“I am prepared,” he announced, smiling.
“We’ll soon find out,” Jackal said, and guided Hearth out of the stables.
They left the Kiln through the tunnel and soon emerged beyond the walls. Jackal turned their course north and for the first few miles kept one eye on Crafty, watching him ride. The fat sack had a terrible seat, his balance was horribly off, and his feet dangled far too low. By rights, he should have fallen off already, yet somehow, he stayed on the hog’s back, that same dreamy grin still splitting his broad face. Jackal had seen a dozen slopheads with more natural affinity for riding dumped into the dust within minutes of mounting a hog, but this silk-swaddled sand eater was still aloft when they reached the River Lucia. And all without a saddle.
Jackal gave up wondering about the stranger and focused on leading their journey. He followed the river’s course westward for several hours until he reached the confluence of the Lucia and the smaller Alhundra. Here, he turned southwest, keeping the Alhundra to his right. It was not the most direct path, but it ensured they stayed well clear of centaur lands. This journey was going to be treacherous enough without running into a band of horse-cocks drunk on wine and the words of their crazed oracles. Without trusted companions, Jackal would be easy prey for even a small group, be they ’taurs, Tines, or thicks.
Jackal kept Hearth at a mile-eating pace, certain he would soon be slowing for Crafty, but the wizard never fell behind. Indeed, within hours he had grown even more adept on the hog and was now riding beside Jackal. He surveyed the land with a keen interest and a look of appreciation, the fervor in his eyes undiminished by the glaring sun. Now knowing that Crafty’s fat ass wasn’t going to go spilling onto the ground, Jackal slowed Hearth to a trot.
“Why are you here, Tyrkanian?” he asked.
The wizard gave a small hum. “I was born in Al-Unan.” When Jackal failed to see the point, Crafty gave him a little wink. “Which is a land separate from Tyrkania, though I was educated there.”
“None of that answers my question.”
“No,” Crafty agreed. “I simply wanted to see this.” He swept a hand out across their surroundings. “Ul-wundulas! The Lot Lands, much-contested doorstep of great Hispartha. That infantile kingdom sits above. Below, Dhar’gest, its vast deserts and strangling jungles conquered by the black grip of the orc. They peer hungrily northward, across the Deluged Sea, to the soft lands of man. Hispartha, Anville, Guabia. Yet the water thwarts the savages, for shipbuilding is a mystery to them. Indeed, the drowned homeland of the elves wards a quarter of the known world from its enemies of yester-age. Yet, the orcs have one crossing. One place where Dhar’gest puckers to nearly kiss Ul-wundulas.”
“The Gut,” Jackal said.
The wizard patted the side of his broad nose with a finger. “Little more than two leagues of sea. Nothing the muscles of an orc cannot swim with ease. And they do. Arriving here in the famed badlands of Ul-wundulas, site of their last defeat, where mongrels ride hogs and none bend a knee!”
Jackal was unable to suppress a bark of laughter. “Sounds like you’ve studied a map and read some books. Now that you are here, you can see this land for what it is. A nasty old quilt. Ugly, hot, dry, infested, and made up of many clashing patches.”
“And yet, you love it,” Crafty observed.
“Most days,” Jackal admitted. “There are no kings here, true enough. No sultans or caliphs. Just us. The hoofs. Free to ride.”
“This is what I heard, even in my homelands. From boyhood, I was told we half-orcs have a place in the Lots. This I have long yearned to see, before it is gone.”
Jackal stared hard at the wistful look on the wizard’s face. “Gone? The Lots aren’t going anywhere. Not so long as the Grey Bastards and the other hoofs remain. We keep the thicks culled.”
“Ah! But are there not other threats, friend Jackal?”
“What? Like the centaurs?” Jackal shook his head. “They’re dangerous, but they can’t bear to leave their temples and orgies for very long. Stay clear of those, and the nights of a Betrayer Moon is all the threat they pose. And if you mean the elves, they hate the orcs worse than we do. They may have different blood, but the Tines are a hoof, just like the Bastards. So long as the Lots’ boundaries are respected, we have no quarrel.”
