn to make a choice. He could have left us. Didn’t. If you could ask him now, reckon he’d say it was the wrong one. That’s the way I’m feeling about mine this very heartbeat, in all earnest. So pull that tickler, chief, if you think me a liar. Swore when I left for the Lot Lands it was to ride with the Bastards or die trying. Rather take a swift bolt than be torn apart by them monsters, given that’s the choice.”

  “Warming speech,” Fetch said. “But the Bastards have experience with a strange mongrel showing up unexpected. He was good with words too. And running his minions in here while making it appear they’re in danger is just the manner of scheme he’d use. Your story changes nothing.”

  “Then do what you must,” Ahlamra said. Slowly, with fluid grace, she stepped around Dacia’s shielding form and knelt. “I do not serve this man you named. If I did, I would not fear the djinn shaped as dibà. I do. So I shall die here, swiftly, cleanly, and under the command of none since you will not take me.”

  Dacia swallowed hard and knelt beside her.

  The thrice’s face was obscured by her hair, but she too, lowered herself to the dust.

  “Enough of this shit,” Fetch said. “Get the fuck on your feet.”

  None moved.

  “I said on your damn feet, slopheads! Being deaf, scarred, or a waif shouldn’t mean I must repeat myself! UP!”

  Dacia was the first to comprehend, and she bounced up with a smile growing on her busted lips. Incus followed to tower on her left. Last came Ahlamra, eyes downcast.

  Fetch swept an arm at Petro and Abril. “Get them installed in the slop barracks.”

  “Yes, chief.” Petro gestured for the women to follow.

  Abril placed himself in front of Incus, walking backward. “Fortunate you can’t hear. Most of the boys snore. I’m Abril. I’ll help you find a lower bunk. Or maybe an upper if it’s above Uidal. He snores loudest. That way, if you break the bunk and fall, you’ll crush him and we’ll all sleep better…after we get back to sleep from the crash…”

  Fetch caught Ahlamra’s arm as she passed, hauled her close and hissed. “I catch you fucking the boys for favors or easy treatment, you’re back out in the badlands, devil-dogs or no. Understand?”

  “I do.”

  “It’s ‘Yes, chief.’ ”

  “Yes, chief.”

  Fetch released her, choking on a rising cough to keep it quiet.

  Mead came up beside her. “Thought you were going to feather them there for a moment. Damn good ruse, chief.”

  “No ruse. Would have killed them, but…”

  “Your gut said otherwise.”

  Fetch nodded. “They’re either telling the truth or are damn good mummers. Perhaps I should ask Sluggard to evaluate their performance.”

  “You trust him already, then?”

  He tried to bury it, but she caught the chide in Mead’s voice. It forced her to consider.

  “Do I trust him with my life? No. That’s reserved for sworn brothers. But I don’t think he means us any harm. He didn’t show up unexpected with a stiff cod for joining the hoof. Reckon that will make me suspicious to my dying day.”

  Mead nodded slowly with agreement. The way his eyes twitched and mouth drew tight betrayed he was holding something back.

  “What?”

  “Well…” Mead ran a hand through his Tine plume. “He didn’t show up with a stiff cod for the hoof.”

  Fetch regretted goading him, and made him regret being goaded with the look she gave. “I’m getting the urge to put a thrumbolt in someone again.”

  Mead began to sidle off. “I’ll just go gather the boys.”

  “It’s like you’re fucking smart or something.”

  * * *

  —

  THE BASTARDS ASSEMBLED IN THE abandoned cooper’s shop, the place where they once voted to make Fetch chief. It had since become their new meeting hall. Mead sat at the cooper’s old workbench, Polecat and Shed Snake on either side of him. Dumb Door settled his big frame on a stack of boards behind them. Hoodwink stood in his usual place, leaning against the wall next to the unfinished coffins. No one spoke. Gone was the typical crassness and levity that customarily began a hoof meet, even in the hardest of times.

  Fetch usually stood, but she allowed the weight of the past night and day to sink her onto the edge of an old barrel, running a hand through her tightly braided locks and untying the leather thong that held them all together. She shook the dust out of her hair with aggravated fingers and glanced at Dumb Door.

  “How’s that sow?”

  Dumb Door picked up a stray nail from among his seat of lumber and held it up.

  Fetch found a grin. “Tough. Good work. Hope she pulls through. Anyone remember what Slivers called her?”

  There was a small silence before Hoodwink’s thin voice answered. “Little Orphan Girl.”

  Fetch saw Polecat’s eyes brighten and the corners of his mouth draw up.

  “Don’t,” she said, just as he drew breath to make the jest.

  Polecat’s teeth clacked shut.

  Mead blew out a long breath. “Well. Now we know why we are starving. These…hyenas have picked our lot clean. First they kill all the game, then stop our resupply.”

