by Susan Price
She was tall, and taking the lantern down from its hook wasn’t difficult, though she felt that she was glowing in the dark and setting off sirens. Her hands trembled in expectation of a shout from the watchtower.
As she left the gate, she heard a scampering and panting behind her, and her heart lurched with fright. She whipped around to face the sound, and a big, dark shape rose from the ground, gave her a hefty shove on the shoulders, driving her back on her heels, panting in her face with hot, stinking breath.
She went staggering back under the thing’s weight, but almost laughed, because she knew what it was. “Cuddy! Oh, Cuddy, you gave me a fright!”
Cuddy leaped away from her and leaped back again and, as the hound danced in the dark, Andrea’s breath caught and her relief curdled into another kind of fear. Cuddy, unless she was taken and locked up, was never far from Per. If Cuddy was here …
She looked toward the alley where Bryce and the others hid. In the darkness, she glimpsed the hazy gray blurs that were their faces.
She glanced back toward the other dark alleys that opened between the many buildings. Out of their darkness came Per’s whistle, and the sound of his running feet.
“Cuddy!” he called. “Entraya!”
21
16th Side: “Sterkarm!”
The alley per was following, pursuing Cuddy, ended at the tower’s gate. “Cuddy!” She must still be intent on chasing Elf-Ghosts, or maybe she could hear a fox outside the walls. Andrea wouldn’t be at the gate.
But as he emerged from the narrow alleyway, fending himself off the wall, he saw Andrea standing in front of him. She had Cuddy’s collar in one hand and was being pulled a few steps this way and that as the hound, growling, made lunges toward the alleys. In her other hand was the lantern that should have been hanging over the gateway, its light swinging low about her feet. As the light briefly swung high enough to show her face, he saw that she looked scared half to death, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. He went to her, laughing, asking, “What be matter?” He was startled, and he sidestepped, when Cuddy gave a loud, shivering growl.
A sound behind him, a nudge and, before he could turn, something hard against his throat, yanking him backward against solidity. He made to smack his right elbow backward, but his arm was entangled, held. A man’s arm around his neck: He felt the warm flesh, and his fingers slipped on the hair. Sweet Milk playing a joke! But the movement around him in the darkness, Cuddy’s snarling, the sounds of breathing and of feet in the mud told him that there were many men, and strangers—Grannams! Inside the tower walls!
He reached for his dagger with his left hand, but the arm was caught and pulled partly behind him. He snatched breath to shout, and a large, heavy hand smacked across his mouth and clamped there, sealing in the breath and reducing his shout to an incomprehensible moan.
Per reacted with fury. That the Grannams should dare! His head was being held against the shoulder of the man behind him, but he smashed his skull sidelong into his captor’s face. It hurt, but he knew by the gasp in his ear, and the loosening of the hold on him, that he’d hurt the man holding him more. He kicked backward at the man’s shins, scraped the heel of his boot down the shin and stamped hard, hoping to smash the man’s foot. With more gasps of pain, the man shuffled backward, out of reach. Per’s arms were still held, but he was all but free. He lifted his head, and drew breath to shout.
The darkness moved, in the shape of a big man in front of him. Something was said, in no tongue of the Grannams, and a fist driven hard into Per’s belly.
What breath he had left him in a long groan, and the pain and shock of the blow made it impossible to draw another. His legs buckled and the man behind him came close again, leaned on him, and pushed him down into the mud. His arms were twisted behind him, and a weight settled heavily on his back. Somewhere nearby, Cuddy’s growling had changed to a wheezing.
Per strained for air, choking, his face turned sidelong in the dirt. His lungs seemed turned to stone, refusing to open. He struggled, trying to free his arms, but they were at their weakest, pulled behind him. He tried to get his knees under him, to throw off the weight that held him down, but the effort and lack of air dizzied him, making the darkness flicker with white flashes. So he lay still and made repeated hoarse snatches for air. He knew he’d been outwitted, beaten, and had let attackers into his home. He was afraid for Cuddy and Andrea, and then for his mother, his father, his cousins and uncle and everyone he’d failed. It made him furious, and the angrier he grew, the more his helplessness enraged him.
