A Sterkarm Kiss

by Susan Price

  Per took little part in the killing. He came loping down the hillside, stopped near Gareth, and cleaned his dagger in the grass and moss. Then he sat down on the rock beside Gareth, who wanted to cringe away from him. Per said nothing and looked furious. Gareth would have been scared to speak to him even if he’d had anything to say.

  Patterson, cradling the great Elf-Pistol in his arms, nodded at Gareth but spoke to Per. “How’d you like them apples?”

  Gareth couldn’t speak. Per, even if he could have understood Patterson’s words, wouldn’t have understood their sense, but he spoke anyway, angrily.

  “What’s he say?” Patterson asked.

  Gareth shook his head.

  Patterson gave his leg a nudge with his boot. “Wake up! What’s he say?”

  Gareth made an effort. It was like mouthing clay and ashes. “He says. It’s like the autumn killing.”

  “Eh?”

  “They kill most of the animals in the autumn so there’s fewer to keep through the winter.” It was quite easy to talk about history. “He says it’s a job for a butcher.”

  Patterson stared at Per for a moment, then shrugged. “He wanted ’em dead, they’re dead.”

  Per jumped up and walked a few paces away, turned, walked back, turned again, too furious to keep still. He had thought that killing so many Grannams would bring some relief; but his rage was still there, like a smothered fire: red, sullen, choked. The Elves had done the killing, and left the Sterkarms the butcher’s job. How was that revenge?

  “Now then,” Patterson said. “What next? Do we find the other ambush party, or do we go for the tower? My vote’s for the ambushers, because if we leave them, they’ll get behind us, and we don’t want any bother, do we?” He looked at Gareth and wagged his head toward Per. “Gareth? Do the honors?”

  Gareth found himself hearing Patterson’s words belatedly, and fear made him hurry to translate them. He didn’t want angry Grannams coming up behind him. Especially when they had such reason to be angry.

  Per listened to the translation and then said, “Vi gaw til tur.” We go to the tower.

  Patterson didn’t need a translation. “Tell him! About ’em getting behind us. Finish the job first, then go to the tower.”

  Gareth started to translate, but Per cut him short. “Vi gaw til tur.” The more difficult it was, the more revenge was earned.

  Mistress Crosar drearily swept up old rushes. The noise of the stiff broom twigs hushed, hushed against the stone flags, and the rushes whispered. She told Joan to keep her eyes and her thoughts on her stitching. Joan sat in a chair, stitching, and the blood poured from her pricked fingers all over the chemise she worked on. Mistress Crosar swept on and the insistent sound of the brush on the stone became the hard clang, clang of a bell—

  She started up. Sweeping rushes, she thought. How ridiculous. How long is it since I swept rushes? I would set a maid to do it.

  The bell. Her heart tightened, and she rose from her bed where she’d been dozing, fully dressed. Her maid shoved open the door. “Riders, mistress!”

  “Theirs or ours?”

  The maid grabbed the cloak from the bed and swung it around Mistress Crosar’s shoulders. “We can no tell. But riders—riders!”

  Mistress Crosar needed no candle on the dark, close stairs, she knew them so well. She stepped from the door at the top into the chill, strong, damp wind and made her way around the roof to the lookout turret, where the man on watch still clanged the bell. He made room for her to join him and, for a moment, stopped his ringing. “There, mistress.” He pointed. “D’you see? There?”

  Clots of darkness, moving in darkness. When she squinted at them, they formed themselves into something like horses moving, with blobs on their backs that might have been men.

  “Who be they?”

  “Sterkarms, mistress.”

  The answer shocked her, even though she’d been expecting it. “How dost ken?”

  “They’d be whooping and cheering if they was ourn.”

  Mistress Crosar stared at the moving blobs, thinking that they might still be Grannam men who didn’t feel like whooping and cheering. There might be no reason to fear. She said, “Fire beacon.”

  She went back down to the roof and stood aside in a corner, to let the man take the lid from the beacon and fire it with the fire canister he had by him. It took a while to catch but then flared up, casting showers of red sparks and tongues of red and yellow light over the roof. The shadows deepened. Mistress Crosar felt the skin of her face tighten in its heat. She looked out over the dark countryside, imagining the beacon carrying its message. Every Grannam tower and bastle house that saw it would fire its own beacon and pass the message on. Help would come.

