He drove it into the werewolf’s throat and was rewarded with a horrible noise. Then he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled, let go and slammed the palm of his hand into its face in a mad attempt to prevent it having a second to think. He couldn’t allow that – he could see the size of the man’s muscles.
The werewolf reacted instead.
There was that sudden moment of morphological inexactitude. A nose turned into a muzzle while Vimes’s fist was en route, but when the wolf opened its mouth to lunge at him two things occurred to it.
One was that it was high in a tree, not a tenable position for a shape designed for fast-paced living on the ground. The other was gravity.
‘Down there it’s the lore,’ Vimes panted, as its paws scrabbled for purchase on the greasy branch. ‘But up here it’s me.’
He reached up, grabbed the branch above him, and kicked down with his feet.
There was yelp, and another yelp as the wolf slid and hit the next branch down.
About halfway towards the ground it tried to change back again, combining in one falling shape all the qualities of something not good at staying in trees with something not good at landing on the ground.
‘Gotcha!’ screamed Vimes.
In the forest all around a howling went up.
The branch he was clinging to snapped. For a moment he hung by the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya, caught on a snag, and then their ancient fabric ripped off him and he dropped.
His progress was a little faster, since the falling werewolf had removed a lot of branches on the way down, but the landing was softer because the werewolf was just getting to its feet.
Vimes’s flailing hand grabbed a broken branch.
A weapon.
Thought more or less stopped when his fingers closed. Whatever replaced it in the pathways of his brain was gushing up from somewhere else, thousands of years old.
The werewolf struggled up and turned on him. The branch caught it across the side of the head.
Steam rose off Sir Samuel Vimes as he lurched forward, snarling incoherently. He smacked the club down again. He roared. There were no words there. It was a sound from before words. If there was any meaning in it at all it was a lament that he couldn’t cause enough pain …
The wolf whined, stumbled, rolled over … and changed.
The human extended a bleeding hand towards him in supplication. ‘Ple-ease …’
Vimes hesitated, club raised.
The red rage drained away. He was on a freezing hillside against a cold sunset, and they’d left him alone, and he might just make it to the tower …
In one movement, changing from man to wolf as it moved, the werewolf sprang. Vimes went backwards into the snow. He could feel the breath and the blood, but not the pain
No talons ripped, no teeth tore.
And the weight was lifted. Hands pulled the body off him.
‘Bit of a close one there, sir,’ said a voice cheerfully. ‘Best not to give them any quarter, really.’ There was a spear right through the werewolf.
‘Carrot?’
‘We’ll get a fire going. It’s easy if you dip the wood in the fat springs first.’
‘Carrot?’
‘I shouldn’t think you’ve eaten. There’s not much game this close to the town, but we’ve still got some-‘
‘Carrot?’
‘Er, yes, sir?’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘It’s all a bit complicated, sir. Here, let me help
you up-‘
Vimes shook him off as he tried to help him to his feet.
‘I got this far, thank you, I think I’m capable of standing up,’ he said, and forced his legs to support him.
‘You seem to have lost your trousers, sir.’
‘Yes, it’s the famous AnkhMorpork sense of humour,’ growled Vimes.
‘Only … Angua will be back soon, and … and…’
‘Sergeant Angua’s family, captain, are in the habit of running around the woods in the snow stark bol-stark naked!’
‘Yes, sir, but … I mean … you know … it’s not really …’
‘I’ll give you five minutes to find a clothes shop, shall I? Otherwise-Look, where the hell are all the werewolves, eh? I was expecting to drop into a heap of snarling jaws, and now you’re here, thank you very much, and there’s no werewolves!’
‘Gavin’s people chased them away, sir. You must’ve heard the howl go up.’
‘Gavin’s people, eh? Well, that’s good! That’s very good! I’m pleased about that! Well done, Gavin! Now, who the hell is Gavin?’
A howl went up from a distant hill.
‘That’s Gavin,’ said Carrot.
