‘Aerial cavalry,’ said Maladict.
‘Pardon, corporal?’
‘Flying machines, sir!’ said Maladict. ‘They won’t know where to expect us. We touch down in a handy LZ, take them out, and then dust off.’
Blouse’s clear brow wrinkled a little. ‘Flying machines?’ he said.
‘I saw a picture of one by someone called Leonard of Quirm. A sort of . . . flying windmill. It’s just like a big screw up in the sky—’
‘I don’t think we need one of those, although the advice is welcomed,’ said Blouse.
‘Not when we’ve got a big screw-up down here, sir!’ Jackrum managed. ‘Sir, this is just a bunch of recruits, sir! All that stuff about honour and freedom and that, that was just for the writer man, right? Good idea, sir! Yeah, let’s get to the Kneck valley, and let’s sneak in and join the rest of the lads. That’s where we ought to be, sir. You can’t be serious about taking the keep, sir! I wouldn’t try that with a thousand men.’
‘I might try it with half a dozen, sergeant.’
Jackrum’s eyes bulged. ‘Really, sir? What’ll Private Goom do? Tremble at them? Young Igor will stitch ‘em up, will he? Private Halter will give ‘em a nasty look? They’re promising lads, sir, but they’re not men.’
‘General Tacticus said the fate of a battle may depend upon the actions of one man in the right place, sergeant,’ said Blouse calmly.
‘And having a lot more soldiers than the other bugger, sir,’ Jackrum insisted. ‘Sir, we should get to the rest of the army. Maybe it’s trapped, maybe it isn’t. All that stuff about them not wanting to slaughter us, sir, that makes no sense. The idea is to win, sir. If the rest of ‘em have stopped attacking, it’s because they’re frightened of us. We should be down there. That’s the place for young recruits, sir, where they can learn. The enemy is looking for ‘em, sir!’
‘If General Froc is among those captured, the keep will be where he is held,’ said Blouse. ‘I believe he was the first officer you served under as sergeant, am I right?’
Jackrum hesitated. ‘That’s right, sir,’ he said eventually. ‘And he was the dumbest lieutenant I’ve ever met, bar one.’
‘I am positive there is a secret entrance into the keep, sergeant.’
Polly’s memory nudged her. If Paul was alive, he was in the keep. She caught Shufti’s eye. The girl nodded. She’d been thinking along the same lines. She didn’t talk much about her . . . fiance, and Polly wondered how official the arrangement was.
‘Permission to speak, sarge?’ she said.
‘Okay, Perks.’
‘I’d like to try to find a way into the keep, sarge.’
‘Perks, are you volunteering to attack the biggest, strongest castle within five hundred miles? Single-handed?’
‘I’ll go, too,’ said Shufti.
‘Oh, two of you?’ said Jackrum. ‘Oh, well, that’s all right then.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Wazzer. ‘The Duchess has told me that I should.’
Jackrum looked down at Wazzer’s thin little face and watery eyes, and sighed. He turned back to Blouse. ‘Let’s get a move on, sir, shall we? We can talk about this later. At least we’re headed to Kneck, first stop on the road to hell. Perks and Igor, you take point. Maladict?’
‘Yo!’
‘Er . . . you scout on ahead.’
‘I hear you!’
‘Good.’
As the vampire walked past Polly the world, just for a moment, changed; the forest became greener, the sky greyer, and she heard a noise overhead, like ‘whopwhopwhop’. And then it was gone.
Vampire hallucinations are contagious, she thought. What’s going on in his head? She hurried forward with Igorina, and they set off again through the forest.
Birds sang. The effect was peaceful, if you didn’t know about birdsong, but Polly could recognize the alarm calls close by and the territorial threats far off and, everywhere, the preoccupation with sex. That took the edge off the pleasure.*
* It’s hard to be an ornithologist and walk through a wood when all around you the world is shouting: ‘Bugger off, this is my bush! Aargh, the nest thief! Have sex with me, I can make my chest big and red!’
‘Polly?’ said Igorina.
‘Hmm?’
‘Could you kill someone if you had to?’
Polly came right back to the here and now. ‘What sort of question is that to ask anyone?’
