The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  A sudden jostle sent javelins into Fetch’s skull, forcing her eyes closed once more. When she opened them again, she found Sluggard lying beside her. His head was wrapped in a stained bandage and swaying with the movement of the wagon. Save for the fever sweat sheening his skin and the sporadic twitches of his brow, he looked dead.

  Something kept tapping Fetch’s head, gentle and irregular. Craning her neck, she found a mongrel babe, kicked free from its blanket, face bunched and mouth agape. Though it looked to be screaming enough to wake the dead, all Fetch heard were the trimmings of echo. Two other, calmer children lay next to the first, all resting in the wagon bed beneath the seat.

  Reaching, Fetch’s hand found the edge of the sideboard and she pulled, wincing with every bit of upward progress. She managed to sit up, but went too far. Head hanging between her knees, she fought the need to vomit. And failed.

  Hooking her chin over the sideboard, she yielded the contents of her roiling guts.

  The wagon halted.

  Oats’s face appeared. After the gags subsided, he wiped her lips with a kerchief. His mouth moved and the deep vibrations returned.

  Can’t fucking hear you.

  Fetch felt her jaw moving, grinding into the sideboard, so she must have spoken.

  Fuck.

  Oats replied with unintelligible rumbling, accompanied by strong hands embracing her face. He asked her something, worry etched into his dust-powdered face. Having no notion of what he said, Fetch shook her head, the gesture a broad answer. No, she could not hear. No, she was not well. No, she wasn’t going to retch again.

  After a reluctant pause, Oats withdrew. The wagon rocked and sagged as he climbed back aboard, began moving once more. Fetch hung over the side for a long while.

  Sluggard grew fitful as the wheels rolled and bumped across Ul-wundulas. A blanket covered him below the waist, but his feverish stirrings threatened to cast it aside. Fearing to behold Knob’s butchery, Fetch made sure the blanket stayed in place.

  By the time Batayat Hill came into view, her stomach had calmed.

  Batayat was a great formation of weathered rock that stretched for miles, accented with fallen boulders and tough shrubs. The place was replete with sinkholes and small caves, making it one of the most painstaking places to patrol on the Bastards’ lot. Often, it became a place for raiding orcs to hole up against the hoof.

  Fetch could only hope there were no thicks lurking among the rocks now.

  They found the tracks of the other wagons. Unable to traverse the unforgiving inclines, they stood unhitched and abandoned in the shadow of the formation. Oats took up his stockbow and approached. Fetch tried to follow, but when she lowered herself over the sideboard, her legs gave out.

  Oats rushed back, no doubt at Xhreka’s call, and helped Fetch sit up, propping her against one of the wheels. He said something that might have been admonishing before going away to scout once again. The sun had crawled deeply into the bosom of the western sky before he returned with help.

  Shed Snake and Touro took Fetch’s arms across their shoulders, helping her to stand, walk, though her toes dragged more than not. The rocks defeated any efforts she could make on her own behalf, forcing the mongrels to hook their hands behind her knees and carry her up. Oats bore Sluggard across his shoulders. Xhreka had a babe in her arms. The other two infants were carried by Thistle and Lopo. Dacia led the unhitched hogs, the ground too treacherous for them to act as pack animals. The ragged group had to stop several times as they ascended, and it was full dark before they reached the rough encampment.

  It was nothing but a flat expanse upon the wide-reaching summit, screened by time-carved pillars of segmented rock. Winsome’s villagers hunkered amidst the boulders before feeble fires. Fetch and Sluggard were taken to a patch of hard ground and placed beside Mead and Polecat. Fetching tried to protest, and might have managed some words, but her body betrayed all attempts to stand. She could only lie in that row of the injured and watch as the tatters of her hoof tried to stitch itself together without her help. With no strength to do more than give listless stares, she saw Oats speak with Shed Snake and Culprit, revived from his head wound, but still walking unsteadily. Later, Hoodwink appeared, clearly giving a report of the surrounding area. He glanced Fetch’s way once, when Oats said something and gestured at his own ear.

  The chief is deaf. Spread the word. Another ass-fucking in a long line of travails forming behind the hoof’s bent-over backside.

