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Necromancy	By : keithcompany Category: A through F > Discworld Views: 1882 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Discworld, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Necromancy
- 1
“What?” Sam Vimes asked.
“It’s what I heard, sir,” Nobbs replied. He stood at something related to ‘at attention,’ in some possible drills manual with chapters set aside for non-human units. Sam didn’t really know if there was a proper military term for his constable’s stance.
The expression on his face was something Vimes was very familiar with, though. Many coppers in Ankh Morpork wore it from time to time. It was the ‘I know something that’ll make The Commander go spare’ look.
Many a leader would have taken satisfaction in the fact that their men feared them or their response to bad news. Sam Vimes was fiercely proud of the fact that his men brought the news to him anyway.
“Thanks,” he said standing and moving quickly to the door. Not a single member of the Watch stood on or near his path to the basement morgue. He smiled grimly when he noticed. They brought the news but they did pass the word first.
Down in the cold room, three figures stood around a stone slab with a body on it. Two he recognized. Igor of course was in charge of the morgue. He stood a little off to one side, watching without participating.
Cheery Littlebottom stood on a little stool to bring her dwarf face up above the body. Across from her stood a strange man.
He didn’t look particularly strange. His robe was an expensive cut, Vimes judged, but very worn and splotched here and there. His walking stick was jet-black wood, perhaps just a bit taller than fashion would suggest. Similarly, the hood of his robe peaked a little high.
If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see them as a wizard’s staff or a wizard’s hat. But with Nobbs’ warning, Vimes was looking.
“Igor, Littlebottom,” he greeted his subordinates. After a brief pause he looked at the other man. “Necromancer,” he said in the same calm tone.
“Your Grace,” the man replied with a careful nod.
“Just a little experimenting, Commander,” Cheery said, a little louder than people normally spoke in this room.
“Why wasn’t I told?” Vimes asked, walking over to stand by the slab. Whisker Willy lay on it. It was perhaps the first time Vimes had ever seen the small-time thug relaxed.
“Didn’t want to interrupt you, sir,” Cheery explained, “until we knew if it might work.”
The wizard was removing some occult paraphernalia from Whisker Willy’s corpse.
“What would work?”
“If we could contact the dead, asking them how they died. I know,” Cheery raised a hand in defense, “magic’s inadmissible in court. But it might tell us where to start looking for evidence that we can use.”
“Well,” Vime’s asked, “can we?”
“Not like you might expect,” the necromancer replied with a shake of his head.
“Actually,” Igor intoned, “it’s probably much as Commander Vimes would have expected.”
Vimes glanced at the Igor then the three bodies enslabbed around him. “Huh,” he grunted. How would he expect a séance interview to go?
He leaned over Willy. “Willy just kept begging for a chance to explain. I didn’t mean to bleed all over your knife, guv, give a guy a break, I’ll never steal another thing if you gimmee just a little chance.”
Cheery nodded at his interpretation. The necromancer raised an eyebrow. Vimes turned around. He didn’t recognize the corpse behind him. But he knew the type.
“Butler?” he asked.
“Mr. Earnest Jeese, sir,” Igor said with a nod. “Ethcorting Lord Vancomm’s youngest son down to the Shades. A fight broke out in the pub.”
“Of course,” Vimes said.
“He barred the door while the Mathter made his escape.”
“Of course,” the Commander repeated. “Well, he was very upset that his service was interrupted. Quite adamant that he hadn’t the time to be dead. There’s a banquet to prepare for.”
“A wedding,” the wizard said with surprise.
“Close enough.” He walked around the slabs to the third body. Another of the criminal class was there. The face was more than a bit damaged. With the clothing removed there was little to identify him from a hundred other street thugs and enforcers. Vimes grunted a question.
“Icepick Nephewson,” Cheery supplied. “He was found in the pub with Mr. Jeese.”
“Oh, well, that means his ‘voice from the beyond’ kept wondering where’d the little ponce pulled a frying pan from.” He gestured towards the now-recognizable flatness of the villain’s skull. The center of the plane would be about six inches above Mr. Jeese’s eye level. “Probably a double-handed grip on the handle,” he estimated.
“Quite likely, thir,” Igor agreed.
“I can see my skills are rather redundant here,” the wizard said, closing his bag and shouldering it.
“I’m sorry, Master Animator Thorrin,” Cheery was saying as she stepped down. “I had high hopes.”
