The Free Bastards by Jonathan French

Author:Jonathan French [French, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

A SINGLE SHOT PUNCHED FROM the wall east of the gate. The ball landed well short of the depleted hoof, churning nothing but earth and the dead. No others followed. Whether the crews were slain, fled, or simply out of stones, Oats couldn’t say, but the lone shot was reminder enough that the mongrels were far from safe.

Warbler’s resonant voice cut through woolly exhaustion.

“Look for wounded!”

Oats hadn’t known if the old thrice had survived until that moment. The order demanded speed. To sift the injured from the slain. A grim task that needed to be done swiftly. Oats heard the movement of other hogs, the voices of his fellow riders, some calling out names of favored brothers, most lifted in wordless misery. He was too afraid to turn and behold the loss, to make it real with the touch of his eyes.

One voice, familiar but altered, provided proof that at least one other Bastard came through alive.

“Not going…not fucking going…not going to…”

Oats guided Ug to Polecat. He still sat his hog, animal and rider covered in blood. Hells, they all were. Cat’s sword continued to make feeble cuts at the air, the barbarian beneath him sidling to keep them balanced. The eyes in his hatchet-face bulged.

“Not going to get…me. Not me. Fucking…not me…”

Slowly, Oats reached up and placed a hand around Cat’s fist, ceasing the sluggish sword strokes. Cat lowered his arm.

“Chief didn’t get a warning,” he said, voice more air than sound.

“No,” Oats replied.

Polecat’s head swiveled to face him. His expression was leagues away.

“Did he survive?”

“Who, Cat?”

“The chief. Salts! The horse-cocks get him? Is he alive?”

Oats grit his teeth, swallowed a curse at the injustice. Salts had been the name of the Rutters’ hoofmaster, killed—along with most of his brethren—during a Betrayer Moon near ten years ago.

“No, Cat,” Oats said. “He’s not.”

Polecat’s face didn’t change. It remained blank. “Oh. They didn’t get me.”

Oats clasped his shoulder. “No.”

A gormless grin twitched at the corner of the former Rutter’s mouth. He’d stood firm in body. But his mind had fled.

It was only the beginning of the cost.

Culprit wouldn’t allow anyone near Shed Snake’s body. He sat among the carnage, slumped against a dead barbarian, hugging Snake close, weeping upon his brow.

“You have to promise not to burn him!” Culprit pleaded, toneless with tears. “He wouldn’t want that. He wouldn’t want to be burned!”

Sluggard crouched nearby, hand outstretched. “We won’t—”

“You have to promise! The chief has to promise!” Culprit’s swollen face shifted up to Oats. The young mongrel’s naked despair hovered above Shed Snake’s open, sightless eyes. “Oats! He’s…he’s…he’s gone, Oats! I didn’t see it…I don’t know how it…HELLS!”

Oats wanted to get down from his hog, to grieve, to give himself over to the anger and the anguish as Culprit did. But there wasn’t time. Warbler saved him from being the cruel fuck.

The old thrice rode up, jumped down from the saddle, and took a hard step toward Culprit.

“Time to move, Bastard. Let him go.”

“You need to swear—”

Warbler squatted, thrust his face toward Culprit’s with such fury the younger half-orc quailed.

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