Thud! (Discworld 34)

spring. Most of them would be dry by the late summer, but for now

Koom Valley was a smorgasbord of things that went "bzz!". And the

birds had come up from the plains to feast on all of it. Vimes wasn"t good at birds, but they mostly looked like swallows, millions of them. There were nests on the nearest cliff, a good half-mile away, and Vimes could hear the chattering from here. And where trees and rocks had piled up in a dam, saplings and green plants had sprouted.

Below the narrow track the party had taken, waters gushed from half a dozen caves and joined together for one wild waterfall into the plain.

"It"s all so ... so alive," said Angua. "I thought it would be just barren rock."

"Dat"s what it is like up at der battle place," said Detritus, spray glistening on his skin. "My dad took me up dere when we were comin" to der city. He showed me dis kind o" rocky place, hit me on der head, and said, "Remember"."

"Remember what?" said Sally.

"He didn"t say. So I just, you know, gen"rally remembered:

I didn"t expect this, Vimes thought. It"s so ... chaotic. Oh, well, let"s get clear of the cliff wall, at least. All these bloody great boulders must have got here from somewhere.

"I can smell smoke," Angua announced after a while, as they made their way unsteadily across the debris-strewn track.

"Camp fires from up the valley," said Cheery. "Early arrivals, I expect."

"You mean people queue up for a place in the battle?" said Vimes. "Watch this boulder, it"s slippery."

"Oh, yes. The fighting doesn"t start until Koom Valley Day. That"s tomorrow."

"Damn, I lost track. Will it affect us down here?"

Bashfullsson coughed politely. "I don"t think so, commander. This area is too dangerous to fight in."

"Well, yes, I can see it would be terrible if anyone got hurt," said Vimes, climbing over a long heap of rotting timber. "That would spoil the day for everyone."

Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insectbuzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days. But the dwarfs and the trolls ... they fight it again for real. Like, perhaps, if they fight it enough times they"ll get it right?

Now there was a hole in the track in front of him, half blocked with the winter"s debris, but still managing to swallow a whole streamlet. It poured, foaming, into the depths. There was a booming noise, far below. When he knelt down and touched the water, it was so cold it stung.

"Yes, watch out for sinkholes, commander," said Bashfullsson. "This is limestone. Water wears it away quite quickly. We"ll probably see some much bigger ones. Often they"re hidden by rotting debris. Watch where you tread."

"Don"t they get blocked up?"

"Oh, yes, sir. You"ve seen the size of the rocks that roll down here." "It must be like a giant game of billiards!"

"Something like that, I expect," said Bashfullsson carefully.

After ten minutes, Vimes sat down on a log, pulled off his helmet, took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

"It"s getting hotter," he said. "And everywhere in this bloody place looks the same- Ow!" He slapped at his wrist.

"The midges can be a bit extreme, sir," Cheery volunteered. "It"s said that when they bite extra hard, there"s a storm coming.

They both looked up at the mountains. There was a yellow haze at the far end of the valley, and clouds between the peaks.

"Oh, good," said Vimes. "Because it feels like that bite went to the bone."

"I wouldn"t worry too much, commander," said Cheery. "The big Koom Valley storm was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence."

"It certainly is a lifetime if you were caught in it," said Vimes. "This damn place is getting to me, I don"t mind admitting it."

By now the rest of the squad had caught up. Sally and Detritus were visibly suffering from the heat. The vampire sat down in the shade of a big rock without saying anything. Brick lay down by the icy stream and stuck his head in it.