Nanny looked at the array of jars and bottles, and the stakes neatly organized in order of size.
‘It’ll take them a little while,’ she said. ‘We’ve got time to get . . . prepared.’
She turned around with a bottle of blessed water in one hand, a crossbow loaded with a wooden bolt, and a bag of musty lemons in her mouth.
‘Eg oo it I ay,’ she said.
‘Pardon?’ said Magrat.
Nanny spat out the lemons.
‘Now we’ll try things my way,’ she said. ‘I’m not good at thinkin’ like Granny but I’m bloody good at actin’ like me. Headology’s for them as can handle it. Let’s kick some bat.’
The wind soughed across the moors on the edge of Lancre, and hissed through the heather.
Around some old mounds, half buried in brambles, it shook the wet branches of a single thorn tree, and shredded the curling smoke that drifted up through the roots.
There was a single scream.
Down below, the Nac mac Feegle were doing their best, but strength is not the same as weight and mass and even with pixies hanging on to every limb and Big Aggie herself sitting on
Verence’s chest he was still hard to control.
‘I think mebbe the drink was a wee bitty too trackle?’ said Big Aggie’s man, looking down at Verence’s bloodshot eyes and foaming mouth. ‘I’m sayin’, mebbe it was wrong jus’ giving him fifty times more than we tak’. He’s not used to it . . .’
Big Aggie shrugged.
In the far corner of the barrow half a dozen pixies backed out of the hole they’d hacked into the next chamber, dragging a sword. For bronze, it was quite well preserved – the old chieftains of Lancre reckoned to be buried with their weapons in order to fight their enemies in the next world, and since you didn’t become a chieftain of ancient Lancre without sending a great many enemies to the next world, they liked to take weapons that could be relied upon to last.
Under the direction of the old pixie, they manoeuvred it within reach of Verence’s flailing hand.
‘Are ye scrat?’ said Big Aggie’s man. ‘Yin! Tan! Tetra!’
The Feegle leapt away in every direction. Verence rose almost vertically, bounced off the roof, grabbed the sword, hacked madly until he’d cut a hole through to the outside world, and escaped into the night.
The pixies clustered around the walls of the barrow turned their eyes to their Kelda.
Big Aggie nodded.
‘Big Aggie says ye’d best see him come to nae harm,’ said the old pixie.
A thousand small but very sharp weapons waved in the smoky air.
‘Hoons!’
‘Kill ’em a’!’
‘Nac mac Feegle!’
A few seconds later the chamber was empty.
Nanny hurried across the castle’s main hall, burdened with stakes, and stopped dead.
‘What the hell’s that thing?’ she said. ‘Takes up a whole wall!’
‘Oh, that wath the old Count’th pride and joy,’ said Igor. ‘He wathn’t very modern, he alwayth thaid, but the Thentury of the Fruitbat had it’th compenthathionth. Thometimeth he’d play with it for hourth on end. . .’
It was an organ, or possibly what an organ hoped to be when it grew up, because it dominated the huge room. A music lover to the core, Nanny couldn’t help trotting over to inspect it. It was black, its pipes framed and enclosed in intricate ebony fretwork, with the stops and keyboard made of dead elephant.
‘How does it work?’ she said.
‘Water power,’ said Igor proudly. ‘There’th an underground river. The marthter had thith made thpethially to hith own dethign . . .’
Nanny ran her fingers over a brass plate screwed above the keyboard.
It read: ‘HLISTEN TO ZER CHILTREN OFF DER NIGHT . . . VOT VONDERFUL MHUSICK DEY MAKE. Mnftrd. by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, Ankh-Morpork.’
‘It’s a Johnson,’ she breathed. ‘I haven’t got my hands on a Johnson for ages . . .’ She looked closer. ‘What’s this? “Scream 1”? “Thunderclap 14”? “Wolf Howl 5”? There’s a whole set of stops just marked “Creaky Floors”! Can’t you play music on this thing?’
‘Oh, yeth. But the old marthter wath more interethted in . . . effectth.’
There was still a dust-covered sheet of music on the stand, which someone had been filling in carefully, with many crossings-out.
