The Fifth Elephant

it became brown slush and was trodden into the general slurry of the streets.

Streets. Gaspode really missed streets. He could be wise on the 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 moderately 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 grey and a lingering odour 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.^[14] 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 towards the nearest shape.

A huge paw swatted him out of the air and then pinned him down, spreadeagled, 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.

For a moment the world held its breath. The figures must have sensed it, because the man was already leaping aside when there was a click and the whole door and its surrounding frame blew outwards 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 2,000 lb 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 out through the window, rolled with unclerk-like 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 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.

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 got slowly 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 , whyever 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 the man's 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 Vimes knew.

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