‘Ashamed of your lovely, lovely uniform, Perks?’ he said.
‘Don’t want to be seen dead in it, sarge,’ said Polly.
‘Hah. As you were, Perks.’
Polly smiled, straight ahead.
When she came off guard for a bowl of game casserole, Jackrum was teaching basic swordcraft to Lofty and Tonker, using hazel sticks as swords. By the time Polly had finished he was teaching Wazzer some of the finer points of using a high-performance pistol crossbow, especially the one about not turning round with it cocked and saying ‘W-what is this bit for, sarge?’ Wazzer handled weapons like a houseproud woman disposing of a dead mouse – at arm’s length and trying not to look. But even she was better with them than Igor, who just didn’t seem at home with the idea of what was, to him, randomized surgery.
Jade was dozing. Maladict was hanging by his knees under the roof of one of the sheds, with his arms folded across his chest; he must have been telling the truth when he said there were some aspects of being a vampire that were hard to give up.
Igor and Maladict . . .
She still wasn’t sure about Maladict, but Igor had to be a boy, with those stitches around the head, and that face that could only be called homely.4 He was quiet, and neat, but maybe that’s how Igors behaved . . .
She woke up with Shufti shaking her.
‘We’re moving! Better go and see to the rupert!’
‘What? Huh? Oh . . . right!’
There was a bustle all around her. Polly staggered to her feet and hurried over to Lieutenant Blouse’s shed, where he was standing in front of his wretched horse and holding the bridle with a lost expression.
‘Ah, Perks,’ he said. ‘I’m not at all sure I’m doing this right . . .’
‘No, sir. You’ve got the waffles twisted and the snoffles are upside down,’ said Polly, who’d often helped in the inn’s yard.
‘Ah, that would be why he was so difficult last night,’ said Blouse. ‘I suppose I ought to know this sort of thing, but at home we had a man to do it . . .’
‘Let me, sir,’ said Polly. She untwisted the bridle with a few careful movements. ‘What’s his name, sir?’
‘Thalacephalos,’ said Blouse sheepishly. ‘That was the legendary stallion of General Tacticus, you know.’
‘I didn’t know that, sir,’ said Polly. She leaned back and glanced between the horse’s rear legs. Wow, Blouse really was short-sighted, wasn’t he . . .
The mare looked at her partly with its eyes, which were small and evil, but mostly with its yellowing teeth, of which it had an enormous amount. She had the impression that it was thinking about sniggering.
‘I’ll hold him for you while you mount, sir,’ she said.
‘Thank you. He certainly moves about a bit when I try!’
‘I expect he does, sir,’ said Polly. She knew about difficult horses; this one had all the hallmarks of a right bastard, one of those not cowed at all by the obvious superiority of the human race.
The mare eyeballed and yellowtoothed her as Blouse mounted, but Polly had positioned herself carefully away from the uprights of the shelter. Thalacephalos wasn’t the sort to buck and kick. She was the sneaky kind, Polly could see, the sort that stepped on your foot—
She moved her foot just as the hoof came down. But Thalacephalos, angry at being thwarted, turned, twisted, lowered her head, and bit Polly sharply on the rolled-up socks.
‘Bad horse!’ said Blouse severely. ‘Sorry about that, Perks. I think he’s anxious to get to the fray! Oh, my word!’ he added, looking down. ‘Are you all right, Perks?’
‘Well, he’s pulling a bit, sir—’ said Polly, being dragged sideways. Blouse had gone white again.
‘But he’s bitten . . . he’s caught you by the . . . right on the . . .’
The penny dropped. Polly looked down, and hastily remembered what she’d heard during numerous rule-free bar fights.
‘Oh . . . ooo . . argh . . . blimey! Right inna fruit! Aargh!’ she lamented, and then, since it seemed a good idea at the time, brought both fists down heavily on the mare’s nose. The lieutenant fainted.
It took some time to bring Blouse round, but at least it gave Polly time to think.
He opened his eyes and focused on her.
‘Er, you fell off your horse, sir,’ Polly volunteered.
‘Perks? Are you all right? Dear boy, he had you by the—’
‘Only needs a few stitches, sir!’ said Polly cheerfully.