“Alas, I had allowed myself to hope as well,” he replied, shaking her hand. “Well, it was worth a try.” He nodded to Igor, gave a small bow to Vimes. “Your Grace.” Then he started for the door.
“I’ll walk you out,” Vimes said cheerfully. The happy sound in his voice went no farther than his lips. Littlebottom saw his eyes on her and swallowed hard. There would be A Talk later. He opened the door and let the wizard through. “What’s a wizard of Master level want with the Watch?” he asked, trying to keep the tone light.
“Trying to help,” the necromancer replied. He paused for a second to allow Vimes lead up the stairwell. He didn’t seem surprised that the Commander wasn’t about to turn his back on the man and proceeded.
“I recall a few necromancers from the history books,” Vimes said. It wasn’t quite true. He hadn’t read a textbook in thirty years, and all he really remembered from the history one was that Ankh Morpork’s kings were right bastards.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. There was a Voscove the Ghastly, C’Heap the Terror, Kest the Killer… There were a few The Bloody, a couple body parts, gods know how many The Blacks. But I can’t recall any of them that were called ‘The Helpful.’
“No, there wouldn’t be.” Thorrin paused on a landing. The two smiled politely at each other, each with his back to a wall.
“I’m at a certain… point in my studies,” the wizard said. “I’ve learned all I can from raising the recently dead. And I’ve mastered raising the long dead. Traditionally, I next start…”
“Making the dead,” Vimes suggested.
“Pretty much. Then it’s a downward spiral into a surname of the more colorful adjectives.” He shook his head, still sporting a half-smile. “I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“Yet,” the two men said at the same time. The smiles became more natural.
“Anyway, maybe I can find a way to use my talents without being hounded by a mob. Maybe I can be Thorrin the Normal. Or Thorrin the Helpful.”
“Maybe,” Vimes said with a nod. “I wouldn’t spend money on the stationary yet, though.” He gestured for the man to continue towards the exit.
As they passed the Sergeant’s Table in the front room, one of the Watchmen stood to attention. Vimes noticed Constable Reginald Shoe was staring at Thorrin.
Ah, hells, Vimes thought. Was he going to have to separate the zombie from their guest? How did the undead view necromancers?
“What is it, Constable?” he asked, stepping forward quickly. He wasn’t really worried about protecting Thorrin, but Shoe was his responsibility. If he hurt a wizard, Vetinari and the Arch Chancellor would become involved.
“Sir, I heard there was a necromancer in the building. I was hoping I could meet him. Is this the man, sir?”
Thorrin waited patiently a few paces away from the zombie. He had to know what Shoe was, didn’t he? Vimes stepped near but not directly between them. He noticed some of the other Watchmen repositioning themselves. Shoe seemed very excited, which tended to set other coppers on edge. This could get very bad, very quickly.
“This, uh, this is Thorrin, Master Animator, Reg.” Vimes dropped the rank. He was figuring, he was feeling, that this was something more of a personal issue.
“Yes, sir. Master, I was wondering if you might, well, I had a problem, see.” He reached into a pocket and pulled something out into the open. It was a hand. Vimes’ eyes darted down. It was Reg’s left hand. The one he had problems with.
“I hate to be a bother, sir, it’s only that Igor’s sewn it back on a dozen times. He’s great with a needle, don’t get me wrong, but he does have a blind spot with the flesh of the differently alive, sir.”
“Oh. Um, well. I don’t know if Mr. Thorrin…”
“I’d be happy to take a look at it, Mr. Shoe,” Thorrin said. He sounded happy, too.
“That’s Constable Shoe,” Vimes growled automatically.
“And it’s Master Animator Thorrin,” the man said far more brightly. “If we’re going stand on ceremony, that is.”
Before Vimes could decide if he was going to apologize, the necromancer stepped around him, gathered Shoe to his side and started to walk out.
“I believe I saw a cemetery a few blocks over?” he was saying as the door shut.
There was a moment of silence. Not out of respect, but more of the fear. Everyone in the Watch knew Vimes’ feelings on wizardry. They were waiting to see how he’d react to this intrusion into the Yard itself.
“That’s nice, isn’t it,” Sergeant Colon said from the Duty Desk. Vimes turned slowly around. “Him taking Reg’s arm like that.” The crusty old patrolman lounged in the large chair behind the desk.
“Takes some guys years to get where they’ll touch one of the zombies. Some never do.” His voice was all thick urban idiot, but his eyes flashed as they met his Commander’s. “Of course, Master Thorrin prob’ly built worse ‘n Reg in school.”
