Gareth came and stood by him, squinting at the riders. “Are they ours?”
The horsemen came nearer, the sound of hooves and the creaking of harness and saddle becoming louder. Patterson recognized the leading horsemen as the May and his big, glowering mate, Sweet Milk. When he thought they were in earshot, he shouted, “Password!”
In his hoarse, carrying voice, the May yelled back, “Ken-gah-rrrew!”
Gareth had taught the word to the Changeling Sterkarms, because it was a word that would be meaningless to the Sterkarms-A. In their world, nothing was known of Australia, and they could never have guessed at anything as bizarre as a kangaroo.
Before reaching Patterson’s barriers, the Sterkarms reined in. The May and Sweet Milk reached down from their saddles, laid their lances on the turf, and then straightened in the saddle again before dismounting. Patterson, watching, imagined doing that—reaching down that far, and then the pull on the back and belly muscles as you straightened again. He wondered how many among his mercenaries could do it. He wondered how well he could manage it himself these days. He certainly wouldn’t be trying it from horseback.
As the Sterkarms came on, they glanced at the barriers Patterson’s men had built of burned and broken timber, rubble, and brush. Those glances told Patterson that they understood perfectly why they’d been built and why he’d had his men leave the gap that they coaxed their horses through. That tempting gap was to lure an attacker into a place where they could be fired on by men hiding in the ruined bastle houses.
If the Sterkarms-B had it sussed, he doubted that the enemy Sterkarms, the A siders, were going to walk in through that gap. Why would they, when they could wait for the Elves to get lost among the streams and valleys of the moors and hills and then ambush them?
Per May and Sweet Milk gave their horses to other men and walked over to Patterson. The big dog walked at the May’s heels, its head higher than his waist. Per said, “Vee sar Grannam kvenna. Air denna lant av den derd?”
Patterson tilted his head toward Gareth, who translated. “He says, ‘We saw the Grannam women. Is this the Land of the Dead?’”
“I’ve always thought so,” Patterson said. He held out his hand to the big dog—he liked dogs—but it sat beside its master, hung its tongue out over its big teeth, and looked away from him.
“He isn’t joking,” Gareth said. “I don’t think you should, either.”
Patterson folded his arms. “So what are you going to tell him?”
Gareth found himself standing between Patterson on one side and Per May and Sweet Milk on the other: surrounded by big, aggressive men. There was that dog, too, which made him uneasy. He fretted with hatred for all of them. He could smell the Sterkarms, even in the open air: a fresh stink of horse sweat and older reeks of leather, peat smoke, dog, and man. Speaking to the Sterkarms, he began, “It’s as I’ve told you before—”
Sweet Milk hooked his thumbs in his belt and Per tugged off his helmet, putting it under his arm, and leaving his sweaty fair hair standing up in spikes. Gareth found Sweet Milk intimidating because of his size and silent glowering. Per’s good looks were intimidating in another way. They both made him feel inferior: a 21st-century white mouse. “I told you. This is Elf-Land. Our enemies here have glamoured themselves to look like you, but they’re not, they—”
“To hide from us behind a Grannam’s face,” Per said, “be like a goose hiding in a fox’s lair.”
Gareth kept trying. “The Elves—the enemy Elves—are trying to confuse you.”
“We talked,” Per said, with a slight nod of his head toward Sweet Milk. Gareth was mildly surprised. He couldn’t remember hearing Sweet Milk say … well, anything. “We think this Land of Dead. Be it?”
“What are they on about?” Patterson asked as he scanned the hills above and around them.
Gareth sighed. Everything was so hard just lately, even talking. Before he could say anything. Changeling Per spared him the effort.
“Ve gan hyemma.” We are going home.
Patterson needed no translation of that. His head snapped around. “Good luck with that, pal. You made a deal.”
Gareth translated, and Per said, “We made a deal to come to Elf-Land, to fight Elven. We made no deal to come to Land of Dead.”
“You’re not in the Land of the fucking Dead! Tell him!” Patterson listened to Gareth and Changeling Per jabber back and forth for minutes while the big bruiser stood by.