  Per felt a fierce, gleeful eagerness to see the Elves fire on the Brackenhill Tower. Even now, even as they peered from the walls, the Grannams believed that as long as they stayed locked inside, with the beacon blazing on the roof and the bell clanging, no great harm could come to them. But the laugh was on them, now that the Elves had seen sense. Make peace with the Grannams? The only way to make peace with the Grannams was to kill them all. The Elves had been slow to learn that, but they had learned it at last.

  The Sterkarms and Elves had reached the tower as quickly as they could, but even so, the farms they’d passed had been deserted. News had flown over the hills. The people knew that the Grannams and Sterkarms were killing each other again, and they were on watch. At the merest suspicion that the riders in the distance were armed with lances, the people had left everything and run. It was Sweet Milk who left their farms standing. Per would have burned them. Sweet Milk said that would waste time.

  They left men in the hills to watch for the approach of any party coming to the tower’s rescue and then rode to within a good bowshot of the red-gray walls of the tower. There they dismounted and settled to watch the Elves assembling their cannon, which, though small enough for a man to raise to his shoulder, was yet more destructive and powerful than anything men had. Other Elves stood ready to meet any Grannams with their many-shooting pistol, and their grenates that ripped folk to ribbons.

  Elf-Patterson and Elf-Burnett put the cannon together and then knelt, took aim at the tower’s gate, and fired. The first two shots fell short, with ear-tearing bangs and blinding flashes, but then they had the range. The third exploded against the stonework, sending chips flying. The fourth squarely hit the wooden gate and, crashing, booming, reduced it to flinders. The Sterkarms cheered, though their yells seemed faint among the wide hills.

  The explosion, muffled as it was by the thickness of the stone walls, was the loudest anyone in the tower had ever heard. The tower shook with its impact, carrying the tremor through its stones far from the gate and the people felt the blow reverberate through their bones. Mistress Crosar, on the roof, was shaken by it. “What was that?”

  The watchman leaned from his turret but shook his head.

  Something fell in the courtyard of the tower. There was a flash and a deep k-rump! of sound, cuffing their heads. After the noise came a moment of dead silence: then the cries broke through—cries of terror, alarm, and pain.

  “Fire!” came a woman’s shout from below, and that jolted Mistress Crosar back on her heels. The tower’s yard was full of thatched buildings, and most of the upper stories were built of wood. If fire took hold, they would be trapped in a furnace. She made for the stairs.

  The Elves sent their rockets again and again against the tower door, splitting and crumbling the stone, reducing the iron yett to a glowing twist. They sent firebombs arcing into the castle. Per had given up cheering with every explosion, but he watched, grinning, jumping with glee. Soon, he saw, it would be time for someone to lead the way through the tower gate. He looked around and then went to one of his footmen.

  “Andy—give me thine axe.”

  Andy frowned, reluctant.<
br />
  Per put his hand on the axe’s shaft. “Give it to me. I’ll pay thee. I want to lead us in.”

  Andy handed over the long-shafted axe then, feeling proud that the May was going to use his axe and lead them, the footmen. Whatever chaos was in the tower, however weakened were the Grannams by the Elf-Shot, everyone knew that the first man through the tower’s low gate into its yard was likely to be the first Sterkarm killed. “And it was my axe,” Andy would be able to say, in the future. “It was my axe in May’s hand when he led us into Brackenhill Tower.”

  “Milk—bring milk!” Mistress Crosar shouted. Her hair was down, her cloak lost. Sparks and ash were flew around her and smoldered in her skirts. Smoke from the burning thatch was thick and harsh and filled the narrow alleys, and so was heat. Mistress Crosar could feel sweat on her hot face, beneath her arms and breasts.