He dropped his gaze and started sorting reports in the IN box. “Still, can’t help but feel that Reg’s gonna be taken well care of.”
Vimes shrugged, a muscular ripple running from his ears down to his feet. Whatever his feelings on wizardry and using magic to fight crime, it was past. Time to move on to the next crisis.
He paused slightly as he passed the Desk, headed for his office. A brief nod of thanks was all he needed to give his sergeant. Colon winked at his boss, crisis safely behind them.
“Come on, you lot,” he growled to the assembled men, dwarfs and trolls. He was issuing patrol warnings as Sam climbed the stairs.

He’d just gotten to the door of his office when he heard a ringing bell. He and every Watch member in the building ran to the front room.
Constable Shaggan slid down the message pole in the corner, waving a crumpled piece of paper. “Problem at Onion Gate! An army’s attacking!”
“Not a chance,” Colon shouted as the room started to buzz like two dozen bees in a honey jar just discovered to be completely honey free. “We’d have heard them approaching!”
“They’re not approaching,” Shaggan replied, brandishing the paper. “They’re rising!”
“Pax Morporkia,” Vimes muttered. “The Defending Dead.” He raised his voice to start organizing the spreading chaos. “Grab anything that’s blunt and come on!” Then he started to run.
----
The last fourteen armies to cross the Sto Plains had been invaders intent on conquering the city state of Ankh Morpork. Archeologists would have a different time identifying the remains of any of them.
Anthropologists, however, had a multitude of traces to choose from. The horses that pulled carriages for the city’s rich were descended of those ridden by Djelibeybian invaders. The slightly smaller, barrel chested breed that did the main labors for the middle class were about the last remains of a Klatchian empire’s Imperial phase.
If you audited the take-away industry, a chart showing the number and popularity of each house of foreign cuisine would resemble a timeline of invasions from Quirm, Lancre, Bad Blintz, Plotz, Rigour, Llamedos and a rather ambitious war party from Howondaland.
Invaders come, their booty comes, their camp followers come and Ankh Morpork barely burps any more. Armies used to screaming and chasing are put at ease by terribly helpful people that keep touching them.
“Invading? Sure, sure, we’re invaded. You conquered us, squire. Happy to be enslaved by a man of your means, squire. Care for some wine? In tribute, of course. Gosh, that’s a nice horse. Care to sell it? No? That’s alright then, of course. More tribute? Tribute inna cup as it were? That’s the ticket.
“Say, since you’re all through invading, you won’t need such a big cavalry sabre no more, do you? Care to, oh, I dunno, trade it? For a smaller sword? Well, it’s a better weapon for inside city streets, innit? Very popular weapon inside ol’ A-M, you see. Yes, lots of nicks, that’s how you know how popular it is!
“Very good, squire, very good. Oh! You’re very nearly out of tribute again. We’ll have to fix that. Now about that horse. What you need downtown is a good pony…”
But before being the metropolitan equivalent to a succubus, Ankh Morpork had an extensive empire. The "Pax Morporkia” ruled half the continent with an iron fist inside an iron glove holding an iron hammer.
Kings had expanded the Pax with the greatest army the world had ever seen. At least, locally. If you ignored a couple of other continents.
As the empire grew too large to control, uprisings rose with growing frequency. They were each firmly ironed out, but each one made the kings a little more uneasy on their thrones. Every time it happened, more of the standing army was brought to stand around the capital.
By the end of the golden age, there were no substantial army units stationed anywhere that they couldn’t march home in a day.
‘Home’ being where the throne was, of course, not any sort of foolishness about where that particular army had actually been raised.
Heroes of the army and retired Generals were buried in extensive gardens outside of the city. A traditional belief was that they would rise again to defend the city if they were threatened.
By the end of the monarchy, Lorenzo the Kind had decided that the only thing that really needed defending was his own palace. He calculated the minimum military force needed for that. He also calculated the minimum military needed to put down the first force if it should be required.
Everyone else in the army was invited to a memorial service at the Garden of Heroes. There, they were informed that the king saw all of them as Heroes of the city. They resisted, but most of them were dead and buried by the end of that day.
The rest were mostly dead by the time they were buried the next day.
A few Patrician’s later, Lord Realaschtick had the burial gardens leveled, a layer of topsoil spread and farming commenced on the grounds. The cabbages raised there were all shipped as far from the city as possible.
There were no claims of ghosts or other supernatural problems associated with the produce, but no one who know what was buried there was really comfortable with eating that land’s bounty.