“But no alliance either.”
Jackal got the impression he was being tested somehow. It was annoying, considering he had brought the easterner along to find out his motives.
“So you’re not here to join the Bastards,” Jackal said. “You’re just passing through on, what, some damn pilgrimage?”
“Of a sort, yes,” Crafty replied softly. “Of a sort.”
Jackal could not seem to get the upper hand with this stranger. Indeed, the more he discovered about the wizard, the less he knew. He had certainly named him well. Jackal was not too proud to admit that Crafty was far more intelligent than he. Still, Jackal had also been aptly named and his own cunning, however low, had not failed him yet.
The scrublands on either side of the river began to house more frequent stands of trees. After a wide, lazy bend, the Alhundra turned almost directly south, flowing and falling over rocky outcroppings as the ground descended over languid miles toward the wetlands.
Jackal decided they should camp as the sun began to set, finding a grove of alder not far from the riverbank. Not wanting to risk a fire, he ate figs while Hearth dined on acorns out of his hand. Crafty merely drank from an earthenware bottle he produced from his bundle of belongings.
“You’re kind of a fat fuck not to be hungry,” Jackal said, seeing if the wizard would take offense, but whatever he was, Crafty was not prickly. He merely smiled that smile of his.
“Perhaps Ul-wundulas will transform me into something akin to you, friend Jackal. An impressive specimen of the half-orc, festooned with hard muscle! Truly, the human patrons of the pleasure houses in Ul-Kadim pay richly for well-formed mongrel males such as you.”
“I thought those places only allowed men to pay for flesh,” Jackal said.
Crafty gave him a knowing nod. “They do.”
Jackal grimaced, which caused Crafty to laugh.
“So, in Ul-wundulas you are free but not enlightened! Do not the elves love as they will?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Crafty smiled at his discomfort. “I shall shift the winds of our talk, to spare you. This Sluice Man we seek, he is important?”
“Off-putting is what he is,” Jackal said. “And it’s Sludge Man. He single-handedly holds one of Ul-wundulas’ most vulnerable borders against the orcs, so he’s valued in the Lots. When we reach the wetlands, you’ll see. No hoof could ever dwell in the marsh. Thwarts the hardiest hogs and best riders. The Sludge Man…he’s a hoof unto himself.”
“One man does this?” Crafty asked, sounding impressed. “How?”
It was Jackal’s turn to smile. “You’ll see.”
They passed the rest of the night in silence. Trusting the hogs’ keen senses to alert him to any danger, Jackal lay down upon his blanket, but he slept little. Dawn came quickly and saw the pair riding once more.
* * *
—
The Old Maiden Marsh began some forty miles from the sea, a massive swath of flat land dotted with thickets, choked with bogs, and lacerated by shallow streams. Before the Orc Incursion, the wetlands had been used as a hunting preserve for the kings of Hispartha. The manors and castiles that had once dotted the borders of the marsh were torn down by one side or the other during the war, but Jackal spotted a few pitiful ruins as he guided Hearth across the most passable mud flats. He pointed them out to Crafty, who nodded appreciatively.
“At war’s end, the Crown withheld the marsh during the lottery,” Jackal told him. “Whichever king was alive back then wanted to restore it to the royal family. Several of his cousins foolishly tried to
resettle the area, but were run off within months. Orcs still use the marsh to sneak deep into the Lots after they’ve swum the Gut, though even they often find the wetlands impassable. There’s much that lives in the Old Maiden that makes even a thick think twice before entering.”
“Yes,” Crafty said. “I have heard many of the Old Maiden’s natural inhabitants are quite formidable. Rokhs, yes?”
“Keep one eye on the sky.”
Following his own advice as they continued, Jackal remained watchful for the huge, predatory birds. The rokhs nested in the wetlands, but their need for prey took them far beyond its borders. A single rokh was capable of lifting Hearth in its talons, soaring high enough to let the hog fall to his death before swooping down to feed. A few well-aimed thrumbolts could drive the massive raptors off, but without others to assist, Jackal wondered if he could shoot fast enough. As for Crafty, he did not appear to carry any weapons.
