There were still cliffs on the far side of the river. A solitary werewolf, companion to the one now drifting on the current, was watching him from the nearest bank. Clouds were sliding across the sun and snow was falling again, in large, raggedy flakes.
Vimes waded to the rim of ice and tried to pull himself up out of the water, but it creaked ominously under his weight and cracks zigzagged across its surface.
The wolf came closer, moving with caution. Vimes made another desperate attempt, a slab of ice came free and tipped up, and he disappeared under the water. The creature waited a few moments and then inched further out over the ice, growling as fine cracks spread out like stars under its paws.
A shadow moved in the shallow water below it. There was an explosion of water and breath as Vimes broke through the ice under the werewolf, grabbed it around the waist and fell back.
A claw ripped along Vimes’s side, but he gripped as hard as he could with arms and legs as they rolled under the ice. It was a desperate test of lung capacity, he knew. But he wasn’t the one who’d just had the air squeezed out of him. He held on, while the water clanged in his ears and the thing scrabbled and scratched at him and then, when there was nothing else left but to let go or drown, he punched his way up to the air.
Nothing lashed at him. He cracked his way through the ice to the bank, dropped on his hands and knees and threw up.
Howling started, all around the mountains.
Vimes looked up. Blood was coursing down his arms. The air stank of rotten eggs. And there, high on a hill a mile or so off, was the clacks tower .
… with its stone walls and door that could be bolted …
He stumbled forward. The snow underfoot was already giving way to coarse grass and moss. The air was hotter now, but it was the clammy heat of a fever. And he looked around and realized where he was.
There was bare dirt and rock in front of him, but here and there parts of it were moving and going ‘blup’.
Everywhere he looked there were fat geysers. Rings of ancient, congealed yellow fat, so old and rancid that even Sam Vimes wouldn’t dip his toast in it unless he was really hungry, encircled sizzling little pools. There were even black floating bits, which on second glance turned out to be insects that were slow learners in a hot fat situation.
Vimes recalled something Igor had said. Sometimes dwarfs working the high strata, where the fat had congealed into a kind of tallow millennia ago, found strange ancient animals, perfectly preserved but fried to a crisp.
Probably … Vimes found himself laughing out
of sheer exhaustion … probably battered to death.
Mwahahaa.
The snow was falling heavily now, making the fat pools spit.
He sagged to his knees. He ached all over. It wasn’t just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn’t cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn’t got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions.
And still nothing was coming up behind him. Surely they must’ve crossed the river by now?
Then he saw one. He could have sworn it hadn’t been there a moment ago. Another one trotted out from behind a nearby snowdrift.
They sat watching him.
‘Come on, then!’ Vimes yelled. ‘What are you waiting for?’
The pools of fat hissed and bubbled around Vimes. It was warm here, though. If they weren’t going to move, then neither was he.
He focused on a tree on the edge of the fat geysers. It looked barely alive, with greasy splashes on the end of the longer branches, but it also looked climbable. He concentrated on it, tried to estimate the distance and the speed he might be capable of.
The werewolves turned to look at it, too.
Another one had entered the clearing at a different point. There were three watching him now.
They weren’t going to run until he did, he realized. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fun.
He shrugged, turned away from the tree … and then turned back and ran. By the time he was halfway there he was afraid his heart was going to climb up his throat, but he ran on, jumped awkwardly, caught a low branch, slipped, struggled gasping to his feet, grabbed the branch again and managed to pull himself up, expecting at every second the first tiny puncture as teeth broke his skin.
He rocked on the greasy wood. The werewolves hadn’t moved, but they were watching him with interest.
‘You bastards,’ Vimes growled.
They got up and picked their way carefully towards the tree, without hurrying. Vimes climbed a little further up.
‘AnkhMorpork! Mister Civilized! Where are your weapons now, AnkhMorpork?’
It was Wolfgang’s voice. Vimes peered around the snowdrifts, which were already filling up with violet shadows as the afternoon died.
‘I got two of you!’ he shouted.
‘Yes, they will have big headaches later on! We are werewolves, AnkhMorpork! Quite hard to stop!’
‘You said that you-‘
‘Your Mister Sleeps could run much faster than you, AnkhMorpork!’
‘Fast enough?’
‘No! And the man with the little black hat could fight better than you, too!’
‘Well enough?’
‘No!’ shouted Wolfgang cheerfully.
Vimes growled. Even assassins didn’t deserve
that kind of death. ‘It’ll be sunset soon!’ he shouted.
‘Yes! I lied about the sunset!’
‘Well, wake me up at dawn, then. I could do with the sleep!’
‘You will freeze to death, Civilized Man!’
‘Good!’ Vimes looked around at the other trees. Even if he could jump to one, they were all conifers, painful to land in and easy to fall out of.
‘Ah, this must be the famous AnkhMorpork sense of humour, yes?’
‘No, that was just irony,’ Vimes shouted, still looking for an arboreal escape route. ‘You’ll know when we’ve got on to the famous AnkhMorpork sense of humour when I start talking about breasts and farting, you smug bastard!’
So, what were his options? Well, he could stay in the tree and die, or run for it and die. Of the two, dying in one piece seemed better.
YOU’RE DOING VERY WELL FOR A MAN OF YOUR AGE.
Death was sitting on a higher branch of the tree.
‘Are you following me or what?’
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE WORDS ‘DEATH WAS HIS CONSTANT COMPANION’?
‘But I don’t usually see you!’
POSSIBLY YOU ARE IN A STATE OF HEIGHTENED AWARENESS CAUSED BY LACK OF FOOD, SLEEP AND BLOOD?
‘Are you going to help me?’
WELL … YES.
‘ When?’
ER, WHEN THE PAIN IS TOO MUCH TO BEAR. Death hesitated, and then went on. EVEN AS I SAY IT I REALIZE THAT THIS ISN’T THE ANSWER YOU WERE LOOKING FOR, HOWEVER.
The sun was near the horizon now, getting big and red.
Racing the sun … That was another Uberwald sport, wasn’t it? Be home safe before the sun sets.
Half a mile or more, through deep snow on rising ground.
Someone was climbing up the tree. He felt it shake. He looked down. In the cold blue gloom a naked man was quietly pulling himself from branch to branch.
Vimes was enraged. They weren’t supposed to do this!
There was a grunt from below as the climber slipped and recovered on the greasy wood.
HOW ARE YOU FEELING, IN YOURSELF?
‘Shut up! Even if you are a hallucination!’
There must be something about werewolves he could use.
You have a second’s grace when they are changing shape, but they knew he knew that …
No weapons. That’s what he’d noticed in the castle. You always got weapons in castles. Spears, battleaxes, ridiculous suits of armour, huge old swords … Even the vampires had a few rapiers on the walls. That was because, sometimes, even vampires had to use a weapon.
Werewolves didn’t. Even Angua hesitated before reaching for a sword. To a werewolf a physical weapon would always be the second choice.
Vimes locked his legs together and swung around the branch as the werewolf came up. He caught it a blow on the ear and, as it looked up, managed another blow right on the nose.
It gave him a ringing slap and that would have ended it, except that it also pulled itself a little further up the tree and brought itself within the range of the Vimes Elbow.
It justified the capital letter. It had triumphed in a number of street fights. Vimes had learned early on in his career that the graveyards were full of people who’d read the Marquis of Fantailler. The whole idea of fighting was to stop the other bloke hitting you as soon as possible. It wasn’t to earn marks. Vimes had often fought in circumstances where being able to use the hands freely was a luxury, but it was amazing how a well-placed elbow could make a point, possibly assisted by a knee.