Twoflower was watching the fight with interest. Rincewind grabbed him by the shoulder.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t we help?’
‘I’m sure we’d only get in the way,’ said Rincewind hurriedly. ‘You know what it’s like to have people looking over your shoulder when you’re busy.’
‘At least we must rescue the young lady,’ said Twoflower firmly.
‘All right, but get a move on!’
Twoflower took the knife and hurried up to the altar stone. After several inept slashes he managed to cut the ropes that bound the girl, who sat up and burst into tears.
‘It’s all right—’ he began.
‘It bloody well isn’t!’ she snapped, glaring at him through two red-rimmed eyes. Why do people always go and spoil things?’ She blew her nose resentfully on the edge of her robe.
Twoflower looked up at Rincewind in embarrassment.
‘Um,’ I don’t think you quite understand,’ he said. ‘I mean, we just saved you from absolutely certain death.’
‘It’s not easy around here,’ she said. ‘I mean, keeping yourself—’ she blushed, and twisted the hem of her robe wretchedly. ‘I mean, staying . . . not letting yourself be . . . not losing your qualifications . . .’
‘Qualifications? said Twoflower, earning the Rincewind Cup for the slowest person on the uptake in the entire multiverse. The girl’s eyes narrowed.
‘I could have been up there with the Moon Goddess by now, drinking mead out of a silver bowl,’ she said petulantly. ‘Eight years of staying home on Saturday nights right down the drain!’
She looked up at Rincewind and scowled.
Then he sensed something. Perhaps it was a barely heard footstep behind him, perhaps it was movement reflected n her eyes – but he ducked.
Something whistled through the air where his neck had been and glanced off Twoflower’s bald head. Rincewind spun round to see the archdruid readying his sickle for another swing and, in the absence of any hope of running away, lashed out desperately with a foot.
It caught the druid squarely on the kneecap. As the man screamed and dropped his weapon there was a nasty little fleshy sound and he fell forward. Behind him the little man with the long beard pulled his sword from the body, wiped it with a handful of snow, and said, ‘My lumbago is giving me gyp. You can carry the treashure.’
‘Treasure?’ said Rincewind weakly.
‘All the necklashes and shtuff. All the gold collarsh. They’ve got lotsh of them. Thatsh prieshts for you,’ said the old man wetly. ‘Nothing but torc, torc, torc. Who’she the girl?’
‘She won’t let us rescue her,’ said Rincewind. The girl looked at the old man defiantly through her smudged eyeshadow.
‘Bugger that,’ he said, and with one movement picked her up, staggered a little, screamed at his arthritis and fell over.
After a moment he said, from his prone position, ‘Don’t just shtand there, you daft bitcsh – help me up.’ Much to Rincewind’s amazement, and almost certainly to hers as well, she did so.
Rincewind, meanwhile, was trying to rouse Twoflower. There was a graze across his temple which didn’t look too deep, but the little man was unconscious with a faintly worried smile plastered across his face. His breathing was shallow and – strange.
And he felt light. Not simply underweight, but weightless. The wizard might as well have been holding a shadow. Rincewind remembered that it was said that druids used strange and terrible poisons. Of course, it was often said, usually by the same people, that crooks always had close-set eyes, lightning never struck twice in the same lace and if the gods had wanted men to fly they’d have given them an airline ticket. But something about Twoflower’s lightness frightened Rincewind. Frightened him horribly.
He looked up at the girl. She had the old man slung over one shoulder, and gave Rincewind an apologetic half-smile. From somewhere around the small of her back a voice said, ‘Got everything? Letsh get out of here before they come back.’
Rincewind tucked Twoflower under one arm and jogged along after them. It seemed the only thing to do.
The old man had a large white horse tethered to a withered tree in a snow-filled gully some way from the circles. It was sleek, glossy and the general effect of a superb battle charger was only very slightly spoiled by the haemorrhoid ring tied to the saddle.
‘Okay, put me down. There’sh a bottle of shome linament shtuff in the shaddle bag, if you wouldn’t mind . . .’ Rincewind propped Twoflower as nicely as possible against the tree, and by moonlight – and, he realised, by the faint red light of the menacing new star – took the first real look at his rescuer.
