Interesting Times

'Yeah,' said Cohen. 'That's how good we are.'

'There is one other thing about his army, actually,' said someone.

They all turned to Rincewind, who'd been almost as surprised as they were to hear his voice. But a train of thought had just reached the terminus...

'Yes?'

'You may have been wondering why you have only seen the... generals,' Rincewind went on, slowly, as if working it out as he went along. 'That is because, you see, the men themselves are... invisible. Er. Yes. Ghosts, in fact. Everyone knows this, don't they?'

Cohen gaped at him in astonishment.

'Blood-sucking ghosts, as a matter of fact,' said Rincewind. 'After all, everyone knows that's what you get beyond the Wall, don't they?'

Lord Hong sneered. But the warlords stared at Rincewind with the expressions of people who strongly suspected that the people beyond the Wall were flesh and blood but who also relied on millions of people not believing that this was so.

'Ridiculous! You are not invisible blood-sucking ghosts,' said one of them.

Cohen opened his mouth so that the diamond teeth glinted.

' 'S right,' he said. 'Fact is... we're the visible sort.'

'Hah! A pathetic attempt!' said Lord Hong. 'Ghosts or no ghosts, we will beat you!'

'Well, that went better than I expected,' Mr Saveloy remarked as the warlords strode out. 'Was that an attempt at a little bit of psychological warfare there, Mr Rincewind?'

'Is that what it was? I know about that kind of stuff,' said Cohen. 'It's where you bang your shield all night before the fight so's the enemy can't get any sleep and you sing, "We're gonna cut yer tankers off," and stuff like that.'

'Similar,' said Mr Saveloy, diplomatically. 'But it failed to work, I'm afraid. Lord Hong and his generals are rather too sophisticated. It's a great shame you couldn't try it on the common soldiers.'

There was a faint squeak of rabbit behind them. They turned, and looked at the somewhat under-age cadre of the Red Army that was being ushered in. Butterfly was with them. She even gave Rincewind a very faint smile.

Rincewind had always relied on running away. But sometimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight if only because there was nowhere left to run.

But he was no good at all with weapons.

At least, the normal sort.

'Um,' he said, 'if we leave the palace now, we'll be killed, right?'

'I doubt it,' said Mr Saveloy. 'It's become a matter of the Art of War now. Someone like Hong would probably slit our throats, but now war is declared things have to be done according to custom.'

Rincewind took a deep breath.

'It's a million-to-one chance,' he said, 'but it might just work...'

The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet and Contra-flow.

Among the armies encamped in the broad alluvial plain around Hunghung, the invisible horsemen known as Misinformation, Rumour and Gossip saddled up...

A large army encamped has all the tedious problems of a city without any of the advantages. Its watchfires and picket lines are, after a while, open to local civilians, especially if they have anything to sell and even more so if they are women whose virtue has a certain commercial element and even, sometimes, if they appear to be selling food which is a break from the monotonous army diet. The food currently on sale was certainly such a break.

'Pork balls! Pork balls! Get them while they're...' There was a pause as the vendor mentally tried out ways of ending the sentence, and gave up. 'Pork balls! Onna stick! How about you, shogun, you look like -Here, aren't you the—?'

'Shutupshutupshutup!'

Rincewind pulled D. M. H. Dibhala into the shadows by a tent.

The trader looked at the anguished face framed between a eunuch outfit and a big straw hat.

'It's the Wizard, isn't it? How are—?'

'You know how you seriously wanted to become very rich in international trade?' Rincewind said.

'Yes? Can we start?'

'Soon. Soon. But there's something you must do. You know this rumour about the army of invisible vampire ghosts that's heading this way?'

D. M. H. Dibhala's eyes swivelled nervously. But it was part of his stock in trade never to appear to be ignorant of anything except, perhaps, how to give correct change.

'Yes?' he said.

'The one about there being millions of them?' said Rincewind. 'And very hungry on account of not having eaten on the way? And made specially fierce by the Great Wizard?'

'Um... yes?'

'Well, it's not true.'

'It's not?'

'You don't believe me? After all, I ought to know.'

'Good point.'

'And we don't want people to panic, do we?'

'Very bad for business, panic,' said D. M. H., nodding uncomfortably.

'So make sure you tell people there's no truth in this rumour, will you? Set their minds at rest.'