The Grey Bastards_A Novel

by Jonathan French

  “Where did the Tine girl come from?” he yelled. There was not much time and no need for silence.

  Sancho tried to say his name, but all that came out was an airy, “Ja.”

  Jackal cast a quick look at the whore in the corner. It was the new girl, the one from Anville that he had enjoyed with Delia the night before Fetch killed Garcia.

  “It’s fine, darling,” Jackal told her. “You’re not the one who is going to get hurt here.”

  Removing his foot from Sancho’s crotch, he reached down and hauled the tub of suet off the floor, spinning him around. Jackal wanted that broad back between himself and the door, just in case Bermudo’s boys decided to come in swinging.

  “Where, Sancho?” Jackal demanded, backhanding him across the mouth.

  When the whoremaster’s head snapped back, there was blood smeared across the black stubble on his jowls.

  “Jackal,” he whined, “you were cast out. I heard—”

  “You heard true! I got no hoof now, fat man. Nothing to lose and nothing to hold me back. And you’re half the reason why. Tell me! Before I start carving hocks off you.”

  Despite the threat, Jackal kept his knife sheathed. He hadn’t even brought his thrum, leaving it with Warbler. All this was pointless if the soldiers killed him outright. Shaking Sancho roughly, Jackal got directly in his face.

  “I want to know how you got an orc-raped Tine.”

  “But…I—I didn’t—”

  Jackal buried a knee in Sancho’s sizable gut. “Lie to me again!”

  The whoremaster was bent double, retching and wheezing. Jackal forced him upright once more.

  “Spill your guts, you fat fucking frail or I’ll kick them out through your damn throat.”

  Sancho shook his head weakly as a line of pink slaver fell from his quivering lips.

  “The Sludge Man told me he traded for her,” Jackal said. “He certainly had enough coin. Where else would he have gotten her but here?”

  Defiance burned through the fear and pain in Sancho’s eyes.

  “I never had that fucking elf!” he exclaimed, quivering with feeble rage. “I told Ignacio she was a mistake. No elves from Dog Fall, he knew that! I said he had to take it up with the Sludge Man and be off.”

  Confusion boiled Jackal’s blood.

  “Ignacio? What are you going on about?” he demanded, nearly lifting the whoremaster off the floor by his stained tunic. But Sancho was barely listening.

  “What was I…by all the hells’ cunts, what was I supposed to do?” he rambled, his flash of anger had cooled as quick as it came, leaving him brittle. “What choices do I have, pinched between the Sludge Man and a captain of the castile?”

  Damning all caution, Jackal snatched his knife from his belt and placed the flat of the blade against Sancho’s cod. The whoremaster stilled, the feel of the cold metal refocusing his attention.

  “Choices?” Jackal hissed. “I’ll give you two. Talk sense and stay whole, or keep babbling and be gelded.”

  Jackal had never heard a man talk without breathing before, but somehow Sancho managed the feat.

  “Ignacio’s been bringing point-ears down from Hispartha. Slaves, singly, never more. Easier to hide amongst the other girls. They stay here until the Sludge Man comes. He pays in coin. That’s it. I just hold them for a day or two and take my cut.”

  The sound of boots scraped in the hallway. Bermudo’s cavaleros, four of them, the last four stationed at the brothel. They weren’t hurrying. Jackal couldn’t see them yet, but his ears told him they were coming carefully, likely trying to ascertain what was happening before committing themselves. Sancho wasn’t a man to merit much haste.

  “And the Tine?” Jackal growled, lowering his voice. “When was she here?”

  “I told you,” Sancho pleaded softly, “she wasn’t. Not for more than a moment. I refused to take her. Sent Ignacio off. That pock-faced fuck must have got greedy, to risk taking a Tine.”

  “When was this?”

  “The night before Fetching skewered that fop’s skull.”

  “Hogshit!” Jackal yelled. “We were here! Oats and Fetch and me!”

  “You were here,” Sancho needled. “Drunk and fucking. Like always.”

