Jackrum drew himself stiffly to attention. “Fully understood, sir!” he said.
“Very well!”
Jackrum continued at attention as the messages were exchanged, like a naughty pupil forced to stand by the teacher’s desk.
Messages flashed across the sky, from hilltop to hilltop. Lights flickered. The clacks tube rattled. Wazzer called out the longs and shorts. Blouse scribbled in the book. “S… P… P… 2,” he said aloud. “Hah. That’s an order to remain where we are.”
“More flashes, sir,” said Wazzer.
“T… Y… E… 3…” said Blouse, still making notes. “That’s ‘be ready to give aid’. N…V…A…S…N… That’s…”
“That’s not a code, sir!” said Polly.
“Private, send as follows right now!” Blouse croaked. “Long… long…”
The message went. They watched, while the dew fell and, overhead, the stars came out and twinkled messages no one ever tried to read.
The clacks went silent.
“Now we leave as soon as possible,” said Blouse. He gave a little cough. “I believe the phrase is ‘Let us get the heck out of here’.”
“Close, sir,” said Polly. “Quite… close.”
There was an old, very old Borogravian song with more Zs and Vs in it than any lowlander could pronounce. It was called “Plogviehze!” It meant “The Sun Has Risen! Let’s Make War!” You needed a special kind of history to get all that in one word.
Sam Vimes sighed. The little countries here fought because of the river, because of idiot treaties, because of royal rows, but mostly they fought because they had always fought. They made war, in fact, because the sun came up.
This war had tied itself in a knot.
Downriver, the valley narrowed to a canyon before the Kneck plunged over a waterfall a quarter of a mile high. Anyone trying to get up through the jagged mountains there would find themselves in a world of gorges, knife-edged ridges, permanent ice and even more permanent death. Anyone trying to cross the Kneck into Zlobenia now would be butchered on the shore. The only way out of the valley was back along the Kneck, which would put an army under the shadow of the Keep. That had been fine when the Keep was in Borogravian hands. Now that it had been captured, they’d be passing in range of their own weapons.
…And such weapons! Vimes had seen catapults that would throw a stone ball three miles. When it landed it would crack into needle-sharp shards. Or there was the other machine that sent six-foot steel discs skimming through the air. Once they’d hit the ground and leapt up again they were unreliable as hell, but that only made them more terrifying. Vimes had been told that the edged disc would probably keep going for several hundred yards, no matter how many men or horses it encountered on the way. And they were only the latest ideas. There were plenty of conventional weapons, if by that you meant giant bows, catapults and mangonels that hurled balls of Ephebian fire, which clung while it burned.
From up here, in his draughty tower, he could see the fires of the dug-in army all across the plain. They couldn’t retreat, and the Alliance, if that’s what you could call the petulant hubbub, didn’t dare head up the valley into the heart of the country with that army at their back, yet didn’t have enough men to hold the Keep and corral the enemy.
And in a few weeks it would start to snow. The passes would fill up. Nothing would be able to get through. And every day, thousands of men and horses would need feeding. Of course, the men could, eventually, eat the horses, thus settling two feeding problems at a stroke. After that there would have to be the good ol’ leg rota, which Vimes understood from one of the friendlier Zlobenians was a common feature of winter warfare up here. Since he was Captain “Hopalong” Splatzer, Vimes believed him.
And then it would rain, and then the rain and the snowmelt together would turn the damn river into a flood. But before that the Alliance would have bickered itself apart and gone home. All the Borogravians had to do, in fact, was hold their ground to score a draw.
He swore under his breath. Prince Heinrich had inherited the throne in a country where the chief export was a kind of hand-painted wooden clog, but in ten years, he vowed, his capital city of Rigour would be “the Ankh-Morpork of the mountains”! For some reason, he thought Ankh-Morpork would be pleased about this.
He was anxious, he said, to learn the Ankh-Morpork way of doing things, the kind of innocent ambition that could well lead an aspiring ruler to… well, find out the Ankh-Morpork way of doing things. Heinrich had a reputation locally for cunning, but Ankh-Morpork had overtaken cunning a thousand years ago, had sped past devious, had left artful far behind and had now, by a roundabout route, arrived at straightforward.
