“Oh, shaft my ass. This is…fuck.”
Delia took a step. “Jackal, you need to get away from here.”
“Can’t,” he said, his voice settling. “Sancho still has answers I need.”
“You beautiful, brave fool.” Delia said it almost to herself, her gaze drifting over him. After two more slow steps she was reaching up to take his face in her hands. “Listen to me. Greed and fear are all that Sancho knows. Bermudo’s men are filling his hands with coin and his halls with swords. If he suspects the Bastards are coming for him, I’d say the arrangement works in his favor. You said it. Whatever his designs, the castile is now behind him.”
“Frails on foals,” Jackal scoffed. “The Grey Bastards…”
“No!” Delia snapped, shaking his face roughly, forcing him to focus on her. “Listen! You were born in the Lots, Jackal, but I have been to Hispartha. All the mongrel hoofs together could not stand against even one of the Crown’s armies.”
“Piss,” Jackal replied, pulling away. “If they were so mighty, they wouldn’t need us to guard their doorstep. They wouldn’t rely on us to keep the thicks at bay.”
Delia’s face went slack. “You really believe that, don’t you? You don’t see Ul-wundulas for what it is.”
“And what is it, Delia?”
“Scraps!” She leaned forward and whispered the harsh word with such force that spit flew from between her teeth. “A pile of guts and gristle and shit-smeared innards. The leavings of a feast, filth that can only be stomached by orcs and vultures and…jackals.”
“That’s what you think of me? A carrion-eater?”
Delia smiled bitterly, looking away. “It’s what we all are. You, me, Sancho. Even Bermudo and the other well-born cavaleros. You know it. You said it yourself. I heard you the morning Fetching killed that fop. ‘Fobbed off here to be forgotten.’ That’s what you told them. You think you are any better?”
“As you said,” Jackal muttered, “I was born here.”
“And you are going to die here, soon, if you test your luck tonight.”
Jackal clenched his jaw with frustration. “I can’t let the Claymaster continue leading us, Delia. I can’t. We may have made a mistake killing Garcia, but he’s making it worse with his madness. I need to unseat him. Sooner or later, I am going to challenge him. And that will be nothing but a test of luck if the others can’t see what he’s done. I can’t show them without answers. Answers Sancho has. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know,” Delia replied, “but I can’t let you throw your life away.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I’m sorry.”
Before he could stop her, Delia snatched a washing basin up off the bench and heaved it into a cluster of clay ewers on a far table. The pottery shattered and fell, stridently offending the calm of night. Jackal flinched at the tumult, then froze, staring at Delia.
“Go,” she said.
Voices were already echoing hollowly through the walls of the brothel. The rushing footsteps would not be far behind.
Baring his teeth in a silent snarl, Jackal fled the bathhouse and ran to the fence. Scrambling up the side, he reached the top and found Delia had followed him out. She placed a hand on his calf and looked up at him imploringly.
“Keep the girl safe,” she insisted. “Keep Oats and Fetching close to you. Keep yourself safe.”
Meeting her gaze, Jackal nodded before dropping over the far side of the fence. He was sprinting as soon as his feet struck the dust. Rough voices sounded in the courtyard before he had gone a dozen strides. They questioned Delia, but the words were lost to the pounding of his blood as he ran for the cover of the rocks.
Fetching met him halfway, her stockbow covering his escape. As soon as he was past her, she spun and caught up, but said nothing until they were safely hunkered down amongst the boulders.
“Did you get to the flesh-peddling fuck?”
Jackal shook his head. “No. We need to get back to Oats and the hogs. The cavaleros might be following soon.”
“Might?”
Jackal was not about to explain to Fetching why Delia had given him up. Instead, he motioned insistently for them to get moving, using the necessity of speed to avoid answering. They hurried through the night, hopping boulders and hot-heeling over scrubland. Skidding down the side of a gulch they reached Oats, standing sentry over the Tine and the hogs.
