The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  Some frantic little noises were followed by Jacintho issuing a few whispered curses.

  “Problem?” Fetch asked.

  “I…cannot pull the string back.”

  Fucking frails. Fetch had forgotten that few could ready a thrum without the help of a crank. Her mind began racing for a solution. The moment Knob was out of danger, the Stains would attack.

  “I got it,” a familiar voice rumbled.

  “There is another very large half-orc now,” Jacintho dutifully informed.

  Fetch smiled. “Yeah, that one is with me.”

  “We have trouble in here?” Oats asked. Ride with a mongrel long enough, you can tell when he is holding a weapon just from the way he sounds.

  “No,” Fetch answered, slowly withdrawing from Knob. “Just a small dispute between chiefs.”

  She backed up until Oats and Jacintho were on either side, both with loaded, leveled thrums.

  Once in the tunnel, only two could stand abreast, so Fetch moved to the rear, leaving the others to cover their asses.

  Oats eyed the katara as she passed. “The hells is that?”

  “Had a pair sheathed to my hips this entire time, fool-ass.”

  “See if you notice what I got strapped after you’ve been bludgeoned by a corpse!”

  “Fair point.”

  “Perhaps the bickering could wait until after we are safe,” Jacintho suggested.

  One of the Orc Stains stepped out into the tunnel, stockbow in hand.

  Letting out a surprised chirp, Jacintho startled and his thrum let loose, sending a bolt shattering into the tunnel ceiling not far from the Stain’s head. The mongrel ducked back into the safety of the cave.

  Sheathing the foreign blade, Fetch snatched her stockbow from the brigand’s hands, pushed him behind her and reloaded.

  “We may be ignoring your little wet nurse’s orders,” she told Oats, the pair of them walking backward shoulder to shoulder.

  “Already sent her to get my hog.”

  “That halfling can handle Ugfuck?” Fetch asked.

  “He really likes her.”

  “Don’t tell me she also hauled those coin sacks.”

  Oats grunted a laugh. “No. Those we will have to get.”

  “Jacintho,” Fetch said. “Care to earn some silver?”

  “You will find that I am faster and stronger when burdened with wealth,” the wretch declared with pride.

  A thought came to Fetch. “Oats? How did you know to come looking for me?”

  “I saw that look you get when you’re about to piss into a viper pit. Could have been beat with a hundred corpse-clubs and still seen that look.”

  They made their way back to Oats’s cave with no further signs of pursuit. While Fetch watched the tunnel, Oats tied the money sacks together and helped Jacintho hoist the jingling yoke across his bony shoulders.

  “We need to move fast,” Fetch told them. “The Stains have their barbarians stabled in the same place as mine. If they get there first—”

  “Say no more,” Jacintho said, scampering past her. “I know these mines better than any. There are byways. Follow!”

  The lanky bandit sped away.

  “He really is faster loaded down with shine,” Oats observed.

  Jacintho made good on his word, leading them to the cave where Palla waited. The Orc Stains were nowhere to be found, though their hogs remained tethered.

  Fetching slung her stockbow, motioned for Oats to cover the tunnel, and lifted the sacks off of Jacintho, slinging them across Palla’s back. The hog snorted in complaint.

  “Take off your hat,” Fetch told Jacintho. The man merely stood, puzzled. “Hurry!”

  She went to the bag and scooped out a fistful of coins. Realization sent Jacintho skipping to her side. Fetch filled the hat.

  “Get gone,” she said. “You don’t want Knob and his boys to ever see you again.”

  “Best to stay with you, then.”

  Fetch snorted and untied Palla. “You don’t want to go where we’re bound, frail. And we don’t have a mount to carry you.”

  Jacintho cocked an uncertain eye at the Orc Stains’ barbarians.

  “That’s one way to die,” Fetch told him.

  “I could get a mule.”

  Oats let loose a chuckle from the cave entrance.

  “Luck to you, Jacintho,” Fetch said.

  She led Palla into the tunnel and began heading out of the mine. Oats watched their backtrail.

