The Sterkarm Handshake

by Susan Price

  Windsor lunged for the end of the cars and reached the clear aisle. A clatter of hooves warned him to look up, and he saw other horses coming at him between the cars. He ran ahead of them and threw himself against the sun-heated black metal of his own car, reaching for the nearest door—the back door.

  He got his hand around the handle and pressed the button hard. The clatter of hooves was loud and close. As he rolled himself into the car’s backseat, he heard a tearing crunch, and the car rocked, nearly tipping him out again. He clung to the front seat to hold himself in and looked back through the narrowing space as he pulled the door shut. There was a sound of gushing liquid, and a stink of petrol. A long lance shaft protruded from the torn black metal of his car’s side.

  A lance head, aimed at him, had missed and torn through the car’s bodywork, into the petrol tank. Metal screeched and tore, and the car swayed as the lance was tugged and twisted free. Stinking petrol gushed out in a stream.

  Slamming the car’s door, Windsor collapsed onto the seat and pressed the button on the central console. The lock of every door snapped shut, and the alarm was armed. For an instant he sagged and heaved for breath, feeling himself safe inside his glass-and-steel box. Then he scrambled over the backs of the front seats to reach the wheel. With luck, even though the petrol tank was punctured, there might be enough fuel remaining in a corner to get him away.

  Per, turning his horse back to the Elf-Cart, could see Windsor inside, tumbling into the driver’s seat, where he would move levers and turn the driver’s wheel to make the thing move. Per looked down at the thick, black wheels that the Elf-Cart ran on. Lifting his lance, angling it, he drove it down as hard as he could into the nearest wheel.

  It was easier than he’d thought it would be. Maybe the lance head, being cold iron, broke through the Elf-Work protecting the cart. The wheel puffed and hissed, and when Per twisted and withdrew his lance, the wheel groaned, and the whole cart began to list.

  Ecky, at the car’s other end, his lance still dripping petrol, shouted, “Sterkarm!” and drove his lance into the wheel nearest him. The car tilted still more.

  Windsor, sweating behind the steering wheel, triggered the ignition. Even on punctured wheels, he could get away …

  A third horseman, coming up behind the car, punctured a third tire. “Never mind,” Windsor whispered to himself as the car swayed. On three punctured tires, he’d slam it into reverse, and if the horses were in the way, he’d drive through them.

  Per, wheeling his horse so he could get at the other front wheel with his lance, saw the Elf-Cart’s face. It had two great glass eyes and, beneath them, a grinning mouth. With memories of heroes plunging lances into the grinning mouths of dragons, Per drove his lance into the Elf-Cart’s mouth, wrenched it out, drove it again.

  Jesus! Windsor thought. If he’s got the radiator … He pressed the ignition again, and the engine started, sending Windsor’s heart soaring as the quiet throbbing ran through the big Mercedes. The windshield might be filled with the wet black flanks of a horse, the stamping and clashing of hooves might be all around him, his own heart might be hammering in his ears and throat but he was on his way.

  He pressed down the clutch, released the handbrake, shoved the gears into reverse—and the engine stuttered, coughed, growled and died. His hand went to the ignition button, pressed, pressed again—he was holding his breath. The engine chugged and chugged—and died.

  A bang, and the windshield turned white, crazed before his eyes. He didn’t know what had happened—and then saw the long, brown shaft, passing just by his arm, passing between the two front seats, and ending in the leather of the backseat behind him. The crash of it punching through the toughened glass still dimmed his hearing and made his heart hop. He watched the shaft twist, glimpsed the shifting of the horse through the shattered, whitened glass, heard the tearing as the iron head was dragged from the leather behind him—and then the shaft blurred past, withdrawing.

  Oh God, Windsor thought. Oh God, help me. He remembered the gun in his hand and lifted it. He pointed it at the shifting shapes glimpsed through the shattered glass, found it too heavy for one shaking hand, and tried gripping it with two—then couldn’t quite decide which finger should be on the trigger.