“What happened?” the big thrice asked.
“Woke the cavaleros,” Jackal replied quickly, throwing a leg over Hearth’s back. “We need to ride.”
Fetching was already mounted, the elf girl sitting demurely in the saddle in front of her.
Oats frowned. “What about the mud plower?”
Jackal shot an aggravated look at him. “What?”
“The wizard,” Oats clarified. “Don’t you want to wait on him?”
Jackal cast a look around. In his haste to be gone, he had not noticed that one hog stood without a rider.
“Where did he go?” Jackal demanded.
Oats gave an innocent shrug. “Sancho’s.”
“The fuck?” Fetch said.
“He left not long after you two,” Oats explained, his voice growing angry as he became defensive. “He said it was part of the plan. Figured you knew!”
“Knew what, Oats?” Jackal was nearly shouting. “That he was going to go off on his own mysterious errand while you sat here and composed poems for Ugfuck?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Try and stop him,” Fetch suggested.
“He breathes burning bugs,” Oats told her sharply. “I don’t tangle with that!”
“Forget it,” Fetching said. “Let’s just go!”
Jackal was inclined to agree with her, but before he could make a decision, Crafty came skipping awkwardly down the side of the gully, his gut jostling beneath his robes.
“Apologies,” the wizard said breathlessly as he approached. “We can be off now.”
“What were you doing?” Jackal barked.
Crafty was now astride his barbarian and mopping at his brow with a silk scarf.
“Oh,” he replied airily. “I went inside the pleasure house.”
Oats issued an incredulous laugh. “Did you just duck in for a fuck?”
“Truly,” the wizard said, fanning himself. “One does have needs.”
Oats looked confused. “I thought you were backy?”
Jackal was neither amused nor bewildered. He just wanted to be gone. But Fetch’s suspicions were screaming.
“That place was dead for the night,” she said. “Who did you find willing to open her legs so late? Especially to a half-orc, when the cavaleros are lodging there to keep us out?”
“Eva,” Crafty replied simply, his cheeks billowing out with every breath.
“Eva?”
Oats grunted a laugh. “Oh, she’d do it.”
Jackal hesitated. Could the wizard truly have gotten into the brothel, found a willing woman, bedded her, and gotten out without being seen? There was certainly time; Jackal had waited under Delia’s window for quite a span.
“Jackal!” Fetching’s voice cut through his thoughts.
“We’ll sort it later,” he said. “We need to move.”
“No need to rush,” Crafty said, retrieving a skin from his bag and removing the stopper to take a long drink. “I took pains against any pursuit during my leaving.”
“More fucking magic?” Oats inquired, his face wary, but his voice appreciative.
“Friend Oats,” Crafty winked, “there is little mystical about ten incontinent horses. If the frails, as you all say, want to give chase, they will be doing so on their own feet.” Popping the stopper back into the skin with the heel of his hand, the wizard gestured. “Shall we?”
>
Jackal looked into the night. “Let’s ride.”
“Where?” Oats asked.
Jackal thought a moment. He needed to get his arm fixed, and quickly. He was going to need both hands if he had any hopes of wrestling this mess into submission.
“To Zirko,” he said simply.
Oats’s face went slack. “Brother, I don’t know…”
“Are you loon-brained?” Fetching said. “That little shit won’t help you.”
“I have no choice!” Jackal snapped, his rage at Delia’s actions boiling over. He held his injured arm forth, gritting his teeth as he spoke to keep from screaming. “I can barely feel it anymore, Fetch! It’s gone too long. You want I should let Grocer cut it off? Because that’s all there is left unless the priest helps me. You don’t have to come, but I am riding for Strava.”
Fetch’s jaw hardened as he spoke, but her gaze softened a touch. “He’ll demand a price.”
“I know.”
Fetching chewed on his response for a moment. “Take the Tine. I’ll take point. Oats, rearguard.”
The thrice nodded.
