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  By KIM FIELDING

  NOVELS

  Brute

  Good Bones

  FEATURED IN THESE ANTHOLOGIES

  Animal Magnetism

  Don’t Try This at Home

  Men of Steel

  NOVELLAS

  Speechless

  COMING IN 2013

  Venetian Masks

  Night Shift

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Ste 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Brute

  Copyright © 2012 by Kim Fielding

  Cover Art by Paul Richmond

  http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-62380-226-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  December 2012

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62380-227-1

  Chapter 1

  MUSIC was his companion.

  Brute sang about a love lost at sea as he settled the stone slab more comfortably on his massive shoulders and began to trudge uphill on the narrow path. He sang quietly, because with his very deep voice and inability to carry a tune, he knew he sounded terrible and the other men would glare if he became too loud. Nobody was close enough to hear him if he kept his voice low, and the music made his burdens seem a little lighter, made the pathway a little less treacherous under his feet. He sang the bawdy songs that rumbled in the tavern under his room and the wistful ballads the women sang when they gathered around the well at dawn, and sometimes he even hummed the lullabies he half remembered someone crooning to him.

  It had rained the night before, and although the sky was now clear, the ground was slick. So he set each foot carefully before taking the next step. His bare toes sank into the mud, giving him a little more traction. He’d once saved up enough money to have a pair of boots made—none of the shoemaker’s ready-made goods were large enough—but even though they were well crafted, the boots didn’t last long, and now he knew better than to waste his few coins.

  “Hurry up!” came an impatient shout from the top of the ridge, but he ignored it. He had no wish to tumble off the path and onto the sharp rocks below. He kept on setting one foot in front of the other and singing about a storm and a shipwreck, until finally the slope leveled out. Then he grunted and let the stone slide to the ground, where it landed with a soft squelch.

  Without even stopping to unkink his muscles, he turned to head down the path again for the next stone. But the foreman grabbed his arm. Darius was a lean man, his hard, weathered face set into a perpetual scowl. “You’re slow today. The prince himself is arriving tomorrow to inspect our progress, and we better fucking well have some progress to show him.”

  “The path’s slippery.”

  “I don’t fucking care, and the prince won’t fucking care either. Haul ass.”

  The harsh words were nothing unusual and didn’t hurt. Didn’t hasten him either. As much pressure as Darius was under to finish the bridge quickly, he could hardly afford to lose a worker. Especially someone who was capable of carrying twice the weight that any other man could bear and who managed the tricky narrow bits of the pathway better than horses or mules. Brute’s immense size and strength were his job security, so long as his back held out.

  Three more journeys down the hill, where the brothers Osred and Osric paused in their chiseling to heft another block of granite into the rudimentary back sling, and three more journeys back up, with the mud warm on his feet and a lullaby on his lips.

  Just as he neared the crest of the hill, he heard a crash and a volley of swearing. “Don’t fucking touch it!” Darius yelled at someone. “Wait for Brute.”

  Wait they did while he eased the stone off his back, two dozen men glaring at him as if he were somehow the cause of the current calamity. “Move this,” Darius ordered, pointing.

  One of the structural timbers—an enormous tree that had grown in the forests to the north before being felled, stripped, and arduously hauled—had fallen from a cart and rolled, so that nearly half of it was hanging off the cliff. If the timber were to fall into the river below, it would be swept away, an expensive loss.

  “Don’t stand there like an idiot, Brute. Move the damn thing.”

  “The horses could move it.”

  “I’m not going to waste time unharnessing them from the wagon and then hooking them back up again.”

  Brute eyed the log for a moment, debating whether he could move it by himself and considering the likelihood that he’d go tumbling off the cliff if he tried.

  Darius stepped forward, his hands clenched into fists. “It’s not that hard. Even you ought to be able to figure it out. You pick the fucking thing up and you move it back where it belongs.”

  Brute thought about refusing, but his confidence in job security went only so far. If Darius decided that he was too difficult, the foreman wouldn’t waste any more time on him. He’d sack Brute and make sure none of the other foremen hired him. Brute had no skills beyond the simplest manual labor. Sometimes Darius called him an ox with hands. And without a job, well, Brute had enough coins saved to last him six weeks, perhaps two months if he ate very little. Once winter came, he’d either freeze or starve.

  The other workers stood and stared, maybe hoping that Brute would create some kind of fuss. From the looks they gave him sometimes, he could tell they assumed that violence came as easily to him as to a bad-tempered bear. In truth, he hadn’t raised a hand to anyone since he was a boy, but he supposed he looked frightening enough. And Darius wasn’t popular—the men wouldn’t mind seeing him pounded and Brute fired. Or maybe they just wanted a diverting break from their labors.

