“Damn right,” came Hoodwink’s soft voice from the far end. Jackal did not risk a glance at the others, but the table was silent.
“No, we can’t,” the Claymaster agreed, his voice thick with anger. “But as leader of this hoof, I also cannot allow my riders to make choices that might bring blood we are not ready to shed or spill. Now. Which one of you killed the cavalero?”
“Who do you think?” Jackal replied. “I did.”
Next to him, he felt Fetch’s entire body go taut. She was angry, just as Jackal knew she would be, but she was no fool and did not question or contradict his lie in front of the hoof.
The Claymaster’s head slumped slightly. “Looks like you’re going to be nursemaiding the slopheads for a while, Jack.”
Jackal seethed. He stared at the Claymaster, his jaw so tight it began to throb. They had done the right thing, protected the reputation of the hoof. And now he was to be punished for it? Jackal felt his hand drifting across the table to the axe in front of him. He would cast against the chief’s decision. Surely the rest would back him.
Just then the doors of the chamber were thrust aside. A slack-jawed hopeful stood in the jamb, his wide eyes darting uncertainly around the room.
“Hells, say their name and one fucking appears,” the Claymaster groaned. “What do you want?”
The slophead jumped at the chief’s tone.
“R-riders returned, Claymaster,” the slop stammered. “Scouts from…from Batayat Hill.”
“Out with it!” the Claymaster said. “What do they report?”
The slophead’s mouth went up and down ineffectually a few times before he finally got the word out.
“Thicks.”
Chapter 3
Jackal sat astride Hearth, waiting with the rest of the hoof as the Hogback unfolded. The narrow passage through the foundation wall was perfect for defense, but not ideal for fast egress. The Claymaster had found a way around that back in the early days and paid some Hisparthan siege engineers to construct his solution.
A hinged wooden ramp lolled down from the palisade into the compound’s yard. Three powerful barbarians were harnessed to a great vertical axle, which turned a chaos of gears that Jackal had never been able to comprehend. Once the hogs were urged to walk, the Hogback split, a second ramp rising up from the first, yawning into the sky until it overtopped the palisade and touched down on the ground beyond, all in a matter of minutes. More than enough time for the Grey Bastards to marshal in full arms.
“I hate these damn night raids,” Roundth complained as he buckled a brace of heavy javelins to his saddle.
“Me too,” Fetching said as she secured a second quiver of thrumbolts to her harness. “No chance to see exactly how few brains you’ve got when a thick knocks you from the saddle and your skull gets dashed against a rock.”
Roundth snorted. “I won’t expect any tears from you, Fetch, you cold lizard.”
Jackal ignored the banter. His own gear was already affixed across Hearth’s shoulders.
Oats bumped him on the shoulder. “Stop brooding.”
“I’m fine,” Jackal replied.
“You’re not. Your head is still back at that table, pissed off at the chief. Let that go for now, Jackal. We got a fight coming.”
“Slop duty.” Jackal gnashed his teeth. “We did the Bastards proud today and slop duty is the reward.”
Fetching’s head snapped around, fury in her face. “We?”
Before she could say another word, Jackal jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t you go saying something stupid to the Claymaster on my account! I don’t need more shit work because you don’t know when it’s best to keep silent.”
Fetching’s neck went tight as further ire boiled up in her face, but her eyes darted to Roundth and Mead, who were close by and watching the little dustup with interest. Swallowing hard, Fetch jerked her mount to face away from Jackal.
All nine sworn members of the Grey Bastards were assembled, even Grocer, his sinewy old root of a body looking odd in full kit. The pair of slop scouts who had spotted the orcs were conversing with Hobnail, likely trying, and failing, to convince him to let them ride with the hoof. Slopheads made good eyes, and the older ones helped patrol the Lot, but until they were blooded into the brotherhood, they did not ride into battle. Jackal had half expected the Claymaster to order him to stay behind as well, but his punishment would have to wait. With orcs on the raid, they could not afford one fewer rider.