“They’re supposed to rise when the city is threatened,” Vimes muttered as he reached the Onion Gate. “Not rise to threaten the city.”
There was a trickle of citizens streaming through the gate, all inbound. A much larger stream of Watchmen was marching outwards. Vimes glimpsed Captain Ironfounderson at the base of the clacks tower next to the gate. He ignored him for now.
Outside a crowd of coppers was sorting itself into order across the road. Detritus’ sense of order, anyway.
“I wanna height line, form up alphabetically by rank! You lot! Getcher heads outta yer asses’n line up. NOT THERE!”
Once more Vimes ignored his subordinate. Either they were all doing the right thing or they weren’t. He wouldn’t know which until he saw what they’d seen.
He pushed past a troll winding up an arbalest. Then he had a clear view across the Sto Plains.
About a mile away another force was shaking itself into order. Details were hard to see in the light of the sunset but he didn’t really need them.
There just flat shouldn’t be an army there.
Clacks operators would have mentioned seeing an organized force come by. And you couldn’t quite get a military unit to sneak over the border in groups of two or three. Not attacking, anyway. Deserters and routed units going away from battle might, but they’d have given up on the engines or the boulders for them, the huge racks of arrows for the archers, the general’s tents and anything else an army needs on the go.
Then again, he thought sourly, they might have just come into Ankh Morpork and bought everything they couldn’t smuggle. It wouldn’t be the first army whose battle cry was ‘Keep The Receipts!’
“Carrot,” he said sharply. The steady bulk of his Captain appeared at his elbow. “Report.”
“Some of the farmers reported some disturbance in the fields about sunset, sir,” the man said calmly. “A patrol investigated, said that corpses were disinterring themselves at an alarming rate.”
“Did they, now?” Vimes said, smiling slightly with the knowledge that no one but Ironfoundersson would describe the rising undead in those terms. “And you contacted…?”
“The wizards are aware of the necromantic energies being used, of course, but the Arch Chancellor reports that his standing agreement with the High Priest of Blind Io, and senior spokesperson for the religious orders, makes it a matter for the priests, due to it being upon hallowed ground.”
“And they said,” Vimes inserted, knowing what was coming.
“That they are, in fact, the proper authority for dealing with the unsanctioned rise of undead soldiers.”
“But?” The Commander stalked the line of men, watching their faces. Captain Carrot followed.
“But they are currently attempting to discern exactly which deity the ground is hallowed to, thus the one most offended by current events, thus the one to lead the effort to return the situation to the status of quo, as it were.”
“Of course, of course,” Sam nodded. “Did they say if we were allowed to defend the city until they arrive?”
“Yes, sir, they did specifically indicate-“ Carrot paused to chuck a dwarf on the shoulder. Vimes hadn’t noticed any particular fear on the Constable’s face but he did look more resolute after the touch. “That we were welcome to keep a lid on things until they were able to set things to right.”
“Wonderful,” Sam growled. He turned to look back along the road. The army of undead was sorted out and starting to move. The Commander looked around for the best spot to lead the troops from. His gaze fell on Nobbs.
The little man was wrestling a large assembly up to the back of the ranked men. It looked like a cross between a catapult and a horse watering trough.
“Nobby! What the hells did I tell you about that thing?”
“It’s true, sir, you did say I couldn’t use the man-portable siege engine and deconstruction tool anywhere inside the city limits.” He waited patiently.
“Well?” Vimes roared. Nobby nodded to Onion Gate. “Oh. Right. City limits.” He looked at the little wagon Nobbs had dragged along behind. The stone balls that were the weapon’s ammo were about the size of a human’s skull.
“Tell you what, Constable, if this thing takes out any of the approaching zombies,” Vimes said, “the Watch will pay for the ammunition.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you!” He started wheeling the device forward. Men, dwarfs and even the trolls slid carefully out of his way.
“Commander!”
Vimes turned at the sound of his name to see Sergeant Colon stumping across the roadway. Behind him was the necromancer Thorrin that Colon had been sent to locate. He gazed across the plains at the approaching army with a mix of fascination and horror.
“Didn’t know you could find anything that would horrify a necromancer,” Vimes said in a conversational voice.
“The spells to prevent this… Your Grace, I didn’t know there was anyone in the world capable of doing this.”
“So you’re saying you aren’t doing this?”
“Sir, you have to believe me, I can’t do this.” The man looked Sam straight in the eye. Vimes nodded.
