A Sterkarm Tryst

by Price, Susan;

  Joe Sterkarm • Kaitlin • Changeling Per

  Murder.

  Joe got to his feet and pulled Kaitlin to hers. She smiled up at him but it wasn’t the happiest smile he’d seen on her face. Her clothes were bloodied.

  His legs shook from exertion and shock. Murder. He was a murderer. His sweet little Kaitlin had aided and abetted him in murder.

  Chitra and Strong—who’d been friendly, had helped him, had let him use their kettle—were dead meat and would rot while he’d go on living. You bet! That’s why he’d killed them—for that chance. But it was a hard, sharp thing to swallow. It sat in his belly like the poison Chitra and Strong had swallowed.

  Chitra’s body had been hauled into a corner and dumped. Joe couldn’t bear to look at it. Strong’s body lay in the middle of the floor, its face swollen—Joe quickly found something else to look at, but knew he was going to see that red and bursting face often in the future. Two Sterkarm men took the body by the arms and dragged it, thumping, across the office and dropped it half on top of Chitra. What had been Chitra.

  That done, the Sterkarms tramped noisily outside. Joe stopped Changeling Per by stepping in his way. “We heard an Elf-Pistol,” Joe said. Changeling Per stared at him with large, glass-clear blue eyes. “Who was shot?”

  Changeling Per frowned. “Elven were shot.”

  Joe realized his mistake. To Per’s thinking, pistols, guns, and cannons were fired. Arrows were shot. “I mean—who did Elven hit when they fired?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody?” There had been more than one bang.

  “It went—” Changeling Per used both arms to point into the air and away to the side. “And then arrows—tunk!” He mimed an arrow hitting him in the belly, in the thigh. “And then more—tunk! Tunk! Tunk! All dead.”

  “All?” But Joe could understand how it might be true. The 21st men were taken by surprise and none too familiar with their weapons. The Sterkarms were using weapons they’d been familiar with since childhood.

  “Forget them,” Changeling Per said. “Now we gan home.”

  “What about the gate? We came to close the gate!”

  In the corner, the corpses sighed and settled. “Thou mun close gate,” Per said. “First, we gan through it.”

  Joe’s fear and anger burst out. “Still at that? I’ve told thee—there be no ganning home! Kaitlin, tell them!”

  But Kaitlin, intimidated by Changeling Per’s stare, stepped behind Joe and hid.

  “Burn it!” Joe said. “Burn gate down and close it.” He glanced at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. “Before they come through and do to us what you’ve just done to them!”

  Any minute now, he thought, any minute now they’ll be coming through.

  21st Side:

  On the Road

  James Windsor

  “Don’t give me excuses,” Windsor said to his phone and jammed on his brakes. “I’ll hang the man with the worst excuse later. Just do what you’ve got to do. I’m on my way, I authorize it.”

  The traffic moved again, and Tuzzio, Patterson’s second-in-command, started speaking from the phone. “He said ‘circumstances,’ and he said ‘safety,’ and he said ‘preparations.’”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Windsor changed gear. “Don’t care, not listening. When I get there, you’d better be 16th side and knee-deep in Sterkarm components. Whatever you have to do, I’ll sign off on it, but for fuck’s sake, move your bloody arse!”

  27

  16th-Side A:

  Wild Country

  Mistress Crosar • Davy Grannam

  “Our Lady!” Mistress Crosar said. She didn’t often use such language. “Take my reins again and I’ll clout thee! I’ve ridden since before tha was born!”

  Davy, riding ahead, smiled to himself. His men, without orders, had formed themselves into an honor guard, riding close by Mistress Crosar, watching the country like hawks, doubtless fancying themselves ready to die in her defense. Sandy Yonstone was the foremost, riding always beside her. It was he who had dared to take her reins, to guide her horse over a tricky bit of rough ground.

  Davy savored the set down, as he did most of what Mistress Crosar said and did. She was a good-looking woman still, and seasoned timber, not a pretty but sniffy little lass like her niece. Even a night sleeping on the ground in a branch shelter hadn’t blunted her.