As the Hogback reached its vertical apex, the Claymaster rode into the yard. His twisted back no longer allowed him to sit in a saddle, but he drove a chariot with skill, pulled by a single giant of a hog named Big Pox. Stopping between the ramp and the hoof, the Claymaster faced his riders, his misshapen bulk imposing in the fresh night.
“We got orcs in our lot!” he rumbled. “If I gotta say a damn word about how we handle that, you mongrels aren’t my hoof. We make for Batayat Hill. Ride out!”
The Grey Bastards put heel to hog and thundered past their chief. They hit the ramp at speed, crested it, and went charging down the opposite slope. Jackal had both hands in Hearth’s mane, keeping his arms loose as the hog surged onto flat ground. Ahead, Hobnail took point, his barbarian kicking up a wake of dust. Jackal and the rest of the hoof spread out into an arrowhead formation, four to a side. Oats, the last rider in the left spur was behind Jackal. It was always comforting having the brute at his back. Looking to his right, Jackal saw Fetching directly opposite him in the other spur, between Polecat and Hoodwink. She kept her eyes fixed ahead. The Claymaster rode rearguard in his chariot, between the ends of the spurs.
Jackal settled into the ride, feeling his stockbow jostle against his back. Ahead of him, Grocer’s ropey mass of hair flew in the wind. Behind, the Hogback would already have been raised and the slopheads would have manned the palisade, nearly three dozen young half-orcs with spears and shields. The fires would be quickly stoked, the flues from the great oven opened to flood the wall passage with deadly heat, securing the Kiln until the hoof returned, burning wood they could ill afford to lose. Grocer was probably sick with the thought. Jackal would no doubt be hearing him gripe about the waste for the next fortnight while he was penned up within the compound, molding the slops into future riders. But for now, he was out on the plain, borne along by pounding hooves, hunting the enemy.
An old saying still existed from the days of the Incursion: “The orcs have the power to conquer the world, but to do it, they will have to walk.”
Jackal reckoned it was true, on both accounts. The thicks had no affinity with animals. Every living beast responded to them like the predators they were, and so, the orcs knew nothing of husbandry, or taming, or domestication. It was their sole disadvantage. Cunning, vicious, dreadfully strong and unnaturally tough, orcs were terrible foes. They were three times as strong as a man and twice as fast. The Hisparthans learned early in their battles with the thicks that infantry was useless. Only mounted warriors had a chance of victory against an orc force of equal numbers.
The nobility of Hispartha had brought half-orcs and hogs together as servants for the war, but it was the thicks who inadvertently formed the first hoof.
During one of countless inconsequential battles, the orcs broke the Hisparthan cavalry and the frails routed, abandoning their baggage train to be slaughtered. The half-orc slaves took up what arms they could and threw the yokes off the barbarians. The hogs became their mounts and they charged the orc horde. The barbarians endured wounds that would have felled a horse and delivered their share of injury with their sweeping tusks. Even ill equipped and untrained, the half-orc slaves were stronger than any human and every bit as ferocious as the thicks. Their natural prowess gave the Hisparthans time to rally and the orc lines were shattered.
The Claymaster had been at that battle, as had every original member of the Grey Bastards, most now
dead. They proved their worth as more than slaves that day. They could do more for the war than serve as drovers and potters and gravediggers. Even the pompous human nobles could not fail to see the power of the mounted half-orc, and soon all mongrel slaves were given a chance to fight for the Crown.
The end of the Orc Incursion saw the eventual freedom of all half-orcs in Ul-wundulas, but more important to Jackal’s way of thinking, it saw the establishment of the Lot Lands. After years of bitter fighting and the toll taken by the plague that effectively ended the war, the southern half of the country had been left all but abandoned. Hispartha had neither the stomach nor the numbers to resettle Ul-wundulas, so they allowed their allies to draw lots and gifted great parcels of land to those willing to defend them against further aggression from the orcs.
Bringing swift, brutal resistance to thick raids was the purpose of the Grey Bastards. And the Fangs of Our Fathers, the Cauldron Brotherhood, the Orc Stains, the Sons of Perdition, and all the rest. It was Jackal’s purpose, blood to balls.