“Okay. Well, then, what can you do?”
“What can I do?” He stole a look out at the plains again. They were still a discolored smudge on the horizon, fading into the background in the growing darkness.
Clearly, though, his wizard’s sight saw something more than anyone around him.
“Oh! I know!” Sam and Colon waited. For the circumstances it was an incredibly patient sort of waiting. I mean really, Sam thought, I’m not throttling him or setting him on fire.
Thorrin mumbled a bit, tapped his cane a few times. Then turned and ran into the city. The two men stared at his retreating figure.
“You, uh, want I should go catch him again, Sam?” Colon asked.
“No,” Vimes said. “No, doesn’t seem to be much purpose to it.” He turned to face the approaching dead.
“GOOD DAY FOR A BATTLE,” one or another trooper behind him commented.
“Good as any, I guess,” Vimes replied absently.

The army of the undead heroes of the city marched on and along the road. Ravens circled overhead in anticipation of a feast. The moon, far above them, gave everything a ghastly sheen.
“Clacks from the Patrician, Commander Vimes,” Colon announced.
“What’s it say?” Sam asked, not turning around.
“He, uh, he says that since everyone defending and attacking the city are FROM the city, it’s almost impossible for this to escalate into an international dispute. And, uh… Well, Commander, he says that despite that fact, he has every confidence in you.”
Sam tossed his cigar to the cobblestones and grimaced. “Give Sir Vetinari my respects, and ask if there’s anything he can do to help the religious orders sort out their differences.”
The grimace shifted to a grin, although mighty view bystanders would have given credit to the suggestion. “Then send another message, saying that there are at least four embassies between this gate and the Palace, just an observation, nothing for him to worry about.”
“Right you are, Commander,” the sergeant replied over his shoulder, already headed for the tower.
Detritus had shifted the forces about, putting the troll officers to the forefront. He probably figured that their clubs would make short work of centuries-old skeletal warriors.
Dwarfs and humans were in interlocking ranks to sweep up any that got through the trolls.
He may be right, Sam thought, but life is seldom that simple. A few minutes later the first zombified unit marched into view. His pessimism bore out, along with the city adage: only the pessimist can be pleasantly surprised.
The inflicted peace of the Pax Morporkia had been extended over more than a few troll societies. The army units there had developed a sort of pyramid-shaped mace. The weight of the weapon and the power of the swing struck at a tiny point, with enough force to chip a piece out of even a troll’s hide.
Quick math compared the forces of ‘our guys’ to ‘all them bastards’ and came up ‘serious profanity.’ Sam swore and ordered the trolls back.
“No one fights alone,” he ordered. “Dwarfs cover the trolls, humans cover the dwarfs and trolls try not to lay out your comrades.” The forces closed and the war started.
Staggering skeletons and zombies with gaping holes in their uniforms, their skulls and their formations swarmed against the thing human line.
Sam laid into the opposition with his short sword along with every other trooper. Bones shattered of bounced loose with every blow. It just didn’t seem to matter a damn. Attackers with no arms just staggered forward while defenders could not ignore wounds.
Every so often the local combat experienced just enough of a lull for Sam to look around. In the not to terribly far distance, Detritus laid about with what looked suspiciously like one leg of a clacks tower. The little shutter box at the end was something of a give-away. Bodies crushed under his swings into instant bone meal. But half a breath later the just-cleared area was again filled with nightmares.
Captain Carrot had his inherited sword out and was creating nearly as much mayhem among the attackers at his end of the line. But as he was very nearly merely human, he was going to start getting tired, Sam knew. Tomorrow or the next day he’d need a breather.
He never directly saw Nobbs’ contraption in action, but every so often he heard a distressed ‘THRONNNNNNG’ and glimpsed a perfectly straight line of skulls popping into the air and tumbling down.
His last chance for a tactical view of the battle was of the Enemy. Some form floated over the vanguard, crackling in mystical energies and shouting orders.
Before he could quite grasp those orders, Constable Platepounder fell to the ground in front of him. Vimes’ response was automatic. He thrust himself forward to cover the dwarf.
You did that in a fighting unit. You covered yourself until the guy next to you was in danger, then you covered him.
If this put you in danger, the guy next to you was to cover you. And the guy next to him, if necessary, and the next and so on down the line. Someone, somewhere, had to have a moment to spare, and you just shifted that over to cover the guy who went down.
