A Sterkarm Kiss (24 page)

But then there was no one nearby with water or milk, and the flames crackled again on the thatch overhead, and the shutters and a ladder were burning. Through their feet they felt the tremor of another explosion, and a heavy despair settled at Mistress Crosar's heart.

A crack, and a wicked, hissing shearing of metal. Hot, sharp fragments bit deep into the wall nearby, making Mistress Crosar flinch. A woman hurrying up with another bucket gave a great gasp, wailed, and fell. Mistress Crosar dropped her bucket, trampled over the remains of smoldering thatch, and bent over the woman, who squealed and sobbed in pain and fright. Above them flames leaped up onto the thatch. Mistress Crosar stooped and heaved the woman into her arms, ignoring her struggles and cries of pain, and with another heave dragged her toward the end of the alley. Through the smoke came another woman, who bundled up the injured woman's legs and skirts. Another explosion, more cries of alarm.

They emerged into the small yard area before the tower. Someone running past barged into Mistress Crosar and almost knocked her from her feet. From all around came screams, cries, shouts, and the sounds and stinks of burning. Mistress Crosar was aware, too, of small, smarting, bleeding cuts on her hands and face. A
whumf!
—a sound both loud and soft—made them look up, into a glare of heat and firelight, as a whole thatch went up. Still holding the injured woman in her arms, Mistress Crosar shouted, “Fill more buckets! Fill more—” She realized that, though people were running past, dodging in and out of the smoke, no one was listening to her or noticing her at all. Oh God, she thought, looking at the flames and shifting shadows through clouds of smoke: I may not live through this. Oh God: Receive my soul. Oh God: Have a care for my niece, Joan. She's but a lassie, after all, and not the worst of them.

Per watched the Elf-Shot arcing through the air and falling behind the tower walls. His heart rose with it and beat faster. Smoke rose from the burning, and between the dull blows of explosions shrill cries could be heard. That was fear he was hearing. His body recognized it and responded with its own fear and excitement.

He shifted his hands on the long shaft of the axe; shifted them again and again as they sweated, thinking of his father in his grave, his father's brother and his cousin Ingram bundled in beside him. Deliberately he loosed his rage, and it burned up and burned hot. Opening his mouth, he pulled in deep breaths to fuel it. Soon, he knew, he was going to fight desperate, trapped men.

The Elves ran forward, knelt, and sent one of their shots right through the tower's gate, like a visitor coming to call. Smoke, dust, and noise came pouring out from the opening.
“Gaw noo!”
Patterson yelled.
“Gaw noo!” Go
now!

Per looked around. Everyone was looking at every other man and hanging back. They all knew that, when they went into that narrow space, into the smoke darkness, there would be men waiting with axes, with clubs, with spears. The first man through would be killed, if he was lucky. Maimed if he was not.

Per ran at the gatehouse. If he thought about it, he wouldn't do it. Behind him, men yelled, “Sterkarm!” and followed him.

The broken stones of the gatehouse and the twisted remains of the yett gave out heat as Per ducked into the low opening. His nose was filled with an Elvish reek, his lungs with choking smoke that made him feel he'd been punched in the chest. His hair moved beneath his helmet and his skin prickled with the expectation of an axe in the face. Then he was through the gatehouse's tunnel and into the courtyard, where there was more air, though much smoke, and here was a man, swinging at him.

He sprang sideways, collided with a hard, solid body, which fell. Per fell on top of the man, a yell in his ears. He struggled to rise, bruising himself on the iron plates in his own jakke and the hard bones of the fighting man beneath him. Desperate because he couldn't see what was behind and above him, or to the side, Per hammered at the fallen man with the blunt end of his axe shaft and, when the man stilled, lurched to his feet, turning to glimpse, in the smoke, the dark shape of a man behind him.

“Sterkarm!” it said, in Sweet Milk's voice, and Per fell in with him, both of them peering into the smoke ahead of them. Something moved, and Per lunged at it, feeling a rush in his ears as he sensed his opponent's sharp-edged blow coming at him. His axe blade connected, jarring up the bones of his arms and into his shoulders. He was tugged sideways by the trapped axe as the man he'd hit fell. Per tugged, but the axe didn't come free—it wasn't a weapon he was used to. Behind and around him was a tin-pot clattering, a babble of yells, screams, heavy footfalls, bashes as bodies fell against walls, gasps, coughs, barking of dogs, and screaming of alarmed sheep and pigs.