Andrea spoke near him, urgently. He couldn’t understand what she said but recognized the slippery, hissing sound of the Elven language. Surprise made him lie still and silent for a moment. His captors were not Grannams. They were Elves. Either the prisoners escaped, or others come to rescue them. And Andrea was helping them.
The realization was another defeat. He felt anger rise in him until, with his already hard-thumping heart, it was like a blockage in the throat, stifling. The lantern light turned dark in his eyes. He gasped for breath, and struggled again. If his heart burst, if his joints cracked, he didn’t care. He spread his legs, pressing his knees and toes into the ground, trying to lift up and twist his hips, to throw off the man on his back. He pressed his head into the mud, arching his spine.
Bryce, sitting astride Per, had a glow of pain on his face where Per’s skull had smacked into his cheekbone and nose; and another glow of pain down his shin, where Per’s boot heel had kicked and scraped. But he’d thought Per beaten, and was taken aback by this sudden and fierce coming to life. He twisted Per’s arms higher, but the body beneath him still bucked like a bronco and almost threw him off. “Get his legs, get his—”
One of his men grabbed Per’s legs, held them, lay on them. Another pressed Per’s head down into the mud. Sobbing for breath, Per subsided again. “Bastard!” Bryce said, and wiped his bleeding nose on the shoulder of his shirt.
Andrea was swinging the lantern erratically. It showed her Cuddy, teeth locked in a man’s arm, and another man squeezing her throat between his hands. It showed her Per panting in the mud with three men holding him down. “Don’t hurt him! He’s only a boy—”
From the darkness near her, Windsor said, with satisfaction, “I’ve already hurt him.” She glimpsed him miming the action of a punch.
She could hear Per fighting for breath, and it reminded her distressingly of when he’d been bleeding to death. “You haven’t hurt—?”
“Whose side are you on?” Bryce was out of breath too.
Andrea crouched beside them. Per, his face turned sideways on the ground and masked with mud, was hardly recognizable. His narrowed eyes glittered in the lantern fight, and he breathed in strange, hiccuping little gasps. “Don’t you know who you’ve caught? It’s Per—Per Toorkildsson. The May.”
Bryce’s head jerked up.
“Don’t hurt him.” She meant—the word was large in her mind, though she wouldn’t say it—don’t kill him. “Listen, if we don’t make it to the Tube—if Toorkild catches us, and you’ve hurt Per—I can’t even bear to think about what Toorkild will do to us.”
“Keep your voice down,” Bryce said. “Everybody!” The man who’d been bitten was breathing hard with a sobbing sound. Faintly, seeming miles away, came shouting, laughter and what might have been music from the tower. Their struggles, though desperately loud in their own ears, must have been swallowed up among the stone and thatch of the surrounding buildings and had passed as the usual nighttime noises of the tower. Bryce said, “Are you wearing those hiking boots?”
“What?” Andrea said. It seemed a strange question. “Yes.”
“Give me a bootlace. Do it!”
She was baffled but tugged at the lace of her right boot, pulling it undone and unthreading it from the six iron loops. It was thick, strong and very long. Pulling it free, she handed it
to Bryce.
“Hold him,” Bryce said to the men holding Per’s head and legs, and he used the bootlace to lash Per’s arms together at the elbows.
Per hadn’t yet recovered his breath, but knew that once tied, he would have even less chance of getting away. He struggled again, trying to pull his arms free of the lace being wound around them, trying to lift his head, to kick. It was a waste of strength and breath. He grunted as his shoulders were dragged further back and the lace bit into his arms. His eyes filled with tears of rage that mixed with the mud on his face.
“Okay, get off him.” The two other men moved away, and Bryce, grasping Per by the collar, hauled him up to his knees, his legs folded under him. Bryce felt about his waist, found his belt, followed it and said, “Ah!” as he found Per’s dagger. “Good man!”
Their prisoner surprised them all by calling out softly, as if he was quite alone, though his voice was broken by breathlessness. “Cuddy? Cud—?”
Bryce clamped his hand over Per’s mouth, pulled his head back against his shoulder, and showed him his own dagger. “Tell him to keep quiet!”
