“But why keep them?”
“Because the kingdom was not without power. They still had their elf allies. And then there were the wizards. They escaped the mine when we revolted and scurried back to their masters. The Claymaster could have declared war on the kingdom and made good his threat, but without a way to counter sorcery, it was too great a risk. Better to take Ul-wundulas as prize and live in peace…or so I thought.”
“He never stopped looking,” Jackal proclaimed. “The Claymaster never stopped looking for a sorcerer of his own. And now he has one.”
Warbler’s chin dipped in grim agreement. “And now he has one.”
Chapter 23
The stars had never been more blissfully distant. Jackal drank the sight of them, allowing the millions of luminous saviors to lift the weight of the mine out of his bones. The edge of the lake lapped at the stones, inches from the toes of his boots. Behind him, Warbler had the campfire going strong. Soon, the smell of cooking fish drifted amongst the woodsmoke, and Jackal relinquished his succoring vigil of the heavens.
He turned to find Warbler already chewing, sitting with his share of the catch steaming upon the small spit in his hands. Jackal came and sat beside him, plucking the other spit away from the flames. He did not immediately eat, though he was ravenous. Food, fire, freedom. Somehow, it felt shameful to relish them in front of Warbler, knowing now what he had endured.
“If you like cold fish,” the old thrice said with his mouth full, “then give me what’s in your hand and go catch yourself another from the lake.”
“You can have it,” Jackal said without rancor and held his food out.
Warbler fixed him with a stern look. “Stop feeling sorry for me and eat your supper, Jaco.”
Jackal let the name slide and took a bite.
Warbler huffed. “Time was, I didn’t have to encourage you to eat.”
“That’s because Oats was around,” Jackal recalled, grinning. “Had to swallow everything whole before he finished his helping, or you would find his hand in your mouth.”
Warbler grunted fondly as he dug a bone out of his teeth. “Little fucker could eat. That’s the only mongrel I ever knew who earned his hoof name while still pissing the bed.”
“I remember!” Jackal declared, surprised at the recollection. “You said he should be called Porridge, but he could barely wait for it to cook.”
“Barely?” Warbler said, his eyes going wide with exasperation. “He couldn’t wait. I caught him with his hand in the pot while it was still cold so many times. Little shit was eating it raw! Raw fucking oats, like a damn donkey.”
“So why not Donkey?”
Warbler shook his head ruefully. “His cock was too big.”
Jackal sprayed flakes of fish into the fire, nearly choking as he laughed.
“That’s where all the food was going,” Warbler said, trying to hold back his own laughter. “Weighed his cod down like a feedbag. Hells overburdened! I’m surprised he can sit a hog.”
“That’s why he got so tall,” Jackal put in, “to keep it from dragging in the dust.”
“No, he didn’t get tall enough. Those aren’t muscles! Just his dick wrapped around his entire body.”
It took them both some time to catch their breaths after that.
“I guess it’s a good thing it was ‘Oats’ after all,” Jackal said, still chuckling. “Beryl was pissed enough with that.”
The broad smile on Warbler’s face vanished. “He will always be her little Idris.” Clearing his throat, he resumed eating and stared into the fire.
“You haven’t asked me about her,” Jackal said slowly.
Warbler’s head snapped around. “No, I haven’t. And don’t go telling me anything either. Tell you the same as I told Hoodwink; no news of Beryl. Either she’s with another or she’s not. I don’t know which would be more painful to hear and I don’t want to find out.”
Jackal nodded slowly, in what he hoped was an understanding way.
“You’ve seen us, though,” he said.
Warbler’s brow creased.
“You mentioned Oats’s muscles,” Jackal explained, “so you’ve seen us.”
“Word gets around,” Warbler replied. “But yes, I’ve seen you a few times over the years. Mostly from a distance. I was at Sancho’s one time when you three rode in.”
Jackal gave him a mocking grin. “Horny old goat.”
“Just there for the baths, Jackal.”
“Hells,” Jackal curled his lip. “Small wonder I didn’t see you. Why not just use the river?”
