The Merchants’ War

change?”

“Yes.” Miriam took a mouthful of coffee. “Something went wrong here. I think it was something to do with the French administration of England after the invasion, in the eighteenth century. In my world, a lot of the industrialization you’ve had here in the past hundred years happened in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in England. Over in this world it started late and it’s still happening here, in New Britain. Things are further ahead in the United States, the nation on this continent where I come from. And in other countries in the other world. That doesn’t mean things are necessarily better—they’ve got big problems, too. But no kings, at least not many: most countries got rid of them over the past century. And better science and technology. Cures for tuberculosis.”

“How do your relatives, this Clan, account for their power? I’d have thought that if they live in a backward society it would be difficult to rise.”

Miriam put her mug down. “They’re smugglers,” she said bluntly. “In their own world, they are the only people who can get messages across the continent in anything less than weeks. They use the U.S. postal service to accomplish miracles, in the terms of their own world. And they’ve got modern firearms and lots of toys, because in my world they smuggle illegal drugs: they can guarantee to get them past the Coast Guard and police and border patrols. They’re immensely rich merchant princes. But they’re trapped by the society they live in. The old nobility don’t accept them, the peasants resent them, and the crown—” She shook her head, unable to continue.

“You said someone tried to kill you today. Which world did this happen in?”

“The Clan’s,” Miriam said automatically. She picked her mug up, took a sip, rolled it nervously between her palms. “I, when they discovered me, I needed to figure out a way to make some space for myself. I’m not used to having a big extended family who expect me to fit in. And there aren’t enough of them. They wanted me to marry for political reasons. I tried to—hell, I made a big mistake. Tried to get political leverage, to make them leave me alone. Instead I nearly got myself killed. They left the, the political marriage as a compromise, a way out. Tonight was meant to be the official betrothal. Instead…”

She put the mug down. “The groom is dead,” she said. “No, no need for condolences—I barely knew him. There was an attack on the betrothal party, and I only just managed to escape. And the United States government has found out about the Clan and discovered a way to get at the Clan’s world.”

Her eyes widened. “Hey, I wonder if Angbard knows?”

Mike’s first hint that something had gone badly wrong was the scent of burning gunpowder on the night air.

He hunkered down behind a large, gnarled oak tree at the edge of the tree line and squinted into the darkness. Hastert and his men had night vision goggles, but they hadn’t brought a spare pair for Mike and the moon wasn’t an adequate substitute. The stone wall across the clear-cut lawn was a looming black silhouette against a slightly lighter darkness. The sounds drifting over the wall told their own story of pain and confusion and anger: it sounded like there was a riot going on in the distance, still punctuated with the flat bangs of black powder weapons and the bellowing of men like cattle funneled into the killing floor of an abattoir.

A shadowy figure moved across the empty space. Someone tapped Mike lightly on the shoulder, and he jerked half-upright. “Let’s move,” whispered Hastert. “After me.” He rose lightly, and before Mike could say anything he faded into the gloom.

Mike forced himself to stand up. He’d been crouching for so long that his knees ached—and the nervous apprehension wasn’t helping, either. What have I gotten myself into? It seemed to be the story of his life, these days. He shifted his weight from side to side, restoring the circulation in his legs, then took a step through the undergrowth around the big oak tree.

There was a sharp cracking noise, a moment’s vibration as if a bowstring the size of a suspension bridge had just been released, and an excruciating pain lanced through his left leg, halfway between ankle and knee. He gasped with agony, too shocked to scream, and began to topple sideways. The serrated steel jaws buried in his leg were brought up sharply by the chain anchoring them to the oak tree, and dug their teeth into his shattered leg. Everything went black.

An indeterminate time later, Mike felt an urgent need to spit. His mouth hurt; he’d bitten his tongue and the sharp taste of blood filled his mouth. Why am I lying down? he wondered vaguely. Bad thought: In his mind’s inner eye his leg lit up like a torch, broken and burning. He drew breath to scream, and a hand covered his mouth.