At the end of it, Gareth turned to him and translated. “He says they have seen people they know to be dead, so this must be the Land of the Dead. And it makes no sense for Elves to disguise themselves as Grannams because there’s no safety in it. So, he says, they don’t believe our stories anymore. We’ve broken our side of the deal and they’re going home.”
“Ask him,” Patterson said, “does he want revenge on the Grannams?”
“I want revenge on living Grannams, no dead,” Per said, after this had been translated. “We’ll no fight Grannam dead. And we no want to meet our own on their own ground.”
“Living, dead, who the fuck cares?” Patterson said. As he raised his voice and took a step forward, the big dog rose from its haunches. Patterson relaxed. He liked dogs, but knew better than to get on the wrong side of one that size. “Tell him this: If he goes back to the Tube, he won’t get through. He’ll be stuck this side, on his own. See how he likes that.”
Gareth made a point of beginning, “This is what he says—”
Per’s face was as grim as Sweet Milk’s as he listened. When Gareth had finished, Per turned his head and looked at the big man. They seemed to study each other for a moment, and then moved away together. Perhaps Per moved fractionally before Sweet Milk, but it was hard to tell. The dog trotted at its master’s side.
Patterson and Gareth watched them join the other Sterkarms, who were grooming horses.
“What’s all that about?” Patterson said, and then answered his own question: “Trouble.”
At a word from Per, the Changelings stopped grooming the horses. Instead, they gathered their packs and their lances, mounted and rode out of the makeshift fort.
Patterson’s men noticed this with some dismay, and broke off their own work, whether they were building barricades, digging latrines or preparing an evening meal. “Where they pissing off to?” Ledbury demanded.
“I’ve sent ’em on patrol!” Patterson said. “Okay? You approve of that? Now, work! Don’t try thinking ’cos you ain’t equipped for it.”
With a jerk of his head to tell Gareth to follow, Patterson walked briskly after the Sterkarms. Outside the barricades, he stopped and watched them ride away, trying to hide the uneasiness he felt. Even if young Sterkarm really intended to try going home, and wasn’t just throwing another little strop, you’d have expected him to spend the night within the fortifications Patterson was building. He couldn’t help wondering what the Sterkarms knew that he didn’t.
It could just be superstition or sentimentality, he told himself. They just don’t want to sleep in the ruins, that’s all.
They rode toward the river, and he heard hooves clatter on shingle and legs splashing in water. There was an island in the river, densely grown with trees. Patterson had considered it as a campsite but dismissed it. The deep water on three sides and the single causeway connecting it to the bank made it defendable but also a trap.
“They’re sulking,” he said to Gareth, all the time asking himself: What’s their game? He’d learned considerable respect for the Sterkarms’ canniness and fighting skill and was damn sure they were as aware of the dangers of camping on the island as he was. Why weren’t they worried about being trapped?
He took his frustration out on Gareth. “You got nothing to do? Make yourself useful.”
“You told me to come with you!” Gareth said.
“And now I’m telling you to
bugger off and do something useful.”
Gareth sighed, and trudged back over the bouncy, tussocky turf, through clouds of midges, to the camp.
Patterson followed him, his eyes scanning the hills while he ran over his plans. A good feed tonight, some sleep, and up before light tomorrow. If young Sterkarm was over his sulk, he could explain to him what was wanted: a course that would take them in a wide, scything circuit through the territory of the Sterks-A before ending at the Tube again. On the circuit, they would destroy as many stores, shelters, fields of crops, and other resources as possible. Scorch the earth, then leave the job to General Winter.
11
16th-Side A:
Grenkirk, Near the Elves’ Camp
The Changeling Sterkarms and Changeling Per • Per May • Andrea and Joe Sterkarm
“You two crash about like cows in a thicket,” Per said. Andrea was startled by his hoarse—and to her ears, overloud—whisper. He had come up silently and now crouched beside her and Joe.
