'Is that what it was? I know about that kind of stuff,' said Cohen. 'It's where you bang your shield all night before the fight so's the enemy can't get any sleep and you sing, “We're gonna cut yer tankers off,” and stuff like that.'
'Similar,' said Mr Saveloy, diplomatically. 'But it failed to work, I'm afraid. Lord Hong and his generals are rather too sophisticated. It's a great shame you couldn't try it on the common soldiers.' There was a faint squeak of rabbit behind them. They turned, and looked at the somewhat under-age cadre of the Red Army that was being ushered in. Butterfly was with them. She even gave Rincewind a very faint smile. Rincewind had always relied on running away. But sometimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight if only because there was nowhere left to run. But he was no good at all with weapons. At least, the normal sort. 'Um,' he said, 'if we leave the palace now, we'll be killed, right?'
'I doubt it,' said Mr Saveloy. 'It's become a matter of the Art of War now. Someone like Hong would probably slit our throats, but now war is declared things have to be done according to custom.' Rincewind took a deep breath. 'It's a million-to-one chance,' he said, 'but it might just work . . .' The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril and Lack of
Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet and Contra-flow. Among the armies encamped in the broad alluvial plain around Hunghung, the invisible horsemen known as Misinformation, Rumour and Gossip saddled up . . . A large army encamped has all the tedious problems of a city without any of the advantages. Its watchfires and picket lines are, after a while, open to local civilians, especially if they have anything to sell and even more so if they are women whose virtue has a certain commercial element and even, sometimes, if they appear to be selling food which is a break from the monotonous army diet. The food currently on sale was certainly such a break. 'Pork balls! Pork balls! Get them while they're . . .' There was a pause as the vendor mentally tried out ways of ending the sentence, and gave up. 'Pork balls! Onna stick! How about you, shogun, you look like -Here, aren't you the—?'
'Shutupshutupshutup!' Rincewind pulled D. M. H. Dibhala into the shadows by a tent. The trader looked at the anguished face framed between a eunuch outfit and a big straw hat. 'It's the Wizard, isn't it? How are—?'
'You know how you seriously wanted to become very rich in international trade?' Rincewind said. 'Yes? Can we start?'
'Soon. Soon. But there's something you must do. You know this rumour about the army of invisible vampire ghosts that's heading this way?' D. M. H. Dibhala's eyes swivelled nervously. But it was part of his stock in trade never to appear to be ignorant of anything except, perhaps, how to give correct change. 'Yes?' he said. 'The one about there being millions of them?' said Rincewind. 'And very hungry on account of not having eaten on the way? And made specially fierce by the Great Wizard?'
'Um . . . yes?'
'Well, it's not true.'
'It's not?'
'You don't believe me? After all, I ought to know.'
'Good point.'
'And we don't want people to panic, do we?'
'Very bad for business, panic,' said D. M. H., nodding uncomfortably. 'So make sure you tell people there's no truth in this rumour, will you? Set their minds at rest.'
'Good idea. Er. These invisible vampire ghosts . . . Do they carry money of any sort?'
'No. Because they don't exist.'
'Ah, yes. I forgot.'
'And there are not 2,300,009 of them,' said Rincewind. He was rather proud of this little detail. 'Not 2,300,009 of them . . .' said D. M. H., a little glassy-eyed. 'Absolutely not. There are not 2,300,009 of them, no matter what anyone says. Nor has the Great Wizard made them twice as big as normal. Good man. Now I'd better be off—' Rincewind hurried away. The trader stood in thought for a while. It stole over him that he'd probably sold enough things for now, and he might as well go home and spend a quiet night in a barrel in the root cellar with a sack over his head. His route led him through quite a large part of the camp. He made sure that soldiers he met knew there was no truth in the rumour, even though this invariably meant that, first of all, he had to tell them what the rumour actually was. A toy rabbit squeaked nervously. 'And I'm afraid of the big inwisible wampire ghosts!' sobbed Favourite Pearl. The soldiers around this particular campfire tried to comfort her but, unfortunately, there was no-one to comfort them. 'An' I heard they alweady et some men!' One or two soldiers looked over their shoulders. There was nothing to be seen in the darkness. This wasn't, however, a reassuring sign. The Red Army moved obliquely from campfire to campfire. Rincewind had been very specific. He'd spent all his adult life - at least, those parts of it where he wasn't being chased by things with more legs than teeth - in Unseen University, and he felt he knew what he was talking about here. Don't tell people anything, he said. Don't tell
them. You didn't get to survive as a wizard in UU by believing what people told you. You believed what you were not told. Don't tell them. Ask them. Ask them if it's true. You can beg them to tell you it's not true. Or you can even tell them you've been told to tell them it's not true, and that is the best of all. Because Rincewind knew very well that when the four rather small and nasty Horsemen of Panic ride out there is a good job done by Misinformation, Rumour and Gossip, but they are as nothing compared to the fourth horseman, whose name is Denial. After an hour Rincewind felt quite unnecessary. There were conversations breaking out everywhere, particularly in those areas on the edge of the camps, where the night stretched away so big and dark and, so very obviously, empty. 'All right, so how come they're saying there's not 2,300,009 of them, eh? If there's none of them, then why's there a number?'
'Look, there's no such thing as invisible vampire ghosts, all right?'
'Oh yeah? How do you know? Have you ever seen any?'
'Listen, I went and asked the captain and he says he's certain there's no invisible ghosts out there.'
'How can he be certain if he can't see them?'
'He says there's no such things as invisible vampire ghosts at all.'
'Oh? How come he's saying that all of a sudden? My grandfather told me there's millions of them outside the—'
'Hold on . . . What's that out there . . . ?'
'What?'
'Could've sworn I heard something . . .'
'I can't see anything.'
'Oh, no!' Things must have filtered through to High Command because, getting on towards midnight, trumpets were sounded around the camps and a special proclamation was read out. It confirmed the reality of vampire ghosts in general but denied their existence in any specific, here-and-now sense. It was a masterpiece of its type, particularly since it brought the whole subject to the ears of soldiers the Red Army hadn't been able to reach yet.