The grey bastards, p.33
The Grey Bastards, page 33
Starling recognized him with equal shock and arrested the plunge of her dagger. They stood for a long moment, both trembling, trying to reconcile each other’s presence. Finally gaining his wits, Jackal lowered his thrum.
The she-elf was filthy, still wearing the garments Beryl had given her. Her short, knife-shorn hair clung to her grimy cheeks, below the slightly slanted eyes, luminous with surprise. She spun around when Warbler emerged from the shadows behind, but relaxed when he quickly said some words in the Tine language.
“What is she doing here?” Jackal asked, looking passed Starling at Warbler.
She turned back at his voice and her face settled with resolve. Motioning for them to follow, she went hurriedly up the slope of the motte, scrambling with her hands when the footing grew difficult. After sharing a look, Jackal and Warbler went after her. She waited for them at the top, then struck off along the curtain wall until she reached an opening large enough for them to all pass through.
Inside the murky yard, the keep lay before them. Starling paused, staring at the black walls of the structure. Standing behind her, Jackal was unable to see her face, yet still he felt the trepidation radiating from her slim shoulders. Quickly mastering her reluctance, the she-elf went forward again, leading them across the yard on nearly silent feet. The door to the keep had long since rotted away, but a thick curtain of bearded moss took its place in the archway. At the threshold, Starling again halted and her breath began to come in audible shudders. She stared at the entrance, fearful and furious, trembling. Placing a hand on her shoulder, Jackal stepped around in front of her and gave her a reassuring look, seeking permission to go in first.
Starling nodded.
Sweeping the moss aside, Jackal stepped into the keep.
The roof had collapsed, bringing the floors of the upper stories down with it. All that remained was a hollow shell. A shell alive with cruelty.
Jackal heard the others enter behind him, but he could not take his eyes off what he beheld, though, in truth, he had seen it before.
“Hells take me,” Warbler marveled darkly.
The interior of the keep, from the rubble-strewn floor to the yawning hole at the top, was slick with gently moving sludge. Embedded within, held captive as Starling once was, were the naked, slack forms of female elves. Jackal counted over a dozen at a glance. Looking down at Starling, his mouth hanging open, he shook his head sorrowfully.
“She came back for the others.”
Chapter 27
Sixteen were imprisoned within the sludge. The eerie black substance embraced them, holding them close as it moved sluggishly, almost imperceptibly, over their wrists and ankles, their thighs, necks, stomachs. Some were almost fully encased, others dangling from their extremities. Only their faces were left uniformly exposed, though none were conscious. Jackal was not certain they were all alive.
Next to him, Warbler came out of his disturbed torpor.
“We need to get them free of this shit,” the old thrice declared, moving determinedly towards the nearest she-elf.
“Wait,” Jackal warned, keeping his voice level, but firm.
Warbler halted. “Will they attack?”
It was a direct question, posed by a seasoned warrior without fear.
Jackal looked at Starling, remembering when he had first seen her, the trepidation he had felt when reaching out to see if she were alive, wondering if the creature holding her would react aggressively to his meddling. It hadn’t, but neither had he actually tried to remove her from the living muck. She stood now, surrounded by a horror she had escaped, a horror to which she had willingly returned for the sake of those still ensnared.
“I don’t know,” Jackal answered while continuing to look at Starling. “If they do, we are all dead.”
“Did you know about this?” Warbler asked, his question tinged with accusation.
“No. Sancho confessed there were others before I was dragged away, but I figured them for dead. Delia did, too. Starling was alone when Crafty and I found her. But she was within a shed near the Sludge Man’s hut.”
“Why separate her?”
“Perhaps because she was the only Tine. I would guess these others were all smuggled in from Hispartha by Ignacio.”
“At the Claymaster’s bidding,” Warbler growled.
“Still think he deserves revenge?”
Warbler bared his lower fangs. “There is something he deserves.”
Jackal could only nod his agreement.
