The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  “That’s right,” Notch said, looking up from his grooming. “I did. And that isn’t them. The thrice-blood mentioned banners. That’s another sign. None down there. Tents are wrong too.”

  “Then who is it?” Boar Lip asked.

  “Elephants point eas—” Fetch began.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Knob said, anger unabated. “It’s frails on foals. They need to be shown they do not belong here.”

  “That is rash,” Zirko said.

  Knob made an airy noise in his throat, jaw clenching. “If you had no intention of defying them, why bring us here?”

  “Intention,” Zirko echoed. “Perhaps that is something we should learn from the new arrivals, their intention, before going to war.”

  Pulp Ear was dubious. “You trying to sell us that you don’t already know?”

  “Meaning?” Zirko inquired.

  “Meaning you waddlers are known to grub for whatever you can get,” Knob said. “What tribute have you haggled out of these intruders for your warning of the Betrayer?”

  “I have not spoken with them,” Zirko replied.

  “Why?” Fetch asked. “What good was wai—”

  “He wants us to fight the battle, so his people don’t have to,” Pulp Ear rolled over her. “He’s looking to squeeze more blood from us to save his damn followers.”

  “Battle?” Notch asked, smirking. “Can you not count? There are at least eight hundred men down there.”

  “Afraid, are you, Shard?” Knob needled.

  Notch tipped him a wink. “Not of you, big’un.”

  “Settle, lads,” a paunchy, white-haired half-orc put in, watching the younger mongrels with a sharp eye. This could only be Father, chief to the Sons of Perdition. “Not the time.”

  “And this isn’t the Sons, old cod,” Knob said. “I don’t worship your every word like the backy boys in your hoof.”

  Father only laughed and shook his head.

  “Even eight hundred could be dealt with,” Boar Lip considered, “if taken by surprise. They get that fortress finished, it will be too late. Most are likely builders. As long as they never reach their horses, it can be done.”

  Knob gave a big nod. “Then let’s get it done.”

  “Luck to you,” Notch said.

  Pulp Ear pointed a finger at the Shard. “Best watch this one. He’ll be skulking off to his old masters, tell them we are coming.”

  Notch shrugged again. “If the coin was right. But whoever is down there won’t need to be warned. Not against your fool-ass plan. The Stains brought three riders. Oh, apologies, they’re thrice-bloods, so in their minds they count for three each. Call it nine. I saw eleven from the Brotherhood. Three Tuskers. Nine for the Sowers. The Fang showed up fucking alone. Though Father seems to have brought half his hoof, so that’s another score. And I rode with two. So, less than three score, if you agree with Knob’s swollen idea of his brood’s worth.”

  Fetch did not fail to notice the omission in Notch’s tally. She found herself embracing old habits, slipping into the silences that had been the only way to endure the hoof meets of the Grey Bastards. The Claymaster had never wanted her sworn to the brethren, but none could deny her skill in the saddle or her prowess with weapons. Out on patrol, fighting thicks, she was useful and tolerated, but her voice at the table was never welcome. In that room she was ever the aberration. Speaking up only called the Claymaster’s attention. It was simpler, safer, to become a mute observer, barely moving lest she earn further ire.

  It was the same now.

  She was the outsider. Only, she did not need to work to be ignored. These mongrels had ruled for years longer. Becoming chief had taught her nothing about this kind of fight. Her brothers voted and from that moment they obeyed. Her voice, formerly gagged, was now law.

  And these cocksure mongrels were stuffing the rag back down her throat.

  The bickering had begun to boil. Knob was hungry for a fight, and Notch was amusing himself baiting the thrice. Father and Boar Lip were trying to bring peace, while Pulp Ear continued to demand answers from Zirko. At her side, Kul’huun watched the growing turmoil with a hunter’s gaze, waiting. The Skull Sowers’ chief had remained silent. He was a wan mongrel, for the Sowers’ stronghold was underground. His pale skin and laconic demeanor reminded Fetching of Hoodwink, but where the Bastard was lithe and sinewy, the Skull was slabbed in muscle. Coarse hair, black as pitch, stood out sharply against the blanched grey flesh of his chest and arms. A peasant’s brimmed felt hat darkened his face.

