The Grey Bastards_A Novel

by Jonathan French

  “I don’t know,” Jackal answered while continuing to look at Starling. “If they do, we are all dead.”

  “Did you know about this?” Warbler asked, his question tinged with accusation.

  “No. Sancho confessed there were others before I was dragged away, but I figured them for dead. Delia did too. Starling was alone when Crafty and I found her. But she was within a shed near the Sludge Man’s hut.”

  “Why separate her?”

  “Perhaps because she was the only Tine. These others were all smuggled in from Hispartha by Ignacio.”

  Nearby, Starling was looking upon the plight of her fellow elves with a vague disgust, revolving slowly in place. She ignored Jackal and Warbler entirely as she surveyed the keep, giving the she-elves held in the highest reaches the longest consideration. Jackal watched as the despair on Starling’s face ripened and soured. She had no notion what to do next, that much was plain. All her thought must have been bent on again reaching this prison, traveling on foot. Perhaps she did not expect to find any still alive. Whatever her hope, her innermost dread, she had arrived at last and the wet defeat in her eyes betrayed she did not know how to proceed.

  That defeat hardened within a heartbeat.

  Baring her own teeth in a silent snarl, she shook her head in denial of all fear, and moved swiftly toward one of the prisoners. Reaching with her free hand, she grabbed the captive by the arm and began to pull before Jackal could stop her. The sludge did not attack, but as the woman began to slide free, it resisted, growing taut to draw its charge back. Issuing an audible breath, Starling pulled harder and began using her knife to cut at the shiny black strands. Slinging his stockbow, Jackal stepped to her aid. He plunged both hands deep into the sludge and seized the unconscious she-elf beneath the arms, hauling back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Warbler move to attempt a lone rescue of another. Jackal and Starling labored side by side and, measure by measure, they wrestled their captive free of the stubborn substance. She moaned weakly as she emerged, Jackal supporting her weight. Starling was already moving to the next girl.

  A little down the wall, Warbler had also succeeded.

  The she-elves close to the ground were soon freed. The next three required Warbler and Jackal to stack rubble until they could be reached. The footing was precarious and the rescues arduous, but they managed after what seemed an eternity.

  “This one is gone,” Warbler said softly, inspecting the last of the trio once they were safely on the ground.

  Jackal looked down and nearly choked on the rage rising in his throat. Hells, they all looked half-dead. Their filthy, nude forms were frightfully wan. Half-dead, however, was a blessing when seen next to the corpse that Warbler knelt beside. She was just so still, devoid even of the shallow breaths of the others.

  Jackal looked skyward, at the five remaining captives, and wondered how many of them were beyond saving.

  “I don’t know how we are going to reach them,” he admitted aloud.

  Starling’s gaze was fixed on the same problem.

  And so they both saw when the large sludge came crawling over the lip of the roofless keep. Briefly, it blotted out the rough square of visible sky, consuming the stars, before it began its descent of the wall.

  Jackal alerted Warbler by simply saying his name, his tone enough to convey the danger that was approaching. Standing up, Warbler took his bow in hand and trained an arrow on the black mass. Knowing better, Jackal left his thrum slung. He watched and waited.

  The sludge avoided the remaining captives, oozing past them. As it came closer to the ground, Jackal saw it had soaked up all the sludge in its path, leaving a wide trail of stones showing through on the walls. The absorbed muck from the keep added to the creature’s size. When it reached the ground, it piled into a rough sphere, nearly the size of that damn elephant Oats had wept for.

  Warbler took several paces backward, the instincts of an archer guiding his movement. Starling retreated but one step, then forced herself to hold firm. Jackal refused to give any ground.

  The slick, rounded surface split, began peeling back and away, the opening petals of some great, putrid flower. The form enwombed within was familiar, yet dreadfully changed. Only a face and some of the torso were revealed, yet the injuries sustained from Crafty’s magic were apparent. The skin was grey and withered, etched with deep, hard wrinkles, as if rancid meat had been smoked.