  “You don’t really believe that,” Shed Snake said. “No pack of animals is that cunning.”

  Snake was trying to convince himself, trying to find any other explanation. But he had seen what they all saw, beasts that left no dead. Beasts that dogged seasoned mongrel riders into inescapable terrain to be slaughtered in a place patrols rarely penetrated.

  “Crafty is.”

  Every eye fixed on Fetching. Her face must have been carved in certainty, for none challenged her statement. And she was certain. She could
smell that tubby, turbaned wizard in this new devilry.

  “Then,” Mead began slowly, “that means Jackal hasn’t found him.”

  “Or did find him,” Hoodwink said.

  “So…” Polecat ventured, “if Crafty is back in the Lots, does that mean Jackal is—”

  “I don’t know.” Fetch cut him off, trying not to snap, and failing. “I just know that for the first months we were getting through. Then the vines withered, the groves were consumed by pests, and now that we are weak from hunger these mocking demons show themselves, and all of it reeks of that fat, swaddleheaded Tyrkanian FUCK!”

  Jumping up, Fetching stomped a kick into the barrel behind, staving it in.

  Silence followed. Eventually, Mead cleared his throat.

  “We need to inform the Tusked Tide.”

  Fetch had already considered that. “I’ll send a bird.”

  “We certain it will arrive? If Crafty is trying to cut us off, he won’t allow—”

  “I know. But I can’t risk one of you to make the ride. Those creatures are clearly stalking the route between here and the Wallow. If they intend to cut us off, no rider from either hoof is making that journey unmolested. Six mongrels weren’t safe, let alone one. We can’t go. Right now I’m more concerned with feeding our folk. How long can we hold out with what food we have?”

  Mead sighed. “At current ration? A fortnight. But barely. After that we’re eating our hogs’ rations. And then, we’re eating…”

  The Bastards let silence reign, chewing on that bitter root.

  Slaughtering a barbarian for meat was nearly unthinkable. A hoof that resorted to that may as well starve. But such ideals would be meaningless to the villagers once their children started dying.

  “There’s something hitched to that same yoke. We got five new mouths to feed. Two nomads and three female hopefuls. We will see what they’re worth beginning tomorrow. But so long as those women are slopheads, they are to be treated like slopheads. That means you can’t bed them.”

  Polecat grinned and elbowed Mead. “Hells, I’ve been known to shag a slop ass a time or two. Sometimes they even like it.”

  Fetch sighed. “I hope you’re jesting, Cat. Trouble is, I can’t tell.”

  Polecat winked across the table at Shed Snake. “You can ask our newest blood.”

  There came the sound of splintering wood. “Do anything to those women, Polecat, and I’ll make you one! You better hope your cock is as big as you claim because it will be the only thing you’ll eat for a fucking month!”

  Fetch found the end of one table board broken beneath the knuckles of her right hand. Her lungs felt solid and she could not fight the fit of coughing. When she recovered, the hoof was still, all eyes staring. Most were wide, but Hood was frowning.

  “Fucking sawdust,” Fetch said, clearing her clogged throat. Blinking the water from her eyes, she sat back down and regarded her brothers. “The free-riders need your attention more than the new slops. Focus on them.”

  There were mumbled assents and reserved nods.

  “We need to kill the dogs,” Hood hissed, drawing the focus away from Fetch’s rasping.

  Dumb Door rapped a knuckle on the lumber to gain attention. He shook his head, made a slicing motion across his throat with a finger, shook his head again, and placed a hand over his eyes.

  “You’re right,” Fetching said. “We can’t kill what we can’t find.”

  Shed Snake clicked his tongue with annoyance. “So…what? We’re stuck waiting on them to strike again?”

  “What says they will?” Polecat asked. “If the wizard is trying to starve us out, he doesn’t need to do anything more. Just wait.”

  “Then why attack Slivers and those women?” Shed Snake countered.

  “Maybe he wanted us to see his hand in this,” Mead said. “Spook us. Fear eats away at a foe same as hunger. Crafty would know that.”

  “And the dogs will not be his only trick,” Hoodwink said.

  Fetch heard the implication in his spare voice. Was Crafty to blame for her sickness? It was likely.

  Crafty had said her elf blood would protect her from the Sludge Man’s touch. The wizard had been right, and the Sludge Man was now dead, one of the few beings Crafty seemed to fear. But had the wizard gained more than one dead rival? Had he also manipulated the poisoning of another? The same blood that aided in the defeat of the Sludge Man also thwarted Crafty’s own magic. She could still recall the shocked look on his puffy face when his flung powder failed to stop her on the Kiln’s gantry.

  Fetching stood, revelation making the movement swift and abrupt. She walked a tight circle, popping a few knuckles before facing her hoof once more.

