Interesting Times d-17

by Terry Pratchett

  Mr Saveloy noticed some of the lesser lords relax a little. Then he thought: a real soldier probably doesn't like this sort of thing. You don't want to go to soldier Heaven or wherever you go and say, I once led an army against seven old men. It wasn't medal-winning material.

  "Ah. Of course. So much for bravado," said Lord Hong. "Then lay down your arms and you will be escorted back to the palace."

  Cohen and Truckle looked at one another.

  "Sorry?" said Cohen.

  "Lay down your arms." Lord Hong snorted. "That means put down your weapons."

  Cohen gave him a puzzled look. "Why should we put down our weapons?"

  "Are we not talking about your surrender?"

  "Our surrender?"

  Mr Saveloy's mouth opened in a mad, slow grin.

  Lord Hong stared at Cohen.

  "Hah! You can hardly expect me to believe that you have come to ask us…"

  He leaned from the saddle and glared at them.

  "You do, don't you?" he said. "You mindless little barbarians. Is it true that you can only count up to five?"

  "We just thought that it might save people getting hurt," said Cohen.

  "You thought it would save you getting hurt," said the warlord.

  "I daresay a few of yours might get hurt, too."

  "They're peasants," said the warlord.

  "Oh, yes. I was forgetting that," said Cohen. "And you're their chief, right? It's like your game of chess, right?"

  "I am their lord," said Lord Hong. "They will die at my bidding, if necessary."

  Cohen gave him a big, dangerous grin.

  "When do we start?" he said.

  "Return to your… band," said Lord Hong. "And then I think we shall start… shortly."

  He glared at Truckle, who was unfolding his bit or paper. The barbarian's lips moved awkwardly and he ran a horny finger across the page.

  "Misbegotten… wretch, so you are," he said.

  "My word," said Mr Saveloy, who'd created the look-up table.

  As the three returned to the Horde Mr Saveloy was aware of a grinding sound. Cohen was wearing several carats off his teeth.

  "'Die at my bidding'," he said. "The bugger doesn't even know what a chief is meant to be, the bastard! Him and his horse.''

  Mr Saveloy looked around. There seemed to be some arguing among the warlords.

  "You know," he said, "they probably will try to take us alive. I used to have a headmaster like him. He liked to make people's lives a misery."

  "You mean they'll be trying not to kill us?" said Truckle.

  "Yes."

  "Does that mean we have to try not to kill them?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "Sounds OK to me."

  "What do we do now?" said Mr Saveloy. "Do we do a battle chant or something?"

  "We just wait," said Cohen.

  "There's a lot of waiting in warfare," said Boy Willie.

  "Ah, yes," said Mr Saveloy. "I've heard people say that. They say there's long periods of boredom followed by short periods of excitement."

  "Not really," said Cohen. "It's more like short periods of waiting followed by long periods of being dead."

  "Blast!"

  The fields were crisscrossed with drainage ditches. There seemed to be no straight path anywhere. And the ditches were too wide to jump; they looked shallow enough to wade, but only because eighteen inches of water overlay a suffocating depth of rich thick mud. Mr Saveloy said that the Empire owed its prosperity to the mud of the plains, and right now Rincewind was feeling extremely rich.

  He was also quite close to the big hill that dominated the city. It really was rounded, with a precision apparently far too accurate for mere natural causes; Saveloy had said that hills like that were drumlins, great piles of topsoil left behind by glaciers. Trees covered the lower slopes of this one, and there was a small building on the top.

  Cover. Now, that was a good word. It was a big plain and the armies weren't too far away. The hill looked curiously peaceful, as if it belonged to a different world. It was strange that the Agateans, who otherwise seemed to farm absolutely everywhere a water buffalo could stand, had left it alone.

  Someone was watching him.

  It was a water buffalo.

  It would be wrong to say it watched him with interest. It just watched him, because its eyes were open and had to be facing in some direction, and it had randomly chosen one which included Rincewind.

