The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  “Palla.”

  “Palla?”

  Sluggard wore a perfectly artless expression. “After the great troubadour from Galiza.”

  Fetch cocked an eye at Mead. “Did you know that?”

  “No, chief,” he responded with a laugh.

  “I did,” Marrow grumbled. “But only because I had the misfortune of fucking asking.”

  Sluggard was affronted. “That hog is worthy of song!”

  Fetch held up a forestalling hand. “Easy, Whore. Don’t go frothing at the mouth.” She smiled and placed a hand on the edge of the wagon’s bench. “In earnest. Thank you.”

  Sluggard bowed his head once. “You are welcome.”

  “You’ll need this too,” Mead said, offering his stockbow. “And don’t try to deny it. We both know I carry it mostly out of habit these days.”

  He had fashioned a brace of leather with an iron hook affixed to the bottom to wear over his stump so that he could pull back his thrum string, but he was still slow on the reload.

  Fetch took the stockbow and, a moment later, Mead’s full quiver. “You get killed on the way back to Winsome because you didn’t have these, I’m coming down to the hells to skin you.”

  Mead glanced at the eight Unyar horsemen waiting to escort the wagon. “Think there will be plenty of arrows flying if we run into trouble.”

  “I should only be a day or two behind you.”

  “We’ll be watching. Be good to have you both back.”

  “Yes it will.” Fetch pushed the heel of her fist into his thigh. “Now get going.”

  Her unease grew as she watched the wagon depart. Those supplies were Winsome’s salvation, but the orc and his dogs were still out there. Fetch would have felt better going with them, but there was one more place she must go first.

  She eyed Sluggard’s hog. “Palla, eh? Fair warning, pig, this ain’t going to be a damn carnavale.”

  Mounting up, she rode to the north, leaving Strava behind. And the sludge with it. Zirko had taken the lamp back into the bowels of the hill, where it could rest with all the other entombed horrors.

  Urging Palla to a trot, Fetch gave herself to the cleansing rush of the wind.

  She was a hoof rider once more. A half-orc strong. She had a slicer, a thrum, the katara daggers, a barbarian. What more did she need? Only her hoof. Only her brothers. One more than all the others. Fetch kicked the hog into a gallop, eager to bring him home.

  Oats had been gone far too long.

  EIGHTEEN

  A YEAR AGO Kalbarca was a ruin inhabited only by broken glory, squatting free-riders, and bone-picking zealots, little but a haunting landmark, a crossroads for those on lonely journeys.

  No more.

  Fetch sat her hog on a rise east of the city, ancient sentinel of the great Guadal-kabir. Lines of barges were tied to both banks of the broad river, laden with timber, enough languishing wood to rebuild Winsome’s stockade ten times over. More vessels plied the currents, navigating the crowded approach to newly constructed docks. Even from her distant vantage, Fetch detected steady movement on the Old Imperial Bridge, men and mules traversing the water to enter the city. A staccato of falling hammers echoed behind walls barnacled with fresh scaffolding. And everywhere was the black bull of the Crown, arrogant upon a red and gold field. It lazed on banners draped from the bridge, snapped on pennants atop the towers where guns were being raised on ropes. Though she could not see it so far removed, Fetch knew the same sigil decorated the chests of the soldiers posted along the wharf, the bridge, the walls, and the reconstructed gatehouse.

  “Well, fuck, Palla.”

  Hispartha had reclaimed more than the Rutters’ lot.

  The city had stood since Imperial times, inherited by fledgling Hispartha after all the emperors finally lost hold of the last threads of their sanity and the world. Hells knew how old the place was, what-all it had seen and survived. What it had not withstood was the Great Orc Incursion. The thicks crushed the place as easily as an egg, then squatted in the wreckage to glut on the yolk. The Crown left it abandoned after the war was won, but they were finally back, sweeping away the rotten shell so they could squat their plump ass down and lay a fresh, shining prize.

  Fetch had to spit. This was going to slow her down.