  Polecat awoke not long after Fetch arrived, sitting up when he saw her. Someone had removed the bolts from his leg and shoulder. He spoke, hatchet face frowning when she did not respond. They had all learned to recognize certain hand signs from Dumb Door, but being unable to hear was not among them. It wasn’t a complicated thing to communicate, but Fetch could not bring herself to do it, using the infirmity to ignore Cat’s insistent solicitations until Touro came over and explained. Polecat’s brow furrowed further when the slophead went away. Fetch could feel his eyes on her for a long while after.

  Mead lay between them, looking worse than Sluggard, if that were possible. He awoke once, hand questing feebly for hers. Fetch latched on to his fingers.

  Stay with me.

  A shadow fell over them. Incus. She lowered herself down and sat with Fetching. Nothing more. She just sat, sharing the soundless world.

  There was no food, but pitiful sips of water were brought to all the injured. Fetch refused hers, directing Touro to give her ration to Mead. He complied, but moments after he went away, Oats trudged over. Squatting, face bordering on furious, he thrust a skin at her face. He said a single word. Even in the weak firelight, the shape formed by his lips was obvious.

  Drink.

  Fetch took half a mouthful and gave the skin back.

  She stayed awake as long as possible, holding Mead’s hand, placing her other on Sluggard’s chest, fearing that neither would live to see dawn. So, she kept her eyes open and her touch firm, hoping to anchor them through the night.

  Hogshit.

  They anchored her. She feared to sleep, to let darkness in where silence already reigned. Filling her eyes with the stars, her hands with the touch of skin, kept that divestment of all sense at bay. But though her pain dwindled and her queasiness fled, the exhaustion remained, gnawing at the wispy tendrils of resolve. She battled, but at some unknown moment, was defeated.

  Sun. Pale and tepid.

  Motion. Only that in her hungering stomach.

  Sound. Coughing. Weeping. Voices. All were distorted, as if wriggling through wet hay, but they were there.

  Sitting up, tilting her head, working her jaw, Fetch found her left ear mostly clear, the right still muffled. She checked Mead and Sluggard.

  Still alive. Both still alive.

  Polecat was absent.

  Incus was not.

  “You can hear?”

  “I can,” Fetch replied, and nearly wept with relief.

  The thrice gave a satisfied nod and lumbered to her feet, offering a hand down. Fetch took it.

  Standing too swiftly, she nearly lost balance, but refused to let a spinning skull be her master. Incus’s strong arm helped for the first few steps. After that, Fetch risked it alone, employing clenched eyelids and a few deep breaths. The rest came on instinct. The camp grew hushed. For a moment, Fetch thought her hearing had once again fled. Then she saw the stares. Villagers and slopheads, most milling and indolent, ceased their mumbling words to look with a mummer’s show of emotion. Surprise. Relief. Resentment. Hatred. She saw it all, though the faces seemed to pitch and sway.

  “Summon the hoof!” she told Touro, speaking louder than intended. A babe began to cry, startled by the outburst. Fetch guided her treacherous vision to the sound. The orphanage was now just a crude gaggle amidst a camp of crude gaggles. Thistle shepherded the children into a tighter cluster of haunt
ed eyes set in filthy faces. But not all the short forms were children.

  Fetch stalked over, weaving a bit, no doubt appearing a drunken hag to the young ones. She looked down at Xhreka.

  “You come with me.”

  The halfling detached from the orphans without a word.

  Fetch turned to lead her away, finding Polecat standing in the center of the camp, balanced on a rude crutch.

  “Chief?”

  “Where are the others?”

  Cat released a small breath of relief. “Hunting.”

  “When they are all returned, we meet.”

  “Sure, chief.”

  Leaving Cat standing there, Fetch continued on, Xhreka trailing. She took the flattest route away from the bordering stone fingers, seeking a place free from other eyes and ears. Everywhere was rock and prickly shrubs. Fetch walked until the thrust of a butte blocked the path, the stone at her feet dipping down to meet its base. Not trusting she could walk down without falling, she found a likely boulder at the edge and sat.

  Xhreka stood a few paces away, regarding her with that one bright eye.