Around them, the land was black. Above, the sky was a barely lighter black, despite the stars and a sliver of moon. It went far beyond the “country dark” she’d known 21st side. Here, there were no streetlights, no houselights, no passing cars’ headlights. It was dark: as black as the inside of a funeral hat at the bottom of a coal mine. How could they not crash about? They were crossing rough country blind. It was impossible not to blunder into bushes, trees, hollows, nettles, and anything else that might be in the way, such as cows and armed men.
She thought it a miracle they’d even got here. They’d set out from the shieling, with a small mounted party, to head for Gobby’s Grenkirk, where, word was, they would find the Elves and also, presumably, the Changelings. Of course, there’d been much argument about who should go. Gobby’s sons thought the expedition a waste of time, but intended to take part because it concerned their home. Per didn’t want them along, well, not the older two anyway, because they would think they were in charge. He was willing to take the youngest, Ingram—but Gobby forbade Ingram to go. On further thought, he forbade all his sons to go. “Only a fool,” he said, “burns all his peat at once.”
Then Per had assumed that Sweet Milk would be his second—but Sweet Milk said he was too old for such games. That had put Per out of temper, too. He’d volunteered Joe, Ecky, and Sim—but told Andrea that she would stay behind.
Andrea had been strongly tempted to play the silly woman, back down, and remain safely at the shieling—but Gobby had insisted that she go. “She be Elf, and that be her best argument. And she has a quick tongue on her. It was her thought. She shall gan.”
They’d eventually set off, on horseback, leading a string of spare horses. In the dark. It was, Andrea thought, all crazy. Per was sulking, so he was no comfort, but Ecky told her that Sterkarm horses were more sure-footed than goats and could see in the dark. And if the ground was too uncertain, or steep, they would walk. And anyway, Grenkirk was not far, especially if you went over the hills, as the birds flew.
The journey had been every bit as miserable, and more, than she’d expected: uncomfortable, painful, exhausting, and bewildering. She hadn’t known where they were or what they were heading into. Darkness, wind buffeting her head in high places, smells of earth and trampled greenery, sounds of hoofbeats and horses snorting, aching lungs and aching muscles—and on and on it went.
At some point, they’d stopped to change horses and leave the tired ones in Sim’s care. How they expected to find him on the way back, Andrea didn’t know. On and on they’d gone again. And then stopped. And dismounted and left their horses with Ecky. She, Joe, and Per had crept forward through darkness that varied from dark gray to jet black and was full of traps, such as holes underfoot and branches at eye height. As she followed Joe’s black shape, she could hear the river.
Joe vanished into blackness ahead and Andrea, creeping after him, put her hand on a nettle and flinched in pain. It was then, as she tried to rub the sting from her hand, that Per made her heart nearly leap from her mouth by speaking in her ear. “You crash about like cows in a thicket.”
He was still grouchy. He did move far more quietly than either Andrea or Joe. But then, he’d practiced, creeping about at night to meet girls whose mothers didn’t know they were out and young women who were married to other men. It had paid off.
They found Joe again, a crouching black shape in darkness. Peering around his shoulder, she glimpsed flames leaping up ahead of them. Someone was camped here.
Joe turned his head toward them. “Two fires.” He pointed.
Andrea and Per half-rose, so they could see over bushes. Two fires, as Joe said. One, directly ahead, revealed that Gobby’s little hamlet had suffered. Firelight’s dark red glow played on the edges of broken walls. A mutter of voices and, every now and then, a laugh, a clatter, carried to them on the damp air.
Away to their right, the river lolloped over stones. They smelled the water. A fire burned over there, too, underlighting leaves and branches. From that direction came the sound of horses: stamping hooves, shakings of head and mane, snorts. It wasn’t hard to guess at which fire the Changeling Sterkarms sat.
“There’s an isle,” Per whispered—or his idea of a whisper, which was too loud for Andrea’s comfort.
Joe’s whisper was softer. “Why’ve they split up?”
Slowly, they crouched again and listened intently.
Per said, “There’ll be a guard.”
Yes, there would be guards—and at both fires were lost, nervous men, all heavily armed and practiced in violence.