  They were in pursuit of the Sterkarm band that had taken Joan. Davy, from his own experience, had guessed that the party had split and that Joan was with the smaller group, on foot. He’d tracked them, in his mind, through the hills and dales and now led them by another track, which—if he was right—would meet the one the Sterkarms followed.

  “Lady,” came Sandy Yonstone’s voice from behind him, “may I offer you a drink?”

  “I’d be better pleased by thine silence!” was the lady’s reply.

  Davy had sent footmen to scramble up the slope beside the track, in search of any sign of the Sterkarms. He reined in as he saw the men returning through the birch trees. They pointed back the way they’d come, nodding.

  “Lady Joan?” Davy asked. They nodded again.

  Davy dismounted, meaning to take a look himself. Scanning Mistress Crosar’s self-appointed bodyguards, he jabbed a finger at them. They were to stay. He waited until they nudged their horses closer to hers and then turned away, following his scouts up the hillside.

  They skirted thickets of briar and fern and ducked through small stands of timber as they climbed. Davy, older than most, stiff in hips and knees, soon fell behind.

  The hilltop was wide and breezy with little cover, and they crossed it swiftly to gain the cover of the thickets on the opposite slope. A couple of men looked back for Davy, and he sidestepped down the slope, ducking branches, to join them. They pointed, and squinting through dangling leaves, he caught a flash of light on metal in the valley below. Once that was seen, his eye made out the file of men, even though they wore patchworks of buff and green.

  “Elves,” Davy said. Not Sterkarms at all, but Elves.

  Davy moved forward, stooping under trees, following sheep and goat paths, keeping his eye on the Elves. His men, both higher and lower on the slope, followed him.

  One of the younger men, Aidan, stopped and pointed again. Davy followed his pointing finger. Ahead of the Elves was another party. Yain, tain, tethara, peddera—­peddera men. Tain women. One woman was a slight figure, dressed in white. Joan. Davy felt a small, gleeful triumph. He’d been right.

  But he hadn’t foreseen the troop of Elves.

  He looked around, picking out his men among the trees and bushes. Some had stuck leafy twigs about themselves. Most were watching him. Silently, he pointed to five of them, and then—slowly, but with a swooping motion—pointed across the valley, to a spot behind the Elves.

  The men grinned and moved away. As children, they’d played at ambushes. Sterkarm trysts: appointed meeting places that only one side knew about in advance. Now, they would follow behind the Elves, using all their skill to stay unseen.

  Of the men remaining with him, Davy told two more to follow the Elves. He pointed to his own ear, and they knew they were to bring him word of anything unexpected.

  He led his three other men back the way they’d come, downhill through the trees. On nearing the track, he gave a whaup’s whistle, heard it returned, and knew where to find Mistress Crosar and her escort. As they emerged from the birches, he saw Mistress Crosar eagerly staring at him from her horse’s back. “Joan,” he said.

  “Oh, Davy. Thanks shall you have.”

  Davy’s horse greeted him with a buffet from her head, then lipped at his sleeve. He ached as he swung himself onto her back, but that was life. Being alive hurt.

  He led the ride on, sometimes at a canter. Mistress Crosar fell behind, hampered by her ladylike, sideways seat on he
r horse. Sandy Yonstone stayed with her.

  Davy brought them to a spot he reckoned was ahead of the Sterkarms. He pointed out the two men he wanted to stay behind and had the rest dismount. Leading their horses, they followed him up the hillside. On once more gaining the windy hilltop, Davy sent two men forward as scouts. They’d hardly left when a rustling and panting made him turn. He saw Mistress Crosar breasting the hilltop, breathing hard, and being hauled along by Sandy Yonstone. “Mistress! It were best—”

  Mistress Crosar, breathless, waved her hand to silence Davy—and one of his scouts ran from the trees, calling that the Sterkarms were below and the Elves still after them.

  “Mistress, you would best stay here.”

  Still red-faced and panting, she said, “Away with thee. I come, too.”

  “I could no stop her,” young Yonstone said.

  “I ken well what be best for my niece and me. I mun see these Elven.”

  Davy gave up and led them across the open hillside and into the tree cover. When the ground began to slope, Sandy offered Mistress Crosar his arm to lean on. “Dost think I can no walk?” Sandy allowed her to pass him but then silently, tactfully, unpicked her skirt from a bramble.