  The Sludge Man was not burnt so much as exsiccated.

  The black yolk surrounding him kept sliding over his exposed features and, for a moment, the petrified flesh would revive, only to visibly degrade once more. Only his eyes were constant. They bored into Jackal with the violence of flung spears.

  “The villein returns to our demesne,” the Sludge Man muttered. “You forfeit all with this, your final trespass.”

  Jackal set his jaw. “I have risked all to come here, Corigari. What is forfeit remains to be seen.”

  The name was said offhandedly, a way of unbalancing the Sludge Man. It worked, for his glare brightened.

  “Our true name is too vaunted for mongrel tongues,” he declared. “We will have only our appellation when you address us.”

  “I don’t know what that means, Sludge Man,” Jackal admitted lightly.

  “Yet you are compliant in your ignorance.” The Sludge Man’s stare crawled over to Starling. “And you come bearing what you pilfered. Your chieftain is wise to deliver what was ours. Wiser still to have her deliverer be the Bastard that so affronted us.”

  Jackal nodded slowly, allowing the Sludge Man to believe they had been sent by the Claymaster.

  “But he won’t be delivering the one who truly caused you harm,” he stated.

  The Sludge Man glanced briefly at Warbler, as if just now realizing he wasn’t fat and turbaned.

  “The foreign wizard must know our displeasure!”

  “The Tyrkanian is my chief’s trusted adviser now,” Jackal said, shaking his head. “The Claymaster will never allow him to be harmed. Nor will there be any more elf girls. That is why I have come, to tell you that the Claymaster has severed the bargain between you and Ignacio.”

  “That is foolish,” the Sludge Man mused, “of him, and you. For your chieftain has sent you to die, and willingly did you march.”

  “Not if we make a new bargain,” Jackal offered.

  The Sludge Man’s eyes narrowed. His inky cocoon roiled around his ruined visage.

  Jackal pressed on. “I can give you the wizard. You can have revenge upon him. Him, and the Claymaster too.”

  “And you wish what for this, knave?”

  “My life and the lives of those here. Release the elves, allow my companion to leave with them. Once they are safely outside the marsh, I will show you how to enter the Kiln. There, you can have your vengeance.”

  The sludge laved the bog trotter’s face. When the blackness retreated, the Sludge Man’s revivified cheeks were smiling.

  “You would offer two lives for nearly a score. And for what? You believe that your holdfast would offer impediment to one such as we? Walls do not deter us.”

  “What about wizards?” Jackal asked. “I witnessed his defeat of you, Sludge Man. And you don’t look hale enough to try him again, not without knowledge that I can give you. I rode with the Tyrkanian. I can ensure you are victorious.”

  It was a lie, of course, but Jackal sold it with the weight of his voice and the set of his stare.

  “Why betray your hoof, mongrel?”

  “In order to lead it,” Jackal replied firmly.

  The Sludge Man’s smile vanished in another caress of muck.

  “You seek to gain much for using us as your cat’s-paw. Are we to be vassal to you? Is this the extent of your impudence?”

  “If we both wish to prosper, this is the way,” Jackal said. “You punish the Claymaster’s
pet wizard, I get what I deserve. All bargains resume. As chief, I can get elves coming back into the Old Maiden.”

  Another lie. They were piling up, as unstable as the surrounding piles of rubble.

  “Yet you would rob us of what has already been purchased,” the Sludge Man said, his head nodding down toward the prostrate forms of the she-elves.

  “To appease the Tines,” Jackal told him, indicating Starling with a tilt of his head. “Ignacio was never supposed to bring you any point-ears from the Lots. The Claymaster discovered his dealings and feared a war. He sent me and the wizard to bring the girl back to Dog Fall. We did, but she spoke to her kin of the others. The Tines have demanded their release.”

  The Sludge Man laughed and Jackal knew his tower of deceptions had crumbled.

  “You knew naught of her when first you sullied our home. You spoke, slack-jawed, of whoremasters and horses. You prattle now to save yourself, caught again burgling.”

