Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett [10]
He released his grip. The barman slowly straightened up. Under the bar, he would have a short wooden club, Polly knew. Every bar had one. Even her father had one. It was a great help, he said, in times of worry and confusion. She saw the fingers of the usable hand twitch.
“Don’t,” she said. “I think he means it.”
The barman relaxed. “Bit of a misunderstanding there, gents,” he mumbled. “Got the wrong barrel in. No offense meant.”
He shuffled off, his hand almost visibly throbbing.
“I only thaid it wath horthe pith,” said Igor.
“He won’t cause trouble,” said Polly to Maladict. “He’ll be your friend from now on. He’s worked out he can’t beat you so he’s going to be your best mate.”
Maladict subjected her to a thoughtful stare.
“I know that,” he said. “How do you?”
“I used to work in an inn,” said Polly, feeling her heart begin to beat faster, as it always did when the lies lined up. “You learn to read people.”
“What did you do in the inn?”
“Barman.”
“There’s another inn in this hole, is there?”
“Oh no, I’m not from round here.”
Polly groaned at the sound of her own voice, and waited for the question “Then why come here to join up?” It didn’t come. Instead, Maladict just shrugged and said, “I shouldn’t think anyone is from around here.”
A couple more new recruits arrived at the bar. They had the same look—sheepish, a bit defiant, in clothes that didn’t fit well. Eyebrow reappeared with a small keg, which he laid reverentially on a stand and gently tapped. He pulled a genuine pewter tankard from under the bar, filled it, and timorously proffered it to Maladict.
“Igor?” said the vampire, waving it away.
“I’ll thtick with the horthe pith, if it’th all the thame to you,” said Igor.
He looked around the sudden silence.
“Look, I never thaid I didn’t like it,” said Igor. He pushed his mug across the sticky bar. “Thame again?”
Polly took the new tankard and sniffed at it. Then she took a sip.
“Not bad,” she said. “At least it tastes like it’s—”
The door pushed open, letting in the sounds of the storm.
About two-thirds of a troll eased its way inside, and then managed to get the rest of itself through.
Polly was okay about trolls. She met them up in the woods sometimes, sitting among the trees or purposefully lumbering along the tracks on the way to whatever it was trolls did. They weren’t friendly, they were…resigned. The world’s got humans in it, live with it. They’re not worth the indigestion. You can’t kill ’em all. Step around ’em. Stepping on ’em doesn’t work in the long term.
Occasionally a farmer would hire one to do some heavy work. Sometimes they turned up, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they’d turn up, lumber around a field pulling out tree stumps as if they were carrots, and then wander off without waiting to be paid. A lot of things humans did mystified trolls, and vice versa. Generally, they avoided one another.
But she didn’t often see trolls as…trollish as this one. It looked like a boulder that had spent centuries in the damp pine forests. Lichen covered it. Stringy gray moss hung in curtains from its head and its chin. It had a bird’s nest in one ear. It had a genuine troll club, made from an uprooted sapling. It was almost a joke troll, except that no one would laugh.
The root end of the sapling bumped across the floor as the troll, watched by the recruits and a horrified Corporal Strappi, trudged to the table.
“Gonna En List,” it said. “Gonna do my bit. Gimme shillin’.”
“You’re a troll!” Strappi burst out.
“Now, now, none of that, Corporal,” said Sergeant Jackrum. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“Don’t ask? Don’t ask? It’s a troll, Sarge! It’s got crags! There’s grass growing under its fingernails! It’s a troll!”
“Right,” said the sergeant. “Enlist him.”
“You want to fight with us?” Strappi squeaked. Trolls had no sense of personal space, and a ton of what was, for practical purposes, a kind of rock was looming right over the table.
The troll analyzed the question. The recruits stood in silence, mugs halfway to mouths.
“No,” said the troll at last. “Gonna fight wi’ En Army. Gods save