Per tugged frantically at the axe—while it was trapped, he was weaponless. He staggered as it came free but managed to kick aside the axe blade that was feebly raised against him from the ground. He swung around, but no one was near him. In that few eye blinks he realized that he was in the tower and, as yet, without a scratch. He raised an exultant yell of “Sterkarm!”

The smoke was clearing and he could see Grannam men, their dirty faces set in grins under their helmets, holding axes at the ready. One lay on the ground, screaming in short gasps, but there was no time to give him any attention. The defenders were battered, confused, and scared; they took short steps backward, but still they were there to stop the Sterkarms crossing the paved yard and entering the maze of little alleys and closes where the women and children were fighting fires.

Per sprang forward, swinging his axe in an arc, and the Grannams, unnerved by the Elf-Shot, stumbled back. But they had axes too, and Per halted. Fighting on foot, with an axe, was not what he was trained for, but he knew the long axe was a terrible weapon. If he swung at their legs, they could aim a blow that would take off his head. If he swung at their heads, they could cut him off at the knees.

He swung the axe in a figure eight, going forward, yelling, “Sterkarm!” The Grannams hastily fell back, but then they were at the entrances to the alleys. Their women and children were behind them, and they stopped.

Per stopped. Other men were coming up behind him, footmen who knew how to use the axe. He could send them forward, but—then it wouldn't be his leadership that gained his revenge.

“Mind your backs.” Patterson shouldered through, the other Elves shoving behind him. They raised Elf-Pistols. The noise sent the Sterkarms spinning away: a harsh, deafening chatter. The Grannams went down, yelling out, pouring blood. The Elf-Balls punched through jakkes, shattered legs, ripped out chunks of flesh, exploded heads. The Sterkarms fell back and gaped.

The pistols stopped, and the sounds were moans, women's cries, the crackling and roaring of fire, a pig screaming in panic.

Per felt anger at being robbed, then relief at still being alive and unhurt—especially looking at the butcher's shambles before him. Then he felt joy: of being alive, of winning, of revenge. He yelled, “Sterkarm!” and ran into the nearest alley, jumping over, jumping on, the bodies that lay in the way. Behind him he heard running feet and his own cry repeated.

Here, in the alleys, was more smoke and the thick stink of damp, burning thatch. Flames roared, and the air jumped. It was hot. A shadow moved in the smoke, and Per swung his axe at it, chopping it down. Its cry of appalled surprise and pain was a woman's. Per stamped his foot against the fallen body, jerked the axe free, and ran on.

The clothes of the woman at her feet were rapidly soaking with blood, the thatches above were burning, and from nearer the tower's gate came yells and a clattering, then screams and cries of “Sterkarms! Sterkarms!”

It was a warning, shouted in panic. The women stopped trying to help those hurt. They stopped trying to put out the fire—instead they ran through the narrow alleys for the tower, jumping or tripping over the wounded, flinching from flames, bumping into one another. Once behind the tower's thick door and iron yett, inside its stone walls, they would be safe.

Mistress Crosar didn't run. She caught at the arms of those passing. “Help—” None wanted to help her carry the wounded woman. There wasn't time. “Wait—”

“Sterkarms!” a woman screamed in her face, and shoved her away.

Mistress Crosar heard a male yell, a roar of wordless anger. She saw figures move in the smoke. She ran for the tower herself. An axe chopped into her back, knocking her flat in the mud and smoldering, fallen thatch. The axe chopped at her head. Then the man trod on her as he ran on to the tower.

The yard of the tower was crowded with storehouses, stables, kennels, smithies, dairies—all of them thatched and most of them with wooden upper stories. Many of them were now well ablaze, and most were somewhere on fire. The glaring, shifting light reflected off the thick smoke, which filled the alleys, stinking and clogging the lungs. Burning thatch fell and whole walls threatened to come down. The heat was intense.

“Out!” Patterson yelled, and made shooing signals at his men.