‘What? From Igor?’
‘Nosir. Just the cloth, sir,’ said Polly. ‘The trousers are a bit big for me, sir.’
‘Ah, right. Too big, eh? Phew, eh? Near miss there, eh? Well, I mustn’t lie around here all day—’
The squad helped him on to Thalacephalos, who was still sniggering unrepentantly. On the subject of ‘too big’, Polly made a mental note to do something about his jacket next time they stopped. She wasn’t much good with a needle, but if Igor couldn’t do something to make it look better then he wasn’t the man she thought he was. And that was a sentence that begged a question.
Jackrum bellowed them into order. They were better at that now. Neater, too.
‘All right, Ins-and-Outs! Tonight we—’
A set of huge yellow teeth removed his cap.
‘Oh, I do apologize, sergeant!’ said Blouse behind him, trying to rein back the mare.
‘No bother, sir, these things happen!’ said Jackrum, furiously tugging his hat back.
‘I should like to address my men, sergeant.’
‘Oh? Er . . . yes, sir,’ said Jackrum, looking worried. ‘Of course, sir. Ins-and-Outs! Attenwaitforitshun!’
Blouse coughed. ‘Er . . . men,’ he said. ‘As you know, we must make all speed to the Kneck valley where, apparently, we are needed. Travelling by night will prevent . . . entanglements. Er . . . I . . .’ He stared at them, his face contorted by some inner struggle. ‘Er . . . I have to say I don’t think we are . . . that is, all the evidence is . . . er . . . it doesn’t seem to me that . . . er . . . I think I should tell you . . . er . . .’
‘Permission to speak, sir?’ said Polly. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘We just have to hope that those put in power over us are making the right decisions,’ mumbled Blouse. ‘But I have every confidence in you and I am sure you will do your best. Long live the Duchess! Carry on, Sergeant Jackrum.’
‘Ins-and-Outs! Form up! March!’
And they headed into the dusk and off to war.
The order of march was as last night, with Maladict going on ahead. The clouds were holding in some heat, and were thin enough to hint at moonlight here and there. Forests by night held no problems for Polly, and this wasn’t true wild forest in any case. Nor was it, in truth, a march that they were doing. It was more like a high-speed creep, in ones and twos.
She’d acquired two of the horsebows, now stuck awkwardly between the straps of her pack. They were horrible things, rather like a cross between a small crossbow and a clock. There were mechanisms in the thick shaft, and the bow itself was barely six inches across; somehow, if you leaned your weight on it, you could cock it with enough stored energy to fire a nasty little metal arrow through an inch-thick plank. They were blued metal, sleek and evil. But there is an old milit’ry saying: better me firing it at you than you firing it at me, you bastard.
Polly eased her way along the line until she was walking alongside Igor. He nodded to her in the gloom, and then turned his attention to walking. He needed to, because his pack was twice the size of the rest of them. No one felt inclined to ask him what was in it; sometimes, you thought you could hear liquid sloshing.
Igors sometimes passed through Munz, although technically they were an Abomination in the eyes of Nuggan. It had seemed to Polly that using bits of someone who was dead to help three or four other people stay alive was a sensible idea, but in the pulpit Father Jupe had argued that Nuggan didn’t want people to live, he wanted them to live properly. There had been gener
al murmurs of agreement from the congregation, but Polly knew for a fact that there were a couple of people sitting there with a hand or arm or leg that was a little less tanned or a little more hairy than the other one. There were lumberjacks everywhere in the mountains. Accidents happened, fast, sudden accidents. And, since there were not many jobs for a one-armed lumberjack, men went off and found an Igor to do what no amount of prayer could manage.
The Igors had a motto: What goes around, comes around. You didn’t have to pay them back. You had to pay them forward, and that, frankly, was the bit where people got worried. When you were dying, an Igor would mysteriously arrive on the doorstep and request that he be allowed to take away any bits urgently needed by others on his ‘little litht’. He’d be quite happy to wait until the priest had gone and, it was said, when the time came he’d do very neat work. However, it happened quite often that when an Igor turned up the prospective donor took fright and turned to Nuggan, who liked whole people. In which case the Igor would quietly and politely leave, and never come back. He’d never come back to the whole village, or the whole lumber camp. Nor would other Igors. What goes around comes around – or stops.