You did this for two reasons. One was that it was the whole purpose of unit fighting rather than warrior-on-warrior. A single solid fighting force could shrug off a much larger host if the attackers came at you one at a time.
The main reason, though, was that you might live through the battle. And you’d go home. And you’d lie in your bed, or bunk or campaign bedroll. And you’d close your eyes.
Did you want to watch someone wearing the same uniform as you die, so that you could live? Or did you want to know you’d done everything you could to save him?
Sam might have regretted not coming to the Constable’s rescue. But he’d never regret leaping into the fray. Even as the rusted battle axe swung down on him, about three feet from where his own sword was pinned by another zombie’s weapon, he told himself there were no regrets.
With a solid klang, though, the battleaxe came up short. A watch-issued sword blocked it, gave a swift, expert riposte, disarmed the zombie and cleaved its skull.
Sam grabbed on dwarven ankle and dragged the man back behind their own line. Once he was sure the dwarf was alive, he stood and faced his rescuer.
Constable Reginald Shoe raised his hand with the sword and smiled. “Couldn’t have done that yest’day, Commander. Hand would have fallen off. Probably have stabbed you with my own sword as it did.” He spun and struck the haft of a halberd swinging down. The shaft parted and the blade spun overhead, landing harmlessly by the wall.
“That Mr. Thorrin, sir,” he finished, “he knows what he’s doing with the vitality challenged, I’ll tell the world.”
“That could be his calling, then,” a still stunned Vimes said with a nod. “Thorrin the Knows His Sh-“
“SIR!” Vimes turned to find himself facing Lance-Constable von Humpeding. The vampire was waving to the street behind the city gate. “Zombies, sir! You have to disengage.”
“There’s no where to run to, von Humpeding!” he pointed out. “We’re between two forces!”
“Not exactly, sir!”
A strange sort of moan came from within the city. Shambling figures came into view, arms waving in very strange gestures. Vimes wasn’t sure if they were meant to be threatening or if they were casting some sort of spell.
“Can the dead cast spells?” he wondered. No one answered.
Then tambourines started to sound. A few drums. Some clacking noises confused him until the figures got closer. Some were castanets, held in skeletal hands that made almost as much noise. Others were flutes and reeds, wooden instruments bouncing off lipless and breathless mouths.
Everyone stopped fighting, on both sides, to stare at the dead dancing women. The Watch moaned in fear, the other side in excitement.
“Clear the way, boys,” Sam said in a loud but calm voice. “Get out from between them.”
Coppers through history have developed variations of the Unenforcing Saunter. When you haven’t got the manpower or the interest in enforcing the law, you have to make it clear that you do not see the violation or the potential for violation.
Whether it’s the illegal sale of cold beer to a few hundred soccer fans on a hot day or four hundred dwarfs trying to decide if it’s too cold to riot, you can’t look like you’re deciding whether or not to start anything.
The hale and the wounded of the living and those unliving, but on the side of the righteous, practiced this Saunter. They sidled out of the road to either side of the gate as the two undead forces met. Neither group paid much attention.
To the fleshy, there wasn’t a whole lot to choose from between the long dead rotted warriors and the long dead rotted hoochie mamas. But the skeletons saw and the skeletons liked what they saw.
They stopped fighting and moved back. A bubble of clear room spread out as the knot of dancers moved down the road. The forces closed in behind. In no time at all, all the Watch saw was the backs of their attackers.
“Should we attack them from behind?” Colon asked quietly.
“No, don’t wanna break the spell,” Sam said. He glanced up the road. Another force of skeletons was coming into sight. Thorrin lead the way, walking staff raised in the air. It glowed as he marched along.
“This group isn’t dancing,” Vimes muttered.

Once Thorrin was through the gate, he stepped to one side and waved the following carcasses on. They stalked fitfully past and moved among the crowd of attackers.
“They’re armed, sir,” Colon said softly. And they were, Sam saw. Each clutched something in their hands, those that had hands.
Rolling pins were popular, as were frying pans, irons, a couple of cauldrons, and a large spoon-thing Vimes recognized from a murder he’d investigated in a professional laundry.
The newest group filtered into the army and was gone from sight. Across the way, Thorrin flagged and sagged. Shoe grabbed him and leaned the necromancer against the wall. Sam turned back to the army.
The effects of the newest entry were soon heard.
“Are you looking at that naked woman!” something screeched. Warriors started to be dragged backwards from the loose formation, usually claiming innocence.
“I was watching the musician, dear,” one shouted as he passed Vimes’ position.