  Jackal went numb. Some small voice in him had kept whispering the notion that the Claymaster had been involved, that he managed to hide his part from everyone. But now that whisper died. Starling was here and gone before Garcia died. She was never payment for his disposal, just one of hells knew how many taken and sold in an evil trade born from greed and the concert of three evil men. And the Sludge Man had fucking told him! He’d said Jackal was ignorant of his captain’s dealings, but hadn’t meant the captain of the Bastards, he meant the one under their control. Fucking Ignacio!

  She’d been in here and gone, all while Jackal was blinded by willing flesh, deafened by flowing drink.

  Over Sancho’s shoulder, a helmeted head peered around the doorjamb.

  Time for the gamble.

  Quickly sheathing his blade, Jackal punched Sancho across the jaw. That sent the cavaleros rushing in, swords drawn.

  Jackal left his tulwar in its scabbard and grabbed up the chair, shattering it on the breastplate of the first man through the door. He careened into the wall and fell on his ass, cursing. Swords were little use in the cramped space of the room. The ceiling was low and each man who came in made it harder on his fellows to properly maneuver. Deflecting an awkward sword stroke with the remains of the chair, Jackal stomped the attacker in the knee. As the stricken man crumpled with the pain, Jackal grabbed the plume on his helmet and jerked. Already off-balance, the soldier toppled. One of the remaining two had some sense and thrust with his sword, but his speed did not match his wits. Sidestepping the blade, Jackal caught the man’s wrist and hammered his elbow. Crying out, the cavalero dropped his sword and Jackal used his arm to swing him into the last man. Their breastplates clattered as they jointly met the ground.

  The first man had recovered and was gaining his feet. Jackal sprung and swatted the sword from his hand, but allowed him to rise. He needed to turn this into a brawl. He struck with fist and boot, trying to anger the cavaleros without inflicting serious injury. But he fought with more ferocity than intended, his temper lit by Sancho’s revelations. Jackal had come here as a pretense, a means of being taken to the castile without arousing suspicion. There he hoped to find answers, but here he was met with more questions. Sick of riddles and mysteries and skullduggery, Jackal raged.

  In the end, it was impossible to say who was more fortunate not to have been killed in the struggle, Jackal or the cavaleros. He barely felt their blows, most of which he let land, and two were missing teeth by the time he took a fall, permitting them to overpower him. Breathing heavily, Jackal was dragged to standing, his arms pinned.

  The whoremaster had restored his breeches to a proper height, finding enough nerve to approach and pummel him once in the gut while the cavaleros held him still.

  Jackal laughed. “You should keep to slapping whores around, you splinter-cocked tun.”

  Sancho smoothed his greasy hair and sniffed once. A wretched little smile appeared.

  “I will,” the whoremaster whispered, leaning close. “You know, Jackal, I’ve peddled quim since I was a boy. Started in the alleys of Magerit, collecting payment while my sisters spread their legs in the gutter. I learned a long time ago to spot a man who has feelings for a coin slot. So you should know, you fucking soot-skin, that when I do feel a need to slap one of my whores, from now on, I’ll start with Delia.”

  Jackal returned the smile. “And you should know that when I leave the castile and begin killing, I’ll start with you.”

  As the cavaleros manhandled Jackal out of the room, he fixed Sancho with a hard stare. The frail managed to keep to his smile, but his usually ruddy face had b
lanched considerably.

  Out in the brothel yard, the cavaleros relieved Jackal of his blades and bound him with manacles before throwing him over the back of a mule. Blood rushing to his face, he waited while they secured him with ropes.

  Once on their horses, one man rode point, one led the mule, and the other two brought up the rearguard. Jackal ate dust for miles. Somewhere, hidden amongst the scrub and the wavy phantoms caused by the heat, Warbler was following. He was supposed to make sure Jackal made it inside the castile, wait until morning, and present himself to the garrison to volunteer as a scout. The old thrice had a solid reputation in the Lots; the frails would be fools not to take him. At the very least, they would allow him through the gates to speak with one of the captains. They had counted on it being Ignacio, but Jackal hadn’t expected to hear that Ignacio was involved in some black business with the Sludge Man. The captain was an unrepentant heap of shit, but smuggling elven slaves? And to the Sludge Man, no less, for whatever twisted purpose. That knowledge changed things.