“Ask me again when your joints are as old as mine.”
Jackal accepted that with a raise of his eyebrows and threw his fish bones into the fire. It was good to be talking to the old mongrel again.
“I understand why you brought me here,” Jackal said after a long silence. “Without seeing the mine…those cages, the bones, I would have thought you mad.”
Warbler hummed. “Too much time alone, brain baked by the sun? I know. I wish I was just some loony nomad. We would have a great deal less shit to handle.”
“You said I was here to see that we didn’t keep anything safe. What did you mean?”
Warbler took a deep breath. “I meant the hoofs don’t. The Grey Bastards, the Orc Stains, the Fangs, the Sons, all of the rest. Before the Rutters were destroyed by the horse-cocks, there were nine half-orc hoofs. Nine. One for each of the mongrels who escaped that fucking mine carrying the plague. When the Incursion ended, the Claymaster demanded Ul-wundulas be ours. Fearing him, Hispartha agreed. But they countered by parceling it off between us, the Crown, and the elves, not to mention the parts already held by the ’taurs and the halflings. There wasn’t anything the chief could do unless he wanted to go to war again. The elves were immune to the plague and we weren’t certain of a victory against Hispartha even without their point-ear allies. So, we took what we could get and formed the Lots.
“The Claymaster divided our portion nine ways, and put one plague-bearer in each lot. The hoofs were formed to protect them, Jackal. As far as men and orcs were concerned, Ul-wundulas was filled with nine bear traps, any one of which could unleash the disease that nearly wiped them out during the war. The Claymaster was trying to ensure that neither the frails nor the thicks ever sought to retake the land that we had won.”
Warbler stood briefly to throw some more wood on the fire. As he was sitting back down, he fixed Jackal with a pointed stare.
“The orcs don’t stay out because a few gangs of half-breeds on hogs patrol the Lots, son. And Hispartha doesn’t neglect to resettle cities like Kalbarca because of us either. They stay away because they fear the plague.”
Jackal listened intently and chewed on Warbler’s words. It all made a crushing sort of sense. Delia had said all the mongrel hoofs together could not stand against a single Hisparthan army. He had scoffed at that, full of empty pride. But she had been right. She was right about him too. He was a brave fool, living a lie within a land suitable only for the carrion eaters.
The vultures and the jackals.
“The thicks do come, though,” he snarled, angry at his need for justification. “We have cut down scores of raiding parties!”
“And have for over thirty years,” Warbler told him. “They’re just scouting, Jackal. Looking for a bit of plunder and murder, most times. Other times, it’s to see what has changed. To see how many of the nine remain.”
“And how many do?” Jackal asked, knowing the answer already.
Warbler help up one finger. “Claymaster’s been the last for a long time now.”
“That’s why he let those orcs go at Batayat Hill,” Jackal realized aloud. “He wanted them to bring the news back to Dhar’gest that he was still alive.”
“So long as he is, there won’t be another Incursion.”
Jackal’s mind was reeling. “So why the fuck did you try and replace him?”
“Why did you?”
“Because I thought he was nothing but an aging cripple! I thought he was going soft and making piss-poor decisions. Because he was a hateful old fuck. Because I thought I would be a better chief! I didn’t know he was preventing the Lots from being crushed between two enemies simply by breathing!”
At some point, Jackal had shot to his feet and Warbler looked up at him with a placid face etched in firelight.
“You’re right,” the old thrice said calmly.
“About what?”
“All of it. He is aging. And he was making poor decisions when I still sat at his right hand. Jackal, he is a hateful old fuck. It’s all he is since he came out of the mine. For years, I tried not to judge him harshly. I went through it, too, survived the rats and the war, but I wasn’t possessed by the wizards’ foul creation. My body wasn’t corrupted and bent. He is in constant pain, son, and it’s a miracle he isn’t mad. That’s what happened to most of the others. They couldn’t live with the plague using them as a vessel. It only nibbled at their bodies, but it devoured their minds. Within the first year of the Lots, two of them took their own lives. But not the Claymaster, not him! He lives, always. His need to see Hispartha suffer for what they did keeps him going. They locked him in a stalemate, and for nearly twenty years I stood by him while he searched for a way to break it. I hated, too, at the beginning, but time forced me to see what we had gained. A land. A home. Freedom. I had a brotherhood, and a woman…and you children.