“The naked lutist, I suspect,” growled the decayed woman with a finger through his ribs. “Well, you have a few chores to do around the crypt. Been waiting two hundred years for you to come home and take care of things.”
A zombified woman some distance away tried to grab a man by his ear but it slid off in her grip. Without a moment’s hesitation she poked a finger like walnuts bagged in leather into his skull through the ear hole and tugged.
“Honey muffin! Not in front of the other guys, please!”
“Last campaign, you said. Gonna fix the stairs once I get back, you said. You’d better, I said, or I’ll fall to my death through them. Well, guess what, love pucker? I done.”
Similar conversations peppered the steady trickle of warriors headed through the gate to family and neighborhood crypts, vaults, catacombs and cemeteries.
It wasn’t the whole of the army. Many had no families, or had left their camp followers scattered around the Circle Sea. But between the husbands being herded to a conjugal rest and the lucky singles following houris into the fields, Vimes estimated that nearly half the attacking force was no longer available for combat.
A last couple went past. The slightly misshapen form of the happy bride had a finger wrapped around a loose jawbone as she bragged about the neighbors. “They’re ever so proud. Their little Johnny’s Everett’s Tommy’s Evelyn’s Sammy’s Susan’s Susan’s Tommy’s John’s John’s John’s son Jimmy comes by once a year to scrub the lichen off the sepulcher.”
Then there was silence. There might have been some giggling in the ditches between the cabbage fields. But the noises might have been squeaking from the rubbing of surfaces that are usually shielded from touching. Vimes’ mind shied away from trying too hard to identify the source.
The remaining force shook itself like a bunch of dogs, then reformed for the attack. The Watch quickly spread back into formation across the road. Vimes grunted and stepped to the front of his men.
“This is what you want?” he shouted. "More fights? More battles? Marching across the land? Again? To conquer for some other bastard that not only won’t pay your worth, he won’t pay you at all?”
There was some mumbling among the skeletons. “I been there,” Vimes continued. “Bastard says, ‘go there’ and we went. He says ‘kill them’ and we killed. Behind on sleep, low on food, marched half to death…”
He was pretty sure he heard a snicker from the assembled at that line.
“Yeah, well, at least there was a point MY general couldn’t push us beyond. Any man fell dead in MY army, he was stricken from the payroll, but at least he didn’t have to show for parade any more.” There were more than a few laughs, then, on both sides of the lines.
Technically speaking, Sam Vimes had never been in the Army, or any force more military than the City Watch. But he’d marched, he’d worked for officers and he’d seen comrades die. He didn’t think his understanding of the soldier’s life was too far from the target.
“I can’t for the life of me,” he said, turning to pace back and forth across the road, “figure what got you guys to get up this evening. There were more than a few case- Campaigns. A few campaigns when the quiet of the grave was all I looked forward to. If I had to die to get a decent nights sleep…there were days I’d’ve called it a bargain.” He paced through the laughter that followed.
“Tell you what,” he said, scratching his chin. “Anyone wants to march on the city, go ahead and try to get past us. Anyone wants to give up the army for a game of soldiers, hang out here. If I live through the next hour, I’ll get a few kegs of beer brought out. Then in the morning, we’ll put you back to rest. No more marching, no more orders, no more idiots in charge.”
A ripple ran through the formation. It relaxed visibly. Weapons were lowered or even dropped. Warriors turned to sit down on the road or lay in the fields. A few picked up the dismantled bones of the fallen and passed them along to where they could mantle themselves back together.
“NO!” a voice screeched. The barely glimpsed form of the necromancer behind the attack floated forward. He shouted and screeched orders. The soldiers of the dead practiced the military version of the Unenforcing Saunter, the Following Proper Orders Inertia.
None raised their eyes and managed to silently convey the idea that they were on orders to do what they were doing. Any different orders would have to come down the proper channels. The officers might create the orders, the poses said, but it was really the sergeants that the army obeyed. So with all due respect, until you find my sergeant, sir...
Energies crackled and sparkled around the figure as it floated to the battlefront.
“Detritus?” Vimes asked.
“Ready, Commander Vimes,” the troll replied.
“You must obey me!” the dark form screeched. “I raised you with my own infernal powers! YOU MUST-“
“Dat’ll be enough o’ dat,” the big troll spat. He raised his crossbow. Actually, his weapon resembled a crossbow the way a charging armored horseman resembled the second figure from the left in a game of Castled.
