The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

“Well, that doesn’t sound too—” Tiffany began. Then she remembered some of the dreams she’d had, the ones where you were so glad to wake up…. “We’re not talking about nice dreams, are we?” she said.

Rob Anybody shook his head. “Nay, mistress. The other kind.”

And me with my frying pan and Diseases of the Sheep, thought Tiffany. And she had a mental picture of Wentworth among horrible monsters. They probably wouldn’t have any sweeties at all.

She sighed. “All right,” she said. “How do I get there?”

“Ye dinna ken the way?” said Rob Anybody.

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting. What she had been expecting was more like “Ach, ye canna do that, a wee lass like you, oh deary us no!” She wasn’t so much expecting that as hoping it, in fact. But, instead, they were acting as if it was a perfectly reasonable idea….

“No!” she said. “I don’t dinna any ken at all! I haven’t done this before! Please help me!”

“That’s true, Rob,” said a Feegle. “She’s new to the haggin’. Tak’ her to the kelda.”

“Not e’en Granny Aching ever went to see the kelda in her ain cave!” snapped Rob Anybody. “It’s no a—”

“Quiet!” hissed Tiffany. “Can’t you hear that?”

The Feegles looked around.

“Hear what?” said Hamish.

“It’s a susurration!”

The turf was trembling. The sky looked as though Tiffany was inside a diamond. And there was the smell of snow.

Hamish pulled a pipe out of his waistcoat and blew it. Tiffany couldn’t hear anything, but there was a scream from high above.

“I’ll let ye know what’s happenin’!” cried the pictsie, and started to run across the turf. As he ran, he raised his arms over his head.

He was moving fast by then, but the buzzard sped down and across the turf even faster and plucked him neatly into the air. As it beat at the air to rise again, Tiffany saw Hamish climbing up through the feathers.

The other Feegles had formed a circle around Tiffany, and this time they’d drawn their swords.

“Whut’s the plan, Rob?” said one of them.

“Okay, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?”

This caused a cheer.

“Ach, ’tis a good plan,” said Daft Wullie.

Snow formed on the ground. It didn’t fall, it…did the opposite of melting, rising up fast until the Nac Mac Feegle were waist deep, and then buried up to their necks. Some of the smaller ones began to disappear, and there was muffled cursing from under the snow.

And then the dogs appeared, lumbering toward Tiffany with a nasty purpose. They were big, black, and heavily built, with orange eyebrows, and she could hear the growling from where she stood.

She plunged her hand into her apron pocket and pulled out the toad. It blinked in the sharp light.

“Wazzup?”

Tiffany turned him around to face the things. “What are these?” she said.

“Oh, doak! Grimhounds! Bad! Eyes of fire and teeth of razor blades!”

“What should I do about them?”

“Not be here?”