“I urged the chief to focus on building up the Lots, to pursue better relations with Dog Fall and Strava. Hells, I even offered to take a ship east, to Traedria, Al-Unan, and Tyrkania, to forge alliances, but he wouldn’t hear it. Couldn’t see it! As the other plague-bearers died, one by one, Hispartha began creeping back. They stayed on their allotted lands, but they grew bolder. They had a wizard installed in the castile for months before we heard about it. I thought the chief was going to ride north right then and there, finally make good his threat to spread the pox throughout Hispartha. Fortunately, the other two remaining plague-bearers refused. Like me, they had grown to enjoy the new life and would not throw it away. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone not follow the Claymaster. He quickly lost his hold on the other hoofs after that. The years passed and he grew bitter behind the walls of the Kiln. By the time you were left at the Winsome orphanage, the Grey Bastards had ceased being the greatest power in the Lots. We were just another mongrel hoof, struggling to survive in the badlands.”
His knees popping, Warbler stood again, ambled over to his saddlebags, and dug out a skin. Pulling the stopper, he took a long pull, then came back and handed the skin to Jackal.
“It’s rude stuff,” the old thrice admitted, “but I haven’t talked this much in years. Figured we could use a little wetting.”
Jackal took a drink and grimaced as the sour wine greased his tongue.
“You going to tell me why you finally challenged him?” he asked, belching unpleasantly.
Warbler took the skin back and drank. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head slowly.
“Wish I could say there was a story there. Truth is, I had wanted to do it for years, but never had the sack. Kept talking myself out of it.”
Jackal watched as Warbler stared distantly into the fire. The old thrice’s eyed welled, but whether it was from the smoke, the foul wine, or the memory, Jackal could not say.
“When we rebelled in the mine,” Warbler said thickly, “I was injured. Took a spear thrust in the thigh. Once all the overseers were dead, the Claymaster put my arm over his shoulders, helped me walk out of that fucking hole. That…was the first time I saw the sun. This bright, hot, blinding beast that hurt far worse than the spear. But, Belico’s Cock, I basked in that pain! So maybe you see why it took me years to throw my axe. Because it meant challenging the leader who carried me into the light.”
Slapping the stopper back into the wineskin, Warbler tossed it down beside him and let out a long breath.
“Didn’t matter anyway. As you know, I lost that vote.”
“But the chief spared you,” Jackal said. “He could have split your skull.”
“Same as he could have you.”
Jackal spit into the fire. “Hoodwink is proof that I was never meant to live. He just wanted to hurt me first. And he did. We may have both lost our challenges, War-boar, but did you have one of your most trusted allies knife you from behind?”
“No,” Warbler said soberly. “In my vote, I was the betrayer.”
Jackal leaned past the old thrice and retrieved the wineskin. Only the first few pulls had to be endured, after that, the draught became palatable.
“You know it was her that first called me that. Isa—” Warbler caught himself. “Fetching. She couldn’t quite say my name. Kept coming out ‘War-boar.’ You talked early, never had a problem with it, but you switched when you knew she was having trouble. Oats did what you did, of course. In a day, the entire damn orphanage was calling me that, even the fuzz-lips a year away from joining the slopheads. Hells, I worried the brotherhood was going to start using it and change my hoof name.”
“Sorry,” Jackal told him, letting the word cover then and now. “I won’t say it again.”
“No need for that,” Warbler groused, motioning for the wineskin. “It’s not bad to hear after all this time.”
Jackal allowed a small smile and watched the campfire as the old thrice drank. He must have got lost in the writhing of the flames, for Warbler bumped him with an elbow.
“What’s bothering you, boy?”
“The Claymaster,” Jackal admitted.
A half-drunk laugh bubbled out of Warbler. “Yeah, that’s catching.”
