The Sterkarm Handshake

by Susan Price

  She’d wanted to be reassured, but the cauldron over the fire made her suspicious. She had never known the Sterkarms to prepare food over the hall fire. Before she could think it over any longer, or answer Windsor, Sweet Milk took her arm and pulled her toward the trapdoor in the middle of the stone floor. Men were stooping, noisily unbolting the trap and lifting it up.

  She looked down through the trap into the darkness of the tower’s ground floor. The gray daylight coming in through the hall’s narrow windows, and the hall’s firelight, filtered down through the trap, and the scared, upraised faces of the 21st men could be seen, blinking and shading their eyes. A moment before, they had all been shouting and gabbling, the noise rising into the hall. The moment the trap opened, they were instantly silent. The sudden, abject quiet grated on Andrea’s nerves. The Sterkarms around her were stringing longbows or setting arrows on strings. She thought: Terrible things are going to happen, and I’m going to have to see them.

  Someone nudged her. She looked up and saw Toorkild. He said, “Tell them to give in. They be our prisoners now.”

  Andrea looked at the other faces standing around the trapdoor. Per wasn’t there, and she wished he were, even though he would almost certainly side with his father.

  Joe was there, but he was standing among the Sterkarms as if he were one of them. She bent over the trapdoor and translated Toorkild’s words for the men below. She added, “Do as he says. They’ve got a big pot of boiling water up here. I don’t know what it’s for if not to pour on you.”

  The fear on the upturned faces intensified; and then the men began to shove each other, their feet scuttering on the floor, all trying to get as close to the walls as they could, thinking they could avoid the arrows, avoid being scalded.

  Bryce leaned forward a little, peering up. “Andrea. Are you all right?”

  Tears came into her eyes. “I’m fine, but—”

  “And my men?”

  “The men who got trapped with me are all dead.”

  “How?” he said.

  Her tears came faster. She didn’t want to say that the Sterkarms, her friends, who had spared her, had killed them. “Give up,” she said. “Please.”

  “Are they going to kill us?” Bryce asked. If it seemed they were, then he had grenades and might as well take a few Sterkarms with him.

  Andrea turned to Toorkild and began to talk with him. Bryce at first tried to follow what they were saying, but it was too quick. He looked around at the men with him in the half darkness. They were pressing against the walls, each calculating how likely he was to be missed by the arrows. Few of them knew each other. They wouldn’t fight for each other.

  One of the men said, “They’ve only got bows and arrows.”

  “Think an arrow can’t kill you?” Bryce said.

  “’Tain’t a bullet, is it?”

  “Chuck a grenade up there,” someone else said. “That’ll give ’em something to think about.”

  “Windsor and Miss Mitchell are up there,” Bryce said. He didn’t see the movement of the man who, without waiting for orders, reached for a grenade at his belt.

  A three-foot arrow stuck out from just under his rib cage. It passed clean through him, struck the wall behind him, and, quivering, splintered inside him. Another hit him in the thigh; a third shattered against the stone floor. The man’s knees sagged with shock, and he went down to the dirty floor. The other men, staring, were rigidly still.

  When they looked up, it was impossible to tell which of the longbowmen had loosed the arrows. All of them had arrows on the string again.

  “Brawly done, brawly,” Toorkild said, nodding at his archers. He had warned his men of the magic the Elves might be armed with, and he was proud of the way they obeyed him. “Braw shooting.” To be quick-eyed enough to spot the movement down there in the shadows had been worth praise; but to shoot down at such close range and hit the mark so well—that was worthy of reward. “I’ll remember thee, my lad.”

  “I’m sorry,” Andrea said, to the men on the ground floor. Her hands were to her face and her face was white. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Joe, just behind her, felt he’d been turned to stone. What showed of his face, through his beard, was white. He swallowed and looked about at his new family.

  Bryce held up his hands and said, “Okay, okay.” He had his pistol, with its thirteen shots. But those bowmen were fast. He would be gambling that he could get his pistol out and cock it before one or more of them nailed him. Even if he succeeded, how many could he shoot and how many could they shoot? And there was the danger of hitting Windsor or Andrea, with a ricochet if not a direct shot. Maybe he was making the wrong decision again, but he didn’t have much time to think before more arrows came down.

