Monstrous Regiment

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 the…” The troll paused, and looked at the ceiling. Whatever it was seeking there didn’t appear to be visible. Then it looked at its feet, which had grass growing on them. Then it looked at its free hand and moved its fingers as if counting something.
    “…Duchess,” it said. It had been a long wait. The table creaked as the troll laid a hand on it, palm upwards. “Gimme shillin’.”
    “We’ve only got the bits of pape—” Corporal Strappi began. Sergeant Jackrum jabbed an elbow into his ribs.
    “Upon my oath, are you mad?” he hissed. “There’s a ten-man bounty for enlisting a troll!” With his other hand he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a real silver shilling, and placed it delicately in the huge hand. “Welcome to your new life, friend! I’ll just write your name down, shall I? What is it?”
    The troll looked at ceiling, feet, sergeant, wall, and table. Polly saw its lips move.
    “Carborundum?” it volunteered.
    “Yeah, probably,” said the sergeant. “Er, how’d you like to shav—to cut off some of that hai—moss? We’ve got a, a sort of a…regulation…”
    Wall, floor, ceiling, table, fingers, sergeant. “No,” said Carborundum.
    “Right. Right. Right,” said the sergeant quickly. “It’s not a regulation as per such, actually, it’s more of an advisory. Silly one, too, eh? I’ve always thought so. Glad to have you with us,” he added fervently.
    The troll licked the coin, which gleamed liked a diamond in its hand. It actually did have grass growing under its fingernails, too, Polly noticed.
    Then Carborundum trudged to the bar. The crowd parted instantly, because a troll never had to stand at the back of the press of bodies, waving money and trying to catch the barman’s eye.
    He broke the coin in two and dropped both halves on the bar top.
    Eyebrow swallowed. He looked as though he would have said “Are you sure?” except that this was not a question barmen addressed to people weighing over half a ton.
    Carborundum thought for a while, and then said: “Gimme drink.”
    Eyebrow nodded, disappeared briefly into the room behind the bar, and came back holding a double-handed mug. Maladict sneezed. Polly’s eyes watered. It was the kind of smell you sense with your teeth. The pub might make foul beer as a matter of course, but this was eye-stinging vinegar.
    Eyebrow dropped one half of the silver coin into it, and then took a copper penny out of the money drawer and held it over the fuming mug. The troll nodded. With just a hint of ceremony, like a cocktail waiter dropping the little umbrella into a Double Entendre, Eyebrow let the