The grey bastards, p.26
The Grey Bastards, page 26
However, the Road was the swiftest route into Hispartha.
“We will rest the hogs here,” Warbler declared, gazing down at Kalbarca from their vantage upon a ridge. “Once the sun is high we will take the Emperor’s, chew some distance before nightfall.”
They proceeded down into the valley and reached the river while the morning was still young. The ruins rested in crown-lands, though Jackal saw no evidence of soldiery as they crossed the bridge and approached what was left of the walls. He knew from talks with Ignacio’s men that patrols here were few. The Grey Bastards rarely had cause to intrude this far west and Jackal had only ridden within sight of Kalbarca a handful of times.
Warbler clearly knew his way around. He guided them through the rubble-strewn alleys, past the shadowed sockets of doorways and windows long bereft of habitation. The orcs had occupied the city for years after breaking the defenses and smears of their savage calligraphy stained the white-wash, boasts written in blood to their esurient gods. Thicks had no talent for building. Haphazard heaps of stone and timber were thrown into the breaches they made in the walls, all that was done to shore up their prize against a counter-attack. Not that it mattered. Hispartha never attempted to retake the city. It was abandoned by the enemy only when the great plague swept through Ul-wundulas, killing orcs and men in reaping strokes, ending the war.
“The frails never have come back,” Jackal commented, craning his neck around to look at the puzzle of broken dwellings. “Must have been too ashamed.”
Ahead of him, Warbler huffed. “They’ll be back. Soon as some king orders the reclamation of the Lots, this warren will be crawling with more soldiers than rats.”
Jackal was dubious, but he kept his mouth closed.
“For now,” Warbler went on, “it’s a good place for free-riders. Plenty of places to hole up, rest, hide if you need to. Just keep away from the old mausoleum and any tunnels leading beneath ground. The halflings have a permanent colony here, digging around for every shit Belico ever took. They think you’ve despoiled their work, you won’t make it out of Kalbarca alive.”
Jackal did not care for Warbler’s instructional tone. This wasn’t his first ride.
“I can handle halflings. Me and their high-priest have an understanding.”
Warbler twisted in the saddle and squinted at Jackal for a moment. He said nothing and soon turned back around.
They rode into what was left of a plaza and dismounted, quickly unsaddling their barbarians and stowing the tack within a nearby building.
“We’ll walk the hogs down to a spot I know where they can drink, then come back and get some rest.”
They slept the morning away in the cool shadows of the ruins. Jackal gave himself to slumber readily, but fell into fitful dreams of Starling. He awoke sore and sickened, with hours to spare before noon. Needing to feel the sun on his skin, he went out to the plaza and sat upon a cracked plinth. He busied himself with the care of his weapons, first cleaning his blades, before moving on to the longer task of his stockbow.
As he was refitting the bowstring to the prods, Warbler emerged.
“Best begin practice with a bow,” the old thrice proclaimed. “That thrum won’t last a year in this life.”
“That why you use that piece of Unyar driftwood?” Jackal asked. “Couldn’t maintain your stockbow?”
Warbler just laughed and shook his head, ducking back into the building to retrieve his saddle.
Jackal knew the old thrice wasn’t wrong, but the constant advice was tickling at his temper. Every word out of Warbler’s mouth, hells his very presence, was a reminder that this life was permanent. Try as he might, Jackal could not shake the feeling that he was simply on another patrol, an extended ranging into unfamiliar territory, and when it was done he would ride back to the Kiln. But that fantasy only lived upon the surface of his mind. Pursuing it only dredged up pain as the truth of the past days poisoned the intimacy of years.
They left Kalbarca before noon, taking the ancient road. The straight, flat line of pale stones speared hypnotically towards the horizon, limned in shimmers of heat. Warbler set an even, tedious pace. Mean Old Man seemed well accustomed, but Hearth had difficulties. He wanted to run and, when held back, kept slowing to a plod. Jackal focused on getting control and was soon riding alongside his fellow nomad. They stopped rarely and spoke not at all.
