‘How did you get there?’ he bellowed.
‘It’th a gift, thur,’ said Igor.
‘Don’t you ever get behind me again! Fall in with the rest of them! Now . . . Attention!’ Strappi sighed theatrically. ‘That means “stand up straight”. Got it? Once more with feeling! Attention! Ah, I see the problem! You’ve got trousers that are permanently at ease! I think I shall have to write to the Duchess and tell her she should ask for her money back! What are you smiling about, Mr Vampire sir?’ Strappi positioned himself in front of Maladict, who stood faultlessly to attention.
‘Happy to be in the regiment, corporal!’
‘Yeah, right,’ mumbled Strappi. ‘Well, you won’t be so—’
‘Everything all right, corporal?’ asked Sergeant Jackrum, appearing in the doorway.
‘Best we could expect, sergeant,’ sighed the corporal. ‘We ought to throw ‘em back, oh dear me, yes. Useless, useless, useless . . .’
‘Okay, lads. Stand easy,’ said Jackrum, glancing at Strappi in a less than friendly way. ‘Today we’re heading on down towards Plotz, where we’ll meet up with the other recruiting parties and you’ll be issued with your uniforms and weapons, you lucky lads. Any of you ever used a weapon? You have, Perks?’
Polly lowered her hand. ‘A bit, sarge. My brother taught me a bit when he was home on leave, and some of the old men in the bar where I worked gave me some, er, tips.’ They had, too. It was funny to watch a girl waving a sword around, and they’d been kind enough when they weren’t laughing. She was a quick learner, but she’d made a point of staying clumsy long after she’d got the feel for the blade, because using a sword was also ‘the work of an Man’ and a woman doing it was an Abomination unto Nuggan. Old soldiers, on the whole, were on the easygoing side when it came to Abominations. She’d be funny just as long as she was useless, and safe as long as she was funny.
‘Expert, are yer?’ said Strappi, grinning nastily. ‘A real fencin’ genius, are yer?’
‘No, corporal,’ said Polly meekly.
‘All right,’ said Jackrum. ‘Anyone else—’
‘Hang on, sarge, I reckon we’d all like a bit of instruction from swordmeister Parts,’ said Strappi. ‘Ain’t that right, lads?’ There was a general murmuring and shrugging from the squad, who recognized a right little bullying bastard when they saw one but, treacherously, were glad he hadn’t picked on them.
Strappi drew his own sword. ‘Lend him one of yours, sarge,’ he said. ‘Go on. Just a little bit of fun, eh?’
Jackrum hesitated, and glanced at Polly. ‘How about it, lad? You don’t have to,’ he said.
I’ll have to sooner or later, Polly thought. The world was full of Strappies. If you backed away from them, they only kept on coming. You had to stop them at the start. She sighed. ‘Okay, sarge.’
Jackrum pulled one of his cutlasses out of his sash and handed it to Polly. It looked amazingly sharp.
‘He won’t hurt you, Perks,’ he said, while looking at the smirking Strappi.
‘I’ll try not to hurt him either, sir,’ said Polly, and then cursed herself for the idiot bravado. It must have been the socks talking.
‘Oh, good,’ said Strappi, stepping back. ‘We’ll just see what you’re made of, Parts.’
Flesh, thought Polly. Blood. Easily cut things. Oh, well . . .
Strappi waved his sabre like the old boys had done, down low, in case she was one of those people who thought the whole idea was to hit the other man’s sword. She ignored it, and watched his eyes, which was no great treat. He wouldn’t stick her, not mortally, not with Jackrum watching. He’d try for something that’d hurt and make everyone laugh at her. That was the Strappi type through and through. Every inn counted one or two amongst its regulars.
The corporal tested her more aggressively a couple of times, and twice, by luck, she managed to knock the blade out of the way. Luck would run out, though, and if she looked like putting up a decent show Strappi would sort her out good and proper. Then she remembered the cackled advice of old Gummy Abbens, a retired sergeant who’d lost his left arm to a broadsword and all his teeth to cider: ‘A good swordsman ‘ates comin’ up against a newbie, gel! The reason bein’, he don’t know what the bugger’s gonna do!’