  Night still reigned when they emerged from the shaft, but morning was snapping at its heels.

  Xhreka and Ugfuck were waiting. Oats’s massive and incomprehensibly hideous hog stood quietly next to the halfling, her hand resting on one of his swine-yankers.

  “Farewell, Idris,” was all Xhreka said when Oats approached.

  Fetching mounted and found the thrice looking up at her.

  “She’s owed some coin, chief.”

  “Of course. She can have it.” Fetch looked at the halfling. “Or you can come with us.”

  Xhreka said nothing, but Oats let out a pleased, airy laugh.

  “There could be a place for you in Winsome,” Fetch told the little woman. “It won’t be eas—”

  Xhreka threw up a hand. “Yes, yes, life is difficult. I know. I’m coming. I was just trying to decide how to tell Idris I would rather ride with you. Ugfuck’s smell is an insult to the earth.”

  TWENTY

  WINSOME WAS WHOLE.

  The breath of relief Fetching released upon seeing the walls still standing, the gate intact, the slopheads along the wall, was nearly an ecstasy. The ride back had been punishing, for hogs and riders, especially for Xhreka, whose legs cramped miserably after the first day, though she never complained. The pace Fetching set during the last leg, after crossing the River Lucia, bordered on madness. Now, after five days of hard riding, they were home. The slops on the wall called out a greeting and the gates opened.

  The True Bastards rode out to meet them.

  Polecat and Mead went straight to Oats, leaning over in their saddles to welcome him back. The meaty arm-clasps and violent embraces nearly knocked Xhreka off her place in front of Oats.

  “Bring yourself back a pet, Oats?” Polecat asked, eyeing the halfling with an arch grin. “Must have been nice, having her at the perfect height to lick your ass while you fucked your hog these past months.”

  “Actually,” Xhreka spoke up, “we just spit in my empty socket and he pokes that.” She looked at Polecat and made to lift her eye patch. “Your cod’s probably small enough. Want a go?”

  Cat’s grin grew. “Maybe.”

  Oats’s hard, affectionate shove ended the exchange, everyone laughing and nodding appreciatively at the halfling.

  “Well, you all aren’t bones,” Fetching observed. “I gather the Unyar supplies are helping.”

  “They are, chief,” Mead answered. “We were able to relax the rationing a little. Still, without our own crops—”

  “The crops will be dealt with,” Fetching told him. “Let’s be glad we’re better than we were. Any further sign of the dogs?”

  “None.”

  More good fortune. So much that Fetch could not trust it.

  “There’s a heap to discuss, and I need to hear all that happened while I was away. Soon as these hogs are seen to, we will meet.”

  “That may have to wait, chief,” Mead said.

  “Why?”

  “We have guests,” Shed Snake answered, but said nothing more.

  Fetch swept her hoof with a hard look. “Someone want to fucking speak up?”

  “Tell her, Dumb Door,” Polecat said with a tilt of his head.

  The mute mongrel frowned at him.

  “It’s the Sons of Perdition,” Mead said, se
eing Fetch was not amused. “Ten of them showed up just before dusk yesterday, their chief among them.”

  “And you let them in?” Fetch demanded.

  “A hoofmaster rode up to our gates. Figured it was better to let him in than risk giving offense and souring an alliance.”

  “Except that’s ten more mongrels we’re feeding, Mead!”

  The young rider looked momentarily sheepish, but he soon set his jaw, lifted his chin. “I made a decision.”

  Shit. He’d had to, hadn’t he? And for more than this. He’d been chief in all but name and may get that if she kept acting the snapping dog, testing his patience. She was soon to test his trust.

  Fetch let out a breath and squeezed Mead on the shoulder. “Tell me they are honoring the rationing.”

  “They are.”

  “We’re watching them close, chief,” Polecat added.

  “Not out here, we’re not,” Fetch said. “I’ll go see what Father wants and get these mouths off our lot. You all show Oats to his bunk. He may have forgotten where it is.”