The Old Imperial Road led them northeast for most of the day. Finally, in the late afternoon, it split, the main body striking directly northward, while the smaller off-shoot turned towards the descending sun. Warbler pulled his hog north. Dusk came, holding court over the sky with beautiful brevity before yielding gracefully to night. Still they rode on, and Jackal enjoyed the swiftly cooling air until Warbler called a halt. He led them off the Road to a stand of stone pine and declared they would camp.
The rations in Jackal’s kit would not last a six day ride unless stretched, so he took only pulls from his water skin as he lay upon his bedroll, reclined against his saddle. He was drifting off to sleep when a rattling weight struck him in the chest. Plucking the flung sack from his chest, he unknotted the string.
“Almonds,” he said, glancing up to look at the sack’s thrower sitting beneath the opposite tree, but Warbler’s scarred arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were already closed.
They were in the saddle by dawn and rode hard before the heat was high. Warbler called a halt early, veering off the Road to a grove of lemon trees. They stayed only long enough to pick some choice pieces and continued on, eating the fruit as they rode and saving the rinds for their hogs. The countryside grew noticeably lusher as they progressed north, though the dusty sun-bleached rocks still far outnumbered the greenery. Jackal was not certain exactly when it happened, but by midday he was unmistakably aware they were now in lands he had never before travelled. He wanted to ask why they were bound for Hispartha, but kept his questions locked behind his teeth, too proud to admit any ignorance.
The Road was far from abandoned and they began to cross paths with other travelers, overtaking a lone halfling pilgrim on foot and, later, meeting a trio of mongrel free-riders coming south. Warbler stopped and spoke to them all. The discussions were brief, almost ritual.
Where have you come from?
Where are you bound?
What have you seen upon the Road?
Answers to these questions were exchanged with no pleasantries, nor any guile. Warbler always responded truthfully and Jackal detected no dissembling from those they encountered. The information was sparse, yet valuable. Even no news was prized; an uneventful journey was often a safe one. With the halfling, names were not exchanged, but Warbler made a point of introducing Jackal to the half-orc nomads. Each of the three accepted his name with a terse nod, their dust-caked faces displaying a restrained mix of grief and scorn, as if they mourned and detested his choice to join their ranks.
Jackal found this same conflicted soup boiling in his own gut as he returned their stares. These were free-riders, outcasts, men who had been thrown out of their hoof for all manner of unspoken reasons. Jackal was all too aware that the causes for exile were not always dishonorable, yet he could not help but think that he was now amongst a company of liars, cowards and kin-slayers. No doubt the same unproven condemnations were silently leveled at him.
Over the passing days they spoke with other free-riders, most riding alone, but some in pairs or small groups. All of them were filthy, careworn and terse. Their hogs were lean and shabby, their weapons tarnished. Jackal noticed, with silent ill-humor, there was not a single stockbow amongst them. He committed all of their names to memory, but wondered if he could ever tell one from another on a second meeting. Warbler was well-known by all, yet commanded no unique respect. He was as they all were, just another masterless rider, drifting through the Lots.
Perhaps it was Jackal’s well-fed hog or his supple saddle, perhaps his stockbow, but something about him seemed to sour the countenances of the other free-riders. At first he thought it was some customary derision given to all newcomers, but it was too unwavering and lacked any sense of the callous mirth directed at slopheads.
“It’s as if they don’t believe you,” he finally said to Warbler at their fourth overnight camp. “As if they don’t believe I’ve turned nomad.”
“Difficult to believe a man has lost his hoof when he’s bearing unmarked Bastard tattoos,” Warbler replied, giving Jackal’s arms a pointed look.
Glancing down, Jackal saw he was right. The cuts were gone. His flesh, and the ink beneath, was unmarred. He hadn’t noticed, so used to them being a part of him.
Jackal ran a mystified hand from his shoulder to his wrist.
“I’ve been…I’ve been healing quickly,” he offered in feeble explanation.
Warbler grunted. “You really make a deal with Zirko?”
The question forced Jackal away from the bemused exploration of his skin. He looked up to find the old thrice frowning at him, waiting upon an answer without demanding one.