  She couldn’t risk entering the city. It was doubtful Bermudo knew the fate of Ramon and his men, but it was certain he knew his men had deserted without killing their prisoner. If the men down there had been ordered to keep an eye out, Fetch would be back in chains before she was halfway across the bridge. Hells, even if she weren’t wanted there was slim chance she’d be allowed to pass unmolested. They were executing nomads. What would they attempt on a lone female half-orc on a hog?

  Cursing, Fetch set off south.

  She was a solid two leagues from Kalbarca before she risked turning Palla toward the banks of the river. The dark expanse of the Guadal-kabir grew closer, unchallenged as the great river of Ul-wundulas. No hog could swim its span. The nearest ford was days downriver near the Old Maiden Marsh. Fetch was forced to tarry along the shore for the meat of a day, waiting for a barge heading downstream. A hail to the men poling it, and a few coins taken from Mead created a ferry.

  The eight frails aboard all had the cropped breeches and bug-bitten flesh of swampers. There were long knives at their belts, and frog-gigging spears close at hand, but the men menaced her with nothing but a few wary looks. They seemed more leery of the hog than the half-orc. Fetch held Palla firm at the barge’s center next to the pile of crates, baskets, nets, and barrels that would be used to bring back whatever the swampers could trap, hunt, or gather in the Maiden. Sluggard’s pig stood docile and cooperative the entire crossing, and Fetch was suddenly glad she did not have Womb Broom along. Shit-tempered swine would likely have tried to knock them all into the drink.

  Fetch disembarked, leaving the swampers with the promised coin, a word of thanks, and an inward plea that they would have forgotten about her by the time they returned to Kalbarca with their snails and leeches to sell.

  On the other side of the river, dark, sullen humps covered the north and western horizons.

  The Smelted Mounts.

  Likely the Imperium once had another name for the mountains, but Fetch was fucked if she knew what it was. The range formed the northwestern border between Hispartha and Ul-wundulas. Kalbarca and the southern foothills, while still part of the Lots, were Crown land. Like most of the parcels they held, the nobles were content to leave the area abandoned, yet forbade trespass. It was typical royal folly. During the allotment of the badlands, the frails made sure not one spit of land that touched Hispartha was held by the mongrel hoofs, creating a wide swath of country ignored by the Crown yet denied all others. But a decree cannot uphold itself, only soldiers can, and they were never sent. Until now.

  The half-orcs of Ul-wundulas, especially the nomads, had a long tradition of flagrantly disregarding any ban to their travels, and Fetch was happy to keep it alive.

  So too were brigands and cutthroats from the other side of the border. Ancient Imperial mining tunnels provided a labyrinth of hideaways for those frails fleeing Hisparthan justice, but too craven to risk the Lots. Murderers, highwaymen, disgraced cavaleros, and escaped prisoners were drawn to the Smelteds, forming a deterrent along the border that the Crown never intended.

  Fetching pushed Palla toward the mountains, but she had lost time and did not reach the foothills before the sun set. She passed the night in a grove of stone pine. Unable to resist, Fetch ate another of the Zahracene fruit she’d kept back from the supply wagon before bedding down. She slept under the stars and was back in the saddle before they yielded to the sunrise.

  She had come this way only once before, more than half a year ago, and kept her eyes sharp for familiar signs. But this was Ul-wundulas. Everything looked dry, thirsty, and miserable
. The Mounts were replete with passes. The wrong choice could cost days, if not worse. Trusting to instinct, Fetch pressed on. There had been the barest trace of an old Hisparthan fortress on a peak above the pass, she remembered, just a wink of white stone. She kept an eye out as the foothills fully claimed her journey.

  By midday she had scouted the mouths of four passes, but the correct one remained elusive. Cursing, Fetch began riding swiftly back and forth between the gaps, looking for something to guide a choice. The recalled white stone was not to be found.

  “Twice-damned mountain goat likely mistook it for a nanny and fucked it off the ridge!” she screamed into the hills. As the echoes faded, her anger grew. She was wasting the day and Palla’s strength. There was nothing for it but to make a decision.

  “You, then,” she told the gap currently frustrating her memory, and rode into the clutches of the Smelteds.