  “He fears me,” she declared. “Us! He can no longer come at us with guile, so he’s become a besieger, strangling our ability to survive. His laughing dogs killed six Tuskers. What was to prevent them from doing the same to the six of us today?”

  Polecat rubbed at his jaw. “Hoodwink? Certainly wasn’t Shed Snake. Unless them dogs are scared of nasty burn scars.”

  That earned a few smiles.

  Mead remained pensive. “If your elf blood is holding him back from a direct assault, perhaps we should turn to Dog Fall. The Tines might know the best way to fight him.”

  “The only folk that go into Dog Fall without an invitation are those the Tines have taken prisoner. And they are never seen again.” Fetch shook her head. “No. If we were welcome in those mountains, Warbler would have sent word. Besides, you’ve heard my elvish.”

  Mead’s raised eyebrows conceded the point. “You’d start a war.”

  Fetch gave him a withering look.

  “We don’t know Crafty’s limits, but he has them, and we need to stop allowing him to decide ours. If he wanted us dead, he could have set his dogs upon our patrol riders, picked us off one at a time. No, he wants us weak, not to be rid of us.”

  The thought made Polecat anxious. “Weak for what?”

  Fetch’s silence was an admission. She didn’t damn know.

  EIGHT

  THE HOOF HUNTED THE DOGS by day. When that proved fruitless they began hunting at night. They rode eleven strong, every sworn brother plus the two nomads and three senior slops, every saddle bristling with full quivers and javelin braces. It sent a surge through Fetching, having that many riders in formation behind her. Yet every excursion saw them return to Winsome with nothing. If not for her brothers’ rage at their elusiveness, Fetch would have thought the pack to be another addled vision caused by the Bone Smiler’s medicine.

  They searched with dogged determination for nearly a week, the rationing tightened with every day their quarry remained hidden.

  Despite the furious patrols, life within the walls remained a succession of tedious chores. Fetch had to survey the small gardens and orchards the villagers maintained, and listen to the predictions of their increasingly nervous tenders.

  “My broad bean patches do well, but I fear a fungus before harvest.”

  “This last medlar tree barely yields enough for my children.”

  “Someone’s been pilfering my quinces. You need to put a stop to it!”

  All were met with empty promises and hollow encouragement.

  She could not summon even that meager generosity when training the slops.

  “Worthless! Do I need to light these butts afire for you to be able to hit them?”

  The Bastards had returned from their fifth night hunt and Fetching, refusing to rest, ordered the hopefuls roused before the sun for stockbow drills. The straw targets set up beneath the western curve of the wall were winning the engagement.

  “If those were charging thicks, you’d all be butchered by now!” She swatted one slop on the back of the head. “I expect better from you, Graviel. Touro, have you been struck blind?”

  “N
o, chief.”

  “Sorry, chief.”

  She’d commanded the three women to join the drill. Traditionally, it was far too soon to give a fresh slop a stockbow, but every one of the trio was older than the other hopefuls and Fetch needed to see their skill. Needed to see if they were worth feeding.

  She was not pleased.

  “That was three flights, Dacia. You strike true even once?”

  “Yes, chief. Once,” the mongrel answered, never taking her eyes off the butt.

  “Where?”

  “Center. Near the ground.”

  “Unless he was dangling a cock the size of an elephant trunk, that bolt would have passed between his legs. That’s a miss. Didn’t even slow him. You were the first to die.”

  Incus had struck center with two bolts, but the third was not to be found.

  “Those all you loosed?”

  The deaf thrice-blood nodded. She had tied her dense hair away from her broad face to reveal jutting cheekbones and a single fang protruding from her wide lower lip.

  “You’re a steady shot,” Fetch commended, “but take too damn long to aim. Anyone can strike center if they have all the time it takes. Get faster.”

  “I will.”

  Fetching hissed with displeasure when she reached Ahlamra. The barely mongrel girl had not loosed a single bolt and was still struggling to pull back the string on her weapon.

  “Enough,” Fetch said, snatching the stockbow from her shaking grip. “You ain’t got the strength. Hells, doubtful you could do it with a crank to help you like the damn frails. Dacia may be dead, but you? You’re alive right now. Sprawled in the dirt, an entire ulyud having its way with you. That’s six orcs with their blood and cocks up. Best hope they get overzealous and kill you quick. Otherwise, you’re bringing a get into the world with more thick blood than you got.”

  Ahlamra weathered that prognostication with her customary dipped chin.

  Fetch dismissed the waif with a tilt of her head. “Go find Dumb Door at the stables. Tell him you’re to shovel hogshit until you’re strong enough to yank a thrumcord.” The lithe mongrel hurried away, the admonishment removing none of the grace from her steps. “The rest of you, another volley! Whoever misses is going to be deepening the gong pit. I’m wagering Dacia will be up to her elbows in my nightsoil before the dew has dried. Wonder who else is going to join her? Load! Aim…LOOSE!”