‘I think it’s the sort you’d ask a tholdier,’ said Igorina.
‘I don’t know. If they were attacking me, I suppose. Hurt them hard enough to keep them lying down, anyway. And you?’
‘We have a great respect for life, Polly,’ said Igorina solemnly. ‘It’s easy to kill thomeone, and almost impossible to bring them back again.’
‘Almost?’
‘Well, if you don’t have a really good lightning rod. And even if you have, they’re never quite the same. Cutlery tends to stick to them.’
‘Igorina, why are you here?’
‘The clan isn’t very . . . keen on girls getting too involved in the Great Work,’ said Igorina, looking downcast. ‘“Stick to your needlework”, my mother keeps saying. Well, that’s all very fine, but I know I’m good at the actual incisions as well. Especially the fiddly bits. And I think a woman on the slab would feel a lot better about things if she knew there was a female hand on the we-belong-dead switch. Tho I thought some battlefield experience would convince my father. Soldiers aren’t choosy about who saves their lives.’
‘I suppose men are the same the world over,’ said Polly.
‘On the inside, certainly.’
‘And . . . er . . . you really can put your hair back?’ Polly had seen it in its jar when they’d been breaking camp; it had spun gently in its bottle of green liquid, like some fine, rare seaweed.
‘Oh, yes. Scalp transplants are easy. It stings a bit for a couple of minutes, that’s all—’
There was movement between the trees, and then the blur resolved itself into Maladict. He held a finger to his lips as he drew closer, and whispered urgently: ‘Charlie’s tracking us!’
Polly and Igorina looked at one another. ‘Who’s Charlie?’
Maladict stared at them, and then rubbed his face distractedly. ‘I’m . . . sorry, er . . . sorry, it’s . . . look, we’re being followed! I know it!’
The sun was setting. Polly peered over the rocky ledge, back the way they had come. She could make out the track, golden and red in the late afternoon light. Nothing was moving. The outcrop was near the top of another rounded hill; the rear of it became the floor of a little enclosed space, surrounded by bushes. It made a good lookout for people who wanted to see without being seen, and it had done so in the recent past, by the look of the old fires.
Maladict was sitting with his head in his hands, with Jackrum and Blouse on either side of him. They were trying to understand, and not making much progress.
‘So you can’t hear anything?’ said Blouse.
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t see anything and can’t smell anything?’ said Jackrum.
‘No! I told you! But there is something after us. Watching us!’
‘But if you can’t—’ Blouse began.
‘Look, I’m a vampire,’ panted Maladict. ‘Just trust me, okay?’
‘I thould, tharge,’ said Igorina, from behind Jackrum. ‘We Igorth often therve vampireth. In timeth of strethth their perthonal thpace can extend ath much ath ten mileth from their body.’
There was the usual pause that follows an extended lisp. People need time to think.
‘Streth-th?’ said Blouse.
‘You know how you can feel that someone’s looking at you?’ mumbled Maladict. ‘Well, it’s like that, times a thousand. And it’s not a . . . a feeling, it’s something I know.’
‘Lots of people are looking for us, corporal,’ said Blouse, patting him kindly on the shoulder. ‘It doesn’t mean that they’ll find us.’
Polly, looking down on the gold-lit woodland, opened her mouth to speak. It was dry. Nothing came out.
Maladict shook the lieutenant’s hand away. ‘This . . . person isn’t looking for us! They know where we are!’
Polly forced saliva into her mouth, and tried again. ‘Movement!’
And then it wasn’t there any more. She’d have sworn there had been something on the path, something that merged with the light, revealing itself only by the changing, wavering pattern of shadows as it moved.
‘Er . . . perhaps not,’ she muttered.
‘Look, we’ve all lost sleep and we’re all a little “strung out”,’ said Blouse. ‘Let’s just keep things down, shall we?’
‘I need coffee!’ moaned Maladict, rocking back and forth.
Polly squinted at the distant pathway. The breeze was shaking the trees, and red-gold leaves were drifting down. For a moment there was just a suggestion . . . She got to her feet. Stare at shadows and waving branches for long enough and you could see anything. It was like looking at pictures in the flames.