Vimes leafed through the papers on his desk, and looked up when he heard a shrill, harsh cry outside. A buzzard came in a long, shallow swoop through the open window and alighted on a makeshift perch at the far end of the room. Vimes strolled over as the little figure on the bird’s back raised his flying goggles.
“How’s it going, Buggy?” he said.
“They’re getting suspicious, Mister Vimes. And Sergeant Angua says it’s getting a bit risky now they’re so close.”
“Tell her to come on in, then.”
“Right, sir. And they still need coffee.”
“Oh, damn! Haven’t they found any?”
“No, sir, and it’s getting tricky with the vampire.”
“Well, if they’re suspicious now then they’ll be certain if we drop a flask of coffee on them!”
“Sergeant Angua says we’ll probably get away with it, sir. She didn’t say why.” The gnome looked expectantly at Vimes. So did his buzzard. “They’ve come a long way, sir. For a bunch of girls. Well… mostly girls.”
Vimes reached out absent-mindedly to pet the bird.
“Don’t, sir! She’ll have your thumb off!” Buggy yelled.
There was a knock on the door, and Reg came in with a tray of raw meat. “Saw Buggy overhead, so I thought I’d nip down to the kitchens, sir.”
“Well done, Reg. Don’t they ask why you want raw meat?”
“Yes, sir. I tell them you eat it, sir.”
Vimes paused before answering. Reg meant well, after all.
“Well, it probably can’t do my reputation any harm,” he said. “By the way, what was going down in the crypt?”
“Oh, they’re not what I’d call proper zombies, sir,” said Reg, selecting a piece of meat and dangling it in front of Morag. “More like dead men walking.”
“Er… yes?” said Vimes.
“I mean there’s no real thinking going on,” the zombie went on, picking up another lump of raw rabbit. “No embracing the opportunities of a life beyond the grave, sir. They’re just a lot of old memories on legs. That sort of thing gives zombies a bad name, Mister Vimes. It makes me so angry!” Morag tried to snap at another lump of bloody rabbit fur that Reg, oblivious for the moment, was waving aimlessly.
“Er… Reg?” said Buggy.
“How hard can it be, sir, to move with the times? Now take me, for example. One day I woke up dead. Did I—”
“Reg!” Vimes warned as Morag’s head bobbed back and forth.
“—take it lying down? No! And I didn’t—”
“Reg, be careful! She’s just had two of your fingers off!”
“What? Oh.” Reg held up a denuded hand and stared at it. “Oh, now, will you look at that?” He peered down at the floor, with a hope that was quickly dashed. “Blast. Any chance we can make her throw up?”
“Only by sticking your remaining fingers down her throat, Reg. Sorry. Buggy, do the best you can, please. And you, Reg, go back downstairs and see if they’ve got any coffee, will you?”
“Oh dear,” murmured Shufti.
“It’s big,” said Tonker.
Blouse said nothing.
“Not seen it before, sir?” said Jackrum cheerfully, as they stared at the distant keep.
If there is a fairy-tale scale for castles, where the top end is occupied
by those white, spire-encrusted castles with the blue pointy roofs, then Kneck Keep was low, black and clung to its outcrop like a storm cloud. A bed of the Kneck ran round it; along the peninsula on which it was built, the approach road was wide, and bereft of cover, and an ideal stroll for those who were tired of life. Blouse took all this in.
“Er, no, sergeant,” he said. “I’ve seen pictures, of course, but… they don’t do it justice.”
“Any of them books you read tell you what to do, sir?” said Jackrum. They were lying in some bushes half a mile away from the keep.
“Possibly, sergeant. In The Craft of War, Song Sung Lo said: to win without fighting is the greatest victory. The enemy wishes us to attack where he is strongest. Therefore, we will disappoint him. A way will present itself, sergeant.”
“Well, it’s never presented itself to me, and I’ve been here dozens of times,” said Jackrum, still grinning. “Hah, even the rats’d have to disguise themselves as washerwomen to get in that place! Even if you get up that road, you’ve got narrow entrances, holes in the ceiling to pour hot oil through, gates everywhere that a troll couldn’t smash through, coupla mazes, a hundred little ways you can be shot at. Oh, it’s a wonderful place to attack.”