  Whatever the other men wanted, Brute didn’t give it to them. He nodded slightly at Darius and walked to the fallen timber. He looked at it for a few moments. He might possibly be able to drag it the few yards to the cart, but his arms—desp
ite their length—wouldn’t fit around the broad trunk. “You’ll need to tie it to me,” he said to nobody in particular.

  Sensing a new form of entertainment, several men scrambled forward. With some difficulty, they managed to tie a thick rope around the log, then handed the end of the rope to Brute, who improvised a sort of harness for himself. He took a few deep breaths, bent his knees a little, and began to pull.

  At first nothing happened, except for the rope digging painfully into his chest and shoulders. He worried a little that his shirt might rip. He wasn’t certain it would survive another mending, and he owned only one other. Perhaps he should have taken it off before tying the rope around himself. Then it would have been his skin that tore, but that was nothing new. He’d heal. In any case, it was too late for that. He inhaled again, and as he exhaled he heaved with all his might.

  The timber shifted a little. Unfortunately, it also began to roll and, slowly, more of the log shifted off the edge of the cliff. Only a few more feet and the entire timber would go over the edge, dragging him with it. He was apt to survive the fall less successfully than the log would. Panic began to nibble at the edges of his mind as he was tugged backward a few inches, his feet sliding in the mud as he fought desperately to retain his footing. “Help me!” he shouted, but nobody moved. They just watched his struggle, morbid interest sharp on their faces. If they’d had more time, they probably would have placed wagers on his success. He wondered what the odds would have been.

  The rope hurt his chest and back. But it was less painful than crashing down the cliff and smashing into the jagged rocks, he reminded himself. He roared and lurched forward again, and this time the timber moved with him.

  His audience responded, some men cheering and others hissing with disappointment. He ignored them, grunting as he set one foot in front of the other. His burden was a little easier now that momentum was in his favor, but it was still very heavy. His heart felt like a beast trying to escape the cage of his chest, and his lungs rasped painfully. Sweat dripped down his face, stinging the tiny cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated throughout the day. But he bent his body forward and continued to move.

  He didn’t even notice that his eyes were closed until he bumped into the cart. Only then did he allow his legs to give out, and he collapsed to the soft ground where he lay on his back, fighting for oxygen and enjoying the bliss of being free of his burden.

  “Shift your lazy asses!” Darius growled. “Get the goddamn log back on the wagon.”

  Brute remained on his back as the other men untied the rope from the timber. It took the whole lot of them to lift it up. Someone trod on Brute’s hand, but the soft ground saved him from too much injury. The log echoed loudly when it thudded back onto the others. Brute was still there when the horses led the cart away.

  “Get up,” Darius said, kicking lightly at Brute’s leg.

  As he slowly rose to his feet, Brute felt every inch of his seven and a half feet, every one of his three hundred pounds. Not for the first time, he wished he were an ordinary-sized man who was given ordinary-sized duties to perform. But he’d learned a very long time ago—before he even had the words to express the idea—that wishing was useless.

  “Back to work,” said Darius.

  “I’m done for today.”

  Darius glanced up at the sky. “We’ve another hour of sunlight.”

  Brute shook his head. “I’m done.”

  “I’ll dock you half a day’s pay.”

  It wasn’t fair; they both knew that. Brute had already accomplished more than any of the other men, and that wasn’t even counting his rescue of the timber. But Darius was stubborn, and Brute knew that fairness was of no consequence to the foreman. So he shrugged, turned, and descended the path.

  People stared as he plodded down the road to the village but, as usual, passersby didn’t meet his eyes. He’d gone through a period a few years earlier when he tried smiling and greeting people, but nobody ever smiled back or bade him good day, so he gave it up. At least today no old people made warding signs as he walked by, and no children jeered or called him an ogre. But it was still a long walk, and his back itched as the accumulated mud dried and flaked.

  The landlord of the White Dragon—a squat man named Cecil—was Darius’s cousin, but then so was a good percentage of the village. Those who weren’t directly related were generally indebted to the Gedding family in some way. Darius’s father had been sheriff for years, and now the post was held by Darius’s older brother. The priest at the small temple was another brother, and the local healer was his aunt. So if the landlord overcharged for room and board, there was little Brute could do about it. The other workers had families and lived in little huts near the edge of town—rented from the Geddings, of course—but Brute had a tiny room above the White Dragon with a too-small bed and mice in the walls.

