things.
Now she too buckles on the hookboots and turns a graceful cartwheel to bring their hooks, with a faint clung, against a couple of the walking rings in the ceiling.
Only now it is the floor. The world has changed. Now she is standing on the edge of a deep bowl or crater, floored with the little rings across which the dragonriders are already strolling with a pendulum grit. In the centre of the bowl their huge mounts wait among the herd. Far above are the distant rocks of the cavern floor, discoloured by centuries of dragon droppings.
Moving with the easy gliding movement that is second nature Liessa sets off towards her own dragon, Laolith, who turns his great horsey head towards her. His jowls are greasy with pork fat. It was very enjoyable, he says in her mind.
“I thought I said there were to be no unaccompanied flights?” she snaps.
I was hungry, Liessa.
“Curb your hunger. Soon there will be horses to eat.”
The reins stick in our teeth. Are there any warriors? We like warriors.
Liessa swings down the mounting ladder and lands with her legs locked around Laolith’s leathery neck.
“The warrior is mine. There are a couple of others you can have. One appears to be a wizard of sorts,” she adds by way of encouragement.
Oh, you know how it is with wizards. Half an hour afterwards you could do with another one, the dragon grumbles.
He spreads his wings and drops.
“They’re gaining,” screamed Rincewind. He bent even lower over his horse’s neck and groaned. Twoflower was trying to keep up while at the same time craning round to look at the flying beasts.
“You don’t understand!” screamed the tourist, above the terrible noise of the wingbeats. “All my life I’ve wanted to see dragons!”
“From the inside?” shouted Rincewind. “Shut up and ride!” He whipped at his horse with the reins and stared at the woods ahead, trying to drag it closer by sheer willpower. Under those trees they’d be safe. Under those trees no dragons could fly… He heard the clap of wings before shadows folded around him. Instinctively he rolled in the saddle and felt the white-hot stab of pain as something sharp scored a line across his shoulders.
Behind him Hrun screamed, but it sounded more like a bellow of rage than a cry of pain. The barbarian had vaulted down into the heather and had drawn the black sword, Kring. He flourished it as one of the dragons curved in for another low pass.
“No bloody lizard does that to me!” he roared.
Rincewind leaned over and grabbed Twoflower’s reins.
“Come on,” he hissed.
“But, the dragons—” said Twoflower, entranced.
“Blast the—” began the wizard, and froze. Another dragon had peeled off from the circling dots overhead and was gliding towards them. Rincewind let go of Twoflower’s horse, swore bitterly, and spurred his own mount towards the trees, alone. He didn’t look back at the sudden commotion behind him and, when a shadow passed over him, merely gibbered weakly and tried to burrow into the horse’s mane.
Then, instead of the searing, piercing pain he had expected, there was a series of stinging blows as the terrified animal passed under the leaves of the wood. The wizard tried to hang on but another low branch, stouter than the others, knocked him out of the saddle. The last thing he heard before the flashing blue lights of unconsciousness closed in was a high reptilian scream of frustration, and the thrashing of talons in the treetops.
When he awoke a dragon was watching him; at least, it was staring in his general direction. Rincewind groaned and tried to dig his way into the moss with his shoulderblades, then gasped as the pain hit him.
Through the mists of agony and fear he looked back at the dragon.
The creature was hanging from a branch of a large dead oak tree, several hundred feet away. Its bronze- gold wings were tightly wrapped around its body but the long equine head turned this way and that at the end of a remarkably prehensile neck. It was scanning the forest.
It was also semi-transparent. Although the sun glinted off its scales, Rincewind could clearly make out the outlines of the branches behind it. On one of them a man was sitting, dwarfed by the hanging reptile. He appeared to be naked except for a pair of high boots, a tiny leather holdall in the region of his groin, and a high-crested helmet. He was swinging a short sword back and forth idly, and stared out across the tree tops with the air of one carrying out a tedious and unglamorous assignment.
A beetle began to crawl laboriously up Rincewind’s leg.
The wizard wondered how much damage a half solid dragon could do. Would it only half-kill him? He decided not to stay and find out.
Moving on heels, fingertips and shoulder muscles, Rincewind wriggled sideways until foliage masked the oak and its occupants. Then he scrambled to his feet and hared off between the trees.
He had no destination in mind, no provisions, and no horse. But while he still had legs he could run. Ferns and brambles whipped at him, but he didn’t feel them at all.
When he had put about a mile between him and the dragon he stopped and collapsed against a tree, which then spoke to him.
“Psst,” it said.
Dreading what he might see, Rincewind let his gaze slide upwards. It tried to fasten on innocuous bits of bark and leaf, but the scourge of curiosity forced it to leave them behind. Finally it fixed on a black sword thrust straight through the branch above Rincewind’s head.
“Don’t just stand there,” said the sword (in a voice like the sound of a finger dragged around the rim of a large empty wine glass). “Pull me out.”
“What?” said Rincewind, his chest still heaving.
“Pull me out,” repeated Kring. “It’s either that or I’ll be spending the next million years in a coal measure. Did I ever tell you about the time I was thrown into a lake up in th—”
“What happened to the others?” said Rincewind, still clutching the tree desperately.
“Oh, the dragons got them. And the horses. And that box thing. Me too, except that Hrun dropped me. What a stroke of luck for you.”
“Well—” began Rincewind. Kring ignored him.
“I expect you’ll be in a hurry to rescue them,” it added.
“Yes, well—”
“So if you’ll just pull me out we can be off.”
Rincewind squinted up at the sword. A rescue attempt had hitherto been so far at the back of his mind that, if some advanced speculations on the nature and shape of the many-dimensioned multiplexity of the universe were correct, it was right at the front; but a magic sword was a valuable item…
And it would be a long trek back home, wherever that was…
He scrambled up the tree and inched along the branch. Kring was buried very firmly in the wood. He gripped the pommel and heaved until lights flashed in front of his eyes.
“Try again,” said the sword encouragingly.
Rincewind groaned and gritted his teeth.
“Could be worse,” said Kring. “This could have been an anvil.”
“Yaargh,” hissed the wizard, fearing for the future of his groin.
“I have had a multidimensional existence,” said the sword.
“Ungh?”
“I have had many names, you know.”
“Amazing,” said Rincewind. He swayed backwards as the blade slid free. It felt strangely light. back on the ground again he decided to break the news. “I really don’t think rescue is a good idea,” he said. “I think we’d better head back to a city, you know. To raise a search party.”
“The dragons headed hubwards,” said Kring.
“However, I suggest we start with the one in the trees over there.”
