The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price

darkness of the narrow valley was an uproar of bleating and shouting, a stink of sheep and blood, a thumping and panting, a din of iron, all echoing dismally between the hills.
    The fight was already ending, the din dying away, the press of horses slackening. A brightening of the moon showed Grannams surrounded, threatened by lances. They were throwing down their weapons and calling out their ransom prices, hoping to save their lives. Per threw back his head and filled his lungs. He’d come through unscathed. A few bruises, nothing more.
    Reining in Fowl, he rose in his stirrups, peering about for any of his own tower men. And then he thought of how the story would be told back at the tower and realized that he hadn’t done enough. One man toppled from his saddle wasn’t much to set against the burning farm—or the dressing-down Gobby had given him. Would Andrea be impressed with one man downed? Kicking Fowl, he guided him around the knot of horsemen and prisoners, hoping for some unfinished skirmish.
    His eye was caught by movement farther down the valley. Horsemen, flitting through the shifting moonlight, going recklessly fast over the rough ground, two of them. Grannams for sure—escaping! He raised his bloody lance, yelled, “Sterkarm!” and kicked Fowl after them.
    Most Sterkarms were busy with the prisoners. If they heard the call, they left it to others to answer. It was Sweet Milk, riding down from his end of the valley, where his share of the skirmish was finished, who saw the chase of riders. Rising in his stirrups, he recognized the pursuing rider by his movements, by the lance in his left hand.
    Sweet Milk cursed, broke off, yelled, “Tower!” Looking around, and seeing few taking any interest, he changed the shout to “May!” A couple of horses were kicked toward him. He pointed down the valley with his lance, kicking on his horse. After him came Sim, Davy, Ecky and Hob.
    As his body was jarred by the hard ride, Sweet Milk tried to watch the rough and rock-strewn ground ahead of his horse, and watch the chase too. Somewhere at the back of his mind was a grudge that he had to stir himself to this when he’d thought the worst of it was over.
    The Grannams were still ahead, but Per was catching them. Both would turn on him. Sweet Milk felt a desperation, a sense of reaching to catch something he knew was going to fall through his fingers and smash. Filling his lungs, he yelled, “Per!” He wasn’t heard.
    The leading Grannam set his horse at the steep hillside; if there was a track there, Sweet Milk couldn’t see it. The second tried to follow, but his horse balked, slipped back, fell and rolled.
    Sweet Milk saw Per set Fowl at the slope, intent on chasing the escaping Grannam whose horse was, with difficulty, scrambling toward the hilltop. One Grannam wasn’t worth the risk. Sweet Milk filled his lungs to call Per back again, but before he had the breath, he glimpsed a man on foot running nimbly up the slope toward Per: the Grannam from the fallen horse, unhurt but with sword upraised.
    A horse passed Sweet Milk, racing. Ecky, with lance leveled. Sweet Milk yelled, “Per!”
    Per heard only the rattle of stones dislodged by the Grannam above him, saw only the frightened backward glances of the man, which urged him on. The unhorsed man he’d forgotten. He kicked Fowl again, who disliked being alone, without other familiar horses around him, and was unwilling to climb the difficult slope. He kept turning his head back to the valley floor, and Per pulled his head around, kicked him, urged him on, whacked his rump with the butt of his lance, set on taking his own prisoner, a man Gobby would have let escape.
    He didn’t hear Sweet Milk yelling, and only saw the swoop of the sword blow from the corner of his eye when it was too late to avoid it. Down the blade came, hard as a cudgel blow but with a cutting edge—and it felt like a