  They found Davy crouched with Aidan behind a screen of birch and hazel, looking down into the valley. “Joan!” Mistress Crosar said. There was her niece—even at a distance she knew the girl’s figure. But what was she wearing? She hadn’t been dressed in white.

  And there was the Elf-May! No doubt her Elf-Work had helped in the stealing of Joan. There were three Sterkarm men with the party but they stumbled and sprawled. Were they drunk?

  Aidan said, “Wounded?” Davy nodded. “An Elf-Pistol?”

  Davy didn’t answer. The men they watched, who fell and struggled to their feet, had to be wounded, ill, or drunk. Not even Sterkarms would be fool enough to get that drunk while crossing unfriendly country.

  Hidden in the wood, they watched the Elves dodging about the hillside, carrying their fearsome pistols, drawing nearer to Joan and the Sterkarms—who seemed so preoccupied by their own troubles that they were blind to danger. The liveliest of the Sterkarm men spent much time bent over the Elf-May.

  They watched the Elves gain ground and heard the explosions as they shot two of the Sterkarm men. They saw the one remaining man draw his sword and face them—then fall to the ground. “Elf-Shotten!” Aidan said.

  They watched Joan run to stand beside the fallen Sterkarm, and reach out her bare arms to the Elves, who seemed to stand back and listen to her.

  “What can we do?” Sandy Yonstone said.

  “No thing,” Davy said. He sent a look to Mistress Crosar to see what she made of it.

  By the expression on her face, nothing good. Then she looked at him and saw him watching her. He hastily looked away.

  16th-Side A:

  The FUP Compound, the Tube Office

  Joe Sterkarm • Kaitlin • Changeling Per

  “We mun fire gate now!” Joe said. He wanted to hop and dance on the spot. Strong had sent an alarm to the 21st, he was certain of it. “We can’t wait!” He’d gone around the office pulling plugs, but he feared that would, in itself, send another alarm. They were probably being observed at that moment through cameras. “Elven be coming!”

  Changeling Per turned and walked out of the office. Just walked away.

  “We mun close gate, now!” Joe said to Kaitlin, the only person still listening. Catching her hand, he towed her after him into the fresh, damp air. The Sterkarms were busy carrying saddles to their horses or putting on bridles. Plainly, they intended to ride somewhere.

  Per was tightening a girth. Joe headed for him. “The gate will no …” His voice trailed away as he saw Elf-Guards pressing themselves against the compound’s steel fence. It seemed an odd way to behave. Had they been tied to the fence?

  He glanced back at the office, half-expecting to see Elves emerging from the Tube. None were. Letting go of Kaitlin’s hand, he jogged over to the fence, weaving between Sterkarms and horses.

  Close to the fence, he stopped short. From there, he saw the long arrows that pinned the guards to the steel mesh. One, pinned through the leg and belly, leaned back. Presumably his upper body’s weight would pull him free eventually.

  Joe’s scalp chilled. It was a terrible reminder that, once dead, a man was so much meat. And that they were, all of them—even Kaitlin—a breath, a heartbeat, away from that state.

  Turning his head, he saw Sweet Milk beside the office, crouching over someone on the ground. In his hand was a bloody knife and several bloodstained arrows. He was salvaging an arrow, cutting it from a body.

  Thoroughly sickened by what he’d seen and what he’d done, Joe walked back to Changeling Per, who was saddling another horse. “This is the key.” Joe held up the flat plastic card, which was nothing like a key to the Sterkarms’ minds. He’d taken it from Chitra’s pocket. “I can unlock gate. We’d better get moving.”

  Per looked past him. Turning, Joe saw Sweet Milk sharing the bloody arrows between the men.

  “Elven know something’s wrong,” Joe said. “They’ll come through. We’ve got to burn it. And then gan.”

  He was ignored.

  “We need to get out of here! Fire Elf-House and let’s gan!”

  They ignored him until his voice sounded, even to himself, like the crying of a whaup.

  Then they were mounting, reaching down from their saddles for lances. Changeling Per was one of the last to mount. He nudged his horse toward the Tube and its ramp.

