The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

And vanished. The snow sank into the ground. The light changed.

Tiffany and the Wee Free Men were alone on the downs. Feegles were picking themselves up around her.

“Are you fine, mistress?” said Rob Anybody.

“Yes!” said Tiffany. “It’s easy! If you get them off the snow, they’re just dogs!”

“We’d best move on. We lost some of the lads.”

The excitement drained away.

“You mean they’re dead?” Tiffany whispered. The sun was shining brightly again, the skylarks were back…and people were dead.

“Ach, no,” said Rob. “We’re the one’s who’s deid. Did ye not know that?”

CHAPTER 6

The Shepherdess

“You’re dead?” said Tiffany. She looked around. Feegles were picking themselves up and grumbling, but no one was going “Waily waily waily.” And Rob Anybody wasn’t making any sense at all.

“Well, if you think you’re dead, then what are they?” she went on, pointing to a couple of small bodies.

“Oh, they’ve gone back to the land o’ the livin’,” said Rob Anybody cheerfully. “It’s nae as good as this one, but they’ll bide fine and come back before too long. No sense in grievin’.”

The Achings were not very religious, but Tiffany thought she knew how things ought to go, and they started out with the idea that you were alive and not dead yet.

“But you are alive!” she said.

“Ach, no, mistress,” said Rob, helping another pictsie to his feet. “We wuz alive. And we wuz good boys back in the land o’ the livin’, and so when we died there, we wuz borned into this place.”

“You mean…you think…that you sort of died somewhere else and then came here?” said Tiffany. “You mean this is like…heaven?”

“Aye! Just as advertised!” said Rob Anybody. “Lovely sunshine, good huntin’, nice pretty flowers, and wee burdies goin’ cheep.”

“Aye, and then there’s the fightin’,” said another Feegle. And then they all joined in.

“An’ the stealin’!”

“An’ the drinkin’ and fightin’!”

“An’ the kebabs!” said Daft Wullie.

“But there’s bad things here!” said Tiffany. “There’s monsters!”

“Aye,” said Rob, beaming happily. “Grand, isn’t it? Everythin’ you could ever ask for, even things to fight!”

“But we live here!” said Tiffany.

“Ach, well, mebbe all you humans wuz good in the Last World, too,” said Rob Anybody generously. “I’ll just round up the lads, mistress.”

Tiffany reached into her apron and pulled out the toad as Rob walked away.

“Oh. We survived,” it said. “Amazing. There are very definite grounds for an action against the owner of those dogs, by the way.”

“What?” said Tiffany, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“I…I…don’t know,” said the toad. “The thought just popped into my head. Perhaps I knew something about dogs when I was human?”