Fetching relinquished the elf, not bothering to hide her enthusiasm to be rid of the extra rider. The Tine was less pleased, clinging to Fetch’s saddle for a moment. The trepidation was brief, however, and a few gentle words from Jackal, coupled with the less-than-patient shoves from Fetching, succeeded in bringing her over to Hearth’s back. Using his injured arm to hold the girl steady about her narrow waist, Jackal took hold of the barbarian’s mane with his other hand and put heel to hog.
Behind him, he could hear Crafty and Oats jesting back and forth.
“So…you do favor women?”
“What is the expression here? ‘Any port in a storm?’ I think you understand.”
“Ah. Well…you need a new saying, then. Like, ‘Any ass in the night.’ Because it’s all the same in the dark, yeah?”
“Well, not all the same. I am certain I would have known if it was the buttocks of, say, a strapping thrice-blood.”
“Rein up there, wizard. I ain’t backy. Though if I was, you can be sure I wouldn’t be the…backy one, or whatever.”
“No, I am certain that is true.”
There was a long pause, then Oats’s voice rumbled again, his words slow with bemused pondering.
“Eva does like it between the cheeks, though. Course, it’s extra.”
Crafty giggled. “Butt of course!”
Kicking his heels into Hearth, Jackal rode farther ahead, trying to leave Oats and Crafty’s laughter behind. Fetching was somewhere in the night, scouting far enough ahead that she was lost from view. Jackal quickly settled into the rhythm of riding double and tried to keep his attention on the shadowy landscape for signs of trouble, but his head swam with the effort of unraveling the events of the past days. Thinking was difficult. Now that he had voiced the truth about his arm aloud, it seemed the wound was quickly worsening, eager to lend his words credence. Every one of Hearth’s steps sent a pulse of pain through his swollen arm, but the pain was better than the creeping, queasy numbness. Sickened and sweating, Jackal rode through the night, his every effort soon bent to staying in the saddle.
Chapter 11
The halflings lived in the tomb of their gods. Little more than a large hill of rotting dirt crowned with a crumbling tower, Strava was a canker on the already unfortunate face of the flatlands. The entire construction was a decrepit, colorless sight, yet its stunt-limbed stewards revered it as a holy place.
Jackal likened religion to madness. He had heard that in the north, in the great cities of Hispartha, there were more temples than well-fed children, that a hundred faceless gods received the wealth of the nobles and the fearful pleas of the peasants. He found that difficult to imagine, but Delia, Ignacio, and others had assured him it was true. Thankfully, such belief was all but unknown in Ul-wundulas. Perhaps the badlands were gods-forsaken, but Jackal preferred to think that the Lots were home to those who had no need of invisible old men, dog-headed demons, and sour-faced crones. Here, faith was better placed in a strong mount, a loaded stockbow, and a few solid companions.
Currently, Jackal had two of the three. His stockbow was lost to the marsh, but at least Hearth was beneath him and his friends were at his side. They all stared with reddened eyes at Strava, squinting against the sun that rose beyond the jagged tower. The ride had been long, and close to centaur territory. Fortune was smiling, however, and no horse-cocks came galloping out of the shadows, bellowing for blood.
“Remarkable,” Crafty said, shielding his eyes with a hand at his brow as he peered at the tower.
“Give me the Kiln any day,” Fetching groused. “I hate this place. Like a damn carcass, all those little black shits wriggling in and out.”
“All right,” Jackal cut in. “I need help here, so no more insults. That includes ‘little black shits.’ Oats, who is their god? I don’t want a stump because you two pissed on our tongues.”
“Belico,” Oats answered dutifully, “but they also call him…” The thrice’s face scrunched, struggling to recall the name, but Fetching came to his rescue.
“The Master Slave,” she said, her voice adopting a bored tone as she recited facts quickly. “He was human a thousand years ago, and a great warrior. Fought some gods and won, but he could not have done it without his stumpy servant.”