The hard work of getting there had distracted Andrea from what they’d come to do. Now, remembering, she was so scared, she was stifled and sick with it. How did the Sterkarms live their lives like this?
She decided it was better to act than to dither, even if it got her killed. She half-rose. “Come on, Joe. Time to make good our boasts of the feast hall.”
Joe, a solid dark shape, rose up from the darkness of the ground and moved forward with a soft brushing of grasses. She made to follow, and felt her arm snatched. She was pulled back and down. Per, half-rising from the dark ground, gripped her head in both of his hands and kissed her hard.
She couldn’t linger; couldn’t leave Joe to go forward alone. She pushed at Per’s shoulders and pulled away, stumbled after Joe. Her heart beat faster than ever, with fear and exhilaration and a kind of joy. That might be the last kiss she ever had. And it had been from Per!
A couple of soft steps forward through wet grass, several hard rapid thumps of her heart—and she realized that the last kiss before yesterday had been from Per, too. From Changeling Per.
It was complicated.
And didn’t matter because she might not survive the night.
The sound made by her and Joe as they moved through the grass and scrub seemed deafening enough to rouse every settlement in the hills—though much of it was probably covered by the sound of the river lapping on its stones. The water’s noise grew louder as they neared it, as did the whispering of voices and soft laughter from the loom of dark trees on the islet. Firelight flickered, shining out red and gold, making black shapes of tree trunks, branches, and leaves stand out before fading. The smell of wood smoke drifted to them.
Joe stopped short, and she bumped into his solid bulk. He turned and, to her surprise, took her hand into his big, hot paw. “Why are we hiding? We’re storytellers.” He whistled—a shrill sound that made her gasp with fright. Tugging her forward, he whistled a jig. Everyone must hear it—even the Elves camped among the ruins of the bastle houses.
Near the water, it was lighter, and they saw the little beach at the river’s side, a glimmering of pale shingle. More shingle had formed a causeway from the riverbank to the tree-grown island. They jumped down onto the beach, crunching pebbles underfoot, crunching as they walked on. Joe halted and stopped whistling. She heard him
clear his throat, draw a deep, sharp breath. He was scared, too. Of course he was. And she’d got him into this.
A dark shape moved among the trees at the causeway’s other end, and a voice said, “Vem air der?” Who is there?
Joe dropped Andrea’s hand, holding up both his own, palms forward. “Yi air ayn venn!” I am a friend!
“Kom!” said the guard. They couldn’t be sure how he was armed, but they could be certain he was armed. Probably, Andrea thought, with a long knife, a sort of half-sword.
Joe went forward slowly, talking fast. “A traveler, me, no a fighting man. I gan about—I tell stories, sing songs. I want no quarrels with nobody.”
Andrea lifted the shawl from her shoulders and draped it over her head, forming a cowl to shadow and hide her face. She stepped forward, her head bowed, and her sudden appearance from the darkness made the guard’s feet skitter on the shingle.
“My woman,” Joe said, grabbing her hand. “We mean no harm. We come to share your fire, if we may—and tell you a tale, sing you a song! That’s all.”
Other feet sounded on leaves and shingle, and other shapes loomed from the dark, moving jaggedly across the brightness of the firelight. The other Changelings, drawn from their fire by the guard’s shout.
“A tinker’s bitch!” someone said. The faint, reflected light of the river didn’t give enough light to read the men’s expressions, but as they drew near, in a rough half-circle, the sense of threat thickened. Joe loosed Andrea’s hand and took another rough breath. She realized he was readying himself to fight.
Then, lolloping across the causeway, splashing in the water, came a dog, a big dog. It panted, but didn’t bark.
“Cuddy!” called a voice—a gruff voice, hoarsened by years of shouting across valleys in the rain, and then coming home to breathe peat smoke. With an undeniable thrill, Andrea recognized it as Per’s, and she felt again the hard kiss she’d just received. But, dizzily, the Per who’d kissed her was behind her, crouching in the dark.
A Sterkarm Tryst Page 9