“And what’s that?” Luys asked, intrigued but suspicious.
Cissy made a breathy noise as if the answer should be obvious. “This is the Bastards’ chief. You boys ain’t wrong. She’s gonna fight. Die before she’ll let herself be dishonored. Won’t be able to barter her to the noblewoman then and your new lives are over before they start. But”—Cissy directed the proposal at Fetching—“this one loves quim more than you all put together. Reckon she’d rather have me service her in front of you than fight you off. What say, chief?”
Before Fetch could answer, the men approved of the idea with grunted laughter.
Cissy continued to weave her web. “And after, I’ll take care of you lot, docile as a lamb. Have what you will.” The anticipation of that promise danced through the men. Their silhouettes seemed to bristle.
Alvaro’s voice crawled from his obscured face. “That’s the way it’ll be.”
“Let’s take them behind the rocks,” Luys said, voice now high as a boy’s. “Ramon told us to, besides.”
He was already heading off.
“Wait,” Alvaro said. Fetch could feel his stare. “Get the mongrel bitch’s stockbow.”
“What?” Luys whined. “Why?”
“You want to wake those scabby outriders for one? I want a way to put a bolt in this Bastard bitch if she decides to go berserk. And bring your knives. Hear that, half-breed?”
“I heard,” Fetch told him with forced disinterest. “Cissy said it. Rather spend than die tonight.”
Luys stumped off, returning with Fetch’s thrum, quiver, and a fresh bottle. Surrounded by their drunken drovers, Fetch and Cissy were made to walk the length of the ridge’s base, until at last shuffling behind its shoulder.
“Shit,” one of them complained, tripping. “Can’t see much.”
“Go get a torch, then,” Alvaro told him.
The man jumped to it. “Don’t have ’em do nothing yet!”
Luys was swearing, trying to pull the string of the heavy stockbow. Another man helped and together they managed to lock it back.
“Why’d we send Gaspar for that torch?” Alvaro groused, swilling the last of the first bottle and tossing it. “Never was a man slower with a task.”
He wasn’t wrong. It was a long span before the man returned. He had the torch in his hand. And Blas at his heels.
Fuck. Six to slaughter, now. And this new one sober.
The cavaleros, faces now revealed in choppy light, were as unhappy with the lead scout’s arrival as Fetch was. Every man gave a curse or a groan upon seeing him.
“Gaspar, you stupid shit,” the one with the pug nose said.
Blas was indifferent to their scorn. He grinned widely, displaying a mass of crooked teeth. “This looks diverting. Yes.”
“Not for you it’s not,” Alvaro said. “Get gone.”
Blas removed his filthy hat, revealing a balding head shiny with sweat. “No, no. Cavalero Ramon said I was to watch these doings. Make certain you did not kill either of the prisoners.”
Alvaro took a threatening step toward the smaller man. “I should thrash you all the way back to the castile.”
“Leave him,” Luys said. He was having difficulty juggling the bottle and the stockbow, not wanting to relinquish either. “Let’s get to it.”
Cissy pounced on their impatience. Taking Fetch’s hands, she guided her to the ground. Her every movement became fluid yet overwrought, provocative. Back turned toward the men, Cissy knelt before Fetching, crawled to her lap. It would have been ludicrous were it not holding the frails entranced. Back arched, Cissy hiked her skirt up past her hips. The cavaleros gawked.
She gave Fetching the look that said to be ready before casting her eyes over her shoulder. “Not going to be able to get her breeches off with these shackles.”
Alvaro seethed a moment. “I ain’t got th—”
A rattle of metal interrupted. Grinning, Blas dangled the key. “Glad I’m here now?”
He tossed it to the stocky man next to him, but the unready oaf missed the catch.
“Hells, pick it up and free ’em,” Alvaro said. “And train that bow, Luys, or give it over!”
Luys handed the bottle to Alvaro and pointed the thrum at Fetching, the head of the bolt wavering.
“May I?” Cissy asked, holding a hand up for the bottle.
Alvaro eyed her and didn’t move.
“Be an ungenerous fuck, then, ’Varo,” she pouted, her skirt falling at the same moment to again cover her backside.