  Now he moved, striding steadily toward his hog.

  Father called after him. “Tomb. Where are you going?”

  “Back to the Furrow,” the Skull answered, his voice as hollow and remorseless as his name. “Priest, my thanks for allowing me to see this.”

  “You would run?” Knob demanded.

  Tomb paused, leaning his hat against the assaulting sun. “Ul-wundulas is not generous. No lot can support eight hundred men for long. The Skull Sowers need do nothing. Only wait.”

  The pallid hoofmaster mounted, turned his hog, and rode off with his brethren.

  “Coward,” Pulp Ear spat.

  “You think so?” Notch mused. “You may be more of an idiot than the Stain.”

  Knob bristled. “We can count your brains in a moment.”

  Father held up a weary hand. “Enough. Hells, enough. Questions of wits and bravery mean little here. Boar Lip says the camp can be taken. I agree. What then? We’ve shown we have heavy balls and stiff cods. We’ve also declared war on Hispartha. Notch and the Hero Father say it’s not them, but I ask all of you, what are the odds whoever is in that valley is there without the Crown’s leave? We make corpses of them and our days will be filled with chances to prove just how brave we are. And how foolish we have been.”

  Boar Lip agreed with a pensive nod.

  “It will come to war anyway,” Fetch tossed in, seeing an opening. “Those down there are just the beginning. If we—”

  “We?” Knob said, looking at her for the first time. “We? We did not come to Strava without a thrum, astride a bleeding barbarian. We did not come to this ridge on a lent nomad’s hog, accompanied by a single, crippled rider. We are not bedwarmers that cozened the pitiful remainder of a fallen hoof into following us with a wet mouth and tight quim. We are not the chosen slut of an outcast rider fled the Lots out of shame for destroying his brothers. Oh yes, Stone Gut told me about him. About Jackal. Cur, more like.” A scoffing huff came out of the thrice’s thick neck. “We. We are the Orc Stains, and the Tusked Tide. The Shards, and the Cauldron Brotherhood. You are not even the remnants of the Grey Bastards. Just some comely mongrel girl paying for loyalty with her holes.”

  Notch shook with a soundless laugh. Next to him, Pulp Ear’s gaze crept over Fetching.

  Ignoring them, she narrowed her eyes at Knob. Zirko was right to be deaf to this blustering cock sack.

  Fetch shifted her attention to Father. “You worry about war. It’s been declared. By Hispartha. We’re all looking at it down there. I’ve seen it in dead nomads, burned buildings. Seen it in the terrible weapons atop the walls of the castile.”

  “Weapons?” Boar Lip’s attention hardened. “What weapons?”

  “Ride there and find out,” Fetch replied. “Bermudo will be more than happy to let you hear their thunder.”

  That pulled Notch away from his fingernails. “Cannons?”

  Fetch nodded.

  “You know them?” Father asked the Shard.

  “In the east, fighting swaddleheads for the Crown. Big fucking things, though. Could put holes in castle walls, not fit atop them.”

  “These are smaller, then,” Fetch said. “And they can still put holes in anything I could imagine.”

  Pulp Ear grew suspicious. “How did you see these weapons?”

>   “Bermudo gave me a close look before trying to execute me with them.”

  “Then they’re nothing to fear,” Knob snorted. “You live.”

  “I’m not going to waste my breath convincing you, thrice. Any of you. The cavaleros came for me on my own lot, put me in chains, would have killed me. Bermudo dared do this to a hoofmaster. You think he won’t do it to you? ’Cause he fucking intends to. I got that from his own lips.”

  “A frail’s words are nothing,” Knob said. “Bermudo is a worm. What has he done? Moved into the Rutters’ empty lot. Empty! He dares to reclaim undefended land. What does it say of the Bastards that he came for their hoofmaster? You and yours are finished, woman. You fell with the Kiln. The humans can have your lands, I say. Let them build their walls and put these weapons upon them. Let them finally help fight the orcs. It’s time they bled a little. We’re not endangered by their strength.” Knob stepped close, leaned down in Fetch’s face. “We are by your weakness.”

