Interesting Times

good,” said Rincewind. “It’s good . But it should be spread over more than one person. I mean, what are you expecting them to do? Fall over on people?”
    “Nothin’ wrong with ’em,” said Cohen, indicating a frail man who was staring intently at a large block of teak. “Look at ole Caleb the Ripper over there. See? Killed more’n four hundred men with his bare hands. Eighty-five now and but for the dust he’s marvellous.”
    “What the hell is he doing? ”
    “Ah, see, they’re into bare-handed combat here. Very big thing, unarmed combat, on account of most people not being allowed weapons. So Caleb reckons he’s on to a good thing. See that big lump of teak? It’s amazin’. He just gives this blood-curdlin’ shout and—”
    “Cohen, they’re all very old men.”
    “They’re the cream!”
    Rincewind sighed.
    “Cohen, they’re the cheese. Why’ve you brought them all the way here?”
    “Gonna help me steal something,” said Cohen.
    “What? A jewel or something?”
    “’S something,” said Cohen, sulkily. “’S in Hunghung.”
    “Really? My word,” said Rincewind. “And there’s a lot of people in Hunghung, I expect?”
    “About half a million,” said Cohen.
    “Lots of guards, no doubt?”
    “About forty thousand, I heard. About three-quarters of a million if you count all the armies.”
    “Right,” said Rincewind. “So, with these half-dozen old men—”
    “The Silver Horde,” said Cohen, with a touch of pride.
    “What? Pardon?”
    “That’s their name. Got to have a name in the horde business. The Silver Horde.”
    Rincewind turned around. Several of the Horde had fallen asleep.
    “The Silver Horde,” he said. “Right. Matches the color of their hair. Those that have got hair. So…with this…Silver Horde you’re going to rush the city, kill all the guards and steal all the treasure?”
    Cohen nodded. “Yeah…something like that. Of course, we won’t have to kill all the guards…”
    “Oh, no?”
    “It’d take too long.”
    “Yes, and of course you’ll want to leave something to do tomorrow.”
    “I mean they’ll be busy, what with the revolution and everything.”
    “A revolution, too? My word.”
    “They say it’s a time of portents,” said Cohen. “They—”
    “I’m surprised they’ve got time to worry about the state of their camping equipment,” said Rincewind.
    “You’d be well advised to stay along o’ us,” said Ghenghiz Cohen. “You’ll be safer with us.”
    “Oh, I’m not sure about that,” said Rincewind, grinning horribly. “I’m not sure about that at all.”
    By myself, he thought, only ordinary horrible things can happen to me.
    Cohen shrugged, and then stared around the clearing until his gaze lighted on a slight figure who was sitting a little apart from the rest, reading a book.
    “Look at him,” he said, benevolently, like a man pointing out a dog doing a good trick. “Always got his nose in a book.” He raised his voice. “Teach? Come and show this wizard the way to Hunghung.”
    He turned back to Rincewind. “Teach’ll tell you anything you want to know, ’cos he knows everything. I’ll leave you with him. I’ve got to go and have a talk with Old Vincent.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Not that there’s anything wrong with him, at all,” he said defiantly. “It’s just that his memory’s bad. We had a bit of trouble on the way over. I keep telling him, it’s rape the women and set fire to the houses .”
    “Rape?” said Rincewind. “That’s not very—”
    “He’s eighty-seven,” said Cohen. “Don’t go and spoil an old man’s dreams.”
    Teach turned out to be a tall, stick-like man with an amiably absentminded expression and a fringe of white hair so that, when viewed from above, he would appear to be a daisy. He certainly did not appear to be a bloodthirsty brigand, even though he was wearing a chain-mail vest slightly too big for him and a huge scabbard strapped across his back, which contained no sword but held a variety of scrolls and brushes. His chain-mail shirt had a breast pocket with three different colored pens in a leather pocket protector.
    “Ronald Saveloy,” he said, shaking Rincewind’s hand. “The gentlemen do rather assume considerable knowledge on my part. Let me see…You want to go to Hunghung, yes?”
    Rincewind had been thinking about this.
    “I want to know the way to Hunghung,” he said guardedly.
    “Yes. Well. At this time of year I’d head