  “I told you to give up, I told you,” Andrea said. “Oh God, is he all right?”

  Bryce wanted to say, Of course he isn’t, you stupid— Instead, he said, “We give up! What’s going to happen to us?”

  “They’re going to ransom you,” Andrea said. “It’s what they usually do with prisoners.” She looked at Windsor, who stood on the other side of the open trap, his arms held by Sterkarms, his face pale and sick. “Toorkild wants aspirins. Boxes and boxes of them, enough to last him for years. And whiskey. But aspirins more than anything. If FUP gives him them, he’ll let you all go back through the Elf-Gate—but then the Elf-Gate must be closed and never opened again.”

  “Oh certainly,” Windsor said. “Oh yes.” Dirty hands held his upper arms in bruising grips, and he was surrounded by a fug of sweat and onions. He could hear the blood thump in his ears, and the beat of his heart was shuddering through him, he hardly knew whether with anger or with fear. “Promise him anything you like. Pile cream. Corn plasters.”

  “What about this man, this injured man?” Bryce called.

  Andrea spoke with Toorkild again, briefly. “They’ll take care of him if you give up. They won’t hurt any of you if you give up, I can promise you that. Well, no more of you. They aren’t a cruel people.” The man on the floor of the basement below her writhed as she spoke. “I mean, they’re not sadistic.” I’m babbling, she thought. “I mean, they won’t beat you up just for kicks or anything like that. Please—give up and do just as they say. Don’t let’s have anyone else hurt, please.”

  “We give in!” Windsor said. “For God’s sake, we give in!”

  “What’s going to happen,” Andrea said, “is, they’re going to open the door. One or two of you will go out into the yard. They’ll disarm you. I promise you it’ll be all right if you don’t fight.” She put a hand to her head, thinking: I was telling someone else not to fight. Who?

  Bryce sighed and lowered his head. Whatever was promised, there was no knowing that the Sterkarms wouldn’t murder them in ones and twos as they went out into the yard. “I’ll go first,” he said.

  It was a slow business. Toorkild shouted orders from the window, and the door of the tower was opened a little. Against the light was a shaggy-haired black shape. “Kom!” Bryce raised his head, straightened his shoulders and walked out. The other 21st men hung back.

  Sweet Milk, stooping over the open trap, pointed at the men nearest the door. “Ut!” The two nearest ducked out through the door, and it was slammed shut.

  Bryce and the other two, out in the bright light of the yard, were surrounded by people, many of them women, who grabbed at them, shrieking, and pulled them, shoved them, dragged them off their feet into the mud. It was terrifying. Bryce’s heart pounded and his body shook. It was the sheer malice of the women that was so frightening, their twisted faces, their shrill voices, and the certainty that they saw no value in him but only in his clothes. His jacket was dragged off, revealing the grenades on his belt and the pistol in its shoulder holster. Then men moved in, shouldering the women aside. They held Bryce down in the mud and took off his belt and holster, while the women tugged off his b
oots.

  When both his boots were off, everything went still around him. The Sterkarms had lost interest. Bryce sat up in the mud, moving slowly so he wouldn’t alarm anyone. The other 21st men were near him. Both had lost their boots and jackets. One had lost his shirt as well. Their clothing and their boots were now being bundled up in the arms of different women.

  A Sterkarm man stooped over Bryce, took his arm above the elbow and dragged at him to let him know he should get up. Another man stood by with a long knife in his hand. Bryce got up.

  He and the other 21st men were taken along a narrow alley, paddling through the mud and muck in their stocking feet. The turns and twists of the alleys among the crowded buildings were confusing, and when they stopped, there seemed no reason why they’d stopped at this building rather than another. They all looked much alike. A ladder led to the door in the upper story, and Bryce and his companions were made to climb it.