The springs of a siege engine had been put on a stock that the troll could hold, aim and shoot. The bundled quarrels it projected broke apart and caught fire from resistance as they were forced through air. What they did to more solid matter seldom bore thinking about.
Luckily, the living were upwind of the effect. The long-dead and the very-dead were nonchalant as they wiped bits of their former master off their armor and bones.
“Right,” Sam said, slapping his right-hand troll on the hip and turning to issue orders.
“I need ten casks of ale. Nobbs, hit the pubs until you find enough, tell them to bill me at home.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Nobbs!”
“Sir?”
“Make that twelve. Two go to our men, the rest to…” He paused, gesturing towards the milling forces of city heroes. “Well, to the rest of our men, I suppose.”
“Right away, Commander.” Nobbs hurried away.
“Carrot!”
“Commander!”
“I need every burial detail the army has, and every priest that can say ‘dust to dust’ without a lisp, here by sunrise.”
“Sir!” Carrot’s departure was a formal, metronome perfect march.
“Fred!”
“Sir!”
“Stand the men down. Get the wounded to Igor. Get a skeleton watch back on the streets. Pass the word, though, if there’s any crime that makes a bother for the men for the next two days, Mr. Vimes will go absolutely spare.”
“Heh. Wouldn’t wanna be the next thief to draw your attention, Commander, and that’s a fact.” Colon rolled through the crowded street with his own saunter.
Sam looked around, trying to figure if he’d forgotten anything. A pair of skeletons in front of him were exchanging feet as if two men in barracks had grabbed the wrong boots on dressing.
“Shoe,” he called, much less stringently than the other shouts.
“Sir?”
“They, uh,” he waved vaguely over the undead. The zombie constable followed his gesture. “Do we need to help them get back together? Like, pile them in wheelbarrows to get back to their graves? Or would that be too… too…”
“Undignified?” Reg suggested. “No, sir. They just want to be whole, or as much whole as they have left.” He paused and thought for a second. He also rubbed his hand in what Vimes thought was an unconscious gesture. “What we could do, though,” he finally offered, “is bring all the loose parts together in the road. Then Master Animator Thorrin could sort them out toot sweet. That’d be about the best, I’d think.”
“Great, then,” Vimes said, carefully patting the man on the shoulder. “Get that organized, then. Take as many men as…” As you need, he almost said. As can stand to touch recently animated bones, he knew would be more honest. He paused, not wanting to lie or to offend.
“As want to help, sir,” Shoe said with a wink. “I understand, Commander.” He walked off briskly. Vimes staggered over to where Thorrin leaned on Onion Gate.
“That was a timely help,” Vimes told him. The necromancer nodded. He quickly grasped Shoe’s plan and assured the Commander that he still had sufficient ‘juice’ to help, even though he could only barely stand.
Sam offered him a shoulder and helped him limp to the growing pile of bones. “Thorrin the Lance Constable doesn’t sound too apropos,” he said in a thoughtful tone.
“Um, no, not really,” Thorrin agreed.
“So, I guess I still don’t have to have any wizards in the Watch. Not if it’d sound silly. But maybe, I don’t know, ‘Thorrin the Consultant?’ How’s that grab you?”
“By the throat, your Grace, by the throat.” Sam nodded and eased the man to the side of the road. In the distance he heard the sound of a delivery wagon speeding over the cobblestones.
Bare heads all around him perked up. “They can’t drink the brew, not really,” Thorrin pointed out. “They won’t even taste it.”
“But they’ll remember the taste,” Sam said softly. “They’ll remember relaxing after the war’s over, they’ll put the fighting behind them, and they’ll want to lay down again. I’m not getting them drunk, I’m getting them to unwind.”
As they lined up for their pints, most of the passing skulls nodded in Vimes’ direction. Only a few still held any weapons at all. One had something long and sharp but by then Sam had long since stopped caring enough to identify it.
“DON’T USUALLY SEE THE LIVING SHOW THIS MUCH RESPECT TO THE DEAD,” he said. “I’M ACTUALLY QUITE TOUCHED.”
“Yeah, well,” Sam said tiredly. “They never got that much respect alive. This is the treatment they should have had.”
He turned and started walking back to Onion Gate. He’d have to send a clacks to Sybil. The situation was under control at the moment but he didn’t dare leave.
It was quite some time after sending that clacks that he thought about sending one to his boss.
“Eh, he’s probably already read the report on it,” he muttered. He sat on Nobby’s launcher and closed his eyes for just a second.
The end.
- 1
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Necromancy