  Jackal considered goading the cavaleros with insults. If he forced them to beat on him, if it looked like they might kill him, then Warbler would surely intervene. That wasn’t quite the plan, but if Sancho got word to Ignacio about what Jackal now knew, the march to the gallows would be quick.

  However, the whoremaster had said nothing to the cavaleros that came to his rescue. They were noble-born, under Bermudo’s command.

  Sweat dripping from his face, Jackal grinned.

  Bermudo knew. It must have been the reason he came to the brothel that morning. He was trying to catch Ignacio in the act. Slaves were a way of life in Hispartha, but elves were illegal, lest the alliance with the point-ears unravel.

  The captains had always resented the other’s presence in the Lots. Bermudo hated his low-born compatriot working so closely with the mongrel hoofs. Half-orcs were beneath the notice of a gentleman, after all. Ignacio viewed Bermudo with the inherited contempt all peasants hold for those that lord over them. That, and the man was all but useless in a place such as the Lots. Still, he’d managed to root out Ignacio’s crime, somehow, and bit at the chance of being rid of him. Jackal wondered what the blue blood would think if he learned the Bastards had possessed living proof of Ignacio’s traffic in flesh. If only the haughty captain had come to the brothel a little sooner, he’d have found Starling himself. If only Jackal had not been carousing…

  Hells with it. Jackal would hold to the plan. Warbler would get in or not. Jackal would leave alive or not. No use yanking the hog to a stop now.

  The castile appeared beneath the midday sky. From his inverted position, Jackal did not see the fortress so much as feel its presence. No fewer than six great towers lorded over the curtain wall, which crowned a steep, parched hill. The road switchbacked up the western slope toward the barbican. Jackal craned his neck to eyeball the battlements along the wall and above the gate. A pair of bartizans jutted imposingly from either side of the yawning arch, no doubt filled with archers.

  This was the last fortification in Ul-wundulas still held by Hispartha. It must have once had a name, but none uttered it anymore. Home to a sizable standing garrison, as well as two companies of cavaleros, common and noble, the castile contained the largest armed force in the land. The towers commanded views for miles in every direction. And one of those towers was the residence of the castile’s wizard. Like the stronghold, he had no spoken name, and like the stronghold, his simple presence was a reminder that the Crown still retained ample power in the Lots.

  The castile was larger than the Kiln, its tallest tower double the height of the central chimney. The construction of the Bastards’ home had borrowed the splayed-base walls found surrounding this citadel, but the Kiln did not come close to matching its imposing bulk. An army of orcs would be hard-pressed to breach these defenses. Countless waves would be broken on the hill, the entire ascent plagued by withering arrow flights. The bodies would be heaped beneath the talus before the battlements could be gained.

  Since boyhood, the castile had been an arrogant, brutish fixture in Jackal’s life, but never had he felt its slumbering oppression more keenly than he did now, trussed to a mule and entering the shadow of the gateway. Stableboys ran up and took the cavaleros’ horses in hand as they dismounted. Orders were barked and Jackal was hauled roughly off the mule by a pair of guardsmen. He got a brief look at the sizable bailey beyond the barbican before being shoved through a low door set in the base of a square tower. Hells, he had been inside the walls for only a few heartbeats and had already seen at least two-score soldiers.

  One of his guards lifted a grate in the floor, permitting access to a set of stairs spiraling down into darkness. As he began the descent, a voice in Jackal’s head told him this may have been a fool-ass plan. The voice sounded too much like Fetching’s. Clenching his jaw and squaring his shoulders, Jackal walked steadily downward. A long, dim corridor met them at the bottom of the stairs, lit by far-spaced torches. The guards must have been warned about him, or else had a healthy fear of half-orcs, for both leveled their halberds, one in front and one behind, before herding him down the passage, the lead man walking backward.

