The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  Fetch had been well fed by the old couple, but compared to what they served Zirko, her portions had been lacking.

  “Please, help me with this repast,” the halfling said, encompassing the food and the three half-orcs sharing the fire with a circular sweep of his hand. “They forget that Belico’s High Priest is also a small man, but they will be deeply dejected if all is not eaten.”

  “Should have brought Marrow,” Fetch muttered to Mead, taking a dumpling and tossing it to him. Kul’huun seized an entire lamb shank and the jug of mare’s milk.

  “The other chiefs have all left to return to their lots,” Zirko said, using a piece of bread to pluck a hunk of roast mutton from the piled platter. “I am curious why the pair of you have remained.”

  Fetch knew from speaking to Kul’huun while they waited that nothing more had been accomplished upon the ridge. Knob continued to press the idea of charging the frails and wiping them out. Pulp Ear was swayed, but Notch and Father refused. Boar Lip was torn. Kul’huun told them he would ride to battle himself if they chose to attack, but that the Fangs would not abandon their lot to fight frails. Knob’s wind lost all strength when Zirko decreed the Unyars would not support such an action. In the end, it went how Fetch knew it would. Limp as a severed cock. She’d told Kul’huun all she learned in the Zahracene camp with Mead listening. She wasn’t going to bother informing Zirko. He would speak to Tarif before long and reach his own conclusions.

  As for the other matter…

  “What do you two know of orc sorcerers?”

  Both priest and chief stopped eating at the weight of her words.

  Zirko frowned. “What makes you ask?”

  “A giant thick that killed a troop of cavaleros with his bare hands,” Fetch told him.

  “This orc has craft?”

  “If you call having skin tough as iron, the strength of all the hells, and a pack of devil-dogs at his command that are nearly as impossible to kill as he is, craft.”

  Zirko grew more troubled. “Among their own kind they are called uq’huul.”

  Fetch sighed at the simplicity of it, the honesty. “The strongest.”

  “Yet it is the elves’ name for them that I believe provides the most truth,” the little priest said. “Asily’a kaga arkhu.”

  Fetch looked to Mead.

  “Ruin Made Flesh,” he said, growing very still.

  He deserved the name. Fetch had never seen a larger orc, never fought one so strong. Fought, hells, that was generous. She’d crawled away. In his grip, she had been less than a child’s doll.

  Kul’huun brooded into the fire. “For as close as the Fangs dwell to the Gut, I have never seen one. It is said they can summon dust storms, boil the blood of their foes, even raise corpses to fight for them. But the domination of beasts? This uq’huul must be truly powerful, for all animals fear and shun the orc. To take his head would be a deadly, worthy task.”

  The Fangs’ chief looked hungrier for the chance than the meat in his hands.

  “Their powers are great, varied, and fortunately rare,” the priest said. “Even during the Great Incursion, they were few.”

  “And they were defeated by the Tines. In the Old Maiden,” Mead said.

  “They suffered much to achieve that victory,” Zirko said. “The battle in the marsh was a calamity.”

  “Wasn’t aware Strava fought there,” Mead said.

  Fetch put some bread in her mouth to keep from laughing. Wasn’t everyone that could call hogshit on the High Priest of Belico and manage it politely.

  “No, but we saw the aftermath. The elves were the only survivors, and they but few. The Hisparthan wizards, the army that supported them, and the orcs that fought there were all utterly destroyed.” Zirko looked to Fetching with grave concern. “But now you say an uq’huul has returned.”

  “The Fangs will hunt this orc and his dogs,” Kul’huun declared, staring at the fire as if all the willing quim in the world was spread before his eyes.

  Fetch brightened. “You know a way to kill him?”

  Kul’huun stood. “I will tell you when I have done it.”

  “Dammit, you cod-swinging savage!” Fetch rose to look him in the eager eyes. “Kul’huun, this thick isn’t a trophy, he’s a hells-damned nightmare.”

  “Then he cannot be allowed to roam Ul-wundulas.”