As far as Polly could tell, Igors believed that the body was nothing more than a more complicated kind of clothing. Oddly enough, that’s what Nugganites thought, too.
‘Glad you joined, Igor?’ said Polly, as they jogged along.
‘Yeth, Ozz.’
‘Could you take a look at the rupert’s hand next time we stop, please? He’s cut it badly.’
‘Yeth, Ozz.’
‘Can I ask you something, Igor?’
‘Yeth, Ozz.’
‘What’re female Igors called, Igor?’
Igor stumbled and kept moving. He was silent for a while, and then said: ‘All right, what did I do wrong?’
‘Sometimes you forget to lisp,’ said Polly. ‘But mostly . . . it’s just a feeling. Little things about the way you move, maybe.’
‘The word you’re looking for is “Igorina”,’ said Igorina. ‘We don’t lisp as much as the boys.’
They continued in more silence until Polly said, ‘I thought it was bad enough cutting my hair—’
‘The stitches?’ said Igorina. ‘I can have them out in five minuteth. They’re just for show.’
Polly hesitated. But, after all, Igors had to be trustworthy, didn’t they? ‘You didn’t cut your hair?’
‘Actually, I just removed it,’ said Igorina.
‘I put mine in my pack,’ Polly went on, trying not to look at the stitches around Igorina’s head.
‘So did I,’ said Igorina. ‘In a jar. It’s thtill growing.’
Polly swallowed. You needed a lack of graphic imagination to talk about personal issues with an Igor. ‘Mine was stolen back at the barracks. I’m sure it was Strappi,’ she said.
‘Oh dear.’
‘I hate to think of him with it!’
‘Why did you bring it?’
And that was the question. She’d planned, and she’d been good at planning. She’d fooled the rest of them, even. She’d been cool and sensible and she hadn’t felt more than a faint pang at cutting off her hair—
—and she’d brought it with her. Why? She could have thrown it away. It wasn’t magic. It was just hair. She could have thrown it away, just like that. Easily. But . . . but . . . ah, right, the maids could have found it. That was it. She had to get it out of the house quickly. Right. And then she could bury it somewhere when she was a long way away. Right.
But she hadn’t, had she . . .
She’d been very busy. Right, said the little voice in inner treachery. She had been very busy fooling everyone but herself, right?
‘What could Strappi do?’ said Igorina. ‘Jackrum’d knock him over the moment he thaw him. He’s a deserter, and a thief!’
‘Yes, but he could tell someone,’ said Polly.
‘Okay, then say it’s a lock of hair from the sweetheart you left behind you. Lots of soldiers carry a locket or something like that. You know: “Her golden hair in ringletth fair”, like the song says.’
‘It was all my hair! A locket? You couldn’t hold it all in your hat!’
‘Ah,’ said Igorina. ‘Then you could thay you loved her very much?’
Despite everything, Polly started to laugh, and couldn’t stop herself. She bit her sleeve and tried to keep going, with her shoulders shaking.
Something that felt like a small tree prodded her in the back. ‘Youse two oughta keep der noise down,’ rumbled Jade.
‘Sorry. Sorry,’ hissed Polly.
Igorina started to hum. Polly knew the song.
I’m lonesome since I crossed the hill
And o’er the moor and valley . . .
And she vowed: not that one, too. One song is enough. And I want to leave the girl behind me, but it seems I brought her with me . . . At which point they emerged from the trees and saw the red glow.
The rest of the squad were already gathered round, watching it. It covered quite a lot of the horizon, and brightened and faded in places as they watched.
‘Is that hell?’ said Wazzer.
‘No, but men have made it so, I fear,’ said the lieutenant. ‘That is the Kneck valley.’
‘It’s on fire, sir?’ said Polly.
‘Bless you, that’s just the light of cooking-fires reflected off the clouds,’ said Sergeant Jackrum. ‘Always looks bad by night, a battlefield. Not to worry, lads!’
‘What’re they cooking, elephants?’ said Maladict.
‘And what’s that?’ said Polly, pointing to a nearby hill, darker still against the night. On it, a little light was flickering on and off, very fast.