The man had only one eye; the other was covered by a black patch. His thin body was a network of scars and, currently, twanging white-hot with tendonitis. His teeth had obviously decided to quit long ago.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘Bethan,’ said the girl, rubbing a handful of nasty-smelling green ointment into the old man’s back. She wore the air of one who, if asked to consider what sort of events might occur after being rescued from virgin sacrifice by a hero with a white charger, would probably not have mentioned linament, but who, now linament was apparently what did happen to you after all, was determined to be good at it.
‘I meant him,’ said Rincewind.
One star-bright eye looked up at him.
‘Cohen ish my name, boy.’ Bethan’s hands stopped moving.
‘Cohen?’ she said. ‘Cohen the Barbarian?’
‘The very shame.’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Rincewind. ‘Cohen’s a great big chap, neck like a bull, got chest muscles like a sack of footballs. I mean, he’s the Disc’s greatest warrior, a legend in his own lifetime. I remember my grandad telling me he saw him . . . my grandad telling me he . . . my grandad . . .’
He faltered under the gimlet gaze.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh. Of course. Sorry.’
‘Yesh,’ said Cohen, and sighed. Thatsh right, boy. I’m a lifetime in my own legend.’
‘Gosh,’ said Rincewind. ‘How old are you, exactly?’
‘Eighty-sheven.’
‘But you were the greatest!’ said Bethan. ‘Bards still sing songs about you.’
Cohen shrugged, and gave a little yelp of pain.
‘I never get any royaltiesh,’ he said. He looked moodily at the snow. That’sh the shaga of my life. Eighty yearsh in the bushiness and what have I got to show for it? Backache, pilesh, bad digeshtion and a hundred different recipesh for shoop. Shoop! I hate shoop!’
Bethan’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Shoop?’
‘Soup,’ explained Rincewind.
Yeah, shoop,’ said Cohen, miserably. ‘It’sh my teeths, you shee. No-one takes you sheriously when you’ve got no teeths, they shay “Shit down by the fire, grandad, and have shome shoo—” Cohen looked sharply at Rincewind. That’sh a nashty cough you have there, boy.’
Rincewind looked away, unable to look Bethan in the face. Then his heart sank. Twoflower was still leaning against the tree, peacefully unconscious, and looking as reproachful as was possible in the circumstances.
Cohen appeared to remember him, too. He got unsteadily to his feet and shuffled over to the tourist. He humbed both eyes open, examined the graze, felt the pulse.
‘He’sh gone,’ he said.
‘Dead?’ said Rincewind, In the debating chamber of his mind a dozen emotions got to their feet and started shouting. Relief was in full spate when Shock cut in on a point of order and then Bewilderment, Terror and Loss started a fight which was ended only when Shame slunk in from next door to see what all the row was about.
‘No,’ said Cohen thoughtfully, ‘not exshactly. Just – gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cohen, ‘but I think I know shomeone who might have a map.’
Far out on the snowfield half a dozen pinpoints of red light glowed in the shadows.
‘He’s not far away,’ said the leading wizard, peering into a small crystal sphere.
There was general mutter from the ranks behind him which roughly meant that however far away Rincewind was he couldn’t be further than a nice hot bath, a good meal and a warm bed.
Then the wizard who was tramping along in the rear stopped and said, ‘Listen!’
They listened. There were the subtle sounds of winter beginning to close its grip on the land, the creak of rocks, the muted scuffling of small creatures in their tunnels under the blanket of snow. In a distant forest a wolf howled, felt embarrassed when no-one joined in, and stopped. There was the silver sleeting sound of moonlight. There was also the wheezing noise of half a dozen wizards trying to breathe quietly.
‘I can’t hear a thing—’ one began.
‘Ssshh!’
‘All right, all right—’
Then they all heard it; a tiny distant crunching, like omething moving very quickly over the snow crust.
‘Wolves?’ said a wizard. They all thought about hundreds of lean, hungry bodies leaping through the night.