  Fetch did not budge a hair. “Sounds like a challenge to my leadership.”

  Knob’s eyes flashed, seeing the violence he craved in reach.

  “Foolish posturing,” Pulp Ear said, disgusted. “Cunt’s unarmed.”

  “Don’t need weapons for him or you, you fuck-ugly spend stain,” Fetch hissed.

  Knob showed his teeth. “I’m beginning to see why your riders like you, woman.”

  “Yours are going to love me for giving them a chance to vote a new chief.”

  “I won’t allow this,” Zirko said.

  “Stay out of it, waddler, or I’ll use you to ass-fuck her corpse.”

  “Dammit, Knob, leave off,” Father urged.

  “Let them at it.” Notch. “Wager my hog’s weight in silver she gouges out one of Knob’s eyes before he puts her down.”

  Fetching heard the voices, but her vision had shrunk to the smiling thrice-blood. Her lips drew back.

  A hand touched her arm. Not a grip, just a touch, one that remained. She moved her head slowly, keeping one eye on Knob, and found Kul’huun behind her, arm extended. Their eyes met and the Fang gave a small shake of his head.

  “Don’t.”

  He said it in Hisparthan.

  Fetching breathed out and took a step back. Zirko looked up at her with a condemning stare, though his eyes betrayed relief as well.

  Turning her back on him, and the valley below, Fetch walked away. Tomb had the right of it. There was nothing to be gained here.

  “Let’s go,” she told Mead as she swung into the saddle.

  When they were away from the Unyars and down from the ridge, she rode hard.

  Directly for the newcomers’ camp.

  SIXTEEN

  THE FIRST MAN WHO SAW them ride by merely stood and stared, pausing in his efforts to clear a stone with the help of a mule. He was unarmed, a swarthy-skinned laborer with a black beard, and a scarf wrapped about his head. Fetch made sure to keep their pace slow but purposeful. They were still a fair distance from the edge of the camps, passing mule trains laden with rock dragged from the dust. One of the elephants she saw from the ridge also pulled a loaded sled, bearing a boulder twice the size of a hog. The day was hot, making a hell of such work. Men and beasts were all bent to their tasks. Most did not notice the half-orcs on hogs until they passed. The few tired exclamations the men emitted were in a language Fetching did not understand. Still, the head-wraps, the elephants, it all pointed east.

  Tyrkania.

  Land of deserts. Land of slaves. Land of Crafty.

  It wasn’t long before their presence was noted by more than the fools hauling rock. They were a bowshot away from the tents when a troop of cavalry appeared ahead. They were coming quickly, almost at a full gallop, hooves drumming. Fetch kept one hand up, the other gripping her hog’s mane.

  “Shit, chief,” Mead said as the troop thundered closer.

  Sun glinted off metal. The horses were armored. A shaped steel mask protected the face, while a drape of segmented plates blanketed the animals to the saddle. It seemed a cruelty in such heat, but no doubt these mounts were used to far more searing climes. The armor lent a metallic song to their movements, adding weight to an already rumbling gait. The men bore lean lances and large, round shields. Helmets bulged from beneath their head wrappings, and a vest of splinted mail protected them to the knee. She pulled her hog to a stop, Mead settling on her right.

  “You speak Tyrkanian, right?” Fetch asked.

  “My elvish is better.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I actually speak elvish, chief.”

  “Shit.”

  Their greeters reined up a stone’s throw away, fanning out to block their path, yet not surrounding them. It was hard to charge if your troop formed up in a circle. Whoever these men were, they were no strangers to war in the saddle.

  Time to announce herself and hope one of these swaddleheads spoke Hisparthan.

  “I am Fetching, leader of the half-orc hoof known as the True Bastards. I need to know who you cocksuckers are and what you are doing in the fucking Lots.”

  “Aw, hells,” Mead said under his breath.

  In response, one of the riders hissed and waved his lance at her, as if he were trying to scare off a stray dog.