Nearby, Starling was looking upon the plight of her fellow elves with a vague disgust, revolving slowly in place. She ignored Jackal and Warbler entirely as she surveyed the keep, giving the she-elves held in the highest reaches the longest consideration. Jackal watched as the despair on Starling’s face ripened and soured. She had no notion what to do next, that much was plain. All her thought must have been bent on again reaching this prison, for near a fortnight, traveling on foot. Perhaps she did not expect to find any still alive. Whatever her hope, her inner most dread, she had arrived at last and the wet defeat in her eyes betrayed she did not know how to proceed.
That defeat hardened within a heartbeat.
Baring her own teeth in a silent snarl, she shook her head in denial of all fear, and moved swiftly towards one of the prisoners. Reaching with her free hand, she grabbed the captive by the arm and began to pull before Jackal could stop her. The sludge did not attack, but as the woman began to slide free, it resisted, growing taut to draw its charge back. Issuing an audible breath, Starling pulled harder and began using her knife to cut at the shiny black strands. Slinging his stockbow, Jackal stepped to her aid. He plunged both hands deep into the sludge and seized the unconscious she-elf beneath the arms, hauling back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Warbler move to attempt a lone rescue of another. Jackal and Starling labored side by side and, measure by measure, they wrestled their captive free of the stubborn substance. She moaned weakly as she emerged, Jackal supporting her weight. Starling was already moving to the next girl.
A little down the wall, Warbler had also succeeded.
The six she-elves close to the ground were soon freed. The next three required Warbler and Jackal to stack rubble until they could be reached. The footing was precarious and the rescues arduous, but they managed after what seemed an eternity.
“This one is gone,” Warbler said softly, inspecting the last of the trio once they were safely on the ground.
Jackal looked down and nearly choked on the rage rising in his throat. Hells, they all looked half dead. Their filthy, nude forms were frightfully wan. Half dead, however, was a blessing when seen next to the corpse that Warbler knelt beside. She was just so still, devoid even of the shallow breaths of the others.
Jackal looked skyward, at the five remaining captives, and wondered how many of them were beyond saving.
“I don’t know how we are going to reach them,” he admitted aloud.
Starling’s gaze was fixed on the same problem.
And so they both saw when the large sludge came crawling over the lip of the roofless keep. Briefly, it blotted out the rough square of visible sky, consuming the stars, before it began its descent of the wall.
Jackal alerted Warbler by simply saying his name, his tone enough to convey the danger that was approaching. Standing up, Warbler took his bow in hand and trained an arrow on the black mass. Knowing better, Jackal left his thrum slung. He watched and waited.
The sludge avoided the remaining captives, oozing past them. As it came closer to the ground, Jackal saw it had soaked up all the sludge in its path, leaving a wide trail of stones showing through on the walls. The absorbed muck from the keep added to the creature’s size. When it reached the ground, it piled into a rough sphere, nearly the size of that damn elephant Oats had wept for.
Warbler took several paces backward, the instincts of an archer guiding his movement. Starling retreated but one step, then forced herself to hold firm. Jackal refused to give any ground.
The slick, rounded surface split, began peeling back and away, the opening petals of some great, dark, putrid flower. The form enwombed within was familiar, yet dreadfully changed. Only a face and some of the torso were revealed, yet the injuries sustained from Crafty’s magic were apparent. The skin was grey and withered, etched with deep, hard wrinkles, as if rancid meat had been smoked.
The Sludge Man was not burnt so much as exsiccated.
The black yolk surrounding him kept sliding over his exposed features and, for a moment, the petrified flesh would revive, only to visibly degrade once more. Only his eyes were constant. They bored into Jackal with the violence of flung spears.
“The villein returns to our demesne,” the Sludge Man muttered. “You forfeit all with this, your final trespass.”
Jackal set his jaw. “I have risked all to come here, Corigari. What is forfeit remains to be seen.”
The name was said off-handedly, a way of unbalancing the Sludge Man. It worked, for his glare brightened.
