The Long War

They were not much taller than a man, but the beanpole thinness gave an exaggerated impression of height. Their skin was greyish, and they wore their ash-blonde hair Afro-style. They could have passed muster in some of the badly lit discos Joshua had, if rarely, attended in his youth back in Madison.

Except for the ears. Which were large and pointed, and constantly flicking back and forth as though seeking the faintest sounds. And except for the eyes, that glowed a very faint green. They carried long thin double-bladed weapons of wood – swords, for want of a better word. They weren’t yelling, or waving their weapons. They just looked quietly determined.

Any child could have put a name to them. Elves. Not relatively friendly music-loving conversationalists like Finn McCool. The elves of nightmare.

And they were closing on Joshua, from every direction.

Joshua had nowhere to run. He had encountered various species of elves before. He knew that stepping wouldn’t help, not when faced with an enemy that was a better stepper than he was. His gun was somewhere in the scuffed-up sleeping bag. Only the radio was in reach, a plastic block the size of his fist. Not much of a weapon . . .

The first elf to reach him brought back its sword for a killing arc – and hesitated, as if relishing the moment.

Joshua, frozen to the spot, stared back. Close to, the creature looked like something out of a book on prehistory, though a Neanderthal would have considered it ugly. Its face was a network of wrinkles. It wore a short fur tunic, some sort of knapsack, and an expression of calculation. Maybe it was hesitating as it tried to work out which way he was going to step, so it could follow him and kill him anyway.

All this in a heartbeat. Then Joshua’s reflexes took over.

He ducked, grabbed the radio, and brought it around in a rapid swing that was interrupted by the elf’s jaw. Bits of glass and plastic erupted in a shower of golden sparks. As the elf staggered back, Joshua’s leg came up for the classic strike favoured by women’s self-defence teachers everywhere, and a high-pitched squeal of agony added to mankind’s tiny stock of anatomical knowledge of Long Earth humanoids.

And suddenly there was action all around Joshua.

McCool was back, he had brought more kobolds, and they were already fighting. The cavalry, Joshua thought with a rush of gratitude. But this was a cavalry that stepped, like its opponents. Suddenly figures from both subspecies were flashing past Joshua’s view, like fragments of nightmare.

Joshua got out of there. He ran head-down for the ladder which came dangling from the descending ship. He had to knock one fighter out of the way; he couldn’t tell if it was a good guy or a bad guy.

Only when he got to the ladder, and, with the security of an alloy rung in his hand, was already rising in the air and out of the battle, did he look back down.

The elves favoured swords, while the kobolds tended to fight barehanded – which showed rather more intelligence in Joshua’s view, because if you were grappling with your opponent he couldn’t step without taking you with him. Besides, the kobolds seemed to have elevated unarmed combat to the point where weapons would merely get in the way. He saw one kobold vanish momentarily as a blade nearly beheaded him, then reappear, grab the sword arm and with balletic grace send a kick into the elf’s chest that must have killed immediately. As usual with a humanoid fight, it wasn’t a battle so much as a series of private duels. If a fighter was victorious he sought out another opponent, but would be quite oblivious to the fact that a colleague was being backed into a corner by overwhelming odds.

And then Joshua saw Finn McCool downed by a wooden sword thrust through his arm. Maybe he tried to step, but he was stunned, confused. His elf opponent dodged a disembowelling swipe from McCool’s horny toes, and withdrew the sword for a second thrust.

Again this elf paused before the moment of the kill. His back was to Joshua.

And Joshua had a chance to intervene.

‘Damn it!’ Joshua let go of the ladder and his chance of safety, dropped heavily to the ground, picked up a fallen branch, and ran across. It wasn’t that Finn McCool had endeared himself to Joshua. But if Joshua had to choose, he’d take the side of someone who hadn’t actually tried to kill him. Had, indeed, come back to fight on his side.

Still running, he hit the elf across the neck as hard as he could. Joshua had anticipated a satisfying thunk of timber on flesh. Instead there was a soft necrotic splat, as the rotten branch disintegrated in an explosion of fungus spores and angry beetles. The elf, totally unharmed, turned slowly, its face puckered in astonishment.

Finn McCool’s good hand flashed out once, twice, and where it hit there was a sharp crack of bone. The elf folded up on itself, and stepped away before it died.