‘ “Return Of The Bride Of The Revenge Of The Son Of Count Magpyr”,’ Nanny said aloud, noting that ‘From 20,000 Fathoms(?)’ had been written in subsequently and then crossed out. ‘ “Sonata for Thunderstorm, Trapdoors and Young Women in Skimpy Clothing”. Bit of an artist too, then, your old master?’
‘in a . . . thpethial way,’ said Igor wistfully.
Nanny stepped back.
‘Magrat’s going to be safe, isn’t she?’ she said, picking up the stakes again.
‘It’th a mob-proof door,’ said Igor. ‘And Thcrapth ith ninethirtyeighth Rottweiler.’
‘Which parts, as a matter of interest?’
‘Two legth, one ear, lotth of tubeth and lower jaw,’ said Igor promptly as they hurried off again.
‘Yes, but he’s got a spaniel brain,’ said Nanny.
‘It’th in the bone,’ said Igor. ‘He holdth people in hith jawth and beatth them thentheleth with hith tailth.’
‘He wags people to death?’
‘Thometimeth he drownth them in dribble,’ said Igor.
The rooftops of Escrow loomed out of the darkness as the vampires drifted lower. A few windows were glowing with candlelight when Agnes’s feet touched the ground.
Vlad dropped down beside her.
‘Of course, you can’t see it at its best in this weather,’ he said. ‘Some quite good architecture in the town square, and a very fine town hall. Father paid for the clock.’
‘Really.’
‘And the bell tower, naturally. Local labour, of course.’
‘Vampires have a lot of cash, do they?’ said Agnes. The town looked quite large, and pretty much like the country towns down on the plains save for a certain amount of gingerbread carving on the eaves.
‘Well, the family has always owned land,’ said Vlad, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘The money mounts up, you know. Over the centuries. And obviously we’ve not enjoyed a particularly active social fife.’
‘Or spent much on food,’ said Agnes.
‘Yes, yes, very good-‘
A bell started to toll, somewhere above them.
‘Now you’ll see,’ said Vlad. ‘And you’ll understand.’
* * *
Granny Weatherwax opened her eyes. There were flames roaring right in front of her.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘So be at, then . . .’
‘Ah. Feeling better, are we?’ said Oats.
Her head spun round. Then she looked down at the steam rising from her dress.
Oats ducked between the branches of two firs and threw another armful of dead wood on the flames. It hissed and spluttered.
‘How long was I . . . resting?’ said Granny.
‘About half an hour, I’d say.’ Red light and black shadows danced among the trees. The rain had turned to sleet, but it was flashing into steam overhead.
‘You did well to get a fire going in this murk,’ said Granny.
‘I thank Om for it,’ said Oats.
‘Very kind of him, I’m sure. But we’ve got to . . . get on.’ Granny tried to stand up. ‘Not far now. All downhill. . .’
‘The mule ran away,’ said Oats.
‘We’ve got feet, haven’t we? I feel better for the . . . rest. The fire’s put a . . . bit of life into me.’
‘It’s too dark and far too wet. Wait until morning.’
Granny pulled herself up. ‘No. Find a stick or something I can lean on. Go on.’
‘Well . . . there’s a hazel grove just along the slope, but . . .’
‘Just the thing, a good bit of hazel. Well, don’t just stand there. I’m feeling better every minute. Off you go.’
He disappeared into the dripping shadows.
Granny flapped her skirts in front of the blaze to circulate some warm air, and something small and white flew up from the ashes, dancing in the fire and sleet.
She picked it up from the moss where it had landed.
It was a piece of thin paper, the charred corner of a page. She could just make out, in the red light, the words ‘. . . of Om . . . aid unto . . . Ossory smote . . .’ The paper was attached to a burnt strip of leather binding.
She regarded it for a while, and then dropped it carefully into the flames as the sound of crackling twigs indicated Oats’s return.
‘Can you even find the way in all this?’ he said, handing her a long hazel pole.
‘Yes. You go on one side of me, and I’ve got this staff. Then it’s just a walk in the woods, eh?’
‘You don’t look better.’
‘Young man, if we’re going to wait for me to look interestin’ we’ll be here for years.’
She raised a hand and the wowhawk flew down
out of the shadows.
‘Good thing you were able to get a fire going, all the same,’ she said, without turning round.