  “I’m not caught, Sludge Man,” Jackal returned. “I came here to find you. To offer you a chance of retribution on the wizard. What I didn’t expect to find was your fucking harem of dying elves! So why not come on out of that blob of shit and let me bash you in the cods again.”

  “What happened to courteous?” Warbler asked.

  “Fuck it,” Jackal answered without looking back.

  “That’s my boy.”

  The Sludge Man’s unsightly face quivered with rage.

  “Harem?” he repeated. “It is an altar! The Maiden demands sacrifice. Orc and elf defiled her, waging their blood feud. So it is with orc and elf blood that she will be made sacred again. We who rule her must first serve her, and lay her board with a bounty of her despoilers. The House of Corigari has done this faithfully, stooping to base dealings with grasping peasants to maintain the offerings!”

  Sacrifice. That was what all this was, Jackal realized.

  The Sludge Man would have been little more than a boy when the Incursion reached his family home. He must have witnessed the battles fought between the thicks and the elves, been caught in the devastation of their spells. That magic changed the marsh, sunk into the land, suffused the waters. The Sludge Man may very well have been the only survivor. Whatever happened, he clearly became mad and powerful. Perhaps he controlled the sludges, perhaps they controlled him, Jackal didn’t know, but he understood enough.

  Thicks often came through the Old Maiden after crossing the Gut to the south, using its treacherous and deserted expanse to enter the Lots. Even for them, the marsh had a sinister reputation, and for good reason. The Sludge Man culled the raiding parties or destroyed them entirely. But the Sludge Man wasn’t killing orcs to help the Lots, he was giving the Old Maiden half of the blood he believed it desired.

  Elves, however, were another matter. They were wise enough never to venture here. For them, the Sludge Man had been forced to barter. He just needed someone willing to smuggle point-ears in from Hispartha and other dens of slavery, someone with a heart black enough to agree to such evil.

  “Captain Ignacio will soon be weighing down a noose,” Jackal said. “His time as your faithful hound is over. Your days of murdering elves end now!”

  The Sludge Man had grown quiet, yet the muck around him quivered with anger.

  “They end, half-orc, because you have brought back all the Maiden demands, the she-elf with orc seed quickening in her belly.”

  Jackal forced himself not to look at Starling. His thoughts raced. So, that was why she was sequestered.

  “She is no longer pregnant,” Jackal proclaimed. “The Tines rid her of the get.”

  The Sludge Man’s stare returned to Starling and she recoiled from the hungry menace lodged within. Jackal stepped between her and the demon.

  “Your lies are feeble,” the Sludge Man said. “It continues to grow. We can sense it. We sensed it the day we returned here to find the orcs had made merry with our larder. Fate led them here while we were away retrieving your dead man from the brothel. Their lust had overwhelmed their fear and they slaked their savagery, leaving only one alive. We gave the ravagers to the Maiden and would have done the same with the she-elf, but we heard the whispers of destiny wriggling in her belly. Orc-blood, elf-blood, made one. A rare and exquisite abomination. We took her to be close to us, to guard her until she birthed the Maiden’s price. From the womb of the mother to the womb of the marsh will the babe go, and our lands will return to glory.”

  The cocoon began to slide forward. The sludge upon the walls of the keep was also moving, sliding down and carrying the remaining elves with the tide, depositing them upon the rubble before melding with the Sludge Man’s dreadful palanquin. As the enlarging demon drew close, Jackal reached for his tulwar, only to remember the blade had been taken at the castile. An arrow sliced the air, speeding for the Sludge Man’s eye. Warbler’s aim was true, but a tendril of sludge darted from the mass and consumed the missile before it struck. Jackal began to step backward, unslinging his thrum and pulling back on the string. Before he had a bolt loaded, the Sludge Man stopped.

  Starling stood before him, holding the knife to her own throat.

  And she began to speak.