  Fetch took a breath. “And the Fangs can’t ride the entire badlands hunting him. You’ll be leaving your lot unprotected! You refused to do that to fight these new frails. Why risk it for this orc? Don’t be foolish. I asked you here because none know the orcs better, not so you could ride off and get your entire hoof killed.”

  Kul’huun sniffed once, smiled. “Live in the battle.”

  Fetch would never change his mind. Like all of them. “Die in a fury.”

  The feral mongrel slipped out of the hut, lithe and quiet as a lynx.

  Zirko let loose a deep sigh. “I have never known if the Claymaster erred in dividing the half-orcs into tribes or if he simply saw the futility in trying to unite them.”

  “Who cares a fuck,” Fetch said, staring at the hut flaps. “He’s dead.”

  “Our greatest triumphs and fallacies often linger.”

  “I didn’t come for wisdom, priest. I came with a hope you would know how to slay this…Ruin.”

  “I regret I cannot help with that task. Sorcery is an art best shunned and my knowledge is limited to the few unwelcome occasions it has intruded and stained the lives of my faithful. But perhaps there is something I can provide.”

  “What?”

  “Ul-wundulas is an unforgiving land,” Zirko intoned. “I have heard of your hoof’s troubles. I am certain my people can spare enough to help yours. Might I offer such aid in place of what you sought?”

  Fetching hesitated. She had never been fond of this pious waddler, and the halflings were not known for their charity. There was usually a price. She waited for it to be named.

  The fire was all that spoke for several long moments.

  Eventually, Zirko cocked his head. “Shall I have the supplies arranged?”

  “Yes,” Fetch agreed, a little off-balance.

  Zirko looked at Mead. “Tell my acolytes waiting outside what you require. They will know it to be my will.”

  After receiving a nod from Fetch, Mead went out.

  Zirko’s brows lowered, concerned and, Fetch saw, contrite. The little man folded his hands in his lap. “I must ask your forgiveness. When you arrived and asked to speak with me, you were purposefully ignored. All the hoofmasters made such requests and I feared meeting with one over the others would cause turmoil. The hoof founders were not so mistrustful of one another, but they fought a war together. These newer chiefs are…”

  “Useful as a slophead milking his own cod?” Fetch offered.

  Zirko gave a thin, tired smile. “Not as individuals. Together, yes, it is as you say. I hoped for a better outcome. Had I known what you wished to tell me, I would not have protected their pride so. I confess, I thought you wanted to speak on another, more personal, matter.”

  Fetch found her throat closing, her teeth clenching. “Do you have news of him?”

  “I do not,” Zirko replied. “All signs point to the Betrayer Moon remaining dormant for some time. I do not expect the Arm of Attukhan will need to return to Strava for months yet. Until then, Jackal is wherever he journeyed in your service.”

  Fetch took a steadying breath. Summon him back. The words nearly left her mouth. She choked them down along with fury at the very impulse to speak them. She refused to be a conspirator in the bondage Jackal had so willingly placed himself in. She would not be the reason his freedom was taken from him.

  “There is something more,” Zirko said. Fetch looked up to find his unblinking gaze fixed. “You have brought something within yo
u to Strava. Something that should not be.”

  Shit.

  She knew he might sense it.

  Fetch’s body stiffened, her face hardened. “It is not a danger to your people. It will depart with me.”

  “It is not my people that I fear for, Fetching, chief of the True Bastards. It is you.”

  Fetch stood, looked down at the halfling. “Don’t.”

  “You fear my help.”

  “I refuse your help! What I fear is being made a slave!”

  Her outburst brought a sad, pensive look to the priest’s face. He dipped a small nod of acceptance. “I understand. You, however, do not.”

  “I understand your aid demands a price.”

  “Belico is rarely generous.”

  Fetch gave a warning shake of her head. “You won’t cozen me, Zirko. Jackal told me all about your bargain. How there were two payments. To serve Belico should he return. That was what you told him your god demanded. But it was you, you, that said he must stand at Strava for every Betrayer.”