  There was a well in the courtyard behind the inn. Horses snorted softly in the stables as Brute peeled off his shirt and upended a bucket of water over his head. The little lean-to behind the tavern contained a battered metal tub, but it was a tight fit for Brute. Cecil charged him two coppers for each use, so Brute splurged only infrequently, usually in the depths of winter when he couldn’t quite face another dunking in frigid well water. Today, though, the well water felt good. He used his shirt as a makeshift towel to wipe away the worst of the grime, promising himself he’d wash the shirt before he went to bed. For now, though, he looked down at his torso, where bands of bruises were already forming, red and purple lines over his bulky muscles. He’d be sore by morning.

  He rinsed his feet and drank two cupfuls of water before climbing the stairs to his room.

  Because he usually worked from shortly after dawn until dusk, it was rare to see his room in the daylight, and the mellow glow of the late afternoon sun certainly didn’t improve things. The floorboards were bare and splintery, the walls streaked with decades of grime, the bed and tiny table rickety. His bedding was more patches than blanket; the curtains were hardly more than rags. The entire place reeked of smoke and grease and sour ale. And when he lifted the lid of the chest where he kept his few belongings, the hinges squealed in protest.

  In the midst of all this was his one other shirt, clean and neatly folded. It had originally been made for a much smaller man, and the tailor had added wide strips of fabric at the side seams and along the bottom so it would fit Brute. Not exactly stylish, but there was really no use trying to make himself look passable. He pulled on the shirt, ran fingers through his damp hair—which had grown too long again—and trudged downstairs.

  Cecil gave him a sour look as Brute entered the tavern’s main room. “’S early,” he grumbled.

  Brute didn’t bother to answer. He crossed the room with his head down, ignoring the stares of the other patrons, and sat on a bench in the far corner. It was the darkest corner of the tavern, even now when the last of the sun’s rays stole through the open front doors. On the very first day that Brute had moved into the White Dragon, back when he was still a half-grown boy, Cecil had ordered him to sit there. “Don’t want to upset anyone’s appetite,” he’d said back then, and Brute hadn’t dared to retort that the Dragon’s food could do that all by itself.

  As soon as Brute was settled, Cecil brought him a tankard of sour watered ale and a tin plate heaped high with… something. Most of the time, Brute was thankful that his dark corner made identification of his meals an impossibility. Whatever was on the plate, it always tasted the same: bland but slightly gamey, with pockets of grease and bits of squishy stuff that might have once been vegetables. There was always a stale hunk of bread to sop up the drippings, which Brute always did, because a body like his demanded as much food as he could shovel into it.

  He ate quickly, washing away the taste with generous gulps of ale, and it wasn’t long before his plate was clean and his cup empty. And gods, he was tired. He wasn’t quite sure of his age—twenty-seven or twenty-eight was his best guess—but right now he felt eighty, ever
y joint and muscle protesting as he stood and walked the length of the tavern floor. Neither Cecil, his wife, nor his son wished Brute a good night. They never did.

  Luckily, he’d remembered to bring the dirty shirt down with him, so he didn’t have to climb the stairs to fetch it. He washed it as best as he could in the trough beside the well, hoping the caustic hunk of soap would cleanse away the grime without actually eating through the thinning fabric. But when he held the shirt up, he saw a few new tears and he sighed. His attempts at mending were clumsy at best, and they would have to wait for another day. Right now he was too exhausted to see straight.

  Yffi, the stableboy, limped by just before Brute headed upstairs. He spared a half smile for Brute, and Brute grinned back. Born with a twisted foot and a badly malformed upper lip, Yffi was only a little luckier in life than he. Yffi was a Gedding—or his mother was—and so he’d been granted a job he could manage. He slept in the stable on bales of hay that were probably more comfortable than Brute’s bed, and he saved his wages so that someday he might marry the shy girl who worked in the sheriff’s scullery. Yffi never teased Brute and occasionally even found a spare moment to exchange a few pleasant words, and Brute tried not to envy him.

  The stairs seemed especially steep and creaky tonight, and the noise from the tavern filtered through the floorboards of his room: shouting and bursts of laughter, the clanking of tin plates and tankards, and the pounding of booted feet. Nobody was singing tonight, which was a shame, because Brute was too tired to hum to himself. He hung the wet shirt on his single chair, stripped off his trousers, shirt, and breechclout, and set them aside for the morning. Naked, he climbed into bed. He had to curl on his side so that his feet didn’t hang over the edge, and then he had to position himself exactly right to avoid the worst of the lumps in the mattress, but he was long used to such maneuverings, and it took him only moments to fall into a dreamless sleep.