“I went to him,” Jackal admitted. “My arm was shattered and needed mending. It had gone too long. I knew it was going to have to be cut off, unless…”
“Unless you got some miracle.”
“I’d heard the rumors about Strava. Hells, you used to tell us stories about it. Oats and Fe…I was warned against it, but there wasn’t a choice. Zirko said there would be a price. Two, in fact. I agreed to pay them. So yes, I made a deal. But the little fucker’s half crazy. Thinks his god is going to return and lead an army into Dhar’gest, destroy all the thicks.”
Warbler gave a scoffing shake of his head. “It would take a god to do it. And even then…”
A distant, haunted pall melded with the shadows on the older half-orc’s face.
“You’ve been there,” Jackal realized aloud. “The Dark Lands. You’ve fucking been!”
Warbler shook his head again, but in distaste, not denial. “Once.”
Jackal suddenly felt a child, begging for stories at War-boar’s knee, but he could not help himself from asking the question.
“Why?”
“Same reason anyone goes into peril,” Warbler responded slowly. “Because some things just have to be faced.”
Unwilling to press further, lest he start to crave a tit full of milk, Jackal let the matter drop.
The fifth day of travel brought them to the edge of heavily forested highlands. The Road continued on its course, rising to tackle the sloping terrain, but Warbler pulled Mean Old Man away from the cobbles, heading due east cross-country. Creeks and streams quickly became prevalent, and Jackal marveled at the verdant plains splashed between the brown hills. He began to see trees he could not name, their leaves so thick and green they appeared nearly as black as the succoring shade they housed.
“Is this Tine land?” Jackal queried, turning south to see the distant, hazy peaks of the Umber Mountains.
“Far from it,” Warbler told him. “This belongs to the crown. Did you think the nobility would not keep the best lots for themselves?”
“Are there any castiles? Cavalry? Who keeps watch here?”
“No one. These are the borderlands, Jackal. There were few settlements here before the Incursion and none have been built since.” Warbler pointed north across the rolling hills. “The Lots end less than half a day’s ride from where we stand. Long before dark, we will be in Hispartha.”
“And then?”
“Better seen than said.”
Warbler did not speak again while they rode, not even to announce their departure from Ul-wundulas.
Yet Jackal felt it.
Lands weren’t separated by names alone, they possessed their own natures, their own spirits. The country Hearth now trod was not the badlands of Jackal’s birth. Yes, it was greener, the winds cooler, but the difference was imbued in more than beauty and fairer climes. This land was forgiven and forgiving, resting imperiously above its oft-raped sister. Ul-wundulas had no more tears, for itself or its people, it was used up, and bitter with the knowledge that its hideous, sun-scorched surface would not save it from another assault. Yet noble Hispartha was flush and unspoiled, content to ignore the ravages of time and invasion so long as the dusty thighs of Ul-wundulas lay spread between it and Dhar’gest.
When Jackal drank from his first Hisparthan stream, the water colder and cleaner than any that had touched his throat, he knew he never wanted to leave. Suddenly, shamefully, he understood why the thicks were so intent to reach this land.
“This what you wanted me to see?” he asked, standing away from the seductive brook. “The land we protect? The land denied us by the frails we keep safe?”
Warbler had not dismounted when they stopped. He squinted into the distance and shook his head.
“You’re here to see that we don’t keep anything safe.”
They followed the stream as it ran through a sporadically wooded valley and eventually flowed into a sizable lake nestled amongst the hills. Across the calm surface of the water stood a blunt tooth of rock, its denuded hump sulking beneath the afternoon sky. Warbler led them toward it, riding along the western bank of the lake. The trees growing near were young, beginning to lead a charge up the slope to retake the lone peak. Jackal followed Warbler away from the shoreline and they rode in the shadow of the tooth until the lake was lost from view. Ahead, the trees gave way to a blindingly white swath of dusty ground festooned with tall piles of loose stones.
The dust and detritus was the doorstep of a yawning cavity housed low in the base of the promontory. Evidence of wooden scaffolding lay bleaching in the harsh heat.
