The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

The air blurred. Milk splashed across the floor, and the saucer spun around and around.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” said Tiffany. “So what are you?”

There were unlimited supplies of no answer at all.

She lay down and looked under the sink, and then peered behind the cheese shelves. She stared up into the dark, spidery shadows of the room. It felt empty.

And she thought: I think I need a whole egg’s worth of education, in a hurry.

Tiffany had walked along the steep track from the farm into the village hundreds of times. It was less than half a mile long, and over the centuries the carts had worn it down so that it was more like a gully in the chalk and ran like a milky stream in wet weather.

She was halfway down when the susurrus started. The hedges rustled without a wind. The skylarks stopped singing, and while she hadn’t really noticed their song, their silence was a shock. Nothing’s louder than the end of a song that’s always been there.

When she looked up at the sky, it was like looking through a diamond. It sparkled, and the air went cold so quickly that it was like stepping into an icy bath.

Then there was snow underfoot, snow on the hedges. And the sound of hooves.

They were in the field beside her. A horse was galloping through the snow, behind the hedge that was now, suddenly, just a wall of white.

The hoofbeats stopped. There was a moment of silence and then a horse landed in the lane, skidding on the snow. It pulled itself upright, and the rider turned it to face Tiffany.

The rider himself couldn’t face Tiffany. He had no face. He had no head to hang it on.

She ran. Her boots slipped on the snow as she moved, but suddenly her mind was cold as the ice.

She had two legs, slipping on ice. A horse had twice as many legs to slip. She’d seen horses try to tackle this hill in icy weather. She had a chance.

She heard a breathy, whistling noise behind her, and a whinny from the horse. She risked a glance. The horse was coming after her, but slowly, half walking and half sliding. Steam poured off it.

About halfway down the slope the lane passed under an arch of trees, looking like crashed clouds now under their weight of snow. And beyond them, Tiffany knew, the lane flattened out. The headless man would catch her on the flat. She didn’t know what would happen after that, but she was sure it would be unpleasantly short.

Flakes of snow dropped on her as she passed under the trees, and she decided to make a run for it. She might reach the village. She was good at running.

But if she got there, then what? She’d never reach a door in time. And people would shout, and run about. The dark horseman didn’t look like someone who’d take much notice of that. No, she had to deal with it.

If only she’d brought the frying pan.

“Here, wee hag! Stannit ye still, right noo!”

She stared up.

A tiny blue man had poked his head up out of the snow on top of the hedge.

“There’s a headless horseman after me!” she shouted.

“He’ll no’ make it, hinny. Stand ye still! Look him in the eye!”

“He hasn’t got any eyes!”

“Crivens! Are ye a hag or no’? Look him in the eyes he hasna got!”

The blue man disappeared into the snow.

Tiffany turned around. The horseman was trotting under the trees now, the horse more certain as the ground leveled. He had a sword in his hand, and he was looking at her, with the eyes he didn’t have. There was the breathy noise again, not good to hear.

The little men are watching me, she thought. I can’t run. Granny Aching wouldn’t have run from a thing with no head.

She folded her arms and glared.