  Her voice drifted back to Jackal, barely discernible. It was the elf tongue, complicated and mellifluous. She spoke softly, yet her jaw was set with firm certainty as she addressed the Sludge Man, the foreign words swimming elegantly in a school. The bog trotter’s brow creased in concentration. He was listening.

  Jackal moved quickly to Warbler’s side. “What is she saying?”

  “She just told the Sludge Man he is dying,” the old thrice replied in a hush. “Says the wizard’s magic is killing him. That he knows it too. She says her child is half a year from being born and that the Sludge Man won’t last that long.”

  Jackal let out the breath he had been holding. She did know.

  The Sludge Man spoke now, his low, mumbling voice rendering the elven tongue hideous. Starling tensed at his words, her knife arm flexing as she voiced a reply. Jackal could hear the threat.

  “Sludge Man just claimed he would take her,” Warbler related quickly. “Take his chances. Starling swore she would deny him. Kill herself.”

  Jackal leaned forward, readying himself to move.

  “Stay put,” Warbler hissed. Starling was still speaking and the old thrice was clearly struggling to keep up as her voice grew desperate. “She’s offering a deal. Says she knows where to find another half-orc with elvish blood.”

  Jackal shot a confused look at Warbler and found his befuddlement reflected.

  “What is she—”

  Warbler growled him to silence, trying to hear.

  “She is asking for our lives in exchange for the identity of the half-breed. An adult, she claims. One that will satisfy the Old Maiden. If he does not agree, she will open her own throat. She says he has no choice.”

  The Sludge Man withdrew slightly, the cocoon seeming to diminish as it bathed his wasted flesh. Within the embrace of pitch, the face nodded and spoke a word.

  An agreement.

  Starling began to speak again. Slower, now.

  Warbler had no trouble catching her hesitant words, yet still he looked perplexed, the lines of his sun-creased face deepening.

  “War-boar, what?” Jackal insisted.

  “She says it’s one of our own. Our hoof, the Bastards. I don’t…hells.”

  The curse came out as barely a whisper, yet the Sludge Man raised his gaze to Warbler. Starling had ceased speaking and she turned now, her face issuing a plea for forgiveness.

  “Warbler?” Jackal demanded. “What the fuck did she just say?”

  The old thrice’s face hardened once more and he peered hard at the Sludge Man.

  “Fetching,” he said. “She told him it is Fetching.”

  Jackal loosed a disbelieving breath, but
as he looked at Warbler all words of challenge died in his throat.

  “You don’t deny this, old one?” the Sludge Man inquired.

  Warbler shook his white-maned head. “No, I don’t deny it. The she-elf tells you true. My woman cared for all the foundlings, so I know. Fetch is half-elven.”

  The Sludge Man smiled and his face began to sink back into the cocoon. The black mass sealed around him and moved back toward the wall.

  “No!” Jackal shouted. “They are both lying to you, Sludge Man! This is insanity!”

  He charged, but the sludge flowed swiftly up the wall. With a cry of frustration, Jackal loosed a bolt into its glistening form, uselessly. Ignoring the assault, the blob vanished over the lip of the keep. In a fury, Jackal whirled on Warbler.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “That was her saving our skins,” Warbler replied, pointing at Starling.

  Jackal tried to glare at the she-elf, but found he could not even look at her.

  “Is it even true?” he asked, striding toward Warbler. “About Fetch?”

  The old thrice gave him a stern look. “What do you think? Her beauty. Her prowess. Have you ever seen a surer aim with a thrum?”

  Jackal ran an aggravated hand through his hair. “And you knew?”

  “Not for certain until now,” Warbler told him. “But I suspected. Beryl was strangely guarded about that one. Had a laboring woman laid up that she wouldn’t let anyone else see. I came back from a patrol and there was a new baby. Beryl said the mother had left, but there were blisters on her hands. I knew she had dug a grave, and she always had this same look when she lost one to the birthing bed. I never pressed it. Recognizing an elf-blood would only cause trouble between the Bastards and the Tines. Far as the hoof was concerned, Isabet was just another abandoned half-breed.”