  They rode through the gates, a whole hoof once again. Almost.

  Fetch hopped off Palla and turned him over to Sence.

  “Welcome home, chief,” the waiting slop said.

  “Did you just look your chief in the eye, hopeful?” Polecat barked, making Sence jump. Ducking his head, he set to his duty.

  “Sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Oats asked, lowering Xhreka down from the saddle with one arm.

  “Or me?” Mead offered, a bit too quickly.

  “No,” Fetch answered them both. “I’ll handle it. Just tell me where they are.”

  * * *

  —

  THE SONS OF PERDITION had been placed in an old storehouse. Big enough to house them and their hogs, but far from comfortable, discouraging them from staying long. Clever Mead. It was near noon, so Father and his boys milled inside, out of the sun. The old mongrel was sitting on a milking stool, showing two of his riders how to make a complicated plait out of leather thongs.

  “You ever need to make a repair to your tack, boys, this is how you do it. Take the time. Make it right and sound.”

  Father looked up from his instruction when Fetch’s shadow intruded upon the lesson. His face was composed of wrinkles and scars, and the wisdom bought with them.

  “Keep at it,” he told the riders sitting at his feet, and stood. He was short for a half-orc, though likely age had shrunk him somewhat. Fetch stayed where she was while Father trudged to meet her in the wide doorway.

  “Didn’t expect to ride here ahead of you,” he said in greeting, though there was a kernel of chide buried in the tone.

  “Didn’t expect any but my hoof to be waiting.”

  “Well, the ride to Strava isn’t a short one from my lot. Figured it best to stop here on the way back. Save me an ass-tanning, later.”

  Fetch clenched her jaw. What was this shit? The Bastards’ lot was not on the way back for the Sons. Their lands were almost due south from Strava. The old coffin-dodger either thought the sun now rose in the south, or believed she was a complete fool and didn’t know the arrangement of the damn Lots. Still, she swallowed the building ire. Having already made an enemy of one hoofmaster, she wasn’t in a hurry to piss this one off as well.

  “Can we walk a span?” Father suggested, before lowering his voice. “Get stiff now if I laze too long.”

  Fetch nodded and began ambling for the far end of the compound.

  Father took an appraising look around. “You’ve done good here. It isn’t the Kiln—that was a hard loss for the Lots—but it isn’t nothing.”

  There was silence between them almost all the way to the hog pens. Finally, Father spoke again.

  “You talked with the new frails.” It was not a question.

  Fetch looked at the old mongrel’s wrinkled profile. “I did.”

  “Clever of you to ride down there while the rest of us were jawing on the ridge.” A disapproving gurgle rose from Father’s throat. “Fucking Knob! That hairless ape doesn’t see anything beyond the reach of his sword or his cock. Not me. I heard you that morning, trying to tell us what’s brewing.”

  “And?”

  “Do you think these frails are a danger?”

  They reached the pens. Dumb Door was working one of the twisters, but was out of earshot. Not that he could repeat anything he heard.

  Fetch rested a foot upon the lowest fence rail and watched the young boar being broken to the saddle. Taking a deep breath she gave Father her opinion.

  “Eight hundred men, most of them trained warriors born to the saddle, on horses half-covered in steel, led by a man proven not only in war, but conquest. Yes. That’s dangerous. But to who? Right now, not us. The Unyars are closest and still outnumber them.”

  Father rested his elbows on the fence. “But will Zirko send his followers to war against them?”

  “Surely you can decide that on your own.”

  “He’s never been afraid to fight. But he won’t do it for the mongrel hoofs. Or even the Lots. No…Zirko will only go to war to protect his own folk. I don’t think he would ally with the swaddleheads against us, but you can damn well count on him letting them ride right by so long as his people are left untouched.”

  Fetching was not overly fond of the priest, but she found herself defending him. “He marshaled the Unyars last year when the orcs made their move. Fought during the Great Incursion too.”

  Father chuckled. “I know that last part better than you, girl. I was there. But their aid was slow in coming, and even when committed, they were looking out for Strava beyond all else.”