By noon, the hogs began to have difficulty with the increasingly soggy ground. Jackal realized they would need to be left behind. Hearth could power through the mire with brute force and stubbornness, but the slophead hog, with Crafty’s weight atop him, would have a tough time. Jackal led them to a thicket of pitiful pines and removed the messenger bird’s cage from the saddle, hanging it on his own belt beside his quiver. He dismounted and Crafty followed his lead.
“The trees,” Jackal motioned above, “scrubby as they are, will help protect the hogs from any circling rokhs. Think your wide butt can handle a march?”
Crafty gave a single smiling nod.
“Give those feathered fucks the tusks if they try and swoop in here,” Jackal told Hearth, knuckling him between the eyes.
“And you do likewise,” Crafty told his own hog with an instructional wag of his finger, “to those fucks with feathers.”
Jackal left Hearth untethered, knowing he would stay put for at least a day before hunger whittled away even the best training. He wasn’t certain the slop hog would be so patient, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Jackal offered Crafty one of his javelins to help steady his steps through the marsh, but the wizard waved it off. Favoring a loaded stockbow in his hands, Jackal put the javelin back in the saddle quiver and struck out. Armed with the thrum, his tulwar, his knife, and one caged bird, Jackal ventured into the Old Maiden on foot with a mysterious fat wizard.
All because he had lied to protect a cock-punching ingrate.
“Shit on you for a friend, Fetching,” he said under his breath.
Chapter 7
Jackal and Crafty spent hours picking their way from one small, soggy island of yellow grass to the next, often wading knee-deep in murky channels to reach the next spot of solid ground. They headed deeper into the marsh until no more trees were in sight. Then, Jackal released the bird.
The squab took flight frantically at first, but settled as it rose. Jackal kept his gaze fixed on the bird until he could see it no more.
“Due west,” he said. “Directly into the Old Maiden’s heart.”
“You think the Slug Man lives within?” Crafty asked.
“Sludge Man,” Jackal corrected, “and yes, I know he does. Just not exactly where. Between here and the ocean is nothing but countless miles of quagmire and salt marsh.”
“Then let us have hope he does not live on the coast,” Crafty said with good humor.
Jackal breathed his agreement and followed the direction taken by the squab.
It was late spring, the heat of the sun adding weight to the muggy air. Swarms of biting flies coalesced in humming clouds over the deeper pools. Occasionally, small groups of wild boar could be seen picking their way through the marshland.
“Let’s keep our distance,” Jackal told Crafty, pointing at the pigs. “Those are the rokhs’ favorite prey.”
He need not have worried so much about the birds. An hour later, they saw the first sludge.
It crawled off to their left, easily within thrumshot, tracking them. The thing was nearly the size of a bull, but was still difficult to spot when not in motion, appearing to be nothing but another dark, putrid pool amongst the marram grass. Its black, glistening form slid atop land and water with equal fluidity. Sludges reminded Jackal of giant, featureless leeches made of tar. He shuddered and stopped, searching the marsh for more of the creatures. To his increasing unease, he found another an equal distance to his right and two more behind.
“You got anything like that back in Tyrkania?” he asked Crafty.
The wizard was motionless, studying the creatures with no hint of trepidation.
“No,” he said. “Not enough water for them to survive, I am thinking.”
“The old-timers swear the things didn’t exist before the war.”
Crafty knelt on his haunches, his hands toying idly with some marsh grass as he watched the sludges.
“No doubt they are correct,” he said. “These are the loathsome result of spells. The accounts of the Incursion I have been fortunate to read claim that it was here the elves first came to Hispartha’s aid. Their shaman unleashed fearsome amounts of magic in their attempts to stop the invading orcs. Yet, the orcs have their own sorcery. Perhaps these…sludges are the children of so much conflicting energies mating over fields of death.”
Jackal did not know, nor did he care to. The presence of the sludges meant only that he was likely close to his destination.
“Let’s keep moving,” he said.