  Other Sterkarms were waiting to receive them at the top, and they were brought into a long, dim room, smelling of wood and thatch. A trapdoor was opened in the floor, and they were made to climb down another ladder, into the building’s cold, dark, stone-built lower floor. There were no doors or windows down there. The ladder was pulled up, the trapdoor slammed down, and the bolt shot across. The darkness, except for a few cracks of light reaching them between the floorboards, was complete.

  They waited a long time in the dark. Bryce felt his flesh turning to stone in the cold. He couldn’t see the others, and was ashamed to speak to them. They must be blaming him. He upbraided himself, screaming at himself inside his head. He should have ignored Windsor, should have insisted. What was the point of keeping your job 21st side if you were killed on the 16th?

  The trapdoor above was opened again, the ladder lowered and three more half-naked men clambered down it. They shuffled about in the dark for a while and then found a place to sit on the floor of hard-packed earth. None of them had anything to say.

  Gobby Per was in charge of the tower yard and had been considering the problem of the Elves guarding the Land Rovers. They were still unsuspecting—the uproar in the tower had been muffled by its thick stone walls. But there were ten of them, and they were armed with Elf-Pistols. Gobby had no time for pistols himself: They were cumbersome, slow and unreliable. A bowman could shoot countless arrows while a pistol was being loaded for one shot. But Little Per had said that Elf-Pistols were different, and sheep-brained though the boy too often was, he did have some sense.

  Gobby sent men with bows, to be let down from the tower wall out of sight of the Elves. They made their way quietly around the tower, keeping out of sight below the hill’s ridge. Other archers went up on the tower’s wall.

  A sudden shower of arrows fell on the Elves, some from above, some from the side.

  It seemed the arrows came from nowhere, sudden flickers of darkness, whacking into the ground around the Elves, hitting the Land Rover, sinking deep into flesh. Some Elves were hit at once—others, not realizing they were beset with arrows, turned, looked up. Arrows hit them in the face. Down they went, without firing a shot. Others tugged at the arrows in their bodies, found they were barbed, and forgot their guns. Some fumbled at the unfamiliar weapons and couldn’t make them fire. One Elf shot two Elves beside him.

  A couple of the pistols were fired, with long bursts of terrifying noise that had the Sterkarms ducking below their wall and covering their ears. Stone chips flew. When the noise stopped, the archers bobbed up again.

  When it seemed that all the Elves were disabled, Gobby himself led out five men with spears, to finish them off. The archers came out of cover too, drawing knives.

  One of the Elves heaved himself up, and again there was that deafening, terrible noise that set the sheep and horses running in the valley below. One of the archers went flying backward. Gobby and his men took cover behind the Elf-Cart.

  The noise of the Elf-Pistol stopped. Cautiously, the Sterkarms raised their heads or peered out from behind the cart. Not all the Elves were dead, but none of them seemed to be raising Elf-Pistols. Gobby and his men went forward, kicking the pistols out of the way and spearing the men. When they saw what the pistol had done to their archer, they chopped the Elves into pieces small.

  The basement emptied slowly as the day passed. The men, filing out, passed by the wounded man, who had been moaning, trying to get up, falling back and crying out for hours now. Andrea had begged Toorkild to do something for him, and Toorkild had said, “In a while,” “When we can” and, finally, “Gan where it can no be heard if tha can no stand it.”

  She’d gone over to the big stone fireplace and, leaning in its corner, she cried, over so many things and for so many people, she wasn’t sure, from minute to minute, who she was crying for.

  Windsor shouted, “For God’s sake, can’t you do anything for him?”

  When the basement was empty except for the wounded man, the door of the hall was opened and Windsor was hustled down the steps, past the sobbing man, and out into the gray light of a damp, chill afternoon. His escort dragged him straight past the excited women—Windsor’s boots, jacket, swagger stick and watch had already been taken from him in the tower.

  Now only the wounded Elf lay in the tower’s basement. Sweet Milk went down the tower stairs from the hall, drawing his dagger as he went. In the basement, a long stripe of light entered from the open door, showing the straw and dung. The wounded Elf lay in shadow, behind the door. Sweet Milk crouched over him and cut his throat.

