The Fifth Elephant (14 page)

“What is his name?” said Carrot, thoughtfully.

Gaspode gave Carrot a Look. Who cared what a wolf was called?

“Wolf names is difficult,” he said. “much prefer vampires. Vamtion, see? It’s not like callin’ yourself Mister Snuggles or Bonzo, you understand…”

“Yes, I know. So what is
his
name?”

“You want to know what his name is, then?”

“Yes, Gaspode.”

“So, in fact, it’s the name of this wolf you want to know?”

“That is correct.”

Gaspode shifted uneasily.

“Asshole,” he said.

“Oh.” To the dog’s frank astonishment, Carrot blushed.

“That’s basic’ly a
summary
, but it’s a pretty good translation,” he said. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you
did
ask…”

Gaspode stopped and whined for a moment, trying to convey the message that he was losing his voice due to lack of chicken.

“Er…there’s been a lot on the howl about Angua,” he went on, when Carrot seemed unable to take the hint. “Er…they think she’s bad news.”

“Why? She’s traveling as a wolf, after all.”

“Wolves hate werewolves.”

“What? That can’t be right! When she’s wolf-shaped she’s just like a wolf!”

“So? When she’s human-shaped she’s just like a human. And what’s that got to do with anything? Humans don’t like werewolves.
Wolves
don’t like werewolves. People don’t like wolves that can think like people, an’ people don’t like people who can act like wolves. Which just shows you that people are the same everywhere,” said Gaspode. He assessed this sentence and added, “Even when they’re wolves.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

“And she smells wrong. Wolves are very sensitive to that sort of thing.”

“Tell me more about the howl.”

“Oh, it’s like the clacky thing. News gets spread for hundreds of miles.”

“Do the howls…mention her…companion?”

“No. If you like, I’d ask Ass—”

“I’d prefer a different name, if it’s all the same to you,” said Carrot. “Words like that aren’t clever.”

Gaspode rolled his eyes.

“There nothing wrong with the word among us pedestically gifted species,” he said. “We’re very smell-orientated.” He sighed. “How about ‘bum’? In the sense of, er, migratory worker? He’s a freelance chicken-throttler, style of fing?”

He turned to the wolf, and spoke in canine.

“Now then, Bum, this human is insane and believe me, I know a mad human when I see one. He’s frothing at the mouth inside and he’ll rip your hide off and nail it to a tree if you aren’t straight with us, understand?”

“What was that you just told him?” said Carrot.

“Just explainin’ we’re friends,” said Gaspode. To the cowering wolf he barked: “Okay, he’s prob’ly going to do that anyway, but I can talk to him, so your only chance is to tell us everything—”

“Know nothing!” the wolf whined. “She was with a big he-wolf from Uberwald! From the Clan That Smells Like This!”

Gaspode sniffed. “He’s a long way from home, then.”

“He’s a bad news wolf!”

“Tell it there’ll be roast chicken for its trouble,” said Carrot.

Gaspode sighed. It was a hard life, being an interpreter.

“All right,” he growled. “I’ll persuade him to untie you. It’ll take some doing, mark you. If he offers you a chicken, don’t take it ’cos it’ll be poisoned. Humans, eh?”

Carrot watched the wolf flee.

“Odd,” he said. “You’ve have thought it’d be hungry, wouldn’t you?”

Gaspode looked up from the roast chicken. “Wolves, eh?” he said, indistinctly.

That night, when they heard the wolves howling in the distant mountains, Gaspode picked up one solitary, lonely howl behind them.

The towers followed them up into the mountains although, Vimes noticed, there were some differences in construction. Down on the plains they were more or less just a high wooden gantry with a shed at the bottom but here, although the design was the same, it was clearly temporary. Next to it men were at work on a heavy stone base—fortifications, he realized, which meant that he really was beyond the law. Of course, technically he’d been beyond
his
law since leaving Ankh-Morpork, but laws were where you could make it stick and these days a City Watch badge would at least earn respect, if not actual cooperation, everywhere on the plains. Up here, it was just an ugly brooch.

Slake turned out to be a stone-walled coaching inn and not much else. It had, Vimes noticed, very heavy shutters on the window. It also had what he thought was a strange iron griddle over the fireplace until he recognized it for what it was, a sort of portcullis that could block off the chimney. This place expected to withstand the occasional siege that might include enemies who could fly.

