Interesting Times

'Yes, yes, yes,' said Mr Saveloy. 'You killed this and you stole that and you defeated the giant man-eating avocados of somewhere else, but… it's all… stuff. It's just wallpaper, gentlemen! It never changes anything! No-one cares! Back in Ankh-Morpork I've taught boys who think you are myths. That's what you've achieved. They don't believe you ever really existed. They think someone made you up. You're stories, gentlemen. When you die no-one will know, because they think you're already dead.'

He paused for breath, and then continued more slowly. 'But here… here you could be real. You could stop playing at your lives. You could take this ancient and somewhat rotten Empire back into the world. At least…' he trailed off. 'That's what I'd hoped. I really thought that, perhaps, we might actually achieve something…'

He sat down.

The Horde stood staring at its various feet or wheels.

'Um. Can I say something? The warlords will all be against you,' said Six Beneficent Winds. 'They're out there now, with their armies. Normally they'd fight amongst themselves, but they'll all fight you.'

'They'd rather have some poisoner like this Hong instead of me?' said Cohen. 'But he's a bastard!'

'Yes, but… he's their bastard, you see.'

'We could hold out here. This place has got thick walls,' said Vincent. 'The ones not made of paper, that is.'

'Don't think about that,' said Truckle. 'Not a siege. Sieges are messy. I hate eating boots and rats.'

'Whut?'

'He said WE DON'T WANT A SIEGE WHERE WE HAVE TO EAT BOOTS AND RATS, Hamish.'

'Run outa legs, have we?'

'How many soldiers have they got?' said Cohen. 'I think… six or seven hundred thousand,' said the taxman.

'Excuse us,' said Cohen, getting off the throne. 'I have to join my Horde.'

The Horde went into a huddle. There was an occasional 'Whut?' in the hoarse whispered interchanges. Then Cohen turned round.

'Seas of blood, wasn't it?' he said.

'Er. Yes,' said the taxman.

The huddle resumed.

After some further exchanges Truckle's head poked up.

'Did you say mountain of skulls?' he said.

'Yes. Yes, I think that's what I said,' said the taxman. He glanced nervously at Rincewind and Mr Saveloy, who shrugged.

Whisper, whisper, Whut…

'Excuse me?'

'Yes?'

'About how big a mountain? Skulls don't pile up that well.'

'I don't know how big a mountain! A lot of skulls!'

'Just checking.'

The Horde seemed to reach a decision. They turned to face the other men.

'We're going to fight,' said Cohen.

'Yes, you should have said all that about skulls and blood before,' said Truckle.

'We'll show ye whether we'm dead or not!' cackled Hamish.

Mr Saveloy shook his head.

'I think you must have misheard. The odds are a hundred thousand to one!' he said.

'I reckon that'll show people we're still alive,' said Caleb.

'Yes, but the whole point of my plan was to show you that you could get to the top of the pyramid without having to fight your way up,' said Mr Saveloy. 'It really is possible in such a stale society. But if you try to fight hundreds of thousands of men you'll die.'

And then, to his surprise, he found himself adding: 'Probably.'

The Horde grinned at him.

'Big odds don't frighten us,' said Truckle.

'We like big odds,' said Caleb.

'Y'see, Teach, odds of a thousand to one ain't a lot worse than ten to one,' said Cohen. 'The reasons bein'—' He counted on his fingers. 'One, your basic soldier who's fightin' for pay rather than his life ain't goin' to stick his neck out when there's all these other blokes around who might as well do the business, and, two, not very many of 'em are goin' to be able to get near us at one time and they'll all be pushin' and shovin', and…' He looked at his fingers with an expression of terminal calculation.

'… Three…' said Mr Saveloy, hypnotized by this logic.

'… three, right… Half the time when they swings their swords they'll hit one of their mates, savin' us a bit of effort. See?'

'But even if that were true it'd only work for a little while,' Mr Saveloy protested. 'Even if you killed as many as two hundred you'd be tired and there'd be fresh troops attacking you.'

'Oh, they'd be tired too,' said Cohen cheerfully.

'Why?'

'Because by then, to get to us, they'd have to be running uphill.'

'That's logic, that is,' said Truckle, approvingly.

Cohen slapped the shaken teacher on the back.

'Don't you worry about a thing,' he said. 'If we've got the Empire by your kind of plan, we'll keep it by our kind of plan. You've shown us civilization, so we'll show you barbarism.'

He walked a few steps and then turned, an evil glint in his eye. 'Barbarism? Hah! When we kills people we do it there and then, lookin' 'em in the eye, and we'd be happy to buy 'em a drink in the next world, no harm done. I never knew a barbarian who cut up people slowly in little rooms, or tortured women to make 'em look pretty, or put poison in people's grub. Civilization? If that's civilization, you can shove it where the sun don't shine!'

'Whut?'

'He said SHOVE IT WHERE THE SUN DOESN'T SHINE, Hamish.'

'Ah? Bin there.'

'But there is more to civilization than that!' said Mr Saveloy. 'There's… music, and literature, and the concept of justice, and the ideals of—'

The bamboo doors slid aside. As one man, joints creaking, the Horde turned with weapons raised.

The men in the doorway were taller and much more richly dressed than the peasants, and they moved in the manner of people who are used to there being no-one in the way. Ahead of them, though, was a trembling peasant holding a red flag on a stick. He was prodded into the room at swordpoint.

'Red flag?' whispered Cohen.

'It means they want to parley,' said Six Beneficent Winds.

'You know… it's like our white flag of surrender,' said Mr Saveloy.

'Never heard of it,' said Cohen.

'It means you mustn't kill anyone until they're ready.'

Mr Saveloy tried to shut out the whispers behind him.

'Why don't we just invite them to dinner and massacre them all when they're drunk?'

'You heard the man. There's seven hundred thousand of them.'

'Ah? So it'd have to be something simple with pasta, then.'

A couple of the lords strode into the middle of the room. Cohen and Mr Saveloy went to meet them.

'And you, too,' said Cohen, grabbing Rincewind as he tried to back away. 'You're a weaselly man with words in a tight spot, so come on.'

Lord Hong regarded them with the expression of a man whose ancestry had bequeathed to him the ability to