  An explosion, of noise and of whiteness. Sharp, cutting things, glassy hailstones, flew into his face, and he closed his eyes against them, hit himself in the face with the gun as he instinctively drew back his hands to guard his face. The car alarm whooped and howled. Windsor caught a glimpse of the lance head as it smashed more of the shattered glass from the window frame. Fragments of broken glass were scattered over the car’s shining hood, and beyond that, fidgeting at the strange sound of the alarm, was a thickset black horse. Leaning far from its saddle to peer in at him through the broken windshield was the wielder of the lance.

  The rider wore no jakke and no helmet. Windsor recognized the bruises rather than the face. The nose and mouth and jaw all swollen and dirtied with bruising, and one eye half closed by the red, darkening swelling round it. The less bruised eye stared at him with a silvery fixity that seemed slightly mad.

  Per kicked his feet from the stirrups, swung his right leg over the horse, and slid down from its back. The eight-foot lance was still in his hands as he came toward the car.

  Windsor lifted the heavy gun in both hands and pointed it at Per’s face, trying to ignore the car alarm’s incessant screaming. At this range, could he miss? His hands and arms shook, both in fear of what he was going to do and see and from the weight of the gun, but he tightened his grip and held steady.

  Per hefted the lance and held it, one hand over its butt end, ready to drive it forward. The iron head pointed at Windsor’s chest. He looked into the barrel of Windsor’s Elf-Pistol. He knew that Windsor was preparing to fire it at his face and kill him. But to back down from this Elf, who had hit Andrea and killed Cuddy and punched him—the rage and humiliation would be too great. It would keep him from sleeping for three nights. At that moment, risking a pistol ball in the face seemed an easier choice. Pistols were clumsy anyway. And Windsor was surrounded by Sterkarms. Even if he hit his aim, he wouldn’t crow for long. Looking beyond the pistol barrel, into Windsor’s eyes, Per said, “Sa, shoota!” So, shoot!

  Windsor tried. His forefinger hauled at the trigger. His hands trembled. He even changed his grip, the gun slipping in sweat, and tried to pull the trigger with his other forefinger. The trigger wouldn’t move. “Shit!” He remembered how he’d played with the safety catch. He must have set it on.

  Per drew back the lance—and a banshee shrieking rang out, louder even than the wailing of Windsor’s wounded Elf-Cart, a din that rose over the roofs of the Hall, setting the horses prancing and rearing. Per turned away from Windsor, startled, looking to see what made the uncanny noise.

  Windsor squirmed in his seat, clutching at the gun, pushing at the safety catch. His heart thumped and pounded. He could hardly breathe, but he was ecstatic. He knew what the noise was: a police siren. Rescue was coming. The safety catch off, he raised the gun again, aiming at Per’s body.

  The police car drew up at the pillared entrance of Dilsmead Hall, gravel rattling against its sides. From the parking lot at the side of the hall, Joe ran hard to meet them.

  He reached the car, out of breath, and leaned on the hood. A policeman wound down his window and looked out at him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Joe could see one edge of the parking lot and Sterkarms running about on foot, with pikes, and a couple of horsemen carrying lances. “Reenactment,” Joe said. “Historical society. Battle of. Battle of Dilsmead Hall!”

  Joe backed off as the policeman opened the door and got out. “We had a report—”

  “It’s all an act!” Joe said. “A family day out.”

  The driver had got out too. “In the week?”

  “Rehearsal!”

  From the parking l
ot came an ear-thumping crack. The policemen looked at each other across the car. “Gun!”

  “Blanks!” Joe said, while wondering who had been shot.

  “That was real!”

  The driver was speaking into his radio. “—need assistance. Gunfire. Urgent assistance.”

  Joe turned and ran back toward the parking lot. God help us! he thought. Any minute now, up the drive, fast-response units with rifles in the boot and marksmen at the wheel. And who’d been shot?

  Windsor lay sprawled across the car’s front seats, toppled by the gun’s recoil. It had thrown his arms upward and punched his hands into the roof of the car, crunching and bruising his fingers. The noise had been so loud, he felt he’d been kicked in the head and then had both ears stuffed with cotton. Christ! Guns in films never sounded like that. Where the bullet went he had no idea. But the gun worked.