It was sleeting when they went out to the coaches.

“A storm’s closing in, mmm, mhm,” said Inigo. “We shall have to hurry.”

“Why?” said Sybil.

“The pass will probably be closed for several days, Your Ladyship. If we wait, we may even miss the coronation. And…er…there may be slight bandit activity…”

“
Slight
bandit activity?” said Vimes.

“Yes, sir.”

“You mean they wake up and decide to go back to bed? Or they just steal enough for a cup of coffee?”

“Very droll, sir. They do, notoriously, take hostages—”

“Bandits don’t frighten me,” said Sybil.

“If I may—” Inigo began.

“Mister Skimmer,” said Lady Sybil, drawing herself up to her full width, “I did in fact just tell you what we are going to do. See to it, please. There are servants at the consulate, aren’t there?”

“There is one, I believe—”

“Then we shall happily make do as best we can. Won’t we, Sam?”

“Certainly, dear.”

It was seriously snowing by the time they left, in great feather lumps which fell with a faint damp hiss, muffling all other sound. Vimes wouldn’t have known that they’d reached the pass if the coaches hadn’t stopped.

“The coach with your…men on it should go in front,” said Inigo, as they stood in the snow beside the steaming horses. “We should follow close behind. I’ll ride with our driver, just in case.”

“So that if we are attacked by anyone you can give them a potted summary of the political situation?” said Vimes. “No,
you
will ride inside with Lady Sybil, and
I’ll
ride on the box. Got to protect the civilians, eh?”

“Your Grace, I—”

“However, your suggestion is appreciated,” Vimes went on. “You get inside, Mister Skimmer.”

The man opened his mouth. Vimes raised an eyebrow.

“Very well, Your Grace, but it is extremely—”

“Good man.”

“I should like my leather case down from the roof, though.”

“Certainly. A bit of fact-finding will take your mind of things.”

Vimes walked forward to the other carriage, poked his head inside and said, “We’re going to be ambushed, lads.”

“Dat’s interestin’,” said Detritus. He grunted slightly as he wound the windlass of his crossbow.

“Oh,” said Cheery.

“I don’t
think
they’ll try to kill us,” Vimes went on.

“Does dat mean we don’t try to kill dem?”

“Use your own judgment.”

Detritus sighted along a thick bundle of arrows. They were his idea. Since his giant crossbow was capable of sending an iron bolt through the gates of a city under siege, he had felt it rather a waste to use it on just one person, so he had adapted it to fire a sheaf of several dozen arrows all at once. The threads holding them together were supposed to snap under acceleration. They did so. Quite often the arrows also shattered in midair as they failed to withstand the enormous pressure.

He called it the Piecemaker. He’d only tried it once, down at the butts; Vimes had seen a target vanish. So had the targets on either side of it, the earth bank behind it, and a spiraling cloud of feathers floating down had been all that remained of a couple of seagulls who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this instance, the wrong place had been vertically above Detritus.

Now no other watchmen would go on patrol with the troll unless they could stay at least a hundred yards directly behind him. But the test had the desired effect, because someone saw everything in Ankh-Morpork and news about the targets had got around. Now just the knowledge that Detritus was on his way cleared a street much faster than any weapon.

“I got lots of judgment,” he said.

“You be careful with that thing,” said Vimes. “You could hurt someone.”

The party started out again, through the swirls of snow. Vimes made himself comfortable among the luggage, lit a cigar and then, when he was sure that the rattling of the coach would mask the sounds, rummaged farther under the tarpaulin and drew out Inigo’s cheap, scarred leather case.

From his pocket he took a small roll of black cloth, and unrolled it on his knee. Intricate little lockpicks glinted for a moment in the light of the coach lamps.

A good copper has to be able to think like a criminal. Vimes was a very good copper.

He was also a very
alive
copper and intended to remain that way. That was why, when the case’s lock went
click
, he laid it down on the shaking roof with its lid opening away from him and, leaning back, carefully lifted the lid with his boot.

A long blade flicked out. It would have terminally ruined the digestion of a casual thief. Someone obviously expected very bad hotel security on this journey.

