Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'And it's bloody cold,' said Nanny Ogg. She grinned. 'Why're they called rude huts, anyway?'

Granny Weatherwax climbed off her broomstick and looked at the rocks around her. She picked up a stone and sniffed it. She wandered over to a heap of scree that looked like any other heap of scree to Magrat, and prodded it.

'Hmm,' she said.

A few snow crystals landed on her hat.

'Well, well,' she said.

'What're you doing, Granny?' said Magrat.

'Cogitatin'.'

Granny walked to the valley's steep side and strolled along it, peering at the rock. Nanny Ogg joined her.

'Up here?' said Nanny.

'I reckon.'

' 'S a bit high for 'em, ain't it?'

'Little devils get everywhere. Had one come up in my kitchen once,' said Granny.' “Following a seam”, he said.'

'They're buggers for that,' said Nanny.

'Would you mind telling me,' said Magrat, 'what you're doing? What's so interesting about heaps of stones?'

The snow was falling faster now.

'They ain't stones, they're spoil,' said Granny. She reached a flat wall of ice-covered rock, no different in Magrat's eyes from the rock available in a range of easy-to-die-on sizes everywhere in the mountains, and paused as if listening.

Then she stood back, hit the rock sharply with her broomstick, and spake thusly:

'Open up, you little sods!'

Nanny Ogg kicked the rock. It made a hollow boom.

'There's people catching their death of cold out here!' she added.

Nothing happened for a while. Then a section of rock swung in a few inches. Magrat saw the glint of a suspicious eye.

'Yes?'

'Dwarfs?' said Magrat.

Granny Weatherwax leaned down until her nose was level with the eye.

'My name,' she said, 'is Granny Weatherwax.'

She straightened up again, her face glowing with self-satisfaction.

'Who's that, then?' said a voice from somewhere below the eye. Granny's expression froze.

Nanny Ogg nudged her partner.

'We must be more'n fifty miles away from home,' she said. 'They might not have heard of you in these parts.'

Granny leaned down again. Accumulated snowflakes cascaded off her hat.