  “We’re no different. We place our lots over all else. Think you all made that clear. Hells, right now all I’m thinking about is getting you and your brood off Bastard land before you eat what little we can spare, which is nothing.”

  Father nodded slowly, and when he spoke next, it was as if he spoke only to himself. “The Bastards are not in a good way. And the Sons aren’t here to make it tougher on you.”

  “You’re not making it easier.”

  “But perhaps we could.”

  Fetch stared at the old mongrel, waiting on that to be explained, making it clear she had little patience left. Father was unaffected. He met her glower and smiled, reflection softening his crags.

  “When the Incursion was done, I never thought what it might be like this many years later. Never conceived I would live this long. I don’t know if there was ever a plan for the Lots beyond the next sunrise. I do know the chiefs collaborated more back then. The first master of the Sons—called him Dark Hog—he rode regular to the Shards, the Tuskers, Bastards. Likely most of it was about the poor wretches bearing that damn plague.”

  Fetch imagined the old mongrel had the right there. The plague-bearers, each a living weapon, were what really kept the orcs and Hispartha from making any more earnest attempts on Ul-wundulas. By the time Fetch became a Grey Bastard, the Claymaster was the only one remaining, and only his descent into madness, hastened by Crafty’s influence, brought that truth back to the Lots. A few old-timers had kept the secret; Warbler, Father obviously, their knowledge all but useless. The truth of the past mattered little when the truth of the present was a daily fight to stay alive.

  But hells, now that history had been laid straight, these fossils loved to wallow in it.

  “I was the slop-wrangler in those days,” Father droned on, “rearing the new blood, so I didn’t leave our lands much, but there was hardly a moon’s turn that we didn’t open our gates to Coffin Moth or the Claymaster. I weren’t privy to all those talks between the founders, what was being hatched, if anything. It didn’t matter. We had tusk-fucked the thicks back across the Deluged and told Hispartha we were to be counted. Yes, we were left stuck between the steaming asshole of Dhar’gest an
d Hispartha’s sweaty seed skin, but we were still proud. Proud and belligerent.”

  Father grew silent. Fetch hoped he was finished and was about to reach a point, but a deep breath signaled more to come.

  “I want to say something fool-ass like ‘And then it all suddenly went wrong,’ but the truth is not so simple and memory is a tricky thing. Seasons came and went, Betrayers waxed and waned, orc raids, poor harvests, unworthy slopheads. Thinking back it all just makes me tired. Dark Hog had been dead for years and the Sons found themselves being led by a drunkard. We refer to our fellow riders as brothers, but after so long whipping young mongrels into something with grit, there was not a sworn member of my hoof that I didn’t see as a son. The name our founder gave us took on new meaning…possessed me. Not even a word I once knew, ‘possessed.’ But it did. We weren’t just the Sons, they were my Sons. I challenged the chief, won, took his place, and changed my hoof name. But leadership didn’t come with allies. Like all the other hoofs, the Sons of Perdition had gone from a band of proud and belligerent half-breeds to something…shrunk. We were all just guarding our little parcels of badland, rarely sharing news and never meeting. A patrol rider would arrive from another hoof, maybe, but never another chief.”

  Fetch could not hold her tongue any longer. “Am I going to be as old as you by the time you tell me what you are about?”

  If Father was offended, he gave no sign. He really did look damn tired.

  “The mongrel hoofs are divided, girl. And not just by the distance between our lands. You saw that at Strava. As you said, we are all just looking out for our own, scraping in the dust for what little Ul-wundulas has to give. For all Knob’s boasting, not one of us is as strong now as the day we were founded. Hells, I have more boys than some of you combined and it’s still an old mongrel’s weak piss stream compared to what it was.

  “We should not be meeting to worry over eight hundred frails! In the beginning, twice that many would never have dared come. Ul-wundulas may always be stuck between a hammer and an anvil, but the half-orcs have a choice of letting that break them or harden them. If we are in pieces, we are already broken.”