“Our true name is too vaunted for mongrel tongues,” he declared. “We will have only our appellation when you address us.”
“I don’t know what that means, Sludge Man,” Jackal admitted lightly.
“Yet you are compliant in your ignorance.” The Sludge Man’s stare crawled over to Starling. “And you come bearing what you pilfered. Your chieftain is wise to deliver what was ours. Wiser still to have her deliverer be the Bastard that so affronted us.”
Jackal nodded slowly, allowing the Sludge Man to believe they had been sent by the Claymaster.
“But he won’t be delivering the one who truly caused you harm,” he stated.
The Sludge Man glanced briefly at Warbler, as if just now realizing he wasn’t fat and turbaned.
“The foreign wizard must know our displeasure!”
“The Tyrkanian is my chief’s trusted advisor now,” Jackal said, shaking his head. “The Claymaster will never allow him to be harmed. Nor will there be any more elf girls. The Claymaster has commanded Captain Ignacio to cease your supply. That is why I have come, to tell you that the Claymaster has severed the bargain between you.”
“That is foolish,” the Sludge Man mused, “of him, and you. For your chieftain has sent you to die, and willingly did you march.”
“Not if we make a new bargain,” Jackal offered.
The Sludge Man’s eyes narrowed. His inky cocoon roiled around his ruined visage.
Jackal pressed on. “I can give you the wizard. You can have revenge upon him. Him, and the Claymaster, too.”
“And you wish what for this, knave?”
“My life and the lives of those here. Release the elves, allow my companion to leave with them. Once they are safely outside the marsh, I will show you how to enter the Kiln. There, you can have your vengeance.”
The sludge laved the bog-trotter’s face. When the blackness retreated, the Sludge Man’s revivified cheeks were smiling.
“You would offer two lives for nearly a score. And for what? You believe that your holdfast would offer impediment to one such as we? Walls do not deter us.”
“What about wizards?” Jackal asked pointedly. “I witnessed his defeat of you, Sludge Man. And you don’t look hale enough to try him again, not without knowledge that I can give you. I rode with the Tyrkanian. I can ensure you are victorious.”
It was a lie, of course, but Jackal sold it with the weight of his voice and the set of his stare.
“Why betray your hoof, mongrel?”
“In order to lead it,” Jackal replied firmly.
The Sludge Man’s smile vanished in another caress of muck.
“You seek to gain much for using us as your catspaw. Are we to be vassal to you? Is this the extent of your impudence?”
“If we both wish to prosper, this is the way,” Jackal said. “You punish the Claymaster and his pet wizard, I get what I deserve. All bargains resume. As chief, I can get elves coming back into the Old Maiden.”
Another lie. They were piling up, as unstable as the surrounding piles of rubble.
“Yet you would rob us of what has already been given,” the Sludge Man said, his head nodding down towards the prostrate forms of the she-elves.
“To appease the Tines,” Jackal told him, indicating Starling with a tilt of his head. “Ignacio was never supposed to bring you any point-ears from the Lots. The Claymaster sent me and the wizard so we could bring her back to Dog Fall. We did, but she spoke of the others. The Tines have demanded the release of their kin.”
The Sludge Man laughed and Jackal knew his tower of deceptions had crumbled.
“You knew naught of her when first you sullied our home. You spoke, slack-jawed, of whoremasters and horses. You were not in your chieftain’s confidence concerning our arrangement, of this we are certain. You prattle now to save yourself, caught again burgling.”
“I’m not caught, Sludge Man,” Jackal returned defiantly. “I came here to find you. To offer you a chance of retribution on the wizard. What I didn’t expect to find was your fucking harem of dying elves! So why not come on out of that blob of shit and let me bash you in the cods again.”
“What happened to courteous?” Warbler asked.
“Fuck it,” Jackal answered without looking back.
“That’s my boy.”
The Sludge Man’s unsightly face quivered with rage.