The Sterkarms were still hunting through the alleys, yelling and whooping hunting calls, mad to kill and utterly blind to danger.

The Elves made their way back to the gatehouse and ruined gate. Fire made them turn back twice, seeking another way through the alleys. The roar of burning and the heat was constant, and Patterson was sure that he'd left it too late and trapped his men as well as himself. But they found the gatehouse and emerged thankfully on the hillside, where it was relatively free of smoke, and cool, and open. The men he'd left on watch were waiting, with Gareth.

Patterson laid down his gun, and while removing his helmet and wiping his dirty, sweating face, he stood in front of Gareth, looking at the kid's anxious face. He said, “Fuck me. Wind 'em up and let 'em go.”

“What?” Gareth said. He kept glancing from Patterson to the smoke and flames rising above the tower walls. He was trying to keep himself from asking if that should be happening.

“Your pals. They're still in there.”

“Mad buggers,” Atwood said without admiration.

“Place is burning down around their ears,” Patterson said, “but they don't want to miss anybody out.”

“Women and bloody kids,” another man said.

Burnett laughed. “Equal fucking opportunities.”

Yes, but they're not real people, Gareth found himself thinking. They're history-book people, not real people. It's only like turning a page in a history book—“Brackenhill Tower was taken by assault.”

A woman's yell rose above the noise of the fire—not the operatic scream of a film's soundtrack but the choked, astonished yell of a woman whose voice only reached that pitch and volume because of a terror and desperation that Gareth had never felt in his life—but an impression of it thrilled along his nerves at the sound. All the men looked around and froze at that yell—then realized that there was nothing they could do, and relaxed.

“Happy days,” Patterson said.

The Sterkarms came ducking out of the gatehouse, coughing, gasping, spitting, and ran over to them. Not all of them were there, and as they came nearer, the faces under the helmets were so streaked with blood, sweat, and dirt that they were impossible to recognize. And they were carrying heads. Human heads were dangling from their hands by the hair. They slowed to a walk near the Elves, and they were laughing. They threw the heads down on the hard ground. Thump, they went.

Gareth looked away as soon as he realized what the things were, but then he looked back again, fascinated. He'd never seen a head, cut off, before. He had to know the worst. They looked surprisingly normal. Just heads, but ending at the neck. He felt himself turning cold, shudders running through his flesh. These had been people, alive, full of their own concerns … If this could be done to them, it could be done to him.

Someone slapped his shoulder and made him jerk with shock. It was Patterson, yelling at him. “What?”

“What's he saying?”

The man beside Patterson was Per Sterkarm—Gareth could see that, now he'd wrenched off his helmet. His fair hair stuck up in sweat-fixed spikes. Per pointed back toward the tower and said something urgently. Gareth tried to concentrate, with his eyes straying again toward the heads lying on the ground. One was a
woman's
head. A woman …

“What's he bloody say?”

“Ahh … he wants you to put a shell—or a rocket, or whatever they are—through the roof of the tower,” Gareth said.

“There's only women and kids in there,” Burnett said. “We ain't doing that, Skip. Are we?”

Per pointed to the burning tower. “That be a beacon fire. Every Grannam who sees it will light beacons, and they'll come here with as many men as they can raise. And more will come after. Can you kill them all? Even with your Elf-Cannon, can you kill them all?” He paused, to let Gareth translate, but paced up and down and didn't let Gareth finish before adding, “If we leave tower, they'll use it again—use it against us. Put a bomb through its roof. Do it now!”

Gareth stumbled over the words. He found them turning to dry, clogging earth in his mouth, almost impossible to form or spit out. Never before had his words been directly responsible for killing. But by the time his voice dried altogether, he'd translated enough.

In silence Patterson stooped, took a rocket from the box at his feet, and loaded it into his launcher.

“Skipper—” Burnett said.

“See that?” Patterson nodded toward the heads lying on the ground. “You think we've got nothing to do with that?” He knelt, raising the launcher to his shoulder.

“We're just doing their dirty work,” Burnett said.

Another man, Ledbury, took out a rocket and loaded it. “We're being paid to do their dirty work.” He loaded and knelt.