  “My powers are not limitless. I am bound by the blessings of Belico and his relics. Were it not so I could, would, save every sick child brought to me by a desperate mother. Yet miracles, I am afraid, have no pity. They are hard, immutable. They cannot be shaped like metal nor nurtured like a vine. They wait, inert and heartless, until tragedy and chance align to suit them. Only then will they stir and only then for those with the courage to risk their touch. Should that chance, that daring soul, never appear, they do not weep, they have no pity for the countless souls that suffered absent their intercession. Had Jackal not claimed the Arm of Attukhan it would have slumbered to the burning of the world with no regret. Yet Jackal’s injury, his audacity, his very nature shaped him into the perfect vessel.”

  “A weapon, you mean,” Fetch said. “One you’re happy to have to hand.”

  Zirko’s normally placid countenance darkened. It was anger, but born from hurt. He quenched the fire quickly, averting his eyes and closing them tight as he took a breath. When next he spoke, his voice was filled with forced patience.

  “Unlike miracles, I am not heartless. Va Gara Attukhan was too great a power to return to this world without placing it in service to my people. Far fewer of the Unyars will die during the centaurs’ frenzies with Jackal defending Strava. Far fewer children will be pulled from their parents’ arms and slain. Yes, I demanded a price from him, but it was not to make him a slave. It was to save his life as he desired. In the doing, I made him a shield for my faithful.”

  “And what would you make me, priest?” Fetch asked, hating herself for wondering. Hating him for the temptation.

  “Yourself,” Zirko said.

  Caution leaked into Fetch’s gut. “Explain.”

  “The evil that dwelled in the Old Maiden Marsh has existed since the battle fought there during the Incursion. I have grown familiar with its presence in the decades since. It resides within you now.” Zirko’s stare became grave. “You know it is killing you.”

  Fetch felt the sludge stir, cold and constricting. “Yes.”

  “I need give you nothing to save you, Fetching. Only remove what does not belong. You would not be accepting anything from me nor Belico. No great power that must be harnessed. All my help grants you is your own strength returned.”

  Fetch could still feel the dread orc’s tongue sliding up her cheek, his words a cinder in her mind.

  You taste weak.

  She looked at Zirko squarely. “Get this shit out of me.”

  His face softened with relief. “Come.”

  Outside, there was no sign of Mead. Fetch was relieved she would be spared an explanation, a lie. Trailed by two halfling acolytes and a half dozen mounted Unyars, she followed Zirko to the hill and climbed toward the tower. The tribesmen remained at the base.

  “Please remain,” Zirko said when they reached the summit. “I will return.”

  Fetch watched the halflings vanish into the darkness beyond the tower’s single, arched portal. Again, relief. She had no desire to ever enter the catacombs housed within the hill.

  She stood in the wind, Strava spread out before her in every direction. There was a great deal to defend, easily twenty times the area of Winsome with hells-knew-how-many more inhabitants. Knowing all she would do—had done—for her own people, Fetch was forced to allow a bit more understanding for the Hero Father.

  She did not turn when he emerged from the tower, but could sense he was now alone.

  “Why do the centaurs attack?” she asked, thinking of the grove and its inhabitants beseeching the moon. “Do you know?”

  Zirko’s response was leaden. “They earned the enmity of a god and were cursed.”

  “Belico?”

  “No. Another. Older. Yet many are drawn here when the Betrayer incites their bloodlust. I have yet to discover the reason.”

  Fetch faced him, saw he bore something in his hands.

  “My faithful have unearthed many curiosities in their search for the true relics of Belico’s mortal life, some arcane and perilous. Though they bear no connection to the Master Slave or his brethren they are brought here and stored.” Zirko walked steadily forward as he spoke, arms extending to hold the object forth. It was an earthenware oil lamp the color of old blood. The body was crudely fashioned into a man’s head, mouth agape in a rictus. The twin nozzles of the lamp were his protruding forked tongue, the handle a bulb of some strange headdress or hair. There was no lid to cover the oil receptacle, just the open nostrils of the skyward-pointing nose. A hideous and ancient piece of pottery shaped by a demented mind. “This will contain the marsh creature.”

