Death had stopped at a little bay. An indistinct shape lay in a few inches of water.
‘Oh,’ said Gaspode.
Death leaned down. There was a flash of blue and then he vanished.
Gaspode shivered. He paddled into the water and nudged Gavin’s sodden fur with his nose.
‘Shouldn’t be like this,’ he whined. ‘If you was a human, they’d put you in a big boat on the tide and set fire to it, an’ everyone’d see. Shouldn’t just be you an’ me down here in the cold.’
There was something that had to be done, too. He knew it in his bones. He crawled back to the
bank and pulled himself up on to the trunk of a fallen willow.
He cleared his throat. Then he howled.
It started badly, hesitantly, but it picked up and got stronger, richer … and when he paused for breath the howl went on and on, passing from throat to throat across the forest.
The sound wrapped him as he slid off the log and struggled on towards higher ground. It lifted him over the deeper snow. It wound around the trees, a plaiting of many voices becoming something with a life of its own. He remembered thinking: maybe it’ll even get as far as AnkhMorpork.
Maybe it’ll get much further than that.
Vimes was impressed by the Baroness. She fought back in a corner.
‘I know nothing about any deaths-‘
A howl came up from the forest. How many wolves were there? You never saw them and then, when they cried out, it sounded as though there was one behind every tree. This one went on and on – it sounded like a cry thrown into a lake of air, the ripples spreading out across the mountains.
Angua threw her head back and screamed. Then, breath hissing between her teeth, she advanced on the Baroness, fingers flexing.
‘Give him … the damn stone,’ she hissed. ‘Will any … of … you … face me? Now? Then give him the stone!’
‘What theemth to be the trouble?’
Igor lurched through the stricken gates, trailed by Detritus. He caught sight of the two bodies and hurried over, like a very large spider.
‘Fetch the stone,’ growled Angua. ‘And then … we … will leave. I can smell it. Or do you want me to take it?’
Serafine glared at her, then turned on her heel and ran back into the ruins of the castle. The other werewolves shrank back from Angua as if her stare was a whip.
‘If you can’t help these men,’ said Vimes to the kneeling Igor, ‘your future does not look good.’
Igor nodded. ‘Thith one,’ he said, indicating Tantony, ‘fleth woundth, I can thtitch him up a treat, no problem. Thith one,’ he tapped Carrot, ‘… nasty break on the arm.’ He glanced up. ‘Marthter Wolfgang been playing again?’
‘Can you make him well?’ snapped Vimes.
‘No, it’th hith lucky day,’ said Igor. ‘I can make him better. I’ve got thome kidneyth jutht in, a lovely little pair, belonged to young Mithter Crapanthy, hardly touched a drop of thtrong licker, thame about the avalanche …’
‘Does he need them?’ said Angua.
‘No, but you thould never mith an opportunity to improve yourthelf, I alwayth thay.’
Igor-grinned. It was a strange sight. The scars crawled around his face like caterpillars.
‘Just see to the arm,’ said Vimes firmly.
The Baroness reappeared, flanked by several werewolves. They also backed away as Angua spun around.
‘Take it,’ said Serafine. ‘Take the wretched thing. It’s a fake. No crime has been committed!’
‘I’m a policeman,’ said Vimes. ‘I can always find a crime.’
The sleigh slid under its own weight down the track towards Bonk, the town’s watchmen running alongside it and giving it the occasional push. With their captain down they were lost and bewildered and in no mood to take orders from Vimes, but they did what Angua commanded because Angua was of the class that traditionally gave them orders.
The two casualties were bedded down on blankets.
‘Angua?’ said Vimes.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘There’s wolves keeping pace with us. I can see them running between the trees.’
‘I know.’
‘Are they on our side?’
‘Let’s just say they’re not on anyone else’s side yet, shall we? They don’t like me much, but they know … Gavin did, and right now that’s what’s important. Some of them are out looking for my brother.’