  The pass soon widened into a broad saddle between boulder-crowned peaks. Though this range rolled across the breadth of Ul-wundulas, eventually joining the imposing Umber Mountains in Tine territory, the Smelteds were the runt of the litter. Few of the slopes were steep enough to deter a skilled hog rider. However, picking a way up and over the grades was a tedious business. That’s why the passes were so vital, providing a winding, though more or less level, path. Fetching remained uncertain of her choice until she spotted an abandoned castile upon a nearby summit.

  This was it. This was as far as she had come last time. Oats had insisted on going the rest of the way alone. The parting had not been easy. The chief of the True Bastards was nowhere to be seen that morning. Hells, Fetching and Oats hardly existed in that last, hard embrace. They were Isabet and Idris again, holding each other in comfort as they had done so many times as children.

  Sitting her hog now, she stared ahead at the path Oats and Ugfuck had taken. That day, she had watched until they were lost to the rocky folds of the earth.

  “Our turn,” Fetching told Palla and kicked him forward.

  There was nothing to do now but wander and wait to be noticed.

  She knew Oats had been taken in by the mountain-dwellers. Hoodwink made the journey here each month since the thrice-blood left, always bringing back a heavy bag of silver. For the Bastards, those bulging sacks of coin meant the Tusked Tide could be paid for another load of supplies. For Fetching, it meant Oats was still alive. She could only hope that when she reached the infamous place of his exile, there would be another bag of coins waiting. And a big, fool-ass thrice handing it to her.

  Nightfall found Fetching still riding among the mountains. Only with the darkness did the denizens of the Smelteds reveal themselves. Six men came down from outcroppings in the slopes to block her path. An equal number slipped down behind. Fetch loaded her stockbow. Not waiting for the bandits to make a move, she rode to the group ahead.

  “I’m looking for the Pit of Homage.”

  One of the men detached from his fellows. He was lanky, the rot in his clothes reaching Fetch’s nostrils before the moonlight etched out his features. Long hair, thin yet pendulous with grime, swung from beneath a pitiful wad of a hat. His belts were heavy with knives.

  “We could take you,” the man said. “Or we can take you.”

  This drew rough laughter from his group. The gang to Fetch’s rear was still closing in. She could feel their approach.

  She leveled her stockbow at the speaker. “I’m not going to do this with you, frail. Take me to the Pit or I will loose this bolt into your mouth.”

  “You do and my men will kill you.”

  Fetch gave a perplexed hum. “Strange threat. You’ll be dead. Do you expect revenge will bring you back to life? Think. This hogshit goes on a moment longer, I’m going to kill you. And you won’t be the last. Your men might manage to drag me off this hog before I win free, but he’s a mean son of a sow. He’ll likely get more of you than I will. Either way, I’m the one who will see how this ends. Not you.”

  Palla was no Womb Broom, so she wasn’t certain how mean he really was, but a barbarian was still a barbarian, and Fetch meant every damn word. There was no bluff for these cunts to sniff out.

  A few heartbeats of silence passed before the man raised an arm. The footsteps of the bandits behind ceased.

  “Naturally, I was merely jesting,” the man proclaimed with a jovial sincerity that was difficult to deny. “Allow us to be your guides.”

  “I don’t need a dozen frails to do anything in this world. Much less show me the way someplace.”

  “Of course!”

  A whistle lanced from the spokesman’s lips as he made a whirling gesture over his head. The brigands shuffled off, melting into the shadows of the pass.

  “Allow I alone, Jacintho, to act as escort.”

  Without waiting for a reply, the lanky figure began walking.

  Ready to keep her promise and put a bolt between the man’s shoulder blades if his cohorts reappeared, Fetching followed. They did not remain in the pass long. Jacintho began edging toward the slopes and soon had them traversing a switchback trail. Eventually, the trail ran along a ridgeline, encircling the slope as it snuck upward. Reaching the summit, Jacintho crossed the rocks and picked his way down the other side. They traveled in the dark. The heavens provided some illumination, but Fetch wasn’t sure how the man was making his way so assuredly.

  Humans did not see as well in the dark as half-orcs. Hells, other half-orcs did not see as well in the dark as Fetching. It used to rankle Jackal and Oats when they were younger, never sure why she could spot things they could not when playing after sundown. Later, her brother Bastards learned to trust her sight beyond all others. Now she knew she had her elf mother to thank. This loathsome Jacintho sure as shit didn’t possess any point-ear blood, so he must have been making his way on instinct and familiarity.

