The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

Some said they were a warning: Avoid this place.

Tiffany hadn’t. She’d been there with her sisters a few times, as a dare, just in case there were any skulls. But the mounds around the stones were thousands of years old. All that you found there now were rabbit holes.

“Anything else, mistress?” said Hamish politely. “Nay? Then I’ll just be goin’….”

He raised his arms over his head and started to run across the turf. Tiffany jumped as the buzzard skimmed down a few feet away from her and snatched him back up into the sky.

“How can a man six inches high train a bird like that?” she asked as the buzzard circled again for height.

“Ach, all it takes is a wee drop o’ kindness, mistress,” said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.

“Really?”

“Aye, an’ a big dollop o’ cruelty,” Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock said. “Hamish trains ’em by runnin’ aroound in a rabbit skin until a bird pounces on him.”

“That sounds awful!” said Tiffany.

“Ach, he’s not too nasty aboot it. He just knocks them out wi’ his heid, and then he’s got a special oil he makes which he blows up their beak,” Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock went on. “When they wakes up, they thinks he’s their mammy and’ll do his biddin’.”

The buzzard was already a distant speck.

“He hardly seems to spend any time on the ground!” said Tiffany.

“Oh, aye. He sleeps in the buzzard’s nest at night, mistress. He says it’s wunnerfully warm. An’ he spends all his time in the air,” Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock added. “He’s ne’er happy unless he’s got the wind under his kilt.”

“And the birds don’t mind?”

“Ach, no, mistress. All the birds and beasts up here know it’s good luck to be friends wi’ the Nac Mac Feegle, mistress.”

“They do?”

“Well, to tell ye the truth, mistress, it’s more that they know it’s unlucky not to be friends wi’ the Nac Mac Feegle.”

Tiffany looked at the sun. It was only a few hours away from setting.

“I must find the way in,” she said. “Look, Not-as-small-as—”

“No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress,” said the pictsie, patiently.

“Yes, yes, thank you. Where is Rob Anybody? Where is everybody, in fact?”

The young pictsie looked a bit embarrassed.

“There’s a bit o’ a debate goin’ on down below, mistress,” he said.

“Well, we have got to find my brother, okay? I am the kelda in this vicinity, yes?”

“It’s a wee bit more comp-li-cat-ed than that, mistress. They’re, er, discussin’ ye…”

“Discussing what about me?”

Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock looked as if he really didn’t want to be standing there.

“Um, they’re discussing…er…they…”

Tiffany gave up. The pictsie was blushing. Since he was blue to begin with, this turned him an unpleasant violet color. “I’ll go back down the hole. Give my boots a push, will you, please?”

She slid down the dry dirt, and Feegles scattered in the cave below as she landed.