‘Would he have survived that? It was a long way down.’
‘Well, it wasn’t fire or silver. There’s nothing but white water for miles. It probably hurt a lot, but we heal amazingly well, sir.’
‘Look, I’m sorry that-‘
‘No, Mister Vimes, you’re not. You shouldn’t be. Carrot just didn’t understand what Wolfgang is like. You can’t beat something like him in a
fair fight. I know he’s family, but … personal is not the same as important. Carrot always said that.’
‘Says that,’ said Lady Sybil sharply.
‘Yes.’
Carrot opened his eyes. ‘What … happened back there?’ he said.
‘Wolfgang hit you,’ said Angua. She wiped his brow.
‘What with?’ Carrot tried to push himself upwards, winced and fell back.
‘What have I always told you about the Marquis of Fantailler?’ said Vimes.
‘Sorry, sir.’
Something bright rose from the distant forests. It vanished, and then a green light expanded into existence. A moment later came the pop of the flare.
‘The signallers have got to the tower,’ said Vimes.
‘Can’t this damn thing go any faster?’ said Angua.
‘I mean, we can contact AnkhMorpork,’ said Vimes. After everything, he felt curiously cheered by this. It was as if a special human howl had gone up. He wasn’t floundering around loose now. He was floundering on the end of a very long line. That made all the difference.
It was a small public room over a shop in Bonk and, since it belonged to everybody, it looked as though it didn’t belong to anyone. There was dust in the corners, and the chairs that were currently arranged in a ragged circle had been chosen for their ability to be stacked neatly rather than sat on comfortably.
Lady Margolotta smiled at the assembled vampires. She liked these meetings.
The rest of the group were a pretty mixed bunch, and she wondered what their motives were. But perhaps they at least shared one conviction – that what you were made as wasn’t what you had to be or what you might become …
And the trick was to start small. Suck, but don’t impale. Little steps. And then you found that what you really wanted was power, and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control. Lord Vetinari knew that. When heavy weights were balanced on the scales, the trick was to know where to place your thumb.
And all control started with the self.
She stood up. They watched her with slightly worried yet friendly faces.
‘My name, in the short form, is Lady Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Uberwald, and I am a vampire …’
They chorused: ‘Hello, Lady Margolotta Amaya Katerina Assumpta Crassina von Uberwald!’
‘It has been almost four years now,’ said Lady Margolotta, ‘and I am still taking vun night at a time. Vun neck would always be vun too many. But … there are compensations …’
There were no guards on the gate of Bonk, but there was a cluster of dwarfs outside the embassy as the sleigh slid to a halt. The wolves in the traces jerked nervously and whined at Angua.
‘I’ll have to let them go,’ she said, getting out. ‘They’ve only come this far because they’re frightened of me …’
Vimes wasn’t surprised. At the moment, anything would be frightened of Angua.
Even so, a squad of dwarfs was hurrying to the sledge.
It’d take them a few seconds to get a grip on things, Vimes realized. There were uptown guards here, and an Igor, and a werewolf. They’d be puzzled as well as suspicious. That should give him a tiny crack to lever open. And, ashamed as he was to say it, an arrogant bastard always had the edge.
He glared at the lead dwarf. ‘What is your name?’ he demanded.
‘You are under-‘
‘You know the Scone of Stone was stolen?’
‘You … what?’
Vimes reached round and pulled a sack out of the sleigh.
‘Bring those torches closer!’ he shouted, and because he delivered the command in a tone that said there was no doubt that it’d be obeyed, it was obeyed. I’ve got twenty seconds, he thought, and then the magic goes away.
‘Now look at this,’ he said, lifting the thing out of the sack.
Several dwarfs fell to their knees. The murmuring spread out. Another howl, another rumour … In his current state he could see, in his mind’s bloodshot eye, the towers in the night, clicking and clacking, delivering to Genua exactly the message that had been sent from AnkhMorpork.