Stocky had fished the key from the dust and, as he straightened, Alvaro shoved the bottle at him, gesturing at Cissy. The man walked over and squatted. He handed the bottle to Cissy and shifted to unlock Fetch’s ankles. Soon as they were open he picked up the chains and stood.
Fetch seized the dragging links and jerked. Stocky should have let go, but the instinct of strong men is always to hang on, to pull back. Not a contest to have with a half-orc. Jumping to her feet, Fetch snatched the man toward her, grabbed his jerkin, broke his nose with her forehead and spun him around.
She heard her thrum release. Stocky made a gargling sound as Fetch felt a sting in her ribs. The bolt had come out the back of her now-dying shield, penetrated her brigand, and pierced the flesh beneath. It did not slow her.
Reaching around, she jerked the dagger from Stocky’s belt and booted him away, sending the heavier man tumbling into Alvaro. They spilled to the ground in a struggling lump. Next to them, Blas’s hand went to his lips to unleash one of his damn whistles. Cissy sprang, smashed the bottle over his skull and jammed the jagged remnants into his neck. The scout staggered a few steps backward, blood fountaining up to coat his cheek in crimson. He crumpled to his knees before falling on his face. Luys was struggling to reload the stockbow, but Pug Nose had abandoned him to perform the task alone and rushed Cissy, dagger drawn. Fetch darted into his path, rammed her blade into his ear. Using the weapon in his skull as a handle, she held him upright, and plucked the dagger from his twitching hand, tossing it to Cissy. She caught it deftly, bent to retrieve the fallen key, and quickly freed Fetch’s hands.
Gaspar had taken off running, the torchlight fleeing with him.
Luys still wrestled with the stockbow, making high-pitched whines with every fruitless tug on the string. Fetch rushed over and took the thrum from his grasp. The man gave a startled whimper, but did nothing save shiver as she removed a bolt from the quiver on his belt. Loading quickly, she raised the thrum and pulled the tickler. Gaspar jerked as the bolt took him in the back before he rounded the rocks. She’d made sure to pierce his lung to prevent him crying out. His body spilled atop the dropped torch and smothered the flame.
A few steps away, Alvaro had disentangled himself from Stocky’s weighty corpse and stood, but the sudden departure of the light had left him blind. Yet Fetch could still see him, crouched and trying to make out shapes in the dark, brandishing his knife. The fool might have called for aid, but must not have wanted to reveal himself, wrongly believing he was concealed by the night. Fetch took three strides, rammed the heel of her hand upon the pommel of Alvaro’s dagger, and forced the man’s own blade up beneath his jaw. Gurgling, choking on the blood, he fell once more, this time upon his dead companion. By the time Fetch turned around, Cissy had ended Luys’s whimpers by slitting his throat. She removed the quiver from his belt, offering it up.
“We need to move,” Fetch hissed, taking the bolts. “We’ll circle out beyond the sentries and come at the hog from the darkness. With luck, most of the men will be sleeping.”
The eight scouts screened the camp. They weren’t riding patrol paths, just sitting their horses, facing away from the ridge, peering into the night. Fetch and Cissy hunkered among some scrub nearest the man on the far right of the picket. The almond tree where Womb was tethered stood a stone’s throw behind him. The ca
mpfire had died down a bit, but the tree was still within its glow. If any of the scouts glanced back while Fetch and Cissy were freeing the hog they would be plainly visible. A look at the camp revealed prone forms scattered around the fire, a few men propped up against the rock face. It was too far to tell if any were still awake. If just one opened his eyes they would be discovered.
Fetch’s gut whispered the right moment and she took it. She stayed low, Cissy dogging her steps. They snuck past the flank scout and padded swiftly for the tree. Womb Broom snorted and stamped when Fetch came up, and she inwardly cursed him for an ornery villain. Crouched, she froze, using the hog to shield her from the camp, craning around to see if the scout had turned.
The man remained oblivious.
Cissy knelt at the tree, working the tethers free while Fetch covered the scout with her thrum, ready to feather him should the need arise. A sharp intake of breath from Cissy drew her attention.
