Jingo

“I didn't just see that, did I?” said Ahmed. “I didn't just see him talk like a little schoolteacher to Hashel who, I happen to know, once hit a man so hard his nose ended up in one of his ears?”

“Yes, you did,” said Angua. “And now watch them.”

When the rest of the men turned their attention back to Carrot the scufflers looked at one another, as unfortunates who had both been through the same baptism of fiery embarrassment.

Private Bourke gingerly offered Hashel a cigarette.

“It only works around him,” said Angua. “But it does work.”

Let it go on working, Vimes prayed.

Carrot walked over to a kneeling camel and climbed into the saddle.

“That's ‘Evil Brother-in-Law of a Jackal’,” said Ahmed. “Jabbar's camel! It bites everyone who ride it!”

“Yes, but this is Carrot.”

“It even bites Jabbar!”

“And you notice how he knew how to get on a camel?” said Vimes. “How he wears the robes? He's fitting in. The boy was raised in a dwarf mine. It took him about a month to know my own damn city better than I do.”

The camel rose. Now the flag, Vimes thought, give him the flag. When you go to war, there's got to be a flag.

On cue, Constable Shoe passed up the spear with the tightly rolled cloth around it. The constable looked proud. He'd stitched the thing in conditions of great secrecy half an hour before. One thing about a zombie, you always knew someone who had a needle and thread.

But don't unfurl it, Vimes thought. Don't let them see it. It's enough for them to know they're marching under a flag.

Carrot brandished the spear.

“And I promise you this,” he shouted, “if we succeed, noone will remember. And if we fail, no one will forget!”

Probably one of the worst rallying cries, Vimes thought, since General Pidley's famous “Let's all get our throats cut, boys!” but it got a huge cheer. And once again he speculated that there was magic going on at some bone-deep level. People followed Carrot out of curiosity.

“All right, you've got an army, I suppose,” said Ahmed. “And now?”

“I'm a policeman. So are you. There's going to be a crime. Saddle up, Ahmed.”

Ahmed salaamed. “I am happy to be led by a white officer, offendi.”

“I didn't mean—”

“Have you ever ridden a camel before, Sir Samuel?”

“No!”

“Ah?” Ahmed smiled faintly. “Then just give it a prod to get started. And when you want to stop, hit it very hard with the stick and shout ‘Huthuthut!’”

“You hit it with a stick to make it stop?”

“Is there any other way?” said 71-hour Ahmed.

His camel looked at Vimes, and then spat in his eye.

Prince Cadram and his generals surveyed the distant enemy, from horseback. The various Klatchian armies were drawn up in front of Gebra. Compared to them, the Ankh-Morpork regiments looked like a group of tourists who had missed their coach.

“Is that all?” he said.

“Yes, sire,” said General Ashal. “But, you see, they believe that fortune favours the brave.”

“That is a reason to field such a contemptible little army?”

“Ah, sire, but they believe that we will turn and run as soon as we taste some cold steel.”

The Prince looked back at the distant banners. “Why?”

“I couldn't say, sire. It appears to be an item of faith.”

“Strange.” The Prince nodded to one of his bodyguards. “Fetch me some cold steel.”

After some hurried discussion a sword was handed up very gingerly, handle first. The prince peered at it, and then licked it with theatrical care. The watching soldiers laughed.

“No,” he said at last. “No, I have to say that I don't feel the least apprehensive. Is this as cold as steel gets?”

“Lord Rust was probably being metaphorical, sire.”

“Ah. He is the sort who would be. Well, let us go forward and meet him. We must be civilized, after all.”

He urged his horse forward. The generals fell in behind him.

The prince leaned down towards General Ashal again.

“And why are we going out to meet him before battle commences?”

“It's a… it's a goodwill gesture, sire. Warriors honouring one another.”

“But the man's a complete incompetent!”

“Indeed, sire.”

“And we're about to set thousands of our countrymen against one another, aren't we?”

“Indeed, sire.”

“So what does the maniac want to do? Tell me there's no hard feelings?”

“Broadly speaking, sire… yes. I understand the motto of his old school was ‘It matters not that you won or lost, but that you took part.’”

The Prince's lips moved as he tried this out once or twice. Finally he said: “And, knowing this, people still take orders from him?”

“It would seem so, sire.”

Prince Cadram shook his head. We can learn from Ankh-Morpork, his father had said. Sometimes we can learn what not to do. And so he'd set out to learn.

First he'd learned that Ankh-Morpork had once ruled quite a slice of Klatch. He'd visited the ruins of one of its colonies. And so he'd found out the name of the man who had been audacious enough to do this, and had got agents in Ankh-Morpork to find out as much about him as possible.