“But he’s not. No one has gotten the plague that I can remember.”
“Half-orcs are immune, Jackal, all except the original nine. I doubt that’s what the wizards wanted, but we broke our chains before they could complete the fucker.”
“I understand, but the chief has been around frails. Ignacio. Thistle. Countless others. Why isn’t Winsome a graveyard?”
Warbler’s eyes went dull. “Because he hasn’t unleashed the pox in many years. Be grateful. I hope you never see it. I haven’t since the war, and that was enough.”
“He can control it?” Jackal asked, unnerved.
“More like he allows it to control him. I don’t know. Can’t claim to understand sorcery.”
“But Crafty does.”
Jackal had said it softly, almost to himself, but Warbler’s somber expression was replaced with one of grim purpose.
“What is he capable of?”
Images filled Jackal’s mind. The wizard standing unburned within the crucible of the Kiln walls. Sludges made inert by pipe smoke. The Sludge Man himself engulfed in a fiery, living breath. The orc assassin, dead yet screaming.
“Anything.”
It was all the answer Jackal had.
Warbler ran a hand through his mane of silver hair, sighing. “In your time with him, this swaddlehead didn’t say anything that might help us reckon out his plan?”
Starting slowly, Jackal went through it all. Crafty’s sudden arrival, their time in the Old Maiden Marsh, his promise to help Jackal become chief in exchange for some unnamed favor, everything. When it was all said, Warbler sat for a long time frowning.
“He said ‘only the Grey Bastards would do’? Those were his words?”
Jackal nodded. “Said he wanted to see Ul-wundulas…before it was gone.”
“Shaft my ass,” Warbler swore. “Singling out the Bastards points to needing the Claymaster for something. He’s the only thing that makes us unique amongst the hoofs anymore.”
“Us?” Jackal pointed out.
Warbler glared at him. “Tell me you don’t still feel like one of them.”
Jackal said nothing.
Seeing that his point had been made, Warbler thumped Jackal on the back. “So, what do we do, Bastard?”
“Try and do together what we couldn’t do separately,” Jackal replied. “Save our hoof.”
“You sure?” Warbler asked with a grin and pointed off into the night. “You got all of Hispartha out there, and Anville beyond that. You could slip away, find work as a mercenary. Maybe turn to whoring. I’d wager there’s plenty of noble ladies that would pay to have a pretty half-orc lick their quims.”
Jackal smiled and shook his head. “The Lots are my home, War-boar. A pile of guts, gristle, and shit-smeared innards, according to another whore I know. Doesn’t matter. Still home. And if Crafty thinks they’re going to be gone soon, he knows something. The way I figure, the Lots could only disappear if they are retaken. So, which is it? Hispartha or the thicks? Crafty certainly thinks it’s going to be one of them. Either way, we can’t let it happen.”
“No, we can’t,” Warbler agreed, rising. “So, he knows more than we do. Who knows more than him?”
“Another wizard,” Jackal offered.
Warbler cocked his head north. “There’s more than a few that way.”
“And one that way,” Jackal said, lifting his chin south, toward Ul-wundulas. “One who knows the Lots. Besides, we go north I’m likely to get drunk on the smell of noble cunny and never return.”
Warbler smirked. “So, it’s the castile, then. You think they’ll actually let us inside?”
“Certain of it.”
“Why?”
Jackal shrugged. “There’s a man there that really wants to hang me.”
Chapter 24
Sancho shrieked when Jackal kicked through the door to his bedchamber. The shrill cry might have been caused solely from the shock, or it might have been that the girl with her mouth around the whoremaster’s cock had accidentally bitten down in her own surprise. She crab-crawled quickly to a corner as Jackal barreled into the room. Sancho tried to stand, but panic and the breeches around his ankles conspired in tripping him. He fell backward over the chair he had just attempted to vacate and tumbled to the floor. Jackal flung the upset chair away and planted a heel upon the sweating pimp’s small prick, barely protruding from between his lard-heavy thighs. The shriek came again and Sancho’s eyes bulged as Jackal leaned forward.
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