  “It was you,” Fetch said. “The hellish noise that burst Little Orphan Girl. You. And again with the orc.”

  The halfling remained still.

  “I feel a need to thank you,” Fetch continued, “but also a strong desire to pick you up and throw you off this fucking rock. I took you in, knowing you would be of use. But you hid just how useful. What else are you hiding?”

  Xhreka folded her arms.

  “You are hiding from Zirko, I know that much,” Fetch said. A tiny bit of doubt darkened the lone eye. “I’m not a fucking fool, Xhreka. I know what you are, why Strava wants you back.”

  “You know nothing of me, mongrel-girl.”

  Fetch stood. “Va. Gara. Attukhan.”

  The halfling’s eye went wide.

  “I don’t speak the Unyar tongue,” Fetch admitted, “but I damn well know what that means. Been hearing it ever since the mongrel I love went away. Heard it a great deal when I was last in Strava. The Unyars I stayed with were old, thought I was asleep, but coffin-dodgers can’t whisper for shit. Can’t hear themselves. I know something about that now, thanks to you. I’m not sure how, but the Unyars know I’ve lain with their precious hero, Va Gara Attukhan. Maybe they think I’m about to push Belico-reborn out my cunt. Doesn’t matter. What does? I not only fucked the Arm of Attukhan, I know how he got the damn name. You bear some ancient holy relic, like him. Don’t deny it, because I know what that power feels like, and I can damn well reckon it’s what you used to twice destroy what plagued my hoof.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did.”

  “I didn’t destroy the fucking orc!” The halfling’s arms never uncrossed, but she did take a step forward. “If I had, you would not be alive now. So thank me three times. Or save the gratitude and just stop asking me questions.”

  “I can’t do that. You are the only weapon I have to fight against the destruction of my hoof.”

  “Your hoof is already destroyed, girl.”

  It was Fetch who stepped forward now. “Not until every Bastard is dead.”

  “Well, I’m no Bastard. Nothing I owe you, any of you.”

  “Show her, Xhreka,” a deep voice implored.

  So intent on glaring at each other, neither Fetch nor Xhreka noticed Oats’s approach. He stood a few paces beyond the halfling, walking the rest of the way when she turned to look.

  “Please,” he continued, kneeling so he could look at her squarely.

  Xhreka eyed him for a long moment, her brown hand coming up to touch his bearded cheek. She took a breath and turned to face Fetching. Slowly, the halfling removed the eye patch. Beneath, Fetch was surprised to see a closed lid, a bit swollen, but otherwise unmarred. There was movement beneath the thin skin, the same as when someone dreamed and their eye rolled beneath the lid. The eye opened and Fetch recoiled.

  A tongue, pink and moist, slithered forth, slow and searching. Curving up, it ran along Xhreka’s upper eyelid, through the lashes, as if they held drops of wine that needed to be licked away. Putting the meat of her palm over the horrible appendage, Xhreka’s face grew pained, turned away. Replacing the patch, she kept her head downcast.

  “You’re keen, girl,” Xhreka said. “It is as you say. I bear something Zirko wants, something I found as a devout pilgrim long ago. Many of us leave Strava, search and scrape for a lifetime, never unearth a damn thing.” The halfling gave a bitter bark and finally looked up, gestured at the eye patch, the motion hateful for what it concealed. “But I found this. Being a vessel demands sacrifice. I loved talking, food, the taste of a man’s salt, wasn’t about to tear out my own tongue, so I gave up an eye. Belief will make you capable of such things. Truth will make you wish you had never believed at all.”

  “Truth?” Fetching asked, becoming more disturbed and unsure of the reason.

  Xhreka laughed, a hopeless sound. “It’s not some arm bone of a warrior I got, girl. If the Unyars celebrated me like they do your hard-cock, then Strava would ring with Du Khaloi Belico.”

  Fetch only knew one of those words, but that one made her spine crawl. “Belico?”

  “The Voice of Belico,” Xhreka pronounced, her tone mocking, almost giddy. “Zirko claims to speak for the Master Slave, but I possess his actual honey lapper. The word of a god in my head, and I don’t mean that poetical.”

  Fetch looked at Oats, still on his haunches. “You knew about this?”

