The Fifth Elephant

Wolfgang couldn't control his shape well, Vimes saw. He couldn't quite manage to be full wolf or full human, and Angua was making the most of that. She was ducking, weaving... biting.

But even if you put him down you couldn't put him out.

'Mister Vimes!' Now it was Cheery, beckoning urgently from the passage that led to the kitchen. 'You ought to come here right now!'

She was white-faced. Vimes nudged Detritus. 'If they separate, just grab him, right? Just try to hold him still!'

Igor was lying in the kitchen surrounded by broken, glass. Wolfgang must have landed on him and taken out his perpetual anger on a soft target. The patchwork man was bleeding heavily and lay like a doll that had been flung hard against a wall. 'Marthter,' he groaned.

'Can you do anything for him, Cheery?'

'I wouldn't know where to start, sir!'

'Marthter, you got to remember thith, right?' Igor groaned.

'Er, yes... what?'

'You got to get me into the ithehouthe downthtairth and let Igor know, underthtand?'

'Which Igor?' said Vimes desperately.

'Any Igor!' Igor clutched at Vimes's sleeve. 'Me heart'th had it, but me liver'th right ath ninepenthe, tell him! Nothing wrong with my brain that a good bolt of lightnin' won't thort out. Igor can have me right hand, he'th got a cuthtomer waiting. There'th yearth of good thervithe left in my lower intethtine. Left eye not up to much, but I darethay thome poor thoul can find a uthe for it. The right knee ith nearly new. Old M'th Prodzky down the road would value my hip jointth, tell him. Got all that?'

'Yes, yes, I think so.'

'Right. Remember... What goeth around, cometh around...'

Igor sank down.

'He's gone, sir,' said Cheery.

But he'll soon be up and on someone else's feet, Vimes thought. He didn't say it aloud. Cheery was soft hearted. Instead he said, 'Can you get him into his icehouse? By the sound of it Angua's winning—'

He ran back into the hall. It was a wreck. As he arrived Angua managed to get a headlock on Wolfgang and ran him into a wooden pillar. He staggered, and she spun and scythed his legs from under him with a kick.

I taught her that, Vimes thought, as her brother landed heavily. Some of that dirty fighting - that's Ankh-Morpork fighting, that is.

But Wolfgang was up again like a rubber ball and somersaulting over her head. That brought him to the front door. He smashed it open with a blow and leapt out into the street.

And... that was it. A room full of debris, snowflakes blowing in, and Angua sobbing on the floor.

He picked her up. She was bleeding in a dozen places. That was as much of a diagnosis as Sam Vimes, not used these days to surveying naked young women at close quarters, thought he could decently attempt.

'It's all right, he's gone,' he said, because he had to say something.

'It's not all right! He'll lie low for a while and then he'll be back! I know him! It won't matter where we go! You've seen him! He'll just track us down and follow us and then he'll kill Carrot!'

'Why?'

'Because Carrot's mine!'

Sybil advanced down the stairs, carrying Vimes's crossbow.

'Oh, you poor thing,' she said. 'Come here, let's find something to cover you up. Sam, isn't there something you can do?'

Vimes stared at her. Built into Sybil's expression was the unquestioning assumption that he could do something.

An hour ago he'd been having breakfast. Ten minutes ago he'd been putting on this stupid uniform. In a real room, with his wife. And it had been a real world, with a real future. And suddenly the dark was back, spattered with red rage.

And if he gave in to it he'd lose. That was the beast screaming, inside, and Wolfgang was a better beast. Vimes knew he didn't have the knack, the mindless, driving nastiness; sooner or later his brain would start operating, and kill him.

Perhaps, said his brain, you start by using me...

'Ye-es,' he said. 'Yes, I think there is something I can do...'

Fire and silver, thought Vimes. Well, silver's in pretty short supply in Uberwald.

'You want I should come?' said Detritus, who could pick up signals.

'No, I think... I think I want to make an arrest. I don't want to start a war. Anyway, you need to wait here in case he doubles back. But you could lend me your penknife.'

Vimes found a sheet in one of the broken boxes and tore off a long strip. Then he took his crossbow from his wife.

'You see, now he's committed a crime in Ankh-Morpork,' he said. 'That makes him mine.'

'Sam, we're not—'

'You know, everyone kept telling me I wasn't in Ankh-Morpork so often that I believed it. But this embassy is Ankh-Morpork and, right now,' he hefted the bow, 'I am the law.'

'Sam?'

'Yes, dear?'

'I know that look. Don't hurt anyone else, will you?'

'Don't worry, dear. I'm going to be civilized about it.'

There was a cluster of dwarfs in the street outside, surrounding one lying on the snow in a pool of blood.

'Which way?' said Vimes, and if they didn't understand his words they understood the question. Several of them pointed along the street.

As he walked Vimes cradled the crossbow and lit a thin cigar.

Now this he understood. He was never at ease with politics, where good and bad were just, apparently, two ways of looking at the same thing or, at least, were described like that by the people who were on the side Vimes thought of as 'bad'.

It was all too complicated and, where it was complicated, it meant that someone was trying to fool you. But on the street, in hot pursuit, it was all so clear. Someone was going to be still standing at the end of the chase, and all you had to concentrate on was making sure it was you.

On a street corner a cart had overturned and its driver was kneeling by a horse that had been ripped open.

'Which way?'

The man pointed.

The new street was wider, busier, and there were a number of elegant coaches moving slowly through the crowds. Of course... the coronation.

But that belonged to the world of the Duke of Ankh and, right now, he wasn't here. There was only Sam Vimes, who didn't much like coronations.

There were screams up ahead, and the flow of people was suddenly against Vimes, so that he appeared to be heading up-stream, like a salmon.

The street opened into a large square. People were running now, which suggested to Vimes that he was still moving in the right direction. It was pretty clear that you'd find Wolfgang somewhere no one else wanted to be.

There was a flurry of movement on one side of him and a squad of the town guard trotted past. They halted. One of them walked back. It was Tantony.

He looked Vimes up and down. 'I have you to thank for last night?' he said. There were fresh scars on his face, but they were already healing. We've got to get an Igor, Vimes reminded