“O’Neil, get me a splint. Lower leg fracture, looks like tibia and fibula both. Fleming, I’m going to stick a morphine syrette in you. Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here. Fuck me, that’s a nasty piece of work.” The hand moved away from his mouth. “Here, bite this if it helps.” Something leathery pushed at his lips. Mike gritted his teeth and tried not to scream as the bones grated. “I’m going to have to get this fucker off you before we can splint your leg and get you out of here.” A tiny sharpness bit into his leg near the searing agony. “How does it…eh. Got it. This is going to hurt—”

A sudden flare of pain arrived, worse than anything that had come before. Mike blacked out again.

The next time he woke up, the pain had subsided. That’s better, he thought drowsily. It was comfortable, lying down on the ground: must be the morphine. Someone was tugging at his leg, lifting and moving it and tying stuff tightly around it. That was uncomfortable. Something told him he ought to be screaming his head off, but it was too much effort right now. “What is it?” he tried to ask aloud, but what came out was a drunken-sounding mumble.

“You stuck your foot in some kind of man trap. Spring-loaded, chained to the tree, scary piece of shit. It broke your leg and chewed up your calf muscles like a hungry great white. Fuck, why didn’t nobody tell us these medievals had anti-personnel mines?” Hastert sounded distinctly peevish, in a someone’s-going-to-get-hurt way. “Now we’re going to have to carry you.”

“Don’t—” Mike tried to say. His mouth was dry: but he felt okay. Just let me lie here for a couple of hours, I’ll be fine, he heard himself thinking, and tried to laugh at his own joke. The darkness was florid and full of patterns, retinal rod cells firing in aimless and fascinating fractals to distract him from the pain. Medieval minefield, medieval minefield, he repeated over and over to himself. Someone grunted and dragged his arm over their shoulder, then heaved him upright. His left leg touched ground and he felt light-headed, but then he was dangling in midair. Shark bite. Hey, I’m shark bait. He tried not to giggle. Be serious. I’m in enemy territory. If they hear us…

There was a wall. It was inconveniently high and rough, random stones crudely mortared together in a pile eight feet tall. He was floating beside it and someone was grunting, and then there was a rope sling around him. That was rough as it dragged him up the side of the wall, but Hastert and O’Neil were there to keep his leg from bumping into the masonry. And then he was lying on top of the wall, which was bumpy but wide enough to be secure, and on the other side of it he could see a dirt road and more walls in the darkness, and a couple of shadowy buildings.

His mangled leg itched.

Consciousness came in fits and starts. He was lying on the muddy grass at the base of the wall, staring up at the sky. The stars were very bright, although wisps of cloud scudding in from the north were blotting them out. Someone nearby was swearing quietly. He could hear other noises, a rattling stomping and yelling like a demonstration he’d once seen, and a hollow clapping noise that was oddly familiar, pop-pop, pop-pop—hooves, he realized. What do horses mean?

“Fuck.” The figure bending over him sounded angry and confused. “O’Neil, I’m going to have to call four-oh- four on Fleming. Cover—”

What’s he doing with the knife? Mike wondered dizzily. The hoofbeats were getting louder and there was a roar: then a rattling bang of gunfire, very loud and curiously flat, not the crack of supersonic bullets but more like high caliber pistol shots, doors slamming in his ears. There was a scream, cut off: something heavy fell across him as an answering stutter of automatic fire cut loose, O’Neil with his AR-15. Who’s trying to kill whom, now? A moment of ironic amusement threatened to swallow Mike, just as a second booming volley of musket fire crackled overhead. Then there was more shouting, and more automatic fire, stuttering in short bursts from concealment at the other end of the exposed stretch of wall: we climbed the wall right into a crossfire!

He tried to focus, but overhead the stars were graying out, one by one: shock, blood loss, and morphine conspired to put him under. But unlike the others, he was still alive when the Clan soldiers covering the escape of