The Sterkarm Handshake (14 page)

He straightened his back and made himself look at the things. Studied them. He leaned closer, making sure he missed nothing. The stump of bone at the center of the neck. The pipes of the throat, cut through. The hacked flesh. A musty, slightly sour smell, with a tang of iron, filled his head. That's the smell of blood, he thought, and swallowed hard again. A picture formed in his head, of himself in his smart suit, coolly looking these things over, and he nodded, feeling proud of himself, even though his fists were clenched. He doubted if many other FUP executives would have been able to do it.

But the Sterkarms must have cut off this head and hand. Who else? The hospitable, kindly Sterkarms, who were all around him, who had mischievously robbed his research teams but not done them any harm. He felt, all in a moment, a good deal less safe. And even less able to trust Toorkild than before. How could you make any kind of deal with the—savages—who would do this?

Someone barged into him, staggering him, yelling in his ear. He turned, heart skipping, and it was Andrea. He was glad to see her. He pointed to the bloody thing hanging from the saddle. “Have you seen that?”

She didn't even look. “You've got to, you've got to!” she said.

Being told that he “had to” always set him against whatever it was. He told other people what they had to do—they didn't tell him. They asked him, at most. The annoyance helped him recover a little from his shock. He tried to turn away from the horse, so that he couldn't see the head, but found himself peering from the corners of his eyes, keeping it in sight as if it might get up to something behind his back. “What have I ‘got to do,' please tell me?”

“He's dying!” she said. “We've got to take him through!”

“What are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, she took him by the arm and dragged him along, using both hands to pull when he resisted. He went with her, and the crowd parted to make way. Windsor looked around at them, not altogether happy at being surrounded by Sterkarms who, with their helmets and beards and rumpled clothes, all looked so—so
other
.

They stopped, and Windsor looked down on a robe spread on the grass, with pretty Mrs. Sterkarm kneeling by it. She was blood-stained. Toorkild, for some strange Sterkarm reason, was lying at full length on his side, with the robe over him, as if he'd decided to sleep on the hillside outside his tower. So many people were standing or kneeling around the robe, getting in the way, that it was a moment before Windsor realized that Toorkild was holding someone else, pillowing the other's head on his shoulder, and talking as he stroked and kissed the other's face. Mrs. Sterkarm kept stroking the head of the person Toorkild was cuddling and bending down to kiss it. All Windsor could glimpse of this person, as people bobbed in and out of his view, was a face as white as vanilla ice cream, streaked and smeared with blood.

“He's dying!” Andrea said.

“Who is?” Windsor asked.

With both outflung arms, Andrea indicated the still figure under the robe. “Per! For God's sake, we've got to be quick!”

Bryce rose from among the people gathered around the robe and came over to them. “We're keeping him warm, but …” He shrugged.

Windsor looked around at the gathering of horses and people, at the men who wore helmets, at the long lances stuck into the turf. He remembered the severed head and hand, the very smell of them. It all came together, and he realized he was looking at a ride—a raid. Which FUP had forbidden. Even while he'd been making a deal with Toorkild about leaving the survey teams alone, Toorkild's son—who had robbed the survey team—had been on a ride. God, what people!

Andrea pulled at his arm and yelled at him again that someone was dying. Her yelling and dragging at him jangled his nerves. “I'm not a doctor! What do you expect me to do about it?”

She was waving her clenched fists in the air and yelling, her plaits falling down. “A blood transfusion! We can put him in your car! Take him through to the 21st!”

“No,” Windsor said. “Absolutely not.”

Andrea lowered her hands. Her face lost its anger. She stared at him, openmouthed.

Bryce's head made a bobbing motion. He said,
“What?”

Windsor was disappointed in him. He would have expected Bryce to see reason. He had thought that Bryce lived in the real world.

“He's
dying
!” Andrea said.

“You don't know that. Stop being hysterical. I should think getting him into a warm bed instead of leaving him lying out here in the rain would do him a power of good.”

Andrea and Bryce looked at each other, then faced Windsor again. Bryce said, “We
do
know he's dying.” He took no notice of Andrea's start. “He's in shock from blood loss.”

“They all know he's going to die!” Andrea said. “That's why they're keening!”