  Windsor hauled himself upright again. The car alarm was still whooping, the police sirens were bawling, and through all the din people could be heard shouting. Windsor aimed the gun through the broken windshield. He had to keep the Sterkarms off until the police could reach him. This time he’d be ready for the stiffness of the gun’s trigger, its powerful recoil, its noise. He pulled the trigger a second time.

  As he ran, waving his axe, Joe was desperately trying to think of the Sterkarm words he needed. Even if he could think of them, he didn’t know if he had breath to speak them. He ran between two parked cars and then along the open aisle toward the black Mercedes where the horses shied and wheeled.

  Stopping, he looked back over his shoulder and, seeing no policemen, heaved for breath. “Gaw!” he yelled, and made shooing movements in the direction of the Elf-Gate. “Backa!”

  There was another report, so loud that he tried to cover his ears with his hands despite holding the axe.

  In front of the Mercedes, a mounted man toppled from his saddle. The horse went racing away, back toward the Hall.

  Joe started running again. “Gaw! Erlf-Yett! Gaw!”

  Per’s ears were deaf from the gunshot. In ringing silence, he saw his father keel from the saddle, saw his body thump heavily into the gravel—and then the horse raced away and Toorkild was dragged behind, his foot trapped in the stirrup.

  In Per’s mind there was a collapse, a crash as if the tower had fallen. He watched as the stirrup broke and Toorkild’s body lay still while the horse sped away. Per’s next breath shook him, and he took a couple of running steps toward Toorkild before stopping, afraid to go nearer.

  Per turned, moving without thought or plan, a stillness of fury in his mind. He drove the lance through the Mercedes’ broken windshield and into Windsor.

  Windsor felt he’d been slammed in the belly with a cricket bat. He looked down and saw the lance shaft, as thick around as a woman’s wrist, leaving his belly. He said, “No!” He refused to believe it. His shirt was turning red. He could see the wood grain in the shaft. He could see it resting on the steering wheel and angling up through the broken windshield. “No,” he said. His right arm rested on the steering wheel’s other edge, and the hand was loosely clasped around the heavy gun, though his fingers were beginning to open and let it go.

  Per swam across the smooth hood of the Elf-Cart, scattering pieces of broken glass. He reached in through the window, leaning against the lance as he did so, and moving it. Windsor cried out. He tried to lift the heavy gun, but Per caught hold of it and wrenched it from his fingers. He struck Windsor across the face with it once and then threw the pistol away, onto the gravel beside the car. Pistols were clumsy and unreliable, and he wanted no part of the ill-starred weapon that had shot his father.

  Windsor lay slumped in his seat, his head on one shoulder, bleeding from the nose and mouth. Per, on the hood of the car, swiveled on his hip, sat up and got to his feet, the metal of the hood denting under his weight. He was startled when Joe suddenly appeared, yelling, beside the car, and he clutched at the lance shaft for support. “Chyo,” Per said. “Give me thine axe—give it me! I’ll take his head.”

  Joe threw his axe onto the path in front of the car. Per, standing on the hood of the car, turned in surprise and stared at it, and wasn’t prepared when Joe reached up, grabbed his wrist and yanked him from on top of the car. Per landed, staggering, and only just kept his feet.

  Joe looked back toward the front of the Hall as the din of sirens increased. The assistance the policeman had called for was arriving.

  Joe caught Per by the arms, spun him around, pushed him forward. In front of him, Per saw his father. Toorkild was looking knocked-about and shaken. He leaned against the flank of Sweet Milk’s horse, one hand pressed to his own ribs. A jakke made a good bulletproof vest.

  Per ran to his father, slowing only to avoid frightening the horse. “Daddy—thine knife! Give—”

  “Mount up.” Toorkild’s voice was thin and wheezing. He hunched as he spoke.

  “Daddy—”

  “Mount up!”

  Wat, in the saddle, held a riderless horse by the reins. Per, instead of mounting it, stood beside it and cupped his hands. Toorkild, moving awkwardly, set his foot in his son’s hands, and Per threw him up on to the horse’s back. When Toorkild was settled in the saddle, Per stood at his knee, looking up.