Warbler dismounted and left Mean Old Man standing in the shelter of the trees.
“What was this, a mine?” Jackal asked, following his lead.
Warbler loosed an affirmative grunt and retrieved a pair of prepared torches from his saddlebag. He doused the tow wrappings with a stream of oil from a skin and handed one of the staves over before heading off towards the entrance. As Jackal cleared the trees and entered the punishing sun, his nostrils flared.
The place smelled of home.
The mouth of the mine was larger than it appeared from a distance. As he walked closer, Jackal saw it was over twice his height and wide enough to admit a dozen men walking abreast. A palpable chill flowed out of the shaft, unpleasant despite the brutal heat of the sun. Drawing his knife and a piece of flint, Warbler struck sparks until both torches were alight. He looked up at the support lintel with a stubborn glare.
“The Imperium dug up so much silver, it is said they needed elephants to bring it out. Hispartha continued the work, but they used half-orcs…until the lodes gave out.”
Jackal looked hard at the old thrice’s profile. “You were a slave here?”
Warbler nodded. “I was born here. Well…I can’t swear to that, but it’s certainly the first cunt I remember crawling out of. Wish I was the worst that came from this womb.”
“You mean the Claymaster.”
Warbler’s lips twitched into a sad smile. “No. He left here a hero. Come ahead.”
Together they stepped into the cold tunnel, holding their torches aloft. The shaft was well-shorn with timbers and cut deep into the rock. Jackal suppressed a shudder at the thought of an elephant emerging from the shadows at the edge of the torchlight, mad-eyed and trumpeting. He had only seen one of the immense creatures, when a troupe of entertainers came through the Lots. They had performed in Winsome and moved on, but were cut down by orc raiders before making it to the Skull Sowers’ land. Oats had wept when they found the butchered elephant, though Jackal had pretended not to notice.
After what seemed an eternity of leading down, the shaft opened upon a shelf of rough cut stone overlooking a vast sea of shadow that the torches could not hope to penetrate. Jackal sensed a vast openness as the queer subterranean breeze played through his hair. A massive ramp of earthworks rose to meet the shelf, and Warbler descended without pause. Jackal followed, sliding a bit on the loose stones carpeting the hard-packed dirt.
When they reached level ground, Warbler struck off into the abyss, his torch seeming to illuminate only him. Jackal trudged along behind, waving his own firebrand to coax shapes out of the darkness. The long runnels of deep shadow proved to be trenches, the briefly flaring crosses were revealed as the support beams of watchtowers. All the votives within this vast tomb of industry Warbler passed without a glance. He walked determinedly across the cavern until the darkness before him concentrated into an oculus of black on the far wall, the mouth of another tunnel. This too sloped downward, yet it was much smaller than the entrance shaft, forcing Jackal and Warbler to stoop as they went single file.
The air became warmer the deeper they went, and increasingly tinged with an acrid edge. By the time the tunnel debouched into a low chamber, Jackal was sweating and loath to take a deep breath, the air was so foul. The light from the torches exposed the source of the stench.
Heaps of tiny bones rose halfway up the cave walls, nested within the filth of long-moldered flesh and fur. Thousands of fist-sized ribcages stood out sharply from the refuse alongside uncountable pointed, fanged skulls.
“Rats?” Jackal guessed, his throat thick with stale decay.
Warbler did not respond. He swept the noxious chamber with his torch, taking in the pair of exit passages before deciding upon one.
“This way,” he grunted and led on.
They passed through more of the charnel caves, all filled with the remains of vermin hordes. Often they were piled against the walls, as if shoveled there, but some were deposited in deep pits cut into the center of the floor. After the first such room, Jackal ceased inspecting the pits and walked carefully around them without a glance. He followed after Warbler numbly, his mind drifting away to keep his body from fleeing back to the surface. Without a guide, such a flight would only fling him deeper into the twisting tunnels. He would be lost until the shadows claimed his torch and then his existence. Warbler moved with the hesitant surety born from memory. Any knowledge of these passages would take months of mapping, or years of imprisonment.