Vimes carefully eased it back into its spring-loaded sheath, looked upon the contents of the case, smiled in a not very happy way, and carefully lifted out something that gleamed with the silvery light of carefully designed, beautifully engineered and very compact evil.

He thought: Sometimes it would be nice to be wrong about people.

Gaspode knew they were in the high foothills now. Places to buy food were getting scarce. However carefully Carrot knocked at the door of some isolated farmstead, he’d end up having to talk to people who were hiding under the bed. People here were not used to the idea of muscular men with swords who were actually anxious to
buy
things.

In the end it generally worked out quicker to walk in, go through the contents of the pantry, and leave some money on the table for when the people came up out of the cellar.

It had been two days since the last cottage, and there was so little there that Carrot, to Gaspode’s disgust, had just left some money.

The forest thickened. Alder became pine. There were snow showers every night. The stars were pinpoints of frost.

And, colder and harder, rising with the sunset, was the howl.

It went up on every side, a great mournful ululation across the freezing forests.

“They’re so close I can smell ’em,” said Gaspode. “They’ve been shadowing us for days.”

“There has never been an authenticated case of an unprovoked wolf attacking an adult human being,” said Carrot. They were both huddling under his cloak.

After a while Gaspode said, “An’ that’s good, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“We-ell, o’course us dogs only has
little
brains, but it seems to
me
that what you just said was pretty much the same as sayin’ ‘no unprovokin’ adult human bein’ has ever returned to tell the tale,’ right? I mean, your wolf has just got to make sure they kill people in quiet places where no one’ll ever know, yes?”

More snow settled on the cloak. It was large, and heavy, and a relic of many a long night in the Ankh-Morpork rain. In front of it, a fire flickered and hissed.

“I wish you hadn’t said that, Gaspode.”

These were big, serious flakes of snow. Winter was moving fast down the mountains.

“
You
wish I hadn’t said it?”

“But…no, I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

A drift had nearly covered the cloak.

“You shouldn’t’ve traded the horse for those snowshoes back at the last place,” said Gaspode.

“The poor thing was done in. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly a trade. The people wouldn’t come down out of the chimney. They
did
say to take anything we wanted.”

“They
said
to take everything, only spare their lives.”

“Yes. I don’t know why. I smiled at them.”

There was a doggy sigh.

“Trouble is, see, you could carry me on the horse, but this is deep snow and I am a little doggie. My problems are closer to the ground. I hope I don’t have to draw you a picture.”

“I’ve got some spare clothes in my pack. I might be able to make you a…coat—”

“A coat wouldn’t do the trick.”

Another howl began, quite close this time.

The snow was falling a lot faster. The hissing of the fire turned into a sizzle. Then it went out.

Gaspode was not good at snow. It was not a precipitation he normally had to face. In the city, there was always somewhere warm if you knew where to look. Anyway, snow only stayed snow for an hour or two, and then it became brown slush and was trodden into the general slurry of the streets.

Streets. Gaspode really
missed
streets. He could be wise on streets. Out here, he was dumb on mud.

“Fire’s gone out,” he said.

There was no answer from Carrot.

“
Fire’s gone out
, I said…”

This time there was a snore.

“Hey, you can’t go to sleep!” Gaspode whined. “Not
now
. We’ll
freeze
to death.”

The next voice in the howl seemed only a few trees away. Gaspode thought he could see dark shapes in the endless curtain of snow.

“…if we’re lucky,” he mumbled. He licked Carrot’s face, a move that usually resulted in the lickee chasing Gaspode down the street with a broom. There was merely another snore.

Gaspode’s mind raced.

Of course, he was a dog, and dogs and wolves…well, they were the same, right? Everyone knew that. So-oo, said a treacherous inner voice…maybe it wasn’t exactly Gaspode and Carrot in trouble. Maybe it was only Carrot. Yeah, right on, brothers! Let us join together in wild runs in the moonlight! But first, let us eat this monkey!

On the other paw…

He’d got hard pad, soft pad, the swinge, licky end, scroff, mange and something rather strange on the back of his neck that he couldn’t quite reach. Gaspode somehow couldn’t imagine the wolves saying
Hey, he’s one of us!

Besides…while he’d begged, fought, tricked and stolen, he’d never actually been a Bad Dog.