Blas came stumbling into the light, the hand clasped to his throat soaked red. He was leaning on the rock face, barely able to remain upright. His jaw was working, trying in vain to push a sound out of his gushing mouth. Fetch stood and raised her stockbow to her shoulder, but the life went out of Blas before she could take the shot. He fell atop one of the sleeping men. That man awakened screaming.
The camp came alive.
Spinning about, Fetch put her bolt through the sentry rider. He fell from the saddle, his horse emitting a screech. Men scrambled from their blankets, taking up arms, most immediately rushing for their horses.
“You three, check around the ridge!” Ramon, yelling commands. “Find them, go!”
“There! The hog—!”
Fetch had already reloaded and put the observant man down. But not quick enough.
Cissy had the lines undone.
“Get astride!” Fetching shouted, loosing another bolt, trying to keep the cavaleros hiding behind their shields.
Cissy mounted. Fetch moved to join her. Womb Broom screamed, a thrumbolt seeming to sprout from his flank. He twisted, trying to flee the pain, and slammed into Fetching. Blobs of light, pain. Her injured head had smacked something. The tree? She didn’t know, tried to stand, but was sickened by the bobbing world. She felt a tugging at her brigand, saw Cissy’s swimming outline above. Hoofbeats and hog squeals. Horse nickers and men shouting. They all converged on the pain in Fetch’s skull, drummed it deeper. Cissy cried out and the tugging ceased.
It was replaced by hard blows. Boots and fists and the hafts of lances. She was pummeled until the agony in her head spread to her gut and chest, back and limbs. More tugging. Stronger. Dragging her. She drooled blood until the dust clogged her mouth. The hands released, dumping the burden of her. Face slapped something hard and rough. She clawed forward, felt bark. Back at the tree? No. The other. Farther from the light.
“Get a damn rope!”
“Pfft. Easier to put a lance through her, have done.”
“I say she hangs.”
“Tree ain’t tall enough for that, Ramon.”
“Will be after we cut her legs off.”
Fetch managed to roll over. Men stood over her, around her. Behind them loomed horsemen, one reloading his stockbow.
“Fucking frails,” she mumbled, spitting blood at them.
She tried to look around, could barely control her lolling head. Couldn’t see Cissy. She pushed up, slid back. Ramon stomped her chest and the tree hammered her spine. Propped by the trunk, she waited for the rope.
It arrived around Cissy’s neck.
“Isa?”
“No!” Fetch tried to rise again.
Ramon kicked her, kept kicking her.
“I told you!” he bellowed, panting from the exertion. “Told you what would happen!”
“Isabet!” The plea was panicked. “FETC—”
A horse ran forward, rope sawed across a tree limb, and the cry was throttled.
A cavalero gave a small grunt. “Tree’s tall enough, after all.”
“No…” The word dribbled from Fetch’s swollen lips, a weak and useless utterance she could not cease. “No…no…”
An arm’s length and a finger’s breadth away, Cissy dangled, her kicking feet less than a handspan from the ground.
Rage boiled within Fetching, promising to put her on her feet, to suffer the blunt blows until the cavaleros were forced to wield sharp steel. She let it rise. And was betrayed. The sludge choked her, banished her breath with its wet weight. Ramon took the fit for a trick and booted her again. It would have been a mercy to succumb right then, strangle beside Cissy. But the sludge was cruel. Fetch did not die with her. All she could do was hold Cissy’s eyes until they rolled to white. The girl she’d known from her first memory was dead long before the twitching of her suspended limbs subsided.
Fetch tried to curse the frails, promise them death by her hand, but she spewed nothing but racking coughs.
“I want her wrapped in chains!” Ramon screamed. “And none will touch her unless it’s to throw her over the back of a mule! You and you, get Blas and the rest of those curs and drag them far away from camp. Come sunrise, I don’t want to break my fast with vultures.”
“We’re not burying them?”
Ramon growled a dissent. “Let those raping fools rot in the sun.”
“And the whore?”
“Take her too.”