Batayat Hill stood near the southeastern border of the Bastards’ lot, nearly twenty miles from the Kiln. After a full day’s travel from the brothel with little rest, Hearth was far from fresh, but the hog punished the ground, keeping pace with the group without any signs of flagging. Jackal rubbed him proudly on the shoulder.
The hoof reached Batayat.
The hill was a sullen formation of exposed rock. Much of the soil around it had eroded, but stubborn shrubbery somehow thrived within the cracks of the rocks. Like all of his fellow riders, Jackal’s vision was sharp at night, a gift from whatever thick had raped his human mother. As the hill came into view, he spied no movement upon the rocks and no band of orcs on the plain below. Thicks raided in small bands called ulyud, the orc word for hand, and each was led by a t’huruuk, the arm. The scouts had reported two full ulyud in the area, meaning twelve orcs.
From the point of the arrowhead, Hobnail slowed the formation, swinging south to circle around Batayat. The hill covered a broad expanse and Jackal did not like their reduced pace with the dark rocks so close at their left. The average orc was nearly seven feet of bulging thews, allowing them to move at daunting speed. From a dead stop they were swifter than any mount, able to sprint forward and close in before a horse or hog could gain enough distance to outpace them. The key to survival was to keep moving.
Jackal reached down behind his hip, gripped the bridle of his stockbow, and slung it around. As Hearth continued to trot, Jackal held his seat with his legs and yanked back on the bowstring until it settled into the pawl. Another advantage of orc blood: a human would have needed a windlass to pull back on the metal prods of such a heavy stockbow. Reaching into the quiver at his belt, Jackal drew a bolt and loaded the thrum. He returned his left hand to Hearth’s mane while his right held the weapon at the ready. All around him the other Bastards did the same.
Rounding the southern edge of the hill, the hoof struck east and swept the rocks for a sign.
Nothing.
Jackal bit back a curse. If the thicks had seen them coming and sheltered atop Batayat, the Bastards would be facing a battle they could not win. The hogs would be of little use amongst the rocks, and fighting orcs on foot without superior numbers was a sure way to see every member of the hoof feeding the flies by morning.
As the formation came around the eastern slopes and turned north, Jackal grinned.
“There you are,” he whispered.
The hoof had just crested a rise at Batayat’s feet, giving them a good vantage of the orcs, not a half mile distant. The two ulyud were running across the rough plain below the hill, headed north, their backs turned to the Bastards, unaware of their presence. Had they known they were being pursued, they would have turned and charged or taken up a position in the rocks. Thicks did not flee.
Hobnail kicked his hog forward. The hoof followed.
Hearth plunged down the slope and Jackal clung to his bristles with one hand. His eyes darted from the orcs to Hobnail, waiting to see what he chose to do. In a fight, the hoof followed the point rider.
Jackal’s mind ran faster than his hog.
There was no hope of felling twelve orcs in one charge. The ulyud ran beside one another, but there was a gap between them big enough for the hoof to pass through if they tightened the arrowhead. This would allow them to let loose on both bands, each spur sending their thrumbolts into the closest group. But the leftmost ulyud could make a dash for the rocks before the hoof could wheel for another pass. Hobnail saw the risk and aimed the formation directly at them. Jackal approved. Hob was going to lead them in a tusker, a ride-through intended to shatter the six orcs in one brutal charge. It was a bold move, and the right decision, but if the charge stalled it would expose the right spur of the arrowhead to a counterattack from the other ulyud. The Claymaster too, in his slower chariot, was vulnerable.
Jackal shot a quick look over at Fetching, riding in the right spur. Her teeth were bared in gleeful anticipation of bloodshed.
The orcs caught scent of them and turned just before they were within thrum range. All six were bald, pitch-skinned in the darkness. Their heavily muscled bodies were clad in kilts of animal hide and sleeveless hauberks of mail. Heavy iron plates, festooned with thick spikes, protected them at stomach, knee, and forearm. Most brandished the heavy scimitars favored by orcs, though two wielded broad-headed spears. The t’huruuk, the leader, was always the largest, fiercest orc. Jackal watched as he bellowed quick commands at his ulyud, waving his great blade. The orcs spread out quickly, forcing the Bastards to widen their arrowhead. Jackal hoped the riders on the right spur were keeping one eye on the other thicks, lest they be taken in the flank.