  “Not all of it,” he replied. “I knew she would not return to Strava. Told me that in the Pit. Didn’t suspect her for one like Jackal, though. Not until she saved you, drove that pillar of an orc off.”

  “Drove off?” Fetch didn’t like the look on the thrice’s face. “Surely he’s dead.”

  “Told you. He’s not,” Xhreka said.

  “The Al-Unan fire—”

  The halfling cut her off. “The breath of a god blows out all candles.”

  “You should have let him fucking burn!” Fetch snapped. “There was no reason to save me.”

  “Didn’t do it for you,” Xhreka said. She hooked a thumb at Oats. “Did it for him. Elsewise, he was set to rush in and try to be some hero. Get himself roasted along with you, the ox.”

  Oats was unapologetic. “I was about to come for you, but Xhreka kept me back and unleashed that…well, voice, I guess. She told me after.”

  Fetch dug deep for some gratitude. It was there, buried beneath heaps of dismay that Ruin yet lived. She managed an appreciative nod.

  “Why do you fear Strava?” she asked Xhreka. “They damn near worship Jackal. If that really is a piece of Belico in your skull, wouldn’t they make you high priestess or some other hogshit?”

  Xhreka sneered. “Likely. But it’s not about what the Unyars would do, it’s what Zirko would do. And Belico. Gods aren’t that much different from us. They don’t much like being enslaved. As you’ve heard, Belico is rather fucking angry. Strava would not stand long if he ever got a chance to make his displeasure known. Zirko may be able to subdue him, but I don’t aim to find out. However it goes, I won’t survive, of that I am damn certain. Better to live, I say. Better to let my folk and the Unyars live, happy in their belief.”

  Fetch did not want to go swimming deeper in matters of gods and priests. Religion was damn dangerous and the hoofs had no need of it. She understood enough now to know why Xhreka would keep secrets. She really only needed one more question answered.

  “Could you kill the orc? Given another chance?”

  “There ain’t gonna be another chance,” Xhreka replied. “I risked Zirko finding me twice now for you bunch. Don’t think a few score miles prevents him from hearing the god. I was all set to run the first time, when that damn hog went blood-mad. Kept suspecting to see Unyar riders on
the horizon. No chance they’re not on the way now. Ain’t about to give them another echo to follow. I’ll tell you this. That thick was strong. Few in this world with the grit to stay on their feet and flee when Belico hollers at them. I held the Master Slave back, much as I could, for your sake, but even if I hadn’t…”

  “You wager that orc would still have survived?” Oats asked, disturbed.

  Xhreka only shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. ’Cause Belico’s staying hushed. At least until I can get a few leagues between me and here.” She looked hard at Oats. “You swore you would never give me over, Idris.”

  “I did.”

  His answer was directed at Fetch.

  “I have no interest in handing you to Zirko,” she assured Xhreka. “Oats will keep his word, so long as it does not endanger the hoof. You have my thanks for the risks you’ve taken.”

  “That mean you’re not going to throw me off this hill?” Xhreka asked, sounding unconcerned.

  “Not if Belico is going to have something to say about it,” Fetch replied. “Stay with us as long as you wish. But know that if you go, you go alone.”

  “Very well.”

  Fetch waved for Oats to stand. “I need to speak with the hoof.”

  * * *

  —

  THE TRUE BASTARDS GATHERED AROUND their wounded. Fetch commanded the slopheads to the meet, breaking code and tradition, but they had more than earned a chance to hear what was said. Mead was awake, but his breathing was shallow and rasping. Fetch sat down next to him, the hoof arranged around, sworn brothers kneeling or squatting, the slops standing behind.

  “So what now?” Culprit asked, breaking the silence.

  To this, at least, Fetch had an answer. “The closest settlement is Thricehold. The Orc Stains are no more. Knob brought his entire hoof to wipe us out and got bit by the viper he put in our beds. Fuck him and fuck his hoof in all the hells. What was theirs is now ours.”

  Shed Snake scratched at his scarred arm. “Won’t their hold have a garrison?”

  “Hardly,” Polecat said. “The Stains only accept thrice-bloods. Not many of those around, so keeping a crop of hopefuls is damn near impossible.”