You needed to be a moderate good theological disputant to accept this, especially since a fair number of sausages and prime cuts had disappeared from butchers’ slabs in a blur of gray and a lingering odor of lavatory carpet, but nevertheless Gaspode was clear in his own mind that he’d never crossed the boundary from merely being a Naughty Boy. He’d never bitten a hand that fed him.
*
He’d never done It on the carpet. He’d never shirked a Duty. It was a bugger, but there you were. It was a dog thing.

He whined when the ring of dark shapes closed in.

Eyes gleamed.

He whined again, and then growled as unseen fanged death surrounded him.

This was clearly impressing no one, not even Gaspode.

He wagged his tail nervously.

“Just passin’ through!” he said, in a strangulatedly cheerful voice. “No trouble to anyone!”

There was a definite feeling that the shadows beyond the snowflakes were getting more crowded.

“So…have you had your holidays yet?” he squeaked.

This also did not appear to be well received.

Well, this was it, then. Famous Last Stand. Plucky Dog Defends His Master. What a Good Dog. Shame there’d be no one left to tell anyone…

He barked “Mine! Mine!” and leapt snarling toward the nearest shape.

A huge paw swatted him out of the air and then pinned him down, spread-eagled, in the snow.

He looked up past white fangs and a long muzzle into eyes that seemed familiar…

“Hmine,”
growled the wolf. It was Angua.

The coaches slowed to a walk on a road that was rough with potholes under the unbroken snow, every one a wheel-breaking trap in the dark.

Vimes nodded to himself when he saw lights flickering beside the road a few miles into the pass. On either side, old landslides had formed banks of scree, down which the forests had spilled.

He dropped quietly off the back of the coach and vanished into the shadows.

The leading coach stopped at a log which had been dropped across the road. There was some movement, and then the driver swung himself down into the mud and set off at a dead run back down the pass.

Figures moved out of the trees. One of them stopped at the door of the first coach and tried the handle.

There was a moment when the world held its breath. The figure must have sensed it, because he was already leaping aside when there was a click and the whole door and its surrounding frame blew outward in a cloud of splinters.

The thing about fires, Vimes had once observed, was that only an idiot got between them and a troll holding a two-thousand-pound crossbow. All hell hadn’t been let loose. It was merely Detritus. But from a few feet away you couldn’t tell the difference.

Another figure reached for the door of the second coach just before Vimes fired out of the darkness and hit his shoulder with a butcher’s sound. Then Inigo dived through the window, rolled with unclerklike grace as he hit the ground, rose in front of one of the bandits and brought his hand around, edge first, on the man’s neck.

Vimes had seen this trick done before. Usually, it just made people angry. Occasionally, it managed an incapacitating blow.

He’d never seen it remove a head.

“Everybody stop!”

Sybil was pushed out of the coach. Behind her, a man stepped out. He was holding a crossbow.

“Your Grace Vimes!” he shouted. The word bounced back and forth between the cliffs.

“I know you’re here, Your Grace Vimes! And here is your lady! And there are many of us! Come
out
, Your Grace Vimes!”

Flakes of snow hissed over the fires.

Then there was a whisper in the air followed by a second smack of steel into muscle. One of the hooded figures collapsed into the mud, clutching at its leg.

Inigo slowly got to his feet. The man holding the crossbow appeared not to notice.

“It is like chess, Your Grace Vimes! We have disarmed the troll and the dwarf! And I have the queen! And if you shoot at me, can you be sure I won’t have time to fire?”

Firelight glowed on the twisted trees bordering the road.

Several seconds passed.

Then the sound of Vimes’s crossbow landing in the circle of light was very loud.

“Well done, Your Grace Vimes! And now yourself, if you please!”

Inigo made out the shape that appeared at the very edge of the light, with both hands up.

“Are you all right, Sybil?” said Vimes.

“A bit cold, Sam.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“No, Sam.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Your Grace Vimes!”

“And are you going to promise me you’ll let her go?” said Vimes.

A flame flickered near Vimes’s face, a bright pool in the darkness, as he lit a cigar.

“Now, Your Grace Vimes, why ever should I do that? But I am sure Ankh-Morpork will pay a lot for you!”