  Fetching tried to mark their course, but it was impossible. They went scrambling up and down the shoulders of half a dozen peaks, traversed long ridgelines and short saddle-gaps, until Fetch began to wonder if they were going in circles. She was certain they were staying in the heights, for she could see valleys and passes below, rivers and lagoons of shadow among the starlit lumps of the mountains. At last, they began to descend, but only as far as a bowl between two slopes, little more than a pockmark eaten into the mountainside.

  Here, a cave mouth gaped with predatory invitation.

  “From here, you must lead your hog,” Jacintho said.

  Fetching dismounted and took hold of Palla by a yanker tusk. Her stockbow remained in her other hand.

  The brigand made a clucking sound. “You had best sling that. I care for my life. Those within will not. Nor yours. A loaded arbalest will only get us both killed.”

  After quick consideration, Fetching removed the bolt and released the string. Stockbow now hanging at her back, she followed Jacintho into the cave. Palla fought her a little at the threshold, grunting and digging his hooves in, trying to shake her hold, but Fetch hauled him within. A sloshing sound was followed by a few clicks, both echoing in the cave mouth as Jacintho drew a torch from a barrel and struck flint with one of his daggers, throwing sparks into the oil-drenched head until it ignited. In the glow, the cave proved to be a mine.

  The shaft was low but wide, the walls and ceiling striated from the blows of uncountable picks. The ground sloped downward, a gullet in the mountain. The entrance was a memory by the time they reached a branch in the passage. Jacintho went left. The tunnel became less regular, bending snakelike around sharp juts. Downward, ever downward.

  Sounds began to drift up from the unseen deep, beginning as faint whispers residing in the space between hearing and madness, growing into dull echoes swimming along the rock. The brigand’s torch became unnecessary as fat lamps began to appear, affixed to the tunnel walls. The passage leveled out and widened, dug-out chambers blistered along its length. Haggard women linge
red in the entrance to one. Their years made them girls, but their eyes were those of bitter crones. One of them made a dispassionate invitation for Jacintho to enter and join the throng of other men within the chamber noisily having their way with half as many whores. Promising to return, the bandit passed by. Farther on, he thrust his torch into another chamber, soliciting ornery squeals from within.

  “You may leave your pig here.”

  Fetch led Palla inside. Three other barbarians, big and well fed, were tethered in the cramped, subterranean stable. Fetch thought she recognized one of them, but she did not dwell on it for long. She tied Palla to an iron ring on the opposite wall before turning back to her guide.

  “Let’s go.”

  The tunnel lasted only a few dozen more steps before turning. Around the bend a sizable chamber had been chiseled from the guts of the mountain. The air this deep should have been cool and thin, but Fetch was assaulted with a heady reek of unwashed bodies, excrement of men and animals, and something else she could not identify—a sharp, vaguely sour odor. The noise within was deafening, generated by a pressed mob of bedraggled forms. Men shouted through savage throats, cackled with unbridled glee. Harsh whistles and violent cheers rose to a deafening pitch. And under it all, something else, like the smell, something nameless. It was akin to the sound of surf along the seashore, but not low or lulling. This had an edge, a thousand edges, as if voiced from an avalanche of hissing serpents.

  Jacintho turned to face her, his spreading smile made of mossy gravestones. “Welcome to the Pit of Homage.”

  Fetching could barely hear him over the din. Leaning close, she yelled into his ear.

  “I’m looking for a thrice! Been here half a year!”

  The brigand merely preserved his horrible smile and gestured grandly at the chamber.

  Gritting her teeth against the wall of sound and stink, she stepped through.

  The size of the place could hardly be discerned. The ceiling was out of reach, though Fetch could have touched it if she jumped. The rest of its proportions were blocked by teeming walls of filthy men. Most had their backs turned, forming large rough circles. Finding the sliver of an avenue between the edges of two of these circles, Fetch pushed her way forward, jostled and bumped from both sides as the men at the rear of the press struggled to get a better view of whatever the fuck they were cheering about.