Cissy’s body barely made a sound when it crumpled to the ground. Her slumped form covered the distance between them, and Fetch placed a hand on her head, briefly caressing the hair she’d braided so many times in the orphanage. Cissy slid from beneath her fingers, dragged away by the cavaleros. Through the dust.
“That was your doing,” Ramon said. He turned away.
A chorus of screams split the night, snatching the man’s attention.
Fetch had heard horses in panic, but these were the cries of animals beyond terror, animals whose minds had become unhinged. The cavaleros turned as one to the camp’s rope paddock. Their mounts were rearing, bucking, so frightened they began to snap their hobbles.
“Watch her!” Ramon commanded the scouts, and led the rest of his men rushing to their crazed animals.
So intent on trying to wrangle the screeching horses, they failed to see the pack of dogs lining the top of the ridge. Then that damn cackling warbled across the night and all eyes went upward.
Fetch joined the hyenas in laughter. She’d managed to kill every cavalero after all.
Come and get me, Crafty, you jowly fuck.
A figure appeared on the ridge, striding to its edge at the center of the dogs. It wasn’t a fat, turbaned wizard.
It was a towering, brutish shadow of long limbs and wide shoulders limned in moonlight and menace. The rise was nearly ten times the height of a man and the figure stepped off as one would a footstool. Its massive frame smote the ground, corded legs bending against the shock. Straightening in the cowering glow of the campfire was a monstrous orc, the largest Fetch had ever seen, a specimen of barbarous thews. Savagery and bloodlust seemed to pulse off its slate-dark flesh even as it simply stood there, breathing. It was unarmed and naked, save for adornments of bone and tusk pierced through its skin, especially across the chest and down the arms.
The scouts were the first to react, each letting a bolt fly at the huge orc that had landed in the center of their camp. Only two found their mark. One struck it in the chest, the other in the meat of its thigh. Both bolts snapped against its bone-pierced flesh.
The cavaleros now fumbled in the dirt for their shields and lances, discarded to tend the horses. Slowly, the orc’s hairless pate revolved to look at them.
The men ran.
At least, they tried.
The orc moved with a speed impossible for Fetch’s fuddled eyes to track. In an instant he was upon them, seizing legs, dashing head
s against the rock face, splattering blood and brains. Ramon spun, tried to make a manful stand. He raised his shield, thrust with his lance. The steel struck. And bent. The nightmarish thick swatted Ramon’s shield aside and pulped the man’s skull between clapping hands, the crunching squelch audible even over the cries of the horses.
The swiftest cavaleros had gained some distance, their pumping limbs carrying them away from the slaughter fast as they could manage. The orc remained where it was, standing before the maddened horses. The animals could endure his presence no more. Ropes snapped and they bolted, but the orc seized one before it could escape, fingers gouging into its neck and belly. The brute lifted the kicking animal over its head and hurled it at the fleeing men. The shrieking mass slammed into them. Men were tossed, crushed, as the horse impacted, the sound of snapping bones preceding a final, grisly thud. The beast’s body slid to a stop, broken men pinned beneath.
The scouts cursed and turned their mounts, spurring them away. The orc gave the smallest upward motion of its head. The dogs left the ridge, their laughter rising as their loping forms descended the slopes to either side.
The horsemen would not get far.
The orc’s gaze shifted.
He walked through the camp, toward the almond tree. Toward Fetching.
She tried to stand. To flee. The effort demanded more breath. Breath she did not have. The indrawn air hit a wall. She hit the dust. Her lungs were flooded, nothing but a coin’s width at the top unclogged. Fetch used the thin allowance, felt it shrink with every labored gasp. A bare foot slid beneath her, flipped her over. Bending, the orc grabbed her neck, lifted her one-handed into the air. She dangled, as Cissy had dangled. Strangled, as Cissy had strangled. Strangled by the sludge, by the thick’s constricting fingers. She was drawn eye to eye. Amber irises shone in the firelight, studying her face with contempt.
Through dancing black spots, Fetch saw the orc’s mouth open, felt the warm, wet tongue slide up her cheek.
“Ul ulma’huuq.”
The voice was distant thunder rolling from the depths of Dhar’gest.
The True Bastards Page 16