“I don't know exactly how bad he is,” Bryce said, “but I'm telling you, James, in my opinion, from my knowledge and experience, if he doesn't get treatment soon, he
will
die.”

“I'm sorry,” Windsor said, “but whose fault is that? The very reason we forbade these rides is that people get hurt.” In his mind was another image of himself: cool, detached and smart in his dark suit, the only adult among a rabble of overgrown children. The only one adult enough to see beyond the pathetic, white-faced, dying boy to the larger issues. That was what he was paid the Big Ks for: to put things into clear, cold, adult perspective. “If you play with fire, you get burned. Perhaps a lesson will be learned here.” He became aware that the conversation was attracting the attention of the Sterkarm thugs who stood all around him, and he was sorry he'd come so far from his car. He took a couple of slow, sidelong steps toward it.

“We're wasting time!” Andrea yelled. She actually stamped her feet in a kind of dance.

Several of the Sterkarm men around her, though they couldn't have understood what she said, stiffened at her shout and looked at Windsor. He turned, to make for his car, and found that a couple of men were in his way. Both were tall and bulky, both bearded. They glowered at him from beneath the shadows of their helmets. One held a lance that had to be something like eight feet long; the other had his hand on his belt, at which hung a long knife. Windsor hesitated. He could, of course, just walk around them, but he wasn't sure they would let him.

“Mr. Windsor,” Andrea said. “If you'll take Per through, I'll tell Old Toorkild that you tried to save him—and if you do save him, you'll be able to make any deal you please, anything, Toorkild'll do anything for you if you save his son. But if you leave him here, leave him here to … if you leave him here, I'll tell Toorkild what you've said—”

“Andrea!” Bryce said.

“I'll tell everyone here, now, what you said!”

Windsor saw, behind her, the Sterkarm men gathering closer, all armed, all staring at him. These were the men who had hacked through a man's neck and wrist and brought the parts home with them. Windsor disliked few things more than having to back down, but he wasn't fool enough to die first. He looked at Andrea. “I hope you're at home here, because you don't have a job 21st side.” He felt in his pocket for his keys. “I'll get the engine started.”

He started toward his car, and the two big Sterkarm bruisers moved into his way. He saw them glance past him to Andrea, like dogs to their trainer. Behind him, Andrea called out something in Sterkarm, and the thugs stepped aside. His keys in his hand, he made for the car. I'll start the engine all right, he thought. I'll get in and drive off. Then he saw one of the Sterkarm thugs lope past him, a long, long lance in his hand, and reach the car first.

Andrea had run back to the people gathered around the stretcher, crouching to take one of the poles herself. “Carry him to Elf-Cart!”

Toorkild scrambled from under the robe and took one of the poles nearest his son's head; and Isobel, Sweet Milk, Gobby and others all made to help lift the stretcher. “Why to Elf-Cart?” Toorkild said.

Andrea was opening her mouth to answer when Per gave a small cry. Up flew one side of the fur robe that covered him, and Cuddy, snarling, quivering, planted herself astride him. Her black, trembling lips were drawn back from inches of teeth, her neck ruff bristled, her ears were laid flat and white showed all around her eyes. People moved back so fast that the stretcher was all but dropped, and as it hit the ground, Per cried out again. Cuddy's growl grew louder. She whipped around, facing them all off. Cuddy wasn't a dog to take chances with. She weighed almost as much as a man, and was more powerful.

“You stupid hound, we have no time!” Andrea made a grab for Cuddy's collar from behind—and leaped back as the dog spun with frightening speed. The big white teeth clacked, actually scraping her arm and leaving it wet.

Both Sweet Milk and Gobby moved in, trying to catch the hound, but she leaped at them, coming up on her hind legs as tall as a man, then thumping down to stand over Per again. She growled even at Toorkild, who stubbornly kept his grip on the stretcher pole and bared his own teeth at the hound.

Andrea was pulling at her own hair. “Hurry!”

A couple of Gobby's men succeeded in catching Cuddy by the collar while Sweet Milk held her attention. She snarled and snapped and struggled as the two of them, with difficulty, dragged her away.

People had pounced for the poles of the stretcher, and lifted it up as soon as the hound was clear of it. “Elf-Cart!” Andrea said again, and they obeyed her— because she was an Elf-Woman, she supposed, and only the Elves could save Per now.

