Monstrous Regiment (Discworld 31)

"And a candle," Tonker went on. "And a lot of barrels. And a lot of water."

"And what will all this do?" said Blouse.

"Make a big bang," said Tonker. "Tilda knows a lot about fire, believe me."

"When you say she knows a lot..." Polly began uncertainly.

"I mean every place she worked at burned down," said Tonker.

They rolled the empty barrels to the middle of the room and filled them with water from the pump. Under Lofty's monosyllabic direction and the rope from the well, they hauled three leaking, dusty flour sacks up as high as possible, so that they twisted gently over the space between the barrels and the door.

"Ah," said Polly, standing back. "I think I understand. A flour mill on the other side of town blew up two years ago."

"Yes," said Tonker. "That was Tilda."

"What?"

"They'd been beating her. And worse. And the thing about Tilda is, she just watches and thinks and somewhere in there it all comes together. Then it explodes."

"But two people died!"

"The man and his wife. Yes. But I heard that other girls sent there never came back at all. Shall I tell you that Tilda was pregnant when they brought her back to the Grey House after the fire? She had it, and they took it away, and we don't know what happened to it. And then she got beaten again because she was an Abomination Unto Nuggan. Does that make you feel better?" said Tonker, tying the rope to a table leg. "There's just us, Polly. Just her and me. No inheritance, no nice home to go back to, no relatives that we know of. The Grey House breaks us all, somehow. Wazzer talks to the Duchess, I don't have... middle gears, and Tilda frightens me when she gets her hands on a box of matches. You should see her face then, though. It lights up. Of course," Tonker smiled in her dangerous way, "so do other things. Better get everyone into the storeroom while we light the candle."

"Shouldn't Tilda do that?"

"She will. But we'll have to be ready to drag her away, otherwise she'll stay and watch."

This had started like a game. She hadn't thought of it like a game, but it was a game called Let Polly keep The Duchess. And now... it didn't matter. She'd made all kinds of plans, but she was beyond plans now. They'd done bloody well, for girls...

A final barrel of water had been placed, after some discussion, in front of the storeroom's door. Polly looked over the top of it at Blouse and the rest of the squad.

"Okay, everybody, we're... er... about to do it," she said. "Are we sure about this, Tonker?" ers of Borogravia...

The lurching figures stopped. They hesitated. They shuffled backwards. With a certain amount of clattering and tongueless bickering, they formed two lines.

Wazzer stood up.

"Follow me..." she said.

Follow me...

...me...

"Sir?" said Polly to Blouse.

"I think we go, don't you?" said the lieutenant, who seemed oblivious of Wazzer's activities now that he was in the presence of the military might of the centuries. "Oh, god... there's Brigadier Galosh! And Major-general the Lord Kanapay! General Annorac! I've read everything he wrote! I never thought I'd see him in the flesh!"

"Partly flesh, sir," said Polly, dragging him forward.

"Every great commander of the last five hundred years was buried here, Perks!"

"I'm very pleased for you, sir. If we could just move a little faster..."

"It is my fondest hope that I'll spend the rest of eternity here, you know."

"Wonderful, sir, but not starting today. Can we catch up with the rest of them, sir?"

As they passed, hand after ragged hand was raised in jerky salute. Staring eyes gleamed in hollow faces. The strange light glistened on dusty braid and stained, faded cloth. And there was a noise, harsher than the whispering, deep and guttural. It sounded like the creaking of distant doors, but individual voices rose and fell as the squad passed the dead figures...