There was a whoosh and a metallic ‘pop’ as Blouse pulled out a small telescope and opened it up. ‘It’s a light clacks, the devils!’ he said.
‘Dere’s another one over dere,’ rumbled Jade, pointing to a hill a lot further away. ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’
Polly stared at the redness in the sky, and then at the cold little light, winking on and off. Quiet, soft light. Harmless light. And behind it, a burning sky . . .
‘It’ll be in code,’ said Blouse. ‘Spies, I’ll be bound.’
‘A light clacks?’ said Tonker. ‘What’s that?’
‘An Abomination in the eyes of Nuggan,’ said Blouse. ‘Unfortunately, because they’d be damn useful if we could have ’em too, eh, sergeant?’
‘Yessir,’ said Jackrum automatically.
‘The only messages passing through the air should be the prayers of the faithful. Praise Nuggan, Praise the Duchess and so on and so forth,’ said Blouse, squinting. He sighed. ‘Such a shame. How far to that hill, would you say, sergeant?’
‘Two miles, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘Worth trying to sneak up?’
‘They must know people will see them and come looking, so I expect they won’t “hang around” for long,’ mused Blouse. ‘In any case, ah, those things would be highly directional. You’d lose it once you got down in the valley.’
‘Permission to speak, sir?’ said Polly.
‘Of course,’ said Blouse.
‘How do they get the light so bright, sir? It’s pure white!’
‘Some kind of firework thingy, I believe. Why?’
‘And they send messages with light?’
‘Yes, Perks. And your point is . . .?’
‘And the people who get those messages send messages back the same way?’ Polly persevered.
‘Yes, Perks, that is the whole idea.’
‘Then . . . maybe we don’t have to go all the way to that hill, sir? The light is being aimed towards us, sir.’
They all turned. The hill they were skirting loomed above them.
‘Well done, Perks!’ Blouse whispered. ‘Let’s go, sergeant!’ He swung himself off the horse, which automatically stepped sideways to make sure that he fell over when he landed.
‘Right you are, sir!’ said Jackrum, helping him up. ‘Maladict, you take Goom and Halter and cir
cle round to the left, the rest go round to the right – not you, Carborundum, no offence, but this has got to be quiet, okay? You stay here. Perks, you come with me—’
‘I shall come too, sergeant,’ said Blouse, and only Polly saw Jackrum grimace.
‘Good idea, sir!’ said the sergeant. ‘I suggest you – I suggest Perks and I come with you. Everyone got that? Get to the top neat and quiet and no one, no one moves until you hear my signal—’
‘My signal,’ said Blouse firmly.
‘That’s what I meant, sir. Quick and quiet! Hit ’em hard but I want at least one left alive! Go!’
The two teams fanned out to right and left and disappeared. The sergeant gave them a minute or two’s start, and then set off with unusual speed for a man of his girth, so that for a moment Polly and the lieutenant were left standing. Behind them, a dejected Jade watched them go.
The trees thinned out on the steep slope, but not enough for much underbrush to get a hold. Polly found it easier to go on all fours, grabbing at tufts and saplings to steady herself. After a while she caught a whiff of smoke, chemical and acrid. She was sure, too, that she could hear a faint clicking noise.
A tree extended a hand and pulled her into its shadow. ‘Don’t you say a bleedin’ word,’ hissed Jackrum. ‘Where’s the rupert?’
‘Don’t know, sarge!’
‘Damn! You can’t let a rupert run around loose, there’s no tellin’ what he might take it into his little head to do, now he’s got the idea he’s in charge! You’re ’is minder! Find ’im!’
Polly slithered back down the slope and found Blouse steadying himself against a tree, wheezing gently.
‘Ah . . . Perks,’ he panted. ‘My asthma seems to . . . be . . . coming back . . .’
‘I’ll help you up, sir,’ said Polly, grabbing his hand and tugging him forward. ‘Could you wheeze a little more quietly, sir?’
By degrees, dragging and pushing, she bundled the man up to Jackrum’s tree.
‘Glad you could join us, sir!’ hissed the sergeant, face contorted into an expression of maddened affability. ‘If you’d care to wait here, Perks and me will crawl up the—’