  This tedious shuffle eventually brought them to a large, evil-smelling chamber with a heavy door in the opposite wall. The guards stopped well short of this, however, and Jackal heard the man behind him open one of ten iron grates in the floor.

  “Down,” the lead guard instructed with a punctuating jab of his halberd.

  Turning, Jackal looked into the pit. It was a narrow shaft, and double his height in depth. Water stood at the bottom, dully reflecting the meager torchlight.

  Spitting, Jackal squatted and sat on the edge of the pit. Turning to rest on his elbows, he let his legs dangle and gripped the edge with his manacled hands. He lowered himself down and hung with arms fully extended before letting go, landing with a heavy splash in the water. The unseen stone beneath the pool was slick with scum, but he kept his feet. He made a point not to look up, lest the guards decide to piss on him, a distinct possibility considering the smell of the ankle-deep liquid. Thankfully, he heard the grate slam shut above and the footsteps of the guards withdrawing, though not far. Jackal could hear their low voices muttering to one another in the chamber, but the sloshing cell swallowed the words. They conversed sporadically until they were relieved some time later by another pair. These two must not have liked each other much, for they said little.

  The width of the cell might have permitted Jackal to sit, but the water made even that small comfort a miserable prospect. So, he stood, alternating between pacing the cramped, flooded square and leaning against the slimy walls.

  Time rotted.

  Jackal was just about to give in and sit when he heard the sound of the door open once more. The footsteps were not the ambling plod of bored soldiers, but the purposeful, resounding stride of one in command. A shadow fell across the square holes of the grate.

  “I knew leaving men at Sancho’s would prove fruitful,” came a gloating voice. “Vengeance or lust. One of these was sure to bring you loping back to the brothel. Mongrels are ever driven by base needs.”

  “Glad to help you prove your capability, Bermudo,” Jackal called up. “Someone needs to.”

  “The only proof you provide, half-orc, is the witlessness of your kind. Pride without brains, that’s what disgusts me most about you ash-coloreds. Though, in this instance, I should be thankful for it, considering it was your need to avenge yourself on the brothel-keep’s incompetence that delivered you in chains, where you belong.”

  Jackal bit back a laugh. Bermudo truly believed he had caught him through his own designs. Witlessness and pride were certainly present, just not where the captain claimed. This plan was perfect after all. At least, it would be without the manacles and the locked pit.

  “It’s that childish need for undeserved respect,” Bermudo droned on, “wh
ich sours my stomach. That’s what got the better of you, not me.”

  “Well, half of that is true,” Jackal stated lightly.

  The figure beyond the grate was silent for a moment.

  “Eight years. That’s how long I’ve been in Ul-wundulas. Eight years, every one of them a sweltering crawl. And then, delivered to my command, is a man that offers a chance of returning to civilian life. A chance you took from me.”

  Jackal snorted. “Garcia was likely spewing goose shit. You’d believe anyone with a whispered promise of going home. In earnest, Captain, you should be thanking me. Garcia was lording over you that morning. In your precious Hisparthan social standing hogshit, that harelip was every bit your superior. Another month, and he would have been commanding the blue bloods.”

  “You’re right,” Bermudo admitted, but Jackal could hear the smile. “I could not see it at the beginning, but that was a service, killing him. And doubly so now. I have just sent a messenger north with a letter to Garcia’s mother. In the…pile of noble Hisparthan hogshit, she is a fat fly who buzzes close to the top.”

  “I heard,” Jackal said.

  “From Ignacio, I’m sure. The man’s lack of honor is outpaced only by his stupidity.”

  “You were the one outpaced. Missed him at Sancho’s.”

  “Because of you soot-skins.”

  Jackal shook his head, unsure if the man standing over him could even see the gesture. “You’ll never believe this, but the Bastards weren’t helping Ignacio. He was gone well before you arrived.”