“Harem?” he repeated incredulously. “It is an altar! The Maiden demands sacrifice. Orc and elf defiled her, waging their blood feud. So it is with orc and elf blood that she will be made sacred again. We who rule her must first serve her, and lay her board with a bounty of her despoilers. The House of Corigari has done this faithfully, stooping to base dealings with you half-breed cutthroats to maintain the offerings!”
Sacrifice. That was what all this was, Jackal realized.
The Sludge Man would have been little more than a boy when the Incursion reached his family home. He must have witnessed the battles fought between the thicks and the elves, been caught in the devastation of their spells. That magic changed the marsh, sunk into the land, suffused the waters. The Sludge Man may very well have been the only survivor. Whatever happened, he clearly became mad and powerful. Perhaps he controlled the sludges, perhaps they controlled him, Jackal didn’t know, but he understood enough.
Thicks often came through the Old Maiden after crossing the Gut to the south, using its treacherous and deserted expanse to enter the Lots. Even for them, the marsh had a sinister reputation, and for good reason. The Sludge Man culled the raiding parties or destroyed them entirely. It was why he was valuable to the hoofs. He and his queer pets effectively defended Ul-wundulas’ weakest border. But the Sludge Man wasn’t killing orcs to help the Lots, he was giving the Old Maiden half of the blood he believed it desired.
Elves, however, were another matter. They were wise enough never to venture here. For them, the Sludge Man had been forced to barter. He just needed someone willing to smuggle point-ears in from Hispartha and other dens of slavery, someone with a heart black enough to agree to such evil. The Claymaster, with Captain Ignacio as his agent.
“You’ve been an ally of the Grey Bastards as far back as I can remember,” Jackal said. “Now I know why. You’ve been the Claymaster’s faithful carrion bird, ridding us of unwanted corpses and hells knows what all else, just so you could have a steady supply of elf flesh. That ends now!”
The Sludge Man had grown quiet, yet the muck around him quivered with anger.
“It ends, half-orc, because you have brought back all the Maiden demands, the she-elf with orc seed quickening in her belly.”
Jackal forced himself not to look at Starling. His thoughts raced. So, that was why she was sequestered.
“She is no longer pregnant,” Jackal proclaimed. “The Tines rid her of the get.”
The Sludge Man’s stare returned to Starling and she recoiled from the hungry menace lodged within. Jackal stepped between her and the demon.
“You’re lies are feeble,” the Sludge Man said. “It continues to grow. We can sense it. We sensed it the day we returned here to find the orcs had made merry with our larder. Fate led them here while we were away at the brothel. Their lust had overwhelmed their fear and they slaked their savagery, leaving only one alive. We gave the ravagers to the Maiden and would have done the same with the she-elf, but we heard the whispers of destiny wriggling in her belly. Orc-blood, elf-blood, made one. A rare and exquisite abomination. We took her to be close to us, to guard her until she birthed the Maiden’s price. From the womb of the mother to the womb of the marsh will the babe go, and our lands will return to glory.”
The cocoon began to slide forward. The sludge upon the walls of the keep was also moving, sliding down and carrying the remaining elves with the tide, depositing them upon the rubble before melding with the Sludge Man’s dreadful palaquin. As the enlarging demon drew close, Jackal reached for his tulwar, only to remember the blade had been taken at the castile. An arrow sliced the air, speeding for the Sludge Man’s eye. Warbler’s aim was true, but a tendril of sludge darted from the mass and consumed the missile before it struck. Jackal began to step backward, unslinging his thrum and pulling back on the string. Before he had a bolt loaded, the Sludge Man stopped.
Starling stood before him, holding the knife to her own throat.
She began to speak, addressing the Sludge Man in her own tongue. The bog-trotter’s brow creased in concentration. He was listening.
Jackal moved quickly to Warbler’s side. “What is she saying?”
“She just told the Sludge Man he is dying,” the old thrice replied in a hush. “Says the wizard’s magic is killing him. That he knows it, too. She says her child is half a year from being born and that the Sludge Man won’t last that long.”