“I wonder how the Alliance got in?” said Blouse.
“Treachery, probably, sir. The world’s full of traitors. Or perhaps they discovered the secret entrance, sir. You know, sir? The one you’re sure is there. Or p’raps you’ve forgotten? It’s the sort of thing that can slip your mind when you’re busy, I expect.”
“We shall reconnoitre, sergeant,” said Blouse coldly, as they crawled out of the bushes. He brushed leaves off his uniform. Thalacephalos or, as Blouse referred to her, “the faithful steed” had been turned loose miles back. You couldn’t sneak on horseback and, as Jackrum had pointed out, the creature was too skinny for anyone to want to eat and too vicious for anyone to want to ride.
“Right, sir, yes, we might as well do that, sir,” said Jackrum now, all gloating helpfulness. “Where would you like us to reconnoitre, sir?”
“There must be a secret entrance, sergeant. No one would build a place like that with only one entrance. Agreed?”
“Yessir. Only, perhaps they kept it a secret, sir. Only trying to help, sir.”
They turned at the sound of urgent praying. Wazzer had fallen to her knees, hands clasped together. The rest of the squad edged away slowly. Piety is a wonderful thing.
“What is he doing, sergeant?” said Blouse.
“Praying, sir,” said Jackrum.
“I’ve noticed he does it a lot. Is that, er, within regulations, sergeant?” the lieutenant whispered.
“Always a difficult one, sir, that one,” said Jackrum. “I have, myself, prayed many times on the field of battle. Many times have I said the Soldier’s Prayer, sir, and I don’t mind admitting it.”
“Er… I don’t think I know that one,” said Blouse.
“Oh, I reckon the words’ll come to you soon enough, sir, once you’re up against the foe. Gen’rally, though, they’re on the lines of ‘O god, let me kill this bastard before he kills me’.” Jackrum grinned at Blouse’s expression. “That’s what I call the Authorized Version, sir.”
“Yes, sergeant, but where would we be if we all prayed all the time?” said the lieutenant.
“In heaven, sir, sitting at Nuggan’s right hand,” said Jackrum promptly. “That’s what I was taught as a little nipper, sir. Of course, it’d be a bit crowded, so it’s just as well we don’t.”
At which point, Wazzer stopped praying and stood up, brushing dust off her knees. She gave the squad her bright, worrying smile. “The Duchess will guide our steps,” she said.
“Oh. Good,” said Blouse weakly.
“She will show us the way.”
“Wonderful. Er… did she mention a map reference at all?” said the lieutenant.
“She will give us eyes that we might see.”
“Ah? Good. Well, jolly good,” said Blouse. “I definitely feel a lot better for knowing that. Don’t you, sergeant?”
“Yessir,” said Jackrum. “’cos before this, sir, we didn’t have a prayer.”
They scouted in threes, while the rest of the squad lay up in a deep hollow among the bushes. There were enemy patrols, but it’s not hard to avoid half a dozen men who stick to the tracks and aren’t being careful not to make a noise. The troops were Zlobenian, and acted as though they owned the place.
For some reason Polly ended up patrolling with Maladict and Wazzer or, to put it another way, a vampire on the edge and a girl who was possibly so far over it that she’d found a new edge out beyond the horizon. She was changing every day, that was a fact. On the day they’d all joined up, a lifetime ago, she’d been this shivering little waif who flinched at shadows. Now, sometimes, she seemed taller, full of some ethereal certainty, and shadows fled before her. Well, not in actual fact, Polly would admit. But she walked as if they should.
And then there had been the Miracle of the Turkey. That was hard to explain.
The three of them had been moving along the cliffs. They’d circled a couple of Zlobenian lookout posts, forewarned by the smell of cooking-fires but, alas, not by the smell of any coffee. Maladict seemed to be mostly in control, except for a tendency to mutter to himself in letters and numbers, but Polly had stopped that by threatening to hit him with a stick the very next time he did it.