“Ah. I thought so,” said Vimes. He shook the match out, and the cigar end glowed for a moment. “Sybil?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Duck.”

There was a second filled only with the indrawing of breath, and then, as Lady Sybil dived forward, Vimes’s hand came around from behind him in an arc, there was a silken sound, and the man’s head was flung back.

Inigo leapt and caught his crossbow as it was dropped, then rolled and came up firing. Another figure staggered.

Vimes was aware of a commotion elsewhere as he grabbed Sybil and helped her back into the coach. Inigo had vanished, but a scream in the dark didn’t sound like anyone that Vimes knew.

And then…only the hiss of snow in the fire.

“I…think they’re gone, sir,” said Cheery’s voice.

“Not as fast as us! Detritus?”

“Sir?”

“Are you okay?”

“Feelin’ very tactful, sir.”

“You two take that coach, I’ll take this, and let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”

“Where’s Mister Skimmer?” said Sybil.

There was another scream from the woods.

“Forget him!”

“But he’s—”

“Forget him!”

The snow was falling thicker as they climbed the pass. The deep snow dragged at the wheels, and all Vimes could see were the darker shapes of the horses against the whiteness. Then the clouds parted briefly, and he wished they hadn’t, because here they revealed that the darkness on the left of his wasn’t rock any more but a sheer drop.

At the top of the pass the lights of an inn glowed out onto the thickening snow. Vimes drove the carriage into the yard.

“Detritus?”

“Sir?”

“I’ll watch our backs. Make sure this place is okay, will you?”

“Yessir.”

The troll jumped down, slotting a fresh bundle of arrows into the Piecemaker. Vimes spotted his intention just in time.

“Just
knock
, Sergeant.”

“Right you are, sir.”

The troll knocked and entered. The buzz of sound from inside suddenly ceased. Vimes heard, muffled by the door, “Der Duke of Ankh-Morpork is coming in. Anyone have a problem with dis? Just say der word.” And in the background, the little humming, singing noise the Piecemaker made under tension.

Vimes helped Sybil down from the coach.

“How do you feel now?” he said.

She smiled faintly. “I think this dress will have to go for dusters,” she said. She smiled a little more when she saw his expression.

“I knew you’d come up with something, Sam. You go all slow and cold and that means something really dreadful’s going to happen. I wasn’t frightened.”

“Really? I was scared shi—stiff,” said Vimes.

“What happened to Mister Skimmer? I remember him rummaging in his case and cursing—”

“I suspect Inigo Skimmer is alive and well,” said Vimes grimly. “Which is more than can be said for those around him.”

There was silence in the main room of the inn. A man and a woman, presumably the landlord and his wife, were standing flat against the back of the bar. The dozen or so other occupants lined the walls, hands in the air. Beer dribbled from a couple of spilled mugs.

“Everyt’ing normal an’ peaceful,” said Detritus, turning around.

Vimes realized that everyone was staring at him. He looked down. His shirt was torn. Mud and blood caked his clothes. Melted snow dripped off him. In his right hand, un-regarded, he was still holding his crossbow.

“Bit of trouble on the road,” he said. “Er…you know how it is.”

No one moved.

“Oh, good gods…Detritus, put that damn thing
down
, will you?”

“Right, sir.”

The troll lowered his crossbow. Two dozen people all began to breathe again.

Then the skinny woman stepped around from behind the bar, nodded at Vimes, carefully took Lady Sybil’s hand from his, and pointed toward the wide wooden stairs. The black look she gave Vimes puzzled him.

Only then did he realize that Lady Sybil was shaking. Tears were running down her face.

“And…er…my wife is a bit shaken up,” he said weakly. “Corporal Littlebottom!” he yelled, to cover his confusion.

Cheery stepped through the doorway.

“Go with Lady Syb—”

He stopped because of the rising hubbub. One or two people pointed. Someone laughed. Cheery stopped, looking down.

“What’s up?” Vimes hissed.

“Er…It’s me, sir. Ankh-Morpork dwarf fashions haven’t really caught on here, sir,” said Cheery.

“The skirt?” said Vimes.

“Yes, sir.”

Vimes looked around at the faces. They seemed more shocked than angry, although he spotted a couple of dwarfs in one corner who were definitely unhappy.