The Fifth Elephant

'How would you go about it, Carrot?'

'Well, I'd start by knocking, sir.'

'Really? Sergeant Detritus. Forward, please.'

'Sir!'

'Blow the bloody doors off!'

'Yessir!'

Vines turned back to Carrot as the troll gazed thoughtfully at the door and began making extra turns on his crossbow's winch, grunting as the springs fought back. Their fight was unsuccessful.

'This isn't Ankh-Morpork, see?' said Vines.

Detritus hoisted the bow on to his shoulders and took a step forward.

There was a thunk. Vines didn't see the bundle of arrows leave the bow. They were probably already fragments by the time they'd gone a few feet. Halfway towards the doors the expanding cloud of splinters exploded into flame from the air friction.

What hit the doors was a fireball as angry and unstoppable as the Fifth Elephant and travelling at an appreciable fraction of local lightspeed.

'My gods; Detritus,' muttered Vines as the thunder died away. 'That's not a crossbow, that's a national emergency.'

A few bits of charred door crashed on to the cobbles.

'The wolves won't come in, Mister Vines,' said Angua. 'Gavin will follow me, but they won't come, not even for him.'

'Why not?'

'Because they're wolves, sir. They don't feel at home in houses.'

The only sound was the squeak-squeak of Detritus winding up his bow again.

'The hell with it,' said Vines, drawing his sword and stepping forward.

Lady Sybil untucked her dress from her underwear and stepped carefully across the little courtyard. She was somewhere around the rear of the castle, as far as she could make out.

She flattened herself as best she could against the wall when she heard a sound, and tightened her grip on one of the iron bars that had formerly graced the window.

A large wolf came around the corner, holding a bone in its mouth. It did not look as if it was expecting her, and it certainly wasn't expecting the iron bar.

'Oh, I'm terribly sorry,' said Sybil automatically as it folded up on to the cobbles.

There was an explosion on the other side of the castle. That sounded like Sam.

'Do you think they heard us, sir?' said Carrot.

'Captain, people in Ankh-Morpork probably heard us. So where are all the werewolves?'

Angua pushed forward. 'This way,' she said.

She led them up a flight of low steps and tried one of the doors to the keep. It swung back slowly.

There were torches in the hall, too.

'They'll leave us somewhere to run,' she said. 'We always leave people somewhere to run.'

A pair of smaller doors at the far end of the hall were pushed open. No handles, Vines noted. Paws can't use handles.

Wolfgang stepped in. A couple of dozen werewolves escorted him, fanning out around the room and sitting down... sprawling down and then watching the intruders with keen interest.

'Ah, Civilized!' said Wolfgang cheerfully. 'You won the game! Would you like another go? When people have a second game we give them a handicap! We bite one of their legs off! Good joke, hey?'

'I think I prefer the Ankh-Morpork sense of humour,' said Vimes. 'Where's my wife, you bastard?' He could still hear the sound of Detritus winding. That was the trouble with the big bow. It was only a quick-fire weapon by geological standards.

'And Delphine! Look at what the dog dragged in!' said Wolfgang, ignoring Vimes. He stepped forward. Vimes heard a growl begin in Angua's throat, a sound which would cause instant obedience in many of Ankh-Morpork's criminal population when they encountered it in a dark alley. There was a deeper rumble from Gavin.

Wolfgang stopped.

'You haven't got the brains for this, Wolfie,' said Angua. 'And you couldn't plot your way out of a wet paper bag. Where's Mother?' She looked around at the lolling werewolves. 'Hello, Uncle Ulf... Aunt Hilda... Magweri... Nancy... Unity... The pack's all here, then? Except for Father, who I expect is off rolling in something. What a family—'

'I want these disgusting people out of here right away,' said the Baroness, stepping into the hall.

She glared at Detritus. 'How dare you bring a troll into this house!'

'O-kay, it's all wound up,' said Detritus cheerfully, hoisting the humming bow on to his shoulder. 'Where should I fire it, Mister Vimes?'

'Good grief, not in here! This is an enclosed building!'

'Only until I pull dis trigger, sir.'

'How very civilized,' said the Baroness. 'How very Ankh-Morpork. You think you merely have to threaten and the lesser races back down, eh?'

'Have you seen your gates lately?' said Vimes.

'We're werewolves!' snapped the Baroness - and it was a snap, the words sharp and clipped as though they were barked. 'Stupid toys like that don't frighten us.'

'But it'll slow you down for a while. Now bring out Lady Sybil!'

'Lady Sybil is resting. You are in no position to make demands, Mister Vimes. We are not the criminals here.'

As Vimes's mouth dropped open she went on: 'The game is not against the lore. It has been played for a thousand years. And what else is it that you think we have done? Stolen the dwarfs' pet rock? We—'

'You know it wasn't stolen,' said Vimes. 'And I know—'

'You know nothing! You suspect everything. You have that kind of mind.'

'Your son said—'

'My son unfortunately has honed to perfection every muscle in his body except the ones for thinking with,' said the Baroness. 'In civilized Ankh-Morpork I daresay you can barge into people's houses and stamp around, but here in our barbaric backwater the lore requires something beyond mere assertion.'

'I can smell the fear,' said Angua. 'It's pouring off you, Mother.'

'Sam?'

They looked up. Lady Sybil was standing at the top of some stone stairs leading to a lower floor, looking bewildered and angry. She was holding an iron bar with a bend in it.

' Sybil!'

'She told me you were on the run and they were all trying to save you, but that wasn't right, was it?'

It's a terrible thing to admit to yourself, but when the shoulderblades are pressed firmly against the brickwork then any weapon will do, and right now Vimes saw Sybil loaded and ready to fire.

She got on with people. Practically from the moment she'd been able to talk she'd been taught how to listen. And when Sybil listened to people she made them feel good about themselves. It was probably something to do with being a... a big girl. She tried to make herself seem small, and by default that made those around her feel bigger. She got on with people almost as well as Carrot did. No wonder even the dwarfs liked her.

She had pages to herself in Twurp's Peerage, huge ancestral anchors biting into the past, and dwarfs also respected someone who knew their great-great-great-grandfather's full name. And Sybil couldn't lie, you could see her redden when she tried it. Sybil was a rock. She made Detritus look like a sponge.