A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price

Author:Susan Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2016-06-10T14:21:13+00:00

14

16th Side: So Braw a Man

Per and Sweet Milk crouched to examine the hole at the base of the dry-stone wall. The shell, or bomb, or missile, or whatever it was called—Andrea really didn’t know—had struck at the wall’s base, digging into the earth and partially undermining it. Some stones had been smashed, some cracked and chipped, some displaced. Others were falling into the hole. The wall was still standing, but toppling.

The Sterkarms looked at each other, awe on their faces. To achieve a similar result they would have needed heavy, cumbersome cannon, with teams of horses to drag them into position, and more horse teams and carts to bring up the barrels of gunpowder and the heavy iron balls. In the Sterkarms’ hilly, broken, almost trackless country, where everything was carried on the backs of pack ponies, this wasn’t possible. Indeed, if the kings of England and Scotland had been able to drag cannon over the hills to ding down their towers, their homes would have been rubble long before.

But they had just watched one Elf-Man hold something like a tube on his shoulder and, with a shocking, cracking boom, fire from it a small object that had dug a hole in the earth and all but brought down a wall.

The man who had fired the missile was named Patterson: a thick-set man with a red face that seemed made of slabs of meat. His dark hair was shaved close to his skull, its dark shadow matching the shadow around his jaws. With a smile he said to Andrea, “Another shot and I’d have that wall down.” His manner was affable. How could he, she thought, be affable and yet be willing to do what he was doing?

She told the Sterkarms what he’d said. Per sprang upright, his face alight with enthusiasm. Her heart ached to see his eagerness.

Patterson swung around and pointed up the hill to the tower. “That’d take longer. It’s solid stone, well built. But a couple of us—give us an hour—we could take that gatehouse out.”

Andrea, feeling like a machine, listlessly translated what he’d said while asking herself how she could have been so stupid. Accurate maps and walkie-talkies! What other help would Windsor offer against the Grannams except weaponry? Now, surrounded by excited Sterkarms, she could hardly refuse to translate.

Per was grinning, his eyes shining. With the Elves’ help revenge for his father was a sure thing. Sweet Milk’s expression, as ever, was harder to read. He stood by, his arms folded. Windsor had his hands in his pockets, watching them all like an indulgent father who was giving everyone a treat.

“Show us grenates!” Per said, and they walked off together, the Sterkarms and the Elf-Men, walking along the side of Bedes Water.

A small sheepfold had been built, of dry-stone walls, at a distance from the river. In one corner of the fold, withy hurdles had penned a sheep. It wasn’t the fat, white, woolly thing that the 21st siders would have called a

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