'You won't do it,' said Big Fido.
'I'll do it.'
'Every dog's paw'll be turned against you—'
'I got the Power, me. You back off, all of you.'
'What power?' said Butch. He was drooling.
'Big Fido knows,' said Gaspode. 'He's studied. Now, me an' her are going to walk out of here, right? Nice and slow.'
The dogs looked at Big Fido.
'Get them,' he said.
Angua bared her teeth.
The dogs hesitated.
'A wolf's got a jaw four times stronger'n any dog,' said Gaspode. 'And that's just a ordinary wolf—'
'What are you all?' snapped Big Fido. 'You're the pack! No mercy! Get them!'
But a pack doesn't act like that, Angua had said. A pack is an association of free individuals. A pack doesn't leap because it's told – a pack leaps because every individual, all at once, decides to leap.
A couple of the bigger dogs crouched . . .
Angua moved her head from side to side, waiting for the first assault . . .
A dog scraped the ground with its paw . . .
Gaspode took a deep breath and adjusted his jaw.
Dogs leapt.
'SIT!' said Gaspode, in passable Human.
The command bounced back and forth around the alley, and fifty per cent of the animals obeyed. In most cases, it was the hind fifty per cent. Dogs in mid-spring found their treacherous legs coiling under them—
'BAD DOG!'
—and this was followed by an overpowering sense of racial shame that made them cringe automatically, a bad move in mid-air.
Gaspode glanced up at Angua as bewildered dogs rained around them.
'I said I got the Power, didn't I?' he said. 'Now run!'
Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human things – unnecessary intelligence, names, a desire to belong, and a twitching inferiority complex. All dogs dream wolf dreams, and know they're dreaming of biting their Maker. Every dog knows, deep in his heart, that he is a Bad Dog . . .
But Big Fido's furious yapping broke the spell.
'Get them!'
Angua galloped over the cobbles. There was a cart at the other end of the alley. And, beyond the cart, a wall.
'Not that way!' whined Gaspode.
Dogs were piling along behind them. Angua leapt on to the cart.