“What power be in Elf-Cart?” Toorkild asked breathlessly. Andrea just nodded her head to tell them to go on.

When they reached the car, it hadn't been started “They won't let me in!” Windsor said when Andrea looked at him. Several of the Sterkarm men, all armed, from both Toorkild's and Gobby's bands, had ranged themselves around the car. Andrea couldn't blame Windsor for being afraid to try and push past them.

“Stand aside!” she said. She pushed Sterkarms out of the way and yanked open the back door. “Inside! Put him inside!”

Bryce was one of the stretcher bearers, and he climbed into the car. He tried to pull the stretcher in, but Toorkild held it back—halfheartedly, but he was still hindering.

“We're taking him through Gate to Elf-Land,” Andrea said. “We'll make him well—we'll do our best—I promise—”

Windsor had got into the driver's seat and triggered the ignition. The car throbbed and growled. Several of the Sterkarms sprang back from it, and Toorkild moved as if he were going to grab Per up and carry him away bodily.

Andrea hugged Toorkild's wide back, trying to contain his fear. “It's all right, Elf-Cart does that, tha knows it does. And we can heal, tha knows it—we've got magic. Be so kind, Toorkild, let us take him!”

Isobel gave her husband a hefty punch on the arm. “Let her take him!”

Toorkild stopped resisting and helped shove the stretcher into the car, where, being narrow, it fitted on the wide floor. Between them, Bryce and Toorkild lifted Per onto the backseat. Toorkild settled himself on the car's floor, his arm resting across Per. Isobel, unable to climb past her husband's bulk, ran around the car to the other door.

Andrea ran after her. “No—tha can no come.” Isobel yanked at the unfamiliar handle on the door. “Toorkild, get out, tha must get out—we can no take you all.”

Windsor had been watching through his mirror, his teeth gritted. While Andrea and Bryce scrambled half in and half out of his backseat, he couldn't drive off, and now the meat was loaded into his car, he supposed he was committed, but he was damned if he was going to take half the Sterkarm tribe through the Tube. He turned off the ignition, and the car stilled, startling the Sterkarms all over again. “Tell them to get out,” Windsor said. “Out, or the Elf-Magic doesn't work.”

“Isobel!” Andrea said. “Magic's stopped working! We can only take Per, or magic will no work and he'll have to stay here.” Oh, for God's sake! she thought as Isobel gawped at her. We haven't time for this. She had an impulse to slap Isobel hard. “Get out of Elf-Cart, Toorkild, be so good. Let us take him and heal him, so kind. I promise I'll look after him, I swear it, I vow it. Tha no thinks I'd let owt happen to him, dost?” She shook both clenched fists. “Oh, God's teeth, Toorkild, get out of Cart or we can no take him!”

Toorkild's big face, seen through the car windows, was set. Andrea stared at him for an age. The Sterkarms believed that the Elves could heal and that they sometimes did kindnesses for mortals, but they also believed Elves to be unpredictable and untrustworthy, as likely to blight as to heal. It was well known that Elves liked to steal handsome young men, who were carried into Elf-Land and never returned or were kept until a hundred years had passed.

Isobel let go of the car door, ran around the car again, set her foot against the body and hauled Toorkild from the car. Toorkild allowed himself to be dragged, stumbling, out onto the grass, but as Bryce reached over and pulled the door shut in his face, he said, “Bring him back alive or no come back!”

Andrea opened the door Isobel had been struggling with and climbed in beside Bryce. Windsor started the engine before she had the door shut. Bryce was tucking the robe closer around Per and propping up his feet. As the car slowly started rolling forward, Andrea settled herself on the floor and slipped her arm beneath Per's head. The car lurched, and she braced her feet against the front seats, braced her back against the backseat, struggling to hold Per still on the seat and cushion his head against the jolting and swaying.

She could hardly bear to look at him, he was so unlike himself. His face was so pale and damp, it had the ghastly, greasy quality of candle tallow. He was working hard to breathe, straining and gulping. They heard every breath he took. His left arm was bundled in the robe and trapped against Andrea, but his right hand pawed and clutched at her. She caught hold of it, and it was icy. “All be right, all be braw. Thou'rt safe, all be well, I be here.”