  Women, silent, determined, ducked into the dairy to fetch pans of milk to throw on the fires. Mistress Crosar watched one large pan of milk thrown at a patch of burning thatch. Most of it missed. The liquid that landed spat and sizzled in the flames, sending up more smoke and a stink of burning milk. It quenched one patch of fire, but sparks and tongues of flame jumped free and caught at other thatch and at the wood of the shutters and walls. Seeing it, Mistress Crosar knew that it was hopeless—but she turned and took a bucket of water another woman had lugged from the well. One hand on the handle, the other beneath the pail, she heaved the heavy bucket up with a wrench of her back and threw the water onto a thatch.

  Other women were pulling down burning thatch and stamping on it. “Good, good!” Mistress Crosar cried, and took a pitchfork from a woman and herself heaved down a great lump of burning thatch that filled the narrow alleyway. The heat grew fiercer and she was enveloped in smoke. There was a sizzling, and the smoke thickened as another woman emptied a bucket on the thatch before it could set light to the walls.

  But then there was no one nearby with water or milk, and the flames crackled again on the thatch overhead, and the shutters and a ladder were burning. Through their feet they felt the tremor of another explosion, and a heavy despair settled at Mistress Crosar’s heart.

  A crack, and a wicked, hissing shearing of metal. Hot, sharp fragments bit deep into the wall nearby, making Mistress Crosar flinch. A woman hurrying up with another bucket gave a great gasp, wailed, and fell. Mistress Crosar dropped her bucket, trampled over the remains of smoldering thatch, and bent over the woman, who squealed and sobbed in pain and fright. Above them flames leaped up onto the thatch. Mistress Crosar stooped and heaved the woman into her arms, ignoring her struggles and cries of pain, and with another heave dragged her toward the end of the alley. Through the smoke came another woman, who bundled up the injured woman’s legs and skirts. Another explosion, more cries of alarm.

  They emerged into the small yard area before the tower. Someone running past barged into Mistress Crosar and almost knocked her from her feet. From all around came screams, cries, shouts, and the sounds and stinks of burning. Mistress Crosar was aware, too, of small, smarting, bleeding cuts on her hands and face. A whumf!—a sound both loud and soft—made them look up, into a glare of heat and firelight, as a whole thatch went up. Still holding the injured woman in her arms, Mistress Crosar shouted, “Fill more buckets! Fill more—” She realized that, though people were running past, dodging in and out of the smoke, no one was listening to her or noticing her at all. Oh God, she thought, looking at the flames and shifting shadows through clouds of smoke: I may not live through this. Oh God: Receive my soul. Oh God: Have a care for my niece, Joan. She’s but a lassie, after all, and not the worst of them.

  Per watched the Elf-Shot arcing through the air and falling behind the tower walls. His heart rose with it and beat faster. Smoke rose from the burning, and between the dull blows of explosions shrill cries could be heard. That was fear he was hearing. His body recognized it and responded with its own fear and excitement.

  He shifted his hands on the long shaft of the axe; shifted them again and again as they sweated, thinking of his father in his grave, his father’s brother and his cousin Ingram bundled in beside him. Deliberately he loosed his rage, and it burned up and burned hot. Opening his mouth, he pulled in deep breaths to fuel it. Soon, he knew, he was going to fight desperate, trapped men.

  The Elves ran forward, knelt, and sent one of their shots right through the tower’s gate, like a visitor coming to call. Smoke, dust, and noise came pouring out from the opening. “Gaw noo!” Patterson yelled. “Gaw noo!” Go now!

  Per looked around. Everyone was looking at every other man and hanging back. They all knew that, when they went into that narrow space, into the smoke darkness, there would be men waiting with axes, with clubs, with spears. The first man through would be killed, if he was lucky. Maimed if he was not.

  Per ran at the gatehouse. If he thought about it, he wouldn’t do it. Behind him, men yelled, “Sterkarm!” and followed him.

  The broken stones of the gatehouse and the twisted remains of the yett gave out heat as Per ducked into the low opening. His nose was filled with an Elvish reek, his lungs with choking smoke that made him feel he’d been punched in the chest. His hair moved beneath his helmet and his skin prickled with the expectation of an axe in the face. Then he was through the gatehouse’s tunnel and into the courtyard, where there was more air, though much smoke, and here was a man, swinging at him.