  “Not big enough,” Fetch said, eyeing the lamp with distaste. “I’ve coughed out more than that would hold.”

  “Such things are not beholden to size,” Zirko replied. “Nor the brittleness of their appearance. Once you take hold of it, the power of this lamp will draw the evil from you and keep it imprisoned. The ordeal will be unpleasant, but swift.”

  A life spent with a mongrel hoof brought a dozen jests to the tip of Fetch’s tongue. She left them unsaid. Instead, she reached out, her hand hovering over the proffered lamp for a moment before descending to grasp the barren clay.

  The sludge rose, faster than she anticipated. Eager.

  A mass pushed up through her throat, cutting off her coughs, her screams. Fetch lurched, all breath gone. Gagging, she hit her knees. The sludge crawled past her stretched lips in a lump. Pressure released from her eyes, weight played down her strained cheeks, and Fetch knew she shed black tears. Had the lamp been made of clay absent sinister magic, it would have shattered beneath her seizing fingers. At the very edge of what she could endure, the sludge fully emerged, as long as her arm and near twice as thick.

  The sudden intake of air knocked her back on her rump.

  She could feel the fuliginous mass flowing down her neck, watched it creep down her arm, coating her flesh. As it neared the lamp the sludge shrank from the imprisoning vessel, sensing the trap. It rippled, peeled back at the congealing edge. Fetch craned her neck away, stretched her arm out as the sludge tried to prevent itself from being sucked into the nostrils of the lamp’s molded face.

  “Ah, fuck you!” she growled.

  The sludge detached from her arm with frightening speed, softening as it leapt to her face. Stumbling backward, blind, she tried to tear it away, but it clung to her hands, sucked them in to aid in smothering her. It flowed into her nostrils, leaked between her clenched lips. She choked on its vileness, gagged as it lodged in her throat, began to drown as it flooded her lungs. The darkness slid away from her eyes as the last of the living tar crawled into her nose. There was no air. It would not humor any attempts to cough, to vomit it out. This was punishment for an unforgivable denial.

  She had slain the Sludge Man, but he repaid the debt, poisone
d her with his evil. Remnants of his loathsome pets had nestled within, made her ill, made her body capricious, her mind uncertain. His patient vengeance was finally at hand. Convulsing with panic, clawing at her neck, she fell. The lamp was gone, dropped.

  A hand seized Fetch’s hair, snatched her head back. Her tongue tasted barren clay as Zirko forced the twin nozzles of the lamp into her mouth. In a rush, the black muck was ripped from her body. The violence of its flight was torturous, the speed blissful.

  Fetch lay upon the ground, panting. Swirls of windswept dust played around Zirko’s sandaled feet, the lamp clutched in his hands. It appeared unchanged, betraying no sign of what it now contained.

  The priest came to her side, deceptively strong as he helped her to rise.

  “Are you hale?” he asked.

  Fetch was breathing heavy from the exertion. Heavy, but easy. Her chest felt weightless, her lungs clear and deep. She answered the priest with grateful laughter, so joyous and protracted she had to rest her hands on knees.

  “I’m hale,” she said at last, breath still punctuated by giggles. Fetch straightened and met the priest’s studying eye. “Thank you, Hero Father.”

  * * *

  —

  THE PROMISED SUPPLIES WERE READY before noon. Marrow and Mead sat their hogs beside the laden wagon. Womb Broom was tied at the rear, still too injured to be ridden at the pace required. Sluggard was up on the driver’s bench, holding the mule team’s leads. He gave Fetch an easy grin.

  “Take good care of my hog.”

  It was a rare rider who would be so generous, entrusting his barbarian to another. Sluggard was certainly rare, but Fetch wasn’t a fool. Generosity was not the gritter’s sole motivation.

  “Treat him like my own” was the only promise she would offer. “Might be good to know his name.”