  “Tha can no gan through!” Joe shouted so loudly that his voice hurt his throat, but it was lost in the moor’s wide, empty space. The Sterkarms gave no sign of having heard him.

  “There’s only half the gate here—can you no see that?” The other half of the Tube was “at home” in the 21st. “An army of Elven will come through in any eye blink—but it’ll no let you through! Why will you no listen?”

  Per’s horse shied at the foot of the ramp.

  Kaitlin came to Joe’s side, took his hand, and looked up at him. Joe looked down at her and made up his mind to go. He’d tried, but he couldn’t fire the gate himself while the Changelings were trying to go through it. He would not keep Kait­lin there until the Elves came through and killed them all. Squeezing Kaitlin’s hand, he turned away and started for the compound’s gate.

  At the gate, he paused and looked back. Per May had always been a good friend to him. Changeling Per seemed a fool. But it was hard to abandon someone who looked so much like a friend.

  21st Side:

  The Tube Headquarters

  James Windsor

  Windsor reached Dilsmead Hall in twenty minutes and drove around the building to the Tube’s ops room. There were lines of men in camo standing on the lawn in front of the Tube, ruining the grass with their big boots. The sight made blood rush to Windsor’s head.

  He spotted Tuzzio, the squad’s leader, as he climbed from his car. Leaving the car door open, he strode toward him. “I authorized you! Why are you still pissing about here?”

  Tuzzio was stocky and dark, like someone who’d be cast as a Mafia boss. In fact, he came from Devon. Clutching his clipboard, he looked at Windsor with soulful dark eyes. “We’re finishing checks and—”

  “While you’re arsing about—”

  “Mr. Windsor, I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  Sheer surprise made Windsor pause. “No? You’ll appreciate it a damn sight less if the Sterkarms—”

  “Mr. Windsor!” Tuzzio barked. “Panic is not helpful.”

  “Panic?” Windsor was insulted. “Panic! You stand around here—”

  Tuzzio handed his clipboard to another man and turned on Windsor, obliging him to step back. “Mr. Windsor, let me be clear. I don’t risk my men by acting before I’m fully prepared.”

  Th
ey glared at each other, nose to nose. “You’re supposed to be supporting Patterson. If Sterkarms are in the compound murdering our security monkeys, I think we can take it that Patterson’s in trouble.”

  “I am following Patterson’s orders,” Tuzzio said. “It won’t help him if we go in unprepared.”

  “Why weren’t you prepared?”

  Tuzzio’s dark eyes had red-veined whites. He said, “We’re wasting time standing here talking.” He turned and walked back to his men.

  Windsor felt himself shaking. He took some deep breaths, straightened his jacket, and climbed the steps into the Tube’s operation room.

  Which was empty of people. Armageddon breaking out, and no one around. They’d all run away and hid.

  A screen showed him a view of 16th side. Sterkarms and horses milled about in the compound. He gasped and leaned heavily on the back of a chair as pain twisted through his guts. It was imaginary, no doubt—the surgeons had assured him he had healed—but it felt as if Sterkarm had driven the lance through him again. There was nothing he wanted more than to see Per May Sterkarm nailed through the guts. Nothing.

  16th-Side A:

  The FUP Compound, the Tube Office

  Joe Sterkarm • Kaitlin • Changeling Per

  Joe half-ran back across the compound, grudging the expenditure of the energy he was going to need later but determined to try, one last time, to get it through the Changelings’ thick heads that they could not succeed.

  Changeling Per was coaxing his nervous horse onto the ramp and, unluckily, Joe arrived just as Fowl was soothed enough to nuzzle him for apples. Popping up beside the ramp, Joe shouted, “It’s no a gate like you ken a gate!”

  Joe’s had scanty knowledge of horses but when Fowl laid back his ears, rolled his eyes, threw up his head and stamped dangerously near Per’s feet, even Joe saw that he’d made a mistake.

  Per gave Joe a straight look. “Gan.”

  Joe started to argue but thought again. He’d never been on the end of a glare like that from Per before. It had been a shove. It made him remember that this wasn’t his Per. It gave him an idea of what it might be like to meet Per May when you weren’t his friend.