  Toorkild gritted his teeth against the pain of his bruised and possibly cracked ribs, and looked down at his son’s bruised, scared face. Putting his big, heavy hand on Per’s head, Toorkild turned his son’s face against his own knee, then rapped Per’s skull with his hard finger ends. “Mount. Now.”

  One of the footmen brought up the horse Toorkild had been riding. It was still skittish, and shifted and shied as Per tried to mount.

  Joe, hopping from one foot to the other, had been staring over the roofs of the cars at the corner of the Hall. He saw policemen appear, one carrying something long. A rifle?

  But the horses were moving, their hooves thumping, the muscles shifting under their shaggy coats. The footmen ran with them, often clutching at the horses’ stirrups and going in great bounds.

  Joe made to run after them, then turned back toward Windsor. He was a Sterkarm now, there was no going back on that, but … The man in the car was a man. And he had a lance stuck in him.

  The policemen were coming between the cars on the other side of the parking lot as Joe, already wincing from what he might see, peered in through the broken windshield. He saw a shirtfront soaked in blood and looked away, looked at the policemen again. One of them shouted, “Hey, you!”

  Joe knew he should run—but wondered whether he should try and pull the lance out of Windsor. Would it be good for him, or do him more harm?

  “Chyo!”

  Joe turned his head so fast he hurt his neck. Per was riding toward him, was coming back to him.

  “Go!” Joe said. “Get away!”

  Per reined in beside Joe and, looking at the policemen, offered Joe his hand. “Opp!”

  “I can’t get up there! I can’t ride! Go!”

  “Chyo! Opp!” Per took his foot from the nearer stirrup, so Joe could use it.

  Per obviously wasn’t going to go without him. The policemen were still yelling at them from the other side of the parking lot. No time, no choice. He set his foot in the stirrup, grasped Per’s hand in one of his and the back of the saddle in the other. He tried to heave himself up, and Per pulled, but Joe’s already tired leg ached under his weight; he gasped for breath and dropped back to the ground. The horse shifted, and he hopped after it, still clinging to the saddle and Per’s hand. Sweat ran into his eyes, and he felt as foolish as he did scared.

  “Stand still or we’ll fire!”

  “Hoppa, Chyo. Opp, opp! Hoppa!”

  He was hopping. The horse kept moving and he had to hop, with fresh sweat breaking out under his arms and across his back.

  “Hoppa, Chyo!” Sense broke through. He had to listen l
ike his grandad. Per was urging him not to hop, but to jump, as the older Sterkarms did when mounting, giving three little jumps before hauling themselves up. Joe gritted his teeth, took a fiercer hold on Per’s hand and saddlebow, gave three little jumps and then pushed with his leg and heaved with his shoulder, gritting his teeth harder still. Just when he thought the muscles of his thigh would crack, and his arm come out of his shoulder, he found himself lifting up on a level with Per. Desperately, he swung his right leg over, and had no time to enjoy his triumph before the horse was moving, terrifyingly fast, and he was clinging to Per, his backside jolting against iron-hard bones, his inner thighs and bits being bruised against the high back of the saddle.

  From behind them came the deafeningly loud crack of a firearm—but higher pitched than the sound Windsor’s gun had made. The policemen were firing at them. Joe held his breath, thinking either he or Per, or the horse must have been hit. But Per laughed—he actually laughed, when Joe had never felt less like laughing—and the horse went on pounding along, the grass and redbrick going by in a blur. How much did it hurt, to fall off a horse? Joe wondered. As he was jolted again and again on the horse’s hard bones, and the hard saddle, he thought it couldn’t possibly hurt more than riding one.

  Ingram had turned his horse back to look for them, and he fell in behind them, guarding their backs. They turned the corner of the Hall, and there was the Elf-Gate, with a knot of Sterkarms, on horse and on foot, gathered before it.

  “Entraya!” Per called out, and kissed his hand, and there was Andrea, on foot alongside them, trying to stay with them as they joined the other horses.

  Per, still breathlessly laughing, reined in. Wat turned his horse toward them.