  “Listen you dune-humping frail, I’m not riding away from here without speaking to someone.”

  The lance waved again and the hiss was replaced by a shouted command.

  “We don’t speak sand-eater!”

  More shouts urged them to depart.

  Fetching blew out a breath of frustration. “Let’s go.”

  They turned their hogs and rode the way they had come. The valley, while not exactly lush, was home to more vegetation than was typical in Ul-wundulas. A sight caught Fetch’s eye off to her right, one she had not noticed before: a grove of trees heavy with spheres of bright-ochre fruit. There were no laborers about. She cocked her head toward the grove and Mead followed her in.

  “Keep an eye out,” Fetch said. Reaching up from the saddle, she seized one of the orbs, pulling until it snapped free. It was the color of an apricot, but its rind was akin to a lemon’s. “Lend me a knife.”

  Mead handed a blade over and Fetch sliced the fruit in half, drawing forth a torrent of sticky, fragrant juice. Again she was reminded of a lemon with its segmented innards, though the smell was less sharp.

  She held it up so Mead could get a look. “Any idea?”

  He shook his head. “I can tell you it doesn’t speak Tyrkanian either.”

  “Tine-haired cock.”

  Digging out a hunk of the shiny, pulpy flesh, she tossed it down in front of Sluggard’s hog. The animal devoured it with a snuffle.

  Fetch curled her lip. “Bet you’d eat anything.”

  She slid the second wedge into her own mouth. The flavor was strong and sweet, almost overwhelming, but Fetch did not let that stop her. She tore the rind away from each half, tossed one to Mead, and ate the other with increasing relish. The hogs were already rooting for fallen fruit.

  “Another?”

  Mead shot a look around. “Hells yes.”

  Fetch peeled another, more expertly this time. She tossed it to Mead along with his knife, dismounted, and began making room in her saddlebags while tallying the number of Winsome’s children in her head.

  “You think some of the olive grovers could cultivate these trees from the fruit’s seeds?”

  Mead thought about it while pulling sections off the fruit with his teeth. He nodded at the ground.

  “Look at the roots. Those trees are freshly planted.”

  Fetch could see a broad swath of trampled ground showing where the elephants had come through, likely bringing the trees in on the same sleds with which they now hauled boulders.

  “Must have brought them here fully
grown. Still, it’s worth a try.”

  Mead smiled. “Well, at least this wasn’t a fruitless errand.”

  “Fucking hells! You’re starting to sound like Sluggard.”

  Soon, both hogs were loaded with purloined fruit. Fetch was about to mount when a thought stopped her.

  “We weren’t a threat.”

  “Chief?”

  “The swaddleheads. They didn’t see us as a threat. Just some dust-stained mongrels spewing nonsense in an unknown tongue.”

  Mead looked uncomfortable.

  Fetch ducked into his eye line. “What?”

  “An unarmed woman and a one-handed man. That’s what they saw.”

  “Yes, but would that have stopped any cavaleros you’ve ever known?”

  “No. What are you thinking?”

  Fetch hauled herself onto the hog’s back. “I’m thinking you need to ride back to Strava. Get Marrow to tell the Unyars that I will be speaking with Zirko. And find Kul’huun. I need to talk to him, too, when I return.”

  “When you return?” Mead rolled his eyes as he figured it out. “You’re going back in there.”

  “They’ve either got some form of honor or else they’ve been ordered not to harm us.”

  “Fetch, you’re guessing!”

  “Well, if I’m wrong, keep being a good chief.”

  She kicked her hog out of the grove.

  And—not long after—rode straight into the heart of the human camp. The troop of horsemen was not far behind, shouting chastisements, but none used violence to stop her. Fetching made straight for the biggest tent. The damn thing was a pavilion, in truth, a monster of billowing silk. A pair of men guarded the entrance. They were black-skinned, like Zirko, but weren’t limited by his stature. Tall, bald, and heavyset, they stepped forward as she reined up, raising massive, two-handed scimitars.

  Fetching held up both hands, heard the yelling horsemen rein up behind. “I just want to speak with the master of this place!”