  Its face held the completely serene expression of a creature that had long ago realized that it was, fundamentally, a tube on legs and had been installed in the universe to, broadly speaking, achieve throughput.

  At the other end of the string was a man, ankle-deep in the mud of the field. He had a broad straw hat, like every other buffalo holder. He had the basic pyjama suit of the Agatean man-in-the-field. And he had an expression not of idiocy, but of preoccupation. He was looking at Rincewind. As with the buffalo, this was only because his eyes had to be doing something.

  Despite the pressing dangers, Rincewind found himself overcome by a sudden curiosity.

  "Er. Good morning," he said.

  The man gave him a nod. The water buffalo made the sound of regurgitating cud.

  "Er. Sorry if this is a personal question," said Rincewind, "but… I can't help wondering… why do you stand out in the fields all day with the water buffalo?"

  The man thought about it.

  "Good for soil," he said eventually.

  "But doesn't it waste a lot of time?" said Rincewind.

  The man gave this due appraisal also.

  "What's time to a cow?" he said.

  Rincewind reversed back on to the highway of reality.

  "You see those armies over there?" he said.

  The buffalo holder concentrated his gaze.

  "Yes," he decided.

  "They're fighting for you."

  The man did not appear moved by this. The water buffalo burped gently.

  "Some want to see you enslaved and some want you to run the country, or at least to let them run the country while telling you it's you doing it really," said Rincewind. "There's going to be a terrible battle. I can't help wondering… What do you want?"

  The buffalo holder absorbed this one for consideration, too. And it seemed to Rincewind that the slowness of the thought process wasn't due to native stupidity, but more to do with the sheer size of the question. He could feel it spreading out so that it incorporated the soil and the grass and the sun and headed on out into the universe.

  Finally the man said:

  "A longer piece of string would be nice."

  "Ah. Really? Well, well. There's a thing," said Rincewind. "Talking to you has been an education. Goodbye."

  The man watched him go. Beside him, the buffalo relaxed some muscles and contracted others and lifted its tail and made the world, in a very small way, a better place.

  Rincewind headed on towards the hill. Random as the animal tracks and occasional plank bridges were, they seemed to head right for it. If Rincewind had been thinking clearly, an activity he last remembered doing around the age of twelve, he might have wondered about that.

  The trees of the lower slopes were sapient pears, and he didn't even think about that. Their leaves turned to watch him as he scrambled past. What he needed now was a cave or a handy—

  He paused.

  "Oh, no," he said. "No, no, no. You don't catch me like that. I'll go into a handy cave and there'll be a little door or some wise old man or something and I'll be dragged back into events. Right. Stay out in the open, that's the style."

  He half climbed, half walked to the rounded top of the hill, which rose above the trees like a dome. Now he was closer he could see that it wasn't as smooth as it looked from below. Weather had worn gullies and channels in the soil, and bushes had colonized even, sheltered slope.

  The building on the top was, to Rincewind's surprise, rusty. It had been made of iron — pointed iron roof, iron walls, iron doorway. The
re were a few old nests and some debris on the floor, but it was otherwise empty. And not a good place to hide. It'd be the first place anyone would look.

  There was a cloud wall around the world now. Lightning crackled in its heart, and there was the sound of thunder — not the gentle rumble of summer thunder but the crackackack of splitting sky.

  And yet the heat wrapped the plain like a blanket. The air felt thick. In a minute it was going to rain cats and food.

  "Find somewhere where I won't be noticed," he muttered. "Keep head down. Only way. Why should I care? Other people's problem."

  Panting in the oppressive heat, he wandered on.

  Lord Hong was enraged. Those who knew him could tell, by the way he spoke more slowly and smiled continuously.

  "And how do the men know the lightning dragons are angry?" he said. "It may be mere high spirits."

  "Not with a sky that colour," said Lord Tang. "That is not an auspicious colour for a sky. It looks like a bruise. A sky like that is portentous,"

  "And what, pray, do you think it portends?"