The creatures continued to shadow them throughout the day, never drawing nearer or farther. Near dusk, two more of the fuliginous blobs appeared ahead. Now Jackal and Crafty were completely surrounded. Jackal had the unnerving suspicion they were being led, herded.
A cluster of five low structures took shape ahead, rising out of the muck on stout beams. Crude walkways of rotten planking, supported on similar beams, crisscrossed the marsh surrounding the buildings. Jackal and Crafty’s laborious steps brought them directly to one of these precarious constructions, leading straight across a sizable lagoon toward the largest of the four buildings. As they traversed the creaking, moss-slick wood, the sludges continued to follow, keeping to the waters, drifting unctuously across the surface. Jackal stopped in the middle of the walkway.
“Sludge Man!” he called. “It is Jackal of the Grey Bastards!”
There was no response. No movement. The sludges had paused when he did.
Continuing across, Jackal reached the main hut. The roof was thatched with swamp grass, the walls made of woven reeds. There was no door, so Jackal leaned cautiously through the threshold. A few fishing nets hung from the ceiling, in desperate need of repair, and a cold fire pit skulked beneath a hole in the thatching. Otherwise the hut was empty.
Jackal did not know what he expected to find. If the Sludge Man’s creatures had turned on him, there would be nothing left. Ducking out of the hut, Jackal saw Crafty still watching the six blobs floating near the center of the lagoon.
“They have no eyes,” the wizard said. “Yet I feel distinctly that they watch us.”
Jackal hated to agree. There was a horrible, mute patience to the creatures.
Crafty cocked one eye over his shoulder. “You say this man we seek, he controls them?”
“No one knows exactly how, but yes. They seem to obey him. They can fully consume whatever they envelop. Makes for a good way to get rid of corpses.”
“Much need for such a service here in Ul-wundulas, friend Jackal?”
Ignoring that, Jackal tapped Crafty on the shoulder, urging him away from the main lagoon.
“Let’s check these other sheds and be on our way before those things decide your lard-covered bones would make a good meal.”
Crafty pointed to the two buildings to the right of the main hut. “I shall inspect these.”
Jackal nodded and began making his way to the remaining pair of sheds to the left. Th
ey were barely half the size of the Sludge Man’s domicile and, being made from the same waterlogged materials, also lacked doors. Leading with his stockbow, Jackal looked within the first shed and found nothing. Nothing stored, no refuse, nothing. It was not the same with the second. It held a tattered hanging on the wall opposite the door, some torn and mildewed tapestry depicting a goat on a black shield. Beneath this curiosity sat a pair of large chests, the wood waterlogged, black and rotten, the iron fittings barnacled with rust. The distorted lids could not properly close and Jackal lifted one with the toe of his boot to find coins nested within, a fortune in gold and silver begrimed with silt. Perhaps it was the unexpected sight of such treasure, but Jackal sensed that his presence intruded. The building retained the tense, whispering air of a dwelling, the walls imbued with the breath and motion of an inhabitant.
He spun at a touch upon his shoulder and nearly loosed a bolt into Crafty.
“Hells,” Jackal cursed quietly. “Make more noise when you walk.”
“Come,” the wizard said, his face placid. “You must see this.”
“What?”
Crafty turned without a response and led Jackal back across the gangplanks, again passing the main hut as they approached the other set of sheds. The sludges remained in the lagoon, their forms pulsing ever so slightly upon the dark water. The wizard stopped and nodded toward the nearest shed. Even before he entered, Jackal noticed this particular building, though no larger than the others, was more solidly constructed. It still had no door, but the walls were made of mudbrick, as was the domed roof.
Jackal stepped within and lurched to a stop.
A sludge had attached itself to every wall save that of the entry, its black mass curving upward to partially cover the ceiling. A naked woman was imprisoned in the oily substance. Her hands were encased up to the wrists and hung from the ceiling, while her feet were held in the wall behind, causing her to dangle forward, her spine bent cruelly. Her head hung low between straining shoulders, a tangled mass of filthy hair hiding her face. The flush of her flesh and the rhythmic pulse of her belly signaled she still lived.
The Grey Bastards_A Novel Page 8