The hogs tore across the plain and closed the distance.
Hobnail took his shot. The string from the stockbow thrummed deeply, quickly followed by shots from Roundth and Mead. Jackal did not see if their bolts found a mark, focusing his own aim on one of the spear-wielding orcs.
The furious squeals of hogs filled the air as the tip of the formation met the orcs. Just ahead of Jackal, Grocer thundered toward the t’huruuk, letting a bolt fly. The shot went wide and the orc leader rolled, coming to his feet between the spurs of the formation. He issued a guttural, undulating war cry and raised his massive scimitar. Jackal quickly changed his target and swung his stockbow to the right, squeezing the tickler just before he drew even with the thick chieftain. The bolt took the orc in the belly, but snapped against his iron gut plate. Jackal pulled his hand out of Hearth’s mane and gripped the hog’s left swine-yanker, pulling down hard. The barbarian’s head dipped and he veered just as the t’huruuk swung his curved blade. The stroke hissed through empty air as Jackal rode past.
Releasing his grip on his stockbow and allowing the weapon to fall to the end of its strap across his body, Jackal snatched a javelin from his saddle. Another thick was ahead of him, raising his spear to cast at Grocer’s passing hog.
Jackal threw first.
The javelin sunk into the orc’s exposed armpit, arresting his attack, but the brute kept his feet. Jackal guided Hearth straight toward the thick and the hog whipped his head sideways, goring the orc with a swipe of his tusk. Ripped off his feet from the force of the blow, the orc tumbled bloody to the ground.
Jackal was now past the ulyud, but he heard the sounds of squealing hogs and thrumming stockbows behind him as Oats, Hoodwink, and the Claymaster gave the thicks a taste of the rearguard. Hobnail steered his hog to the right, leading the hoof to wheel around for another charge. While Hearth slowed as he made the turn, Jackal retrieved his stockbow, using his legs to stay in the saddle as he reloaded. Once the weapon was ready, Jackal made a quick count.
Ten hogs. Ten riders. All had made it through.
With no more need for stealth and the thrill of battle blazing in his chest, Jackal opened his mouth and let loose the hoof’s war cry.
“Live in the saddle!”
“Die on the hog!” the Grey Bastards responded as one.
The formation came around and straightened the path of their mounts for another charge.
The orcs were closing ranks, the untouched ulyud rushing to join up with their bloodied brethren. Only two thicks lay unmoving upon the ground. A third, the one Hearth had struck, was on his knees, but still alive and clutching his spear.
“Hells, these fucks are hard to kill,” Jackal told his hog.
The t’huruuks were still standing and formed up next to each other, blending their war bands into a single force of ten. The numbers were now even, but the orcs were prepared and eager to spill blood.
As the hoof pounded toward the thicks, Hobnail raised an arm straight up, then quickly hooked his elbow over his head, pointing his fist to the left.
Jackal grimaced. A shank shot? Had Hob lost his mind?
The maneuver was nothing but a harrowing action, requiring the riders to turn sharply just before reaching the orcs, the spurs of the arrowhead interweaving into a single line while the riders let loose with their stockbows. It slowed the hoof considerably and would never kill all the orcs in one pass. The Bastards would be lucky if the thicks didn’t break for Batayat Hill while they turned. Now that the ulyud were joined, they likely would and then it was a boulder hunt. Hob needed to order another tusker or send the left spur around the orcs ahead of the right, whittle at them with a scorpion’s jest or a viper tongue.
While Jackal clenched his jaw in frustration, Hobnail stuck to his signal and jerked his hog left, leveling his thrum to the right and sending a bolt into the orcs. Roundth and Mead followed seamlessly, guiding their barbarians from running side by side to single file as they turned. Jackal saw at least one thick fall. Grocer and Polecat were next. As they made ready to turn, one of the t’huruuks roared in fury and darted forward. The thicks followed him. Desperate to get out of their path, Grocer missed his shot, and Polecat didn’t even have time to loose a bolt.
The Grey Bastards_A Novel Page 4