They’d reached a cliff edge that gave yet another view of the Keep, and once again Polly raised the telescope and scanned the sheer walls and jumbled rocks for any sign of another entrance.
“Look down at the river,” said Wazzer.
The circle of view blurred upwards as Polly shifted the scope; when it stopped moving she saw whiteness. She had to lower the instrument to see what she’d been looking at.
“Oh my,” she said.
“Makes sense, though,” said Maladict. “And there’s a path all along the river, see? There’s a couple more women on it.”
“Tiny gateway, though,” said Polly. “And it’d be so easy to search people for weapons.”
“Soldiers couldn’t get through, them,” said the vampire.
“We could,” said Polly. “And we’re soldiers. Aren’t we?”
There was a pause before Maladict said: “Soldiers need weapons. Swords and crossbows get noticed.”
“There will be weapons inside,” said Wazzer. “the Duchess has told me. The castle is full of weapons.”
“Did she tell you how to make the enemy let go of them?” said Maladict.
“All right, all right,” said Polly quickly. “We ought to tell the rupert as soon as possible, okay? Let’s get back!”
“Hold on, I’m the corporal,” said Maladict.
“Well?” said Polly. “And?”
“Let’s get back?” said Maladict.
“Good idea.”
She should have listened to the birdsong, she realized later. The shrill calls in the distance would have told her the news, if only she’d been calm enough to listen.
They hadn’t gone more than thirty yards before they saw the soldier. Someone in the Zlobenian army was dangerously clever. He’d realized that the way to spot interlopers was not to march noisily along the beaten paths, but to sneak quietly between the trees.
The soldier had a crossbow; it was sheer luck… probably sheer luck that he was looking the other way when Polly came round a holly bush.
She flung herself behind a tree and gestured madly at Maladict further down the path, who had the sense to take cover.
Polly drew her sword and held it clutched to her chest in both hands. She could hear the man. He was some way away, but he was moving towards her. Probably the little lookout they had just found was a regular point on the patrol route. After all, she thought bitterly, it was just the sort of thing some untrained idiots might come across, maybe a quiet patrol could even surprise them there…
She shut her eyes and tried to breathe normally. This w
as it this was it this was it! This was where she found out.
What to remember what to remember what to remember… when the metal meets the meat… be holding the metal.
She could taste metal in her mouth.
The man would walk right past her. He’d be alert, but not that alert. A slash would be better than a stab. Yes, a good swipe at head height would kill…
…some mother’s son, some sister’s brother, some lad who’d followed the drum for a shilling and his first new suit. If only she’d been trained, if only she’d had a few weeks stabbing straw men until she could believe that all men were made of straw…
She froze. Down the angle of the path, still as a tree, head bowed, stood Wazzer. As soon as the scout reached Polly’s tree, she’d be seen.
She’d have to do it now. Perhaps that’s why men did it. You didn’t do it to save duchesses, or countries. You killed the enemy to stop him killing your mates, that they in turn might save you…
She could hear the cautious tread close to the tree. She raised the sabre, saw the light flash along its edge—
A wild turkey rose from the scrub on the other side of the path in one rocketing tower of wings and feathers and echoing noise. Half flying, half running, it bounded off into the woods. There was the thud of a bow and a last squawk.
“Oh, good shot, Woody,” said a voice near by. “Looks like a big ’un!”
“Did you see that?” said another voice. “Another step and I’d have tripped over it!”
Behind her tree, Polly breathed out.
A third voice, some way off, called out: “Let’s head back, eh, corp? The way that went off, the Tiger’s probably run a mile!”
“Yeah, and I’m so scared,” said the closest voice. “The Tiger’s behind every tree, right?”
“Okay, let’s call it a day. My wife’ll cook him a treat—”
Gradually, the voices of the soldiers got lost amongst the trees. Polly lowered the sword. She saw Maladict peer out of his bush and stare at her. She raised a finger to her lips. He nodded. She waited until the birdsong had settled down a little before stepping out. Wazzer seemed to be lost in thought; Polly took her very carefully by the hand. Quietly, dodging from tree to tree, they headed back to the hollow. Most particularly, Polly and Maladict didn’t talk. But they looked one another in the eye once or twice.
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