  "It's just generally portentous,"

  "I know what's behind this," Lord Hong snarled. "You're too frightened to fight seven old men, is that it?"

  "The men say they're the legendary Seven Indestructible Sages," said Lord Fang. He tried to smile. "You know how superstitious they are…"

  "What Seven Sages?" said Lord Hong. "I am extremely familiar with the history of the world and there are no legendary Seven Indestructible Sages."

  "Er… not yet," said Lord Fang. "Uh. But… a day like this… Perhaps legends have to start somewhere…"

  "They're barbarians! Oh, gods! Seven men! Can I believe we're afraid of seven men?"

  "It feels wrong," said Lord McSweeney. He added, quickly, "That's what the men say."

  "You have made the proclamation about our celestial army of ghosts? All of you?"

  The warlords tried to avoid his gaze.

  "Er… yes," said Lord Fang.

  "That must have improved morale."

  "Uh. Not… entirely…"

  "What do you mean, man?"

  "Uh. Many men have deserted. Uh. They've been saying that foreign ghosts were bad enough, but…"

  "But what?"

  "They are soldiers, Lord Hong," said Lord Tang sharply. "They all have people they do not want to meet. Don't you?"

  Just for a second, there was the suggestion of a twitch on Lord Hong's cheek. It was only for a second, but those who saw it took note. Lord Hong's renowned glaze had shown a crack.

  "What would you do, Lord Tang? Let these insolent barbarians go?"

  "Of course not. But… you don't need an army against seven men. Seven ancient old men. The peasants say… they say…"

  Lord Hong's voice was slightly higher.

  "Come on, man who talks to peasants. I'm sure you're going to tell us what they say about these foolish and foolhardy old men?"

  "Well, that's it, you see. They say, if they're so foolish and foolhardy… how did they manage to become so old?"

  "Luck!"

  It was the wrong word. Even Lord Hong realized it. He'd never believed in luck. He'd always taken pains, usually those of other people, to fill life with certainties. But he knew that others believed in luck. It was a foible he'd always been happy to make use of. And now it was turning and stinging him on the hand.

  "There is nothing in the Art of War to tell us how five armies attack seven old men," said Lord Tang. "Ghosts or no ghosts. And this, Lord Hong, is because no-one ever thought such a thing would be done."

  "If you feel so frightened I'll ride out against them with my mere 250,000 men," he said.

  "I am not frightened," said Lord Tang. "I am ashamed."

  "Each man armed with two swords," Lord Hong went on, ignoring him. "And I shall see how lucky these… sages… are. Because, my lords, I will only have to be lucky once. They will have to be lucky a quarter of a million times."

  He lowered his visor.

  "How lucky do you feel, my lords?"

  The other four warlords avoided one another's gaze.

  Lord Hong noticed their resigned silence.

  "Very well, then," he said. "Let the gongs be sounded and the fire-crackers lit — to ensure good luck, of course."

  There were a large number of ranks in the armies of the Empire, and many of them were untranslatable. Three Pink Pig and Five White Fang were, loosely speaking, privates, and not just because they were pale, vulnerable and inclined to curl up and hide when danger threatened.

  In fact they were so private as to be downright secretive. Even the army's mules ranked higher than them, because good mules were hard to come by whereas men like Pink Pig and White Fang are found in every army, somewhere where a latrine is in need of cleaning. They were so insignificant that they had, privately, decided that it would be a waste of an invisible foreign blood-sucking ghost's valuable time to attack them.

  They felt it only fair, after it had come all this way, to give it the chance of fiendishly killing someone superior.

  They had therefore hospitably decamped just before dawn and were now hiding out. Of course, if victory threatened they could always recamp. It was unlikely that they'd be missed in all the excitement, and both men were somewhat expert at turning up on battlefields in time to join in the victory celebrations. They lay in the long grass, watching the armies manoeuvre.

  From this height, it looked like an impressive war. The army on one side was so small as to be invisible. Of course, if you accepted the very strong denials of last night, it was so invisible as to be invisible.