Despite the knife, Per was twisting his head, trying to get his mouth free—but Bryce’s hand had sealed to the mud on his face and was glued in place. “You’re choking him,” Andrea said. “Per—stilla!” Quiet! “Han har thine kneefa!”
Per was still, and Bryce loosed his hand a little, to let him breathe. Looking straight ahead, not trying to look at Andrea, Per whispered, “Vordan staw Cuddy?”
“What’s he say?”
“It’s his dog, he’s asking about his dog.” She moved the lantern so its light fell where she’d last seen Cuddy. There was a huddle of men, one clutching his bleeding arm. On the ground in front of them lay a long gray shape, its ruffled fur muddied.
Per made a lurching movement, trying to get to his feet. Bryce dragged him back and clamped his hand hard over his mouth again. He said, “Is it bad?”
The man grimaced. “Hurts.”
“You’ve got to keep going,” Bryce said. The man nodded.
Andrea had gone to Cuddy and was running her hands through the long hair. The hound was still warm, and she thought she could feel the rib cage moving, but that might just have been wishful thinking. “Have you killed her?”
The man crouched beside the bitten one said, “Might have done—dunno.”
Bryce said, “It’s his dog?” He threw Per’s dagger over to the men huddled by Cuddy. Per, by the lantern’s light, saw his dagger land in the mud and guessed what it was to be used for. He made another convulsive attempt to rise, but Bryce held him and pinched his nose shut as well as covering his mouth. Remembering the word Andrea had used, he said, “Still—or else.” Threatened with suffocation, Per stopped fighting, and Bryce let him breathe again. “Make sure it’s dead,” Bryce said. “Last thing we want is it coming round and following us.”
The man who’d throttled Cuddy picked the dagger up but then just held it. He was prepared to shoot people with automatic rifles, it seemed, but not to stab a dog. “Kill it!” Bryce said.
Windsor took the dagger and knelt over the hound. Andrea turned sharply away but still heard the sounds of the dagger tearing into Cuddy, its hilt banging on her ribs. “Cut its throat!” Bryce said.
A painful sorrow for Cuddy filled Andrea. Poor Cuddy, who’d adored Per as a blend of pack leader and pup, and had never known or cared what danger she was in, set only on protecting him. Then she heard another sound: a choked, grunting, coughing sound that, when she realized what it was, made the pain in her heart well-nigh unbearable. It was Per, sobbing.
Windsor walked over to Bryce and handed him back the dagger. He was panting, and his heart was beating fast. Killing the dog had been hard work because he’d never killed anything before, and he’d thought the only way had been to go at it hard, with all his strength. He was shaking, and the sticky, greasy blood on his hands was disgusting. But he’d done it. He felt proud, exhilarated.
Per looked up at him, staring. The boy’s face was plastered with mud, but the lantern light caught the eyes, fixed on him. They seemed huge, with only a thin ring of pale blue around the dark centers. Tears were glinting in them.
“You broke off the point,” Bryce said.
Windsor laughed, boastful and appalled and scared, but quickly smothered the sound. He gave Per’s face several rapid, sharp slaps, and said, “What d’you think of that?”
Per twisted his head and bit at Windsor’s hand. He succeeded in nipping the flesh of a finger between his teeth before Windsor snatched his hand away and swung it to deliver a blow.
Bryce swore and hauled Per to his feet, yanking him away from Windsor. He put the edge of the dagger to Per’s throat. “Get that bloody gate open!”
The men rose and, leaving the lantern light behind, moved to the gate, dim shapes in darkness. Andrea went close to Per and Bryce, meaning to try and say something to Per—but he gave her such a straight, stony stare that she felt ashamed, even guilty, and looked away.
They heard the sound of the gate’s bar being lifted. From above, ringing through the dark upper air, shocking them all into silence and stillness, came a voice from the tower’s height. “Vem air day?” Who’s there?
