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Characters: Polly/Mal implied
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Surrender
"Surrender already!" "Like hell I will!" "Just give up and it'll all be over in a moment, lad, come on!" "Don't call me lad! I'm a bloody sergeant!" The girl (for despite the rather scrawny appearance and short blonde hair Polly was pretty sure she was a girl) charged forward recklessly as she screamed her rank, sword raised high and a snarl trailing after her. She - like Jackrum had once been - was not one for famous last stands, but if she was going down then she was going to take some of these bastards with her... As she knocked away the first of at least a score of swords that were aimed at her body she settled in to the usual calm that came over her at moments like these... It had been Mal's death that had done it really. One minute they'd been standing at the base of the hill they'd set up camp at - three young soldiers had taken look out positions at the top, a handful more had been positioned around the base - and the next minute... dust... Mal had... exploded into grey nothingness as the wooden stake fired from a modified crossbow had shot through her and out the other side. A strong gust of wind carrying the ashes far and wide before Polly even had time to finish thinking through the last thing Mal had been saying - "-don't be soft Polly of course the new recruits will make it to Lang Findly... You don't need to be the mother hen to them all the time you kn-" And the memory of Mal's sarcastic little smile, so often a source of laughter or annoyance, was still burned into her memory. Someone was screaming amidst the noise of the battle. It took Polly all of three seconds to realise it was herself, yelling out amidst the noise of steel on steel and the pitying looks on the faces of the men before her. Her recruits? And yes they were her recruits, not the Duchess's, not the Army's, hers... her poor little lads and lasses were scattered to the wind as surely as Mal had been. Polly had remained fixed to the spot when Mal died, all her thought processes shutting down, the one retort she had been going to say still running around her head, perched at the back of her mouth ready for dispatch. "Orders, ma'am?" One of the recruits had tugged at her arm, bringing her back to the present but all that would happen was a strangled noise from Polly's throat before she managed to say, "Mal's dead." "Yes, ma'am, but we need orders!" Polly's thoughts, her memories, were interrupted as a sword headed towards her head at a rapid rate, she lifted her own to defend, exposing her side and refused point blank to scream as someone else took advantage of that. Her own sword fell from her suddenly nerveless grip as she looked down to see the blade piercing her side at least an inch deep already, crimson flowing past the steel before it twisted, wrenching an ugly grunt from her before she dropped like a stone. The pain, after the memories of before was almost... welcome... "Best to finish this one off lads, lingerin' death ain't fittin' for a sergeant." One of them grabbed Polly's hair, or at least what remained of it, dragging her onto her knees. "Now you stay like that, Sarge, and we'll finish this quick like." The voice, the soldier, whoever it was, spoke almost kindly to her. Polly didn't flinch at the feel of cold metal against her neck but couldn't bring herself to look up either. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath and waited... and waited... She risked a glance upwards, blinking in surprise as the soldier, the enemy, in front of her collapsed backwards, a sizable hole in his chest and... Maladicta stood behind him. "By Nuggan's left - Rumpo! Chatter! Go and fetch the medic and I mean now, do you hear me?!" Mal roared, vampirical power shaking the rafters as she fell to her knees besides her Sergeant, blood already covering the both of them. "Polly? Pol?" she whispered, trying to block off her senses, the smell of Polly's blood as it poured over the filthy barn floor, the little voice in the back of her mind that was dancing a happy jig at the sight. "Mal... how? You died," Polly managed to choke out as she was lifted up, onto a lap that was too bony to be comfortable and too well loved to complain about. "Clever lot you've picked up this time, Sarge," Mal smiled down at her, brushing an errant curl of hair away from her forehead with warm fingers... Polly tried not to think about just why those fingers were warm all of a sudden when they were usually so cool to the touch. "Rumpo had a special net, I'll explain later." "She'll go far, that girl." "Boy." "Whatever," Polly coughed, wincing as she pressed the heel of her hand to her side. Mal's smile looked forced but it was no less beautiful for it. "Well at least we know now, no matter how many times you do your impression of a colander or how many holes we poke in you, you'll still retain your dry humour and rapier wit," she murmured, glancing away, Polly could see her mouthing something to one of the recruits about the medic. "Oh shut up," she growled out, "you know what we are..." she whispered. Mal grinned down at her despite it all. "Indestructible." "Exactly." Starting to go cold in Mal's arms, but not with the limb numbing, creeping death sort of cold, Polly smiled and surrendered to the dark. |