  As Sweet Milk straightened, with blood on his hands, Toorkild came down the stairs, laughing and clapping Joe on the back. Sweet Milk couldn’t laugh.

  Windsor was shoved to the ladder, and shaken and prodded until he preferred to climb down it into the darkness below rather than be pushed down. As he went down, the chill of the stone building closed around him. His feet touched a damp, cold floor, and the ladder was tugged from his hands and pulled up, out of sight. The trapdoor was clapped down. The sound boomed dully between the stone walls.

  Windsor stood still, listening to the blood thump in his ears and feeling the beat of his heart shudder through him. Gradually, the worst of the fear began to fade, and anger began to rise.

  He saw, clearly, that nothing could be done with the 16th Project while those savages remained in possession. There was no reasoning with them. Offer them all the benefits of the twenty-first century, and because they were too ignorant to appreciate them, they flung them back in your teeth and spat in your face too.

  Wipe them out, the lot of them.

  I’ll kill them myself, he thought. With my own bare hands. He could do it. Any monkey could kill. Look at the monkeys that did.

  Aloud, he said to the men huddled around him in the dark, “Well? How are we going to get out of here?”

  19

  16th Side: Making Promises

  The Sterkarms were triumphant. They had, they thought, taken on the Elves and beaten them again, and they were all, men, women and children, flown with their own magnificence. Their glee had been quite unashamed and, for Andrea, unsettling. She’d half expected to be locked up again, but her earlier treachery seemed forgotten. Toorkild had hugged her and called her “Bonny lass!” Sweet Milk and Sim had kissed her. She’d felt as she imagined a Christian might have, if caught up in a self-congratulatory Roman crowd while the lions were still hungry.

  She’d gone looking for Joe. In the yard outside the tower there had been dancing, laughing women waving the 21st boots and clothes they’d taken from the prisoners. Some of the clothing was heavily stained. Bloodstained. It had been her first clue to the fate of the 21st men guarding the Land Rovers.

  From outside the tower walls had come a loud, alarming, percussive noise that had made her heart beat though she hadn’t recognized it. Only when she went out through the gate did she realize that it was rifle fire. Even at a distance the noise was far worse, far mo
re violent to the ear, than anything she’d heard on television or film.

  The rifles were being fired by Sterkarms—mostly men, but one or two women. They were standing on the ridge of the hill, firing out over the valley. Joe had been among them, showing them how. The Sterkarms were thrilled to be handling Elf-Weapons of such power, noise and destruction. They fired into the air, they shot at rocks, sending bullets ricocheting and chips flying.

  Andrea had been appalled—if no one had been hurt so far, it was only a matter of time before someone was. She’d begged the men to put the rifles down, but they were too excited to take any notice. Why should they listen to her? She was only an Elf, and they’d beaten the Elves.

  She’d shouted at Joe, “Why did you start this?”

  “They asked me!” he shouted back. “I thought it’d be better if I showed ’em how to do it instead of just letting ’em fool around; I didn’t expect everybody and his dog to join in!” Some of the rifles ran out of ammunition, but the Sterkarms fetched others from the Land Rovers and started again. Seeing Toorkild coming out of the tower gate, Andrea had run over to him and asked him to stop his men playing with the rifles, but he said, “Away, woman!” and waved her off. “I’ve other matters to think on.” What matters, he didn’t say.

  It had been Per who’d stopped it. He’d been climbing the steep path to the tower with his cousins, leading their horses, when a burst of fire had startled the animals, setting the horses rearing and the dogs jumping and howling. When the rifle fire paused for a moment, Per had yelled, “Stop that!” Most of the fire had stopped. Some of the men had even gone down to help with the horses.

  Per had reached the hilltop at a run, having left his horse behind. He came among the Sterkarm men, most of them older than him, and had roundly slapped the faces of the first three he’d reached. What business had they with the Elf-­Pistols? Did they know nothing about horses? Were those sheep’s heads on their shoulders? Pointing to the ground at his feet, he’d demanded that all the pistols be laid down there, now!