Jackal gave her a pointed look.
“Without his halfling servant,” Fetch corrected herself begrudgingly.
“And the servant’s name?” Jackal pressed.
Fetch looked at him like he was dull-witted. “Zirko. They’re all named that.”
“Just the high priest,” Jackal told her. “Oats?”
“Belico asked the first Zirko how he could reward him, and the little fucker—”
Jackal threw up a hand. “Hells…”
“Sorry,” Oats said, trying not to grin. “Zirko asked for…a wife. To return home. And a people of his own.”
“That is not correct.”
It was Crafty who had spoken and all eyes drifted toward him.
“Wife. Home. People,” the wizard repeated, his gaze never leaving the distant tower. “These Zirko took for himself only after he was granted his true reward. The gift he requested from Belico, so the halflings claim, was ‘Master, I would have you now be as I was.’ With those words, the diminutive slave placed a god under his command.”
Jackal nodded. “You want to finish?”
Crafty faced him then, his thick cheeks gathered up above a smile. “Do you truly think I do not know the rest, friend Jackal?”
“I figure we are about to find out,” Jackal said, staring the fat wizard down.
With a shrug, Crafty turned his attention back to Strava.
“Belico granted his faithful slave’s wish, and put his power at Zirko’s service. Zirko took the most beautiful of women as wife. She was not stunted, yet the new prophet declared that all her children would be as their father. From Zirko’s loins flowed the halfling race.”
“And all the stumpies praised his balls, ever after,” Fetching scoffed.
“Indeed,” Crafty replied, oblivious to her mockery. “They call him the Hero Father, but it is Belico that they chiefly worship, and he only that they recognize as a god.”
Fetch stretched her back in the saddle and expelled an impatient breath. “We all caught up on waddler religion? Good. Let’s ride. Get this done.”
Kicking at her hog, Fetching rode forward, winding through some scrub before heading directly across the plains toward Strava.
“I don’t think the halflings like being called waddlers,” Oats said, purposefully needling Jackal. Grinning, the big mongrel clicked his tongue at Ugfuck and rode after Fetching.
Jackal went more slowly. Sometime before dawn, the Tine girl had fallen asleep and
he did not wish to wake her if he could help it. Her head rested against the arm he was using to guide Hearth, while his other held her steady in the saddle. After hours of this, his limbs were cramped, the muscles screaming at him for a change in position. He endured the growing physical discomfort in order to have some peace in his mind. When she was awake, the elf’s mute placidity was unnerving. Jackal hated that she feared him. It was prideful, but he had freed her from a true terror and felt that her continued dismay somehow linked him to the Sludge Man’s depravity.
“Truly it is a wonder,” Crafty’s voice broke through his brooding.
Jackal turned and found the wizard riding beside him. Crafty motioned at Strava.
“It is said that before he ascended to godhood, the warlord Belico commanded his remaining men to ride to Ul-wundulas, the only land he had not trodden. Along the way each man was to fill his helm with earth and drag a stone upon his shield. In this way the mound was raised and its tower constructed, with the conquered bones of distant lands.”
Jackal grunted. “I’ve heard the legend before.”
“Indeed,” Crafty replied amiably. “I am impressed with your knowledge, friend Jackal.”
“It’s important to know enough about the halflings’ religion to avoid offending them,” Jackal said. “Folk who hold to gods are often prickly.”
“Prickly. It is a good word. One which describes you these last hours, I think.”
“You got something you want to say, wizard, say it.”
“You fear to trust me.”
Jackal turned to look at Crafty. His pudgy face was still smiling behind his manicured beard.
“You don’t give straight answers,” Jackal told him. “Not about why you rode with me into the marsh, and not about why you went into that brothel. You didn’t bugger any whore last night, no matter what you claim.”
“This is so,” Crafty admitted calmly.
“You want to take a run at the truth?” Jackal asked, his sour mood turning the question into a threat.
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