Per gasped, and Bryce pressed the dagger’s blade harder against his neck. Andrea, though her heart thumped, realized that the watchman’s voice wasn’t too alarmed. He’d heard something but, if answered, would be satisfied. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she cupped her hands about her mouth and shouted, “Olla air rikti, min fen. Air Per oh yi.” All’s well, my friend. It’s Per and I! From the top of the tower came a laugh. She didn’t dare look at Per.
The men were struggling with the gate, lifting it up so it wouldn’t drag and make a noise. Bryce nudged Per forward. With his arms tied and the knife blade scraping his throat, Per went. His mind was racing like a river in spate, too full of Andrea’s treachery and Cuddy’s butchering and his own failure to think …
The gate was opened narrowly, and they edged through. “Ditch the lantern,” Bryce said to Andrea. “They’ll see the light.” The land in front of them looked terrifying, impenetrably black, but she set the lantern down just outside the gate.
They were at the top of the steep, rough path that led down the tower’s crag. The night was colder, now they were out from behind the shelter of the walls. A cold wind whipped past them.
The lantern, flickering behind them, was no help in descending the steep path. Holding their breath, they went forward step by step, feeling for each foothold on the pitch-black ground, never knowing when a loose stone was going to throw them down. We’re not even going to make it to the bottom of the crag, Andrea thought.
Bryce slipped, muttered, clutched and dragged at Per’s arm. Their feet kept getting tangled. He took his arm from around Per’s neck—he didn’t want to stumble and slit his prisoner’s throat by accident. Keeping a tight grip on one of Per’s arms, he pulled him along behind him.
Per sucked in one deep breath after another. The wind chilled the mud and tears on his face; his muscles trembled from effort; his lungs still felt stiff and ached; his belly still felt Windsor’s blow; but his mind was set: The Elves were not going to get away. Treacherous Andrea, Cuddy’s killer, was not going to get away.
Per knew the path better than any of them could imagine. At about midway was a wide shelf, made by an outcrop of stone projecting from the earth. He knew it when, pulled by Bryce, he half fell, half jumped down onto it. To the left of it, he knew, was a hollow, filled with low scrub, dead nettles and other herbage. In the dark, blind, he leaped into it.
He pulled Bryce off balance, and to save himself, Bryce let him go but still fell, smacking his hands down hard on the gritty rock. His legs, kicking out, knocked the man in front of him flying, with a cry.
Per landed hard too, in bushes that whipped him with their branches and bri
ers that gave him fine, smarting scratches. His arms were fastened behind him, and his shoulders were wrenched as he landed. The fall knocked the breath out of him again, but he gulped for air and yelled, in a voice he’d learned to make carry across valleys, “Arm! Arm!”
Andrea’s head jerked around. She was at the bottom of the crag but scrambled back up the path as fast as she could, colliding with confused men, pushing them aside. They would kill Per, they’d kill him!
Through the darkness, blaring like a trumpet, came Per’s voice. “Sterkarm! Sterkarm!”
She heard Bryce’s voice ahead, and a scrabbling of hands and feet. “Get him! Shut him up!”
“Don’t hurt him!” Andrea wailed.
From the tower’s height came a clamor, a ringing clamor, showering down through the air to the ground. The clumsy, tuneless bell was being rung frantically. Another voice, stronger than Per’s, less hampered by lack of breath, bawled, “Sterkarm! Sterkarm! Arm! Arm!”
22
16th Side: Hard Going
In the hall, the people danced to the beat of a drum and the music of an elbow-pipe. Joe stood among the onlookers, watching the dancers circle and interweave and whirl about. The music was toe-tapping stuff, and he grinned at the people on either side of him, who laughed back.
The shouting of the watchman, even the ringing of the bell, went unnoticed among the stamping of the dancers, the music, the clapping and laughter. It was two tired women, stepping out into the yard on their way to bed, who heard the clangor from the top of the tower. They turned and ran back up the tower’s stairs.
Inside they yelled for silence and shouted out their news, but their voices were lost. They caught the arms of people near them and yelled the warning into their faces, but were waved away. One of them fought her way through the crowd and dragged the drum out of its owner’s hands.
“Harken!” Some of those nearest, who had seen her struggle with the drummer, fell silent and looked where she pointed. From them the silence spread, and the ding and clang of the bell broke through.