‘It’s because of the one C, sarge!’ said Polly, still staring straight ahead.
‘And that is?’
‘Colour, sarge! I’m wearing bleedin’ red and white in a bleedin’ grey forest, sarge!’
She risked a sideways glance. In Jackrum’s little piggy eyes there gleamed a gleam. It was the one you got when he was secretly pleased.
‘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, d 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.* He was quiet, and neat, but maybe that’s how Igors behaved . . .
* And even then it was the kind of home that has a burned-out vehicle on the lawn.
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 general 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.