  It was also their elevation which meant that they were the first to notice the ring around the sky.

  It was just above the thunderous wall on the horizon. Where stray shafts of sunlight hit it, it glowed golden. Elsewhere it was merely yellow. But it was continuous, and thin as a thread.

  "Funny-looking cloud," said White Fang.

  "Yeah," said Pink Pig. "So what?"

  It was while they were thus engaged, and sharing a small bottle of rice wine liberated by Pink Pig from an unsuspecting comrade the previous evening, that they heard a groan.

  "Oooooohhhhhh…"

  Their drinks froze in their throats.

  "Did you hear that?" said Pink Pig.

  "You mean the—"

  "Ooooohhhh…"

  "That's it!"

  They turned, very slowly.

  Something had pulled itself out of a gully behind them. It was humanoid, more or less. Red mud dripped from it. Strange noises issued from its mouth.

  "Oooooohhhhshit!"

  Pink Pig grabbed White Fang's arm.

  "It's an invisible blood-sucking ghost!"

  "But I can see it!"

  Pink Pig squinted.

  "It's the Red Army! They've come up outa the earth like everybody says!"

  White Fang, who had several brain cells more than Pink Pig, and more importantly was only on his second cup of wine, took a closer look.

  "It could be just one ordinary man with mud all over him," he suggested. He raised his voice. "Hey, you!"

  The figure turned and tried to run.

  Pink Pig nudged his friend.

  "Is he one of ours?"

  "Looking like that?"

  "Let's get him!"

  "Why?"

  "'Cos he's running away!"

  "Let him run."

  "Maybe he's got money. Anyway, what's he running away for?"

  Rincewind slid down into another gully. Of all the luck! Soldiers should be where they were expected to be. What had happened to duty and honour and stuff like that?

  The gully had dead grass and moss in the bottom.

  He stood still and listened to the voices of the two men.

  The air was stifling. It was as if the oncoming storm was pushing all the hot air in front of it, turning the plain into a pressure cooker.

  And then the ground creaked, and sagged suddenly.

  The faces of the a
bsentee soldiers appeared over the edge of the gully.

  There was another creak and the ground sank another inch or two. Rincewind didn't dare breathe in, in case the extra weight of air made him too heavy. And it was very clear that the least activity, such as jumping, was going to make things worse…

  Very carefully, he looked down.

  The dead moss had given way. He seemed to be standing on a baulk of timber buried in the ground, but dirt pouring around it suggested that there was a hole beneath.

  It was going to give way any second n—

  Rincewind threw himself forward. The ground fell away underneath so that, instead of standing on a slowly breaking piece of timber, he was hanging with his arms over what felt like another concealed log and, by the feel of it, one which was as riddled with rot as the first one.

  This one, possibly out of a desire to conform, began to sag.

  And then jolted to a stop.

  The faces of the soldiers vanished backwards as the sides of the gully began to slide. Dry earth and small stones slid past Rincewind. He could feel them rattle on his boots and drop away.

  He felt, as an expert in these things, that he was over a depth. From his point of view, it was also a height.

  The log began to shift again.

  This left Rincewind with, as he saw it, two options. He could let go and plunge to an uncertain fate in the darkness, or he could hang on until the timber gave way, and then plunge to an uncertain fate in the darkness.

  And then, to his delight, there was a third option. The toe of his boot touched something, a root, a protruding rock. It didn't matter. It took some of his weight. It took at least enough to put him in precarious equilibrium — not exactly safe, not exactly falling. Of course, it was only a temporary measure, but Rincewind had always considered that life was no more than a series of temporary measures strung together.

  A pale yellow butterfly with interesting patterns on its wings fluttered along the gully and settled on the only bit of colour available, which turned out to be Rincewind's hat.

  The wood sagged slightly.

  "Push off!" said Rincewind, trying not to use heavy language. "Go away.''

  The butterfly flattened its wings and sunned itself. Rincewind pursed his lips and tried to blow up his own nostrils.