  He sprang sideways, collided with a hard, solid body, which fell. Per fell on top of the man, a yell in his ears. He struggled to rise, bruising himself on the iron plates in his own jakke and the hard bones of the fighting man beneath him. Desperate because he couldn’t see what was behind and above him, or to the side, Per hammered at the fallen man with the blunt end of his axe shaft and, when the man stilled, lurched to his feet, turning to glimpse, in the smoke, the dark shape of a man behind him.

  “Sterkarm!” it said, in Sweet Milk’s voice, and Per fell in with him, both of them peering into the smoke ahead of them. Something moved, and Per lunged at it, feeling a rush in his ears as he sensed his opponent’s sharp-edged blow coming at him. His axe blade connected, jarring up the bones of his arms and into his shoulders. He was tugged sideways by the trapped axe as the man he’d hit fell. Per tugged, but the axe didn’t come free—it wasn’t a weapon he was used to. Behind and around him was a tin-pot clattering, a babble of yells, screams, heavy footfalls, bashes as bodies fell against walls, gasps, coughs, barking of dogs, and screaming of alarmed sheep and pigs.

  Per tugged frantically at the axe—while it was trapped, he was weaponless. He staggered as it came free but managed to kick aside the axe blade that was feebly raised against him from the ground. He swung around, but no one was near him. In that few eye blinks he realized that he was in the tower and, as yet, without a scratch. He raised an exultant yell of “Sterkarm!”

  The smoke was clearing and he could see Grannam men, their dirty faces set in grins under their helmets, holding axes at the ready. One lay on the ground, screaming in short gasps, but there was no time to give him any attention. The defenders were battered, confused, and scared; they took short steps backward, but still they were there to stop the Sterkarms crossing the paved yard and entering the maze of little alleys and closes where the women and children were fighting fires.

  Per sprang forward, swinging his axe in an arc, and the Grannams, unnerved by the Elf-Shot, stumbled back. But they had axes too, and Per halted. Fighting on foot, with an axe, was not what he was trained for, but he knew the long axe was a terrible weapon. If he swung at their legs, they could aim a blow that would take off his head. If he swung at their heads, they could cut him off at the knees.

  He swung the axe in a figure eight, going forward, yelling, “Sterkarm!” The Grannams hastily fell back, but then they were at the entrances to the alleys. Their women and children were behind them, and they stopped.

  Per stopped. Other men were coming
up behind him, footmen who knew how to use the axe. He could send them forward, but—then it wouldn’t be his leadership that gained his revenge.

  “Mind your backs.” Patterson shouldered through, the other Elves shoving behind him. They raised Elf-Pistols. The noise sent the Sterkarms spinning away: a harsh, deafening chatter. The Grannams went down, yelling out, pouring blood. The Elf-Balls punched through jakkes, shattered legs, ripped out chunks of flesh, exploded heads. The Sterkarms fell back and gaped.

  The pistols stopped, and the sounds were moans, women’s cries, the crackling and roaring of fire, a pig screaming in panic.

  Per felt anger at being robbed, then relief at still being alive and unhurt—especially looking at the butcher’s shambles before him. Then he felt joy: of being alive, of winning, of revenge. He yelled, “Sterkarm!” and ran into the nearest alley, jumping over, jumping on, the bodies that lay in the way. Behind him he heard running feet and his own cry repeated.

  Here, in the alleys, was more smoke and the thick stink of damp, burning thatch. Flames roared, and the air jumped. It was hot. A shadow moved in the smoke, and Per swung his axe at it, chopping it down. Its cry of appalled surprise and pain was a woman’s. Per stamped his foot against the fallen body, jerked the axe free, and ran on.

  The clothes of the woman at her feet were rapidly soaking with blood, the thatches above were burning, and from nearer the tower’s gate came yells and a clattering, then screams and cries of “Sterkarms! Sterkarms!”

  It was a warning, shouted in panic. The women stopped trying to help those hurt. They stopped trying to put out the fire—instead they ran through the narrow alleys for the tower, jumping or tripping over the wounded, flinching from flames, bumping into one another. Once behind the tower’s thick door and iron yett, inside its stone walls, they would be safe.

  Mistress Crosar didn’t run. She caught at the arms of those passing. “Help—” None wanted to help her carry the wounded woman. There wasn’t time. “Wait—”