Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

As for the horses . . . horses are a little insane anyway, and being a rat as well wasn't any help.

So none of them were in a very stable frame of mind when Greebo stepped out of the shadows and grinned at them.

He said, 'Wrowwwl.'

The horses tried to stop, which is practically impossible with a coach still piling along behind you. The coachmen froze in terror.

'Wrowwwl?'

The coach skidded around and came up broadside against a wall, knocking the coachmen off. Greebo picked one of them up by his collar and bounced him up and down while the maddened horses fought to get out of the shafts.

'Run awayy, furry toy?' he suggested.

Behind the frightened eyes man and mouse fought for supremacy. But they needn't have bothered. They would lose either way. As consciousness flickered between the states it saw either a grinning cat or a six-foot, well-muscled, one-eyed grinning bully.

The coachmouse fainted. Greebo patted him a few times, in case he was going to move . . .

'Wake up, little mousey . . .'

. . . and then lost interest.

The coach door rattled, jammed, and then opened.

'What's happening?' said Ella.

'Wrowwwwl!'

Nanny Ogg's boot hit Greebo on the back of his head.

'Oh no you don't, my lad,' she said.

'Want to,' said Greebo sulkily.

'You always do, that's your trouble,' said Nanny, and smiled at Ella. 'Out you come, dear.'

Greebo shrugged, and then slunk off, dragging the stunned coachman after him.

'What's happening?' complained Ella. 'Oh. Magrat. Did you do this?'

Magrat allowed herself a moment's shy pride.

'I said you wouldn't have to go to the ball, didn't I?'

Ella looked around at the disabled coach, and then back to the witches.

'You ain't got any snake women in there with you, have you?' said Granny. Magrat gripped the wand.

'They went on ahead,' said Ella. Her face clouded as she recalled something.

'Lilith turned the real coachmen into beetles,' she whispered. 'I mean, they weren't that bad! She made them get some mice and she made them human and then she said, there's got to be balance, and the sisters dragged in the coachmen and she turned them into beetles and then . . . she trod on them . . .'

She stopped, horrified.

A firework burst in the sky, but in the street below a bubble of terrible silence hung in the air.

'Witches don't kill people,' said Magrat.

'This is foreign parts,' muttered Nanny, looking away.