She swung the cutlass wildly. Strappi had to block it, and for a moment the swords locked.
That the best you can do, Parts?’ the corporal jeered.
Polly reached out and grabbed his shirt. ‘No, corporal,’ she said, ‘but this is.’ She pulled hard and lowered her head.
The collision hurt more than she’d hoped, but she heard something crunch and it didn’t belong to her. She stepped back quickly, slightly dizzy, “with the cutlass at the ready.
Strappi had sunk to his knees, blood gushing from his nose. When he got up, someone was going to die . . .
Panting, Polly appealed wordlessly to Sergeant Jackrum, who had folded his arms and was looking innocently at the ceiling.
‘I bet you didn’t learn that from your brother, Perks,’ he said.
‘No, sarge. Got that from Gummy Abbens, sarge.’
Jackrum suddenly looked down at her, grinning. ‘What, old Sergeant Abbens?’
‘Yes, sarge!’
‘There’s a name from the past! He’s still alive? How is the evil old sot?’
‘Er . . . well preserved, sarge,’ said Polly, still trying to get her breath.
Jackrum laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ll bet. Did his best fighting in bars, he did. And I’ll bet that’s not the only trick he told you about, eh?’
‘No, sir.’ And the other men had scolded the old boy for telling her, and Gummy had chuckled into his cider mug, and anyway it had taken Polly a long time to find out what ‘family jewels’ meant.
‘Hear that, Strappi?’ said the sergeant to the cursing man dribbling blood on to the floor. ‘Looks like you was lucky. But there’s no prizes for fighting fair in a melee, lads, as you will learn. All right, fun over. Go and put some cold water on that, corporal. It always looks worse than it is. And that’s an end of it, the pair of you. That is an order. A word to the wise. Understood?’
‘Yes, sarge,’ said Polly meekly. Strappi grunted.
Jackrum looked at the rest of the recruits. ‘Okay. Any of the rest of you boys ever held a stick? Right. I can see we’re going to have to start slow and work up . . .’
There was another grunt from Strappi. You had to admire the man. On his knees, with blood bubbling through the hand cupping his injured nose, he could find time to make life difficult for someone in some small way.
‘Private Bloodfnucker hnas a fnord, fnargeant,’ he said accusingly.
‘Any good with it?’ said the sergeant to Maladict.
‘Not really, sir,’ said Maladict. ‘Never had training. I carry it for protection, sir.’
‘How can you protect yourself by carrying a sword if you don’t know how to use it?’
‘Not me, sir. Other people. They see the sword and don’t attack me,’ said Maladict patiently.
‘Yes, but if they did, lad, you wouldn’t be any good with it,’ said the sergeant.
‘No, sir. I’d probably settle for just ripping their heads off, sir. That’s what I mean by protection, sir. Theirs, not mine. And I’d get hell from the League if I did that, sir.’
The sergeant stared at him for a while. ‘Well thought out,’ he mumbled.
There was a thud behind them and a table overturned. Carborundum the troll sat up, groaned, and crashed back down again. At the second attempt, he managed to stay upright, both hands clutching his head.
Corporal Strappi, now on his feet, must have been made fearless by fury. He headed for the troll in a high-speed strut and stood in front of him, vibrating with rage and still oozing blood in sticky strings.
‘You ‘orrible little man!’ he screamed. ‘You—’
Carborundum reached down and, with care and no apparent effort, picked the corporal up by his head. He brought him to one crusted eye and turned him this way and that.
‘Did I join th’ army?’ he rumbled. ‘Oh, coprolite . . .’
‘This is affnault on a fnuperior officer!’ screamed the muffled voice of the corporal.
‘Put Corporal Strappi down, please,’ said Sergeant Jackrum. The troll grunted, and lowered the man to the floor.
‘Sorry about dat,’ he said. ‘Thought you was a dwarf.’
‘I dnemand this man is affrested for—’ Strappi began.
‘No you don’t, corporal, no you don’t,’ said the sergeant. ‘This is not the time. On your feet, Carborundum, and get in line. Upon my oath, you try that little trick one more time and there will be trouble, understand?’
‘Yes, sergeant,’ growled the troll, and knuckled himself to his feet.