‘A wolf? Gavin’s a wolf? I’ve been saved from werewolves by wolves?’
‘It’s all right, sir. When you think about it, it’s not really any different from being saved from werewolves by people.’
‘When I think about it, I think perhaps I was better off lying down,’ said Vimes weakly.
‘Let’s get to the sleigh, sir. I was trying to say
we have got your clothes. That’s how Angua tracked you.’
Ten minutes later Vimes was sitting in front of a fire with a blanket around him, and the world seemed to make a little more sense. A slice of venison was going down well, and Vimes was far too hungry to bother much that the butcher appeared to have used his teeth.
‘The wolves spy on the werewolves?’ he said.
‘Sort of, sir. Gavin keeps an eye on things for Angua. They’re … old friends.’
The moment of silence went on just slightly too long.
‘He sounds like a very bright wolf,’ said Vimes, in the absence of anything more diplomatic to say.
‘More than that. Angua thinks he might be part werewolf, from way back.’
‘Can that happen?’
‘She says so. Did I tell you that he came all the way into AnkhMorpork? A big city? Can you imagine what that must have been like?’
Vimes turned at a faint sound behind him.
A large wolf was standing at the edge of the firelight. It was looking at him intently. It wasn’t just the look of an animal sizing him up on the level of food/threat/thing. Behind that stare wheels were turning. And there was a small but rather proud mongrel at his side, scratching furiously.
‘Is that Gaspode?’ said Vimes. ‘The dog that’s always hanging around the Watch House?’
‘Yes, he … helped me get here,’ said Carrot.
‘I just don’t want to ask,’ said Vimes. ‘Any minute now a door’s going to open in a tree and Fred and Nobby are going to step out, am I right?’
‘I hope not, sir.’
Gavin lay down a short distance from the fire and started watching Carrot.
‘Captain?’ said Vimes.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘You’ll notice I haven’t pressed you on why you’re here as well as Angua.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well?’ said Vimes. And now he thought he recognized the look on Gavin’s face, even though it was on a face of an unusual shape. It was the look you got on the face of a gentleman lounging on a corner by a bank, watching the comings and goings, seeing how the place worked.
‘I was admiring your diplomacy, sir.’
‘Hmm? What?’ said Vimes, still staring at the wolf.
‘I appreciated the way you were avoiding asking questions, sir.’
Angua walked into the firelight. Vimes saw her glance around the circle and squat down on the snow exactly halfway between Carrot and Gavin.
‘They’re miles away now. Oh, hello, Mister Vimes.’
There was some more silence.
‘Is anyone going to tell me something?’ said Vimes.
‘My family are trying to upset the coronation,’ said Angua. ‘They’re working with some dwarfs that don’t want-that want to keep Uberwald separate.’
‘I think I’ve worked that one out. Running for
your life through a freezing cold forest gives you a bit of an insight.’
‘I have to tell you, sir, my brother killed the clacks signallers. His scent’s all over the place up there.’
Gavin made a noise in his throat.
‘And another man that Gavin didn’t recognize, except that he spent a lot of time hiding in the forest and watching our castle.’
‘I think that might have been a man called Sleeps. One of our … agents,’ said Vimes.
‘He did well. He managed to get to a boat a few miles downriver. Unfortunately there was a werewolf waiting in it.’
‘It was a waterfall that did for me,’ said Vimes.
‘Permission to speak honestly, sir?’ said Angua.
‘Don’t you always?’
‘They could have got you any time they liked, sir. Really they could. They wanted you to get as far as the tower before they really attacked. I expect Wolfgang thought that’d be nicely symbolic or something.’
‘I got three of them!’
‘Yes, sir. But you wouldn’t have been able to get three of them all at once. Wolfgang was having some fun. That’s how he’s always played the game. He’s good at thinking ahead. He likes ambushes. He likes some poor soul to get within a few yards of the finish before he leaps out on them.’ Angua sighed. ‘Look, sir, I don’t want there to be trouble-‘