Interesting Times

He raised his sword.

'Fire!'

'Still tamping the charges, o lord!'

'I said fire!'

'Got to prime the Dogs, o lord.!'

The bombardiers worked feverishly, spurred on less by terror of Lord Hong than by the onrushing Horde.

Mr Saveloy's hair streamed in the wind. He bounded through the dust, waving his sword and screaming.

He'd never been so happy in all his life.

So this was the secret at the heart of it all: to look death right in the face and charge… It made everything so utterly simple.

Lord Hong threw down his helmet. 'Fire, you wretched peasants! You scum of the earth! Why must I ask twice! Give me that torch!'

He pushed a bombardier aside, crouched down beside a Dog, heaved on it so that the barrel was pointing at the oncoming Cohen, lifted the torch—

The earth heaved. The Dog reared and rolled sideways.

A round red head, smiling faintly, rose out of the ground.

There were screams in the ranks as the soldiers looked down at the moving dirt under their boots, tried to run on a surface that was just shifting soil, and disappeared in the rising cloud of dust.

The ground caved in.

Then it caved out again as stricken soldiers climbed up one another to escape because, rising gently through the turmoil, was the soil in human shape.

The Horde skidded to a halt.

'What're they? Trolls?' said Cohen. Ten of the figures were visible now, industriously digging at the air.

Then they stopped. One of them turned its gently smiling head this way and that.

A sergeant must have screamed a handful of archers into line, because a few arrows shattered on the terracotta armour, with absolutely no effect.

Other red warriors were climbing up behind the former diggers. They collided with them, with a sound of crockery. Then, as one man — or troll, or demon — they drew their swords, turned around, and headed towards Lord Hong's army.

A few soldiers tried to fight them simply because there was too great a crowd behind them to run away. They died.

It wasn't that the red guards were good fighters. They were very mechanical, each one performing the same thrust, parry, slash, regardless of what their opponent was doing. But they were simply unstoppable. If their opponent escaped one of the blows but didn't get out of the way then he was just trodden on — and by the looks of things, the warriors were extremely heavy.

And it was the way the things smiled all the time that added to the terror.

'Well, now, there's a thing,' Cohen said, feeling for his tobacco pouch.

'Never seen trolls fight like that,' said Truckle. Rank after rank was walking up out of the hole, stabbing happily at the air.

The front row were moving in a cloud of dust and screams. It is hard for a big army to do anything quickly, and divisions trying to move forward to see what the trouble was were getting in the way of fleeing individuals seeking a hole to hide in and permanent civilian status. Gongs were banging and men were trying to shout orders, but no-one knew what the gongs were meant to mean or how the orders should be obeyed, because there didn't seem to be enough time.

Cohen finished rolling his cigarette, and struck a match on his chin.

'Right,' he said, to the world in general. 'Let's get that bloody Hong.'

The clouds overhead were less fearsome now. There was less lightning. But there were still a lot of them, greeny-black, heavy with rain.

'But this is amazing!' said Mr Saveloy.

A few drops hit the ground, leaving wide craters in the dirt.

'Yeah, right,' said Cohen.

'A most strange phenomenon! Warriors rising out of the ground!'

The craters joined up. It felt as though the drops were joining up as well. The rain began to pour down.

'Dunno,' said Cohen, watching a ragged platoon flee past. 'Never been here before. Praps this happens a lot.'

'I mean, it's just like that myth about the man who sowed dragons' teeth and terrible fighting skeletons came up!'

'I don't believe that,' said Caleb, as they jogged after Cohen.

'Why not?'

'If you sow dragons' teeth, you should get dragons. Noot fighting skeletons. What did it say on the packet?'

'I don't know! The myth never said anything about them coming in a packet!'

'Should've said 'Comes up Dragons' on the packet.'

'You can't believe myths,' said Cohen. 'I should know. Right… there he is…' he added, pointing to a distant horseman.

The whole plain was in turmoil now. The red warriors were only the start. The alliance of the five warlords was glass fragile in any case, and panicky flight was instantly interpreted as sneak attack. No-one paid any attention to the Horde. They didn't have any coloured pennants or gongs. They weren't traditional enemies. And, besides, the soil was now mud, and the mud flew, and everyone from the waist down was the same colour and this was rising.

'What're we doing, Ghenghiz?' said Mr Saveloy.

'We're heading back for the palace.'

'Why?'

''Cos that's where Hong's gone.'

'But there's this astonishing—'

'Look, Teach, I've seen walking trees and spider gods and big green things with teeth,' said Cohen. 'It's no good goin' around saying 'astonishing' all the time, ain't that so, Truckle?'

'Right. D'you know, when I went after that Five-Headed Vampire Goat over in Skund they said I shouldn't on account of it being an endangered species? I said, yes, that was down to me. Were they grateful?'

'Huh,' said Caleb. 'Should've thanked you, giving them all those endangered species to worry about. Turn around and go home right now, soldier boy!'

A group of soldiers, fighting to get away from the red warriors, skidded in the mud, stared in terror at the Horde, and headed off in a new direction.

Truckle stopped for breath, rain streaming off his beard.

'I can't be having with this running, though,' he said. 'Not and push Hamish's wheelchair in all this mud. Let's have a breather.'

'Whut?'

'Stopping for a breather?' said Cohen. 'My gods! I never thought I'd see the day! A hero having a rest? Did Voltan the Indestructible have a bit of a rest?'

'He's having one now. He's dead, Ghenghiz,' said Caleb.

Cohen hesitated.

'What, old Voltan?'

'Didn't you know? And the Immortal Jenkins.'

'Jenkins isn't dead, I saw him only last year.'

'But he's dead now. All the heroes are dead, 'cept us. And I ain't too sure about me, too.'

Cohen splashed forward and snatched Caleb upright by his shirt.

'What about Hrun? He can't be dead. He's half our age!'

'Last I heard he got a job. Sergeant of the Guard somewhere.'

'Sergeant of the Guard?' said Cohen. 'What, for