The Fifth Elephant

'Detritus?'

'Yessir?'

'Try not to look too troll-like, will you?'

'Tryin' like hell, sir.'

The column was abreast of them before someone barked the command to halt. A dwarf detached himself from the rest and walked over to the coach.

'Ta'grdzk?!' he bellowed.

'Would you like me to take care of this, your grace?' said Inigo.

'I'm the damn ambassador,' said Vimes. He stepped down.

'Good morning, dwarf [indicating miscreant], I am Overseer Vimes of the Look.'

Lady Sybil heard Inigo give a little groan.

'Krz? Gr'dazak yad?'

'Hang on, hang on, I know this one... I am sure you are a dwarf of no convictions. Let us shake our business, dwarf [indicating miscreant].'

'Yes, that will just about do it, I think,' said Inigo. 'Mmm, mhm.'

The senior dwarf had gone red in those areas of his face that could be seen behind the hair. The rest of the squad were taking a renewed interest in the coach.

The leader took a deep breath. 'D'kraha?'

Cheery dropped down from the coach. Her leather skirt flapped in the wind.

As one dwarf, the column swivelled to stare at her. Their leader went pop-eyed.

'B'dan? K'raa! D'kraga 'ka'ak'!'

Vimes saw the expression that appeared on Cheery's small round face.

Above him there was a clunk as Detritus rested the loaded Piecemaker on the edge of the coach.

'I know dat word he said to her,' he announced to the world. 'It is not a good word. I do not want to hear dat word again.'

'Well, this is all very jolly, mph, mhm,' said Inigo, getting down. 'And now if everyone will just relax for a moment we might get out of here alive, mmph.'

Vimes reached up and carefully pushed the end of Detritus's crossbow towards a less threatening direction.

Inigo talked very fast in what seemed to Vimes to be a torrent of perfect dwarfish, although he was sure he heard the occasional 'mmph'. He opened his leather case and produced a couple of documents fixed with big waxy seals. These were inspected with considerable suspicion. The dwarf pointed at Cheery and Detritus. Inigo flapped a hand impatiently, the universal symbol for dismissing that which was not important. More papers were examined.

Eventually, with more universal body language meaning 'I could do something bad to you but right now it's just too much bother,' the dwarf waved Inigo away, gave Vimes a look that suggested that, against all physical evidence, Vimes was beneath him, and strode back to his troops.

An order was barked. The dwarfs set off again, leaving the road and heading off towards the forest.

'Well, that all seems sorted out,' said Inigo, getting back into the coach. 'Miss Littlebottom was a bit of a sticking point, but a dwarf does respect very complicated documents. Something's up. He wouldn't say what it was. He wanted to search the coach.'

'The hell with that. What for?'

'Who knows? I persuaded him that we have diplomatic immunity.'

'And what did you tell him about me?'

'I tried to convince him that you were a bloody idiot, your grace. Mmph, mmhm.'

'Oh, really?' Vimes heard Lady Sybil repress a laugh.

'It was necessary, believe me. Street dwarfish wasn't a good idea, your grace. But when I pointed out that you were an aristocrat, he—'

'I am not an— Well, I'm not really a—'

'Yes, your grace. But if you'll be advised by me, a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You've made a good start, your grace. And now I think we'd better be moving, mhm.'

'I'm glad to see you're being less deferential, Inigo,' said Vimes as they got under way again.

'Oh well, your grace, I've got to know you better now.'

Gaspode had confused recollections of the rest of that night. The pack moved fast, and he realized that most of them were running ahead of Carrot, to flatten down the snow.

It wasn't flat enough for Gaspode. Eventually a wolf picked him up by the scruff of the neck and carried him bodily, while making muffled comments about the foul taste.

The snow stopped after a while and there was a slip of moonlight behind the clouds.

And all around, near and far, was the howl. Occasionally the pack would stop, in a clearing or on the crisp white brow of a hill, and join in.

Gaspode limped to Angua while the cries went up around them. 'What's this for?' he said.

'Polities,' said Angua. 'Negotiation. We're crossing territories.'

Gaspode glanced at Gavin. He hadn't joined in the howl, but sat a little way off, regally dividing his attention between Carrot and the pack.

'He has to ask permission?' he said.

'He has to make sure they'll let me through.'

'Oh. That's giving him problems?'

'None that he can't bite through.'

'Oh. Er, is the howl saying anything about me?'

' 'Small, horrible, smelly dog.' '

'Ah, right.'

They set off again a few minutes later, down a long snow-crusted slope in the moonlight towards the forest, and Gaspode saw shadows angling fast across the snowfield towards them. For a moment he was flanked by two packs, the old and the new, and then their original escort dropped away.

So we've got a new honour guard, he thought, as he ran in the centre of a wall of blurred grey legs. Wolves we haven't met before. I just hope the howl added 'doesn't taste nice'.

Then Carrot fell over in the snow. It was a moment before he pushed himself up again. The wolves circled uncertainly, occasionally glancing at Gavin. Gaspode caught up with Carrot, jumping awkwardly through the snow.

'You all right?'

'Hard... to... run...'

'I don't want to, you know, worry you or anything,' whined Gaspode, 'but we're not exactly among friends here, know what I mean? Our Gavin isn't going to win the prize for the wolf with the waggiest tail anywhere.'

'When did he last sleep?' Angua demanded, pushing her way through the wolves.

'Dunno, really,' said Gaspode. 'We've been moving pretty fast the last few days.'

'No sleep, no food and no proper clothing,' snarled Angua. 'Idiot!'

There was growling and whining from some of the wolves around Gavin. Gaspode sat down by Carrot's head and watched as Angua... argued.

He couldn't speak pure wolf and, besides, gesture and body language played a far greater part than it did in canine. But you didn't have to be bright to see that things weren't going well. There was def'nitely a lot of Atmosphere in the atmosphere. And Gaspode had a feeling that, if things went all pear-shaped in a hurry, one small dog had all the survival chances of a chocolate kettle on a very hot stove.

There was a lot of whining and growling. One wolf - Gaspode mentally named him Awkward - was not happy. It looked as though a number of wolves were agreeing with him. One of them bared its teeth at Angua.

Then Gavin stood up. He shook some snowflakes off his coat, looked around in an offhand fashion, and padded towards Awkward.