Raising Steam (Discworld 40)

‘It were just as well the King were ’ere because the decoy Flyer has been derailed ahead of us and so would we ’ave been if it weren’t for ’im. He can see in t’dark!’

‘Ah, Commander Vimes,’ said the King to Vimes, who had arrived at speed. ‘You should know about the dark-accustomed eye if any human does. There’s a long straight ahead and Dick hadn’t seen the derailment, but I did, just in time. Now, there may be injured people up there.’

And then the King was running towards the flames, adopting the traditional dwarf strategy of running at the enemy with as much weaponry as you could swing. But Vimes caught up with him and rolled him to the ground just as an explosion rattled the trees and bounced off the mountains. The Flyer’s boiler had blown up. Ahead of them now was just a warm mist and the occasional clink of stricken metal.

Vimes got the King upright and said, ‘Apologies for the lèse-majesté – though you must know that we Vimeses have gone a lot further than that in the past. You should have listened. The whole deal for the crew of the decoy Flyer was to run away as fast as possible if attacked, but not before making sure that the emergency bung in the boiler was strapped right down.’

‘Ah, yes, Blackboard Monitor, how easily we revert to type in an emergency. I’m sorry to have put you to extra trouble.’

‘That’ll teach the buggers a lesson,’ said Dick, panting as he caught up with them. ‘They’ll think twice about messing with one of my engines again.’

The crew of the Flyer were up a little gully, into which they had dived for shelter. It had once been home to frogs. Regrettably, it still was, and several of the designated bodyguards rose from the little swamp with nothing more than torn clothing and a lot of mud, some of which was hopping, but Cheery Littlebottom was as cheery as her name suggested.

There seemed to be no grags, but even as Moist looked around, an arm dropped out of a tree, still holding a club in an iron grip. And hereabouts, if you cared to look, and frankly nobody cared to do so but did nonetheless, there were several signs that grags and delvers and many others of the dark underworld had passed away in this spot, resting at peace and, thanks to the exploding boiler, in pieces.

Detritus appeared out of the gloom, saying, ‘One or two of dem was still out dere. Not any more.’ He slammed down a breastplate with a resounding clang.

‘You all right, lads?’ said Simnel to the engineers. ‘Shame about the Flyer. It hurts, killing a locomotive, and it means we’ve not got either a pathfinder or a back-up engine no more. We need to clear the track now, then we’ll pick up the scrap when we come back, to go towards a new Flyer. After all, we’re getting reet good at building these things. But any bits of micromail you find, like this here’ – he pointed at the arm holding the axe – ‘I’ll have now, mind, call it tit for tat. It’ll be another trophy for Iron Girder.’

In the grey light of dawn the trolls made quick work of clearing the track ahead. As Moist watched, he suddenly saw creatures moving in the shadows, and th

en a sad little voice in the vicinity of his foot said, ‘Please don’t hurt us, please! We live here, we’re gnomes, we’re cobblers, it’s what we do in these woods. We make charcoal and other things for sale, turned wood, excellent wooden furniture, and we try not to be in anyone’s way, but the dwarfs have been marching and we think the bad times are coming again and we’re scared.’

There was a sigh, then the voice went on, ‘You must know it’s the little people who’re the last to be thought of when great tribes go to war. My name is Slam, I’m the speaker for all the rest who are in hiding in these hills because we know how to hide. It’s a skill we’ve perfected over the years. May we be of assistance?’

‘Gnomes!’ said the King at Moist’s side. ‘I haven’t heard of them for ages. There used to be a lot of them once upon a time.’

And Moist thought, yes, these are the little people who get trodden on and left behind like the goblins! If they had a cheeky champion like Of the Twilight the Darkness, or Tears of the Mushroom and her wonderful harp, they’d become known gnomes. But the face of Slam suggested to him that the gnomes had been through the mill and come out as a very fine grist, and had been content to slip into obscurity and somehow were now drifting into a kind of sad oblivion.

He realized that the King was staring at the spokesgnome. Rhys said, ‘I knew you were around here, in the forests. What can I do for you?’

‘You could leave us alone, your majesty. Your absence. That’s what everybody needs. To be left alone. Left alone to get on with their lives and, indeed,’ said the little gnome more sharply, ‘to be allowed to live at all.’

The King stepped back along the track and put one hand on Iron Girder, still spluttering and steaming, and, like somebody taking an oath, which he possibly was, said, ‘I’ve known of you people since my childhood and right now, boyo, you may live as you like in these woodlands, and I’ll be the first to defend your right to do so.’

He looked around at the rest of the crew and said, ‘We must continue. There’re still a lot of miles between here and Uberwald.’

Dick, who had been in an urgent conversation with Wally by the water tender, grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, your majesty, but we’ve got a problem. There were a depot here for coal and water, but it’s been smashed, and the grags have smashed the water crane and emptied t’water. We’ve still got t’coal, but we’ve barely got enough water to get to t’next depot. The engine can’t run without water. We need to refill t’tank.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, where are t’railway folk? The way I reckoned the schedules, there should have been people ’ere all ready and waiting for us.’

Slam cleared his throat. ‘We heard noises … People fighting …’

Moist looked at Vimes meaningfully and the commander said, ‘Detritus? Think you could find them?’

The watchman saluted with a thud. ‘Me an’ Bluejohn will go lookin’. We are good at findin’ humans. ’s a troll fing. We’ll find dem. Dead or alive.’

The two trolls headed into the undergrowth and Moist was sensitive to the fact that a large amount of firepower had gone with them. The commander looked grim.

The little gnome by Moist’s feet tugged at his trouser leg to get attention. ‘We can help with the water,’ he said. ‘There’s a good spring behind the rise, and there’s hundreds of us and it’s not far and we make excellent buckets and I reckon we can fill your tanks in an hour or so.’

And they did.

Slam brought out a whistle from his jacket and blew it, and about a hundred replicas of the little gnome appeared. Not walked up, not came out of the sky, not came out of the earth. Simply appeared, each one carrying two buckets. It was evident that, small as they were, the gnomes were tough. Simnel watched them dashing away to the tender and back again, looking very carefully at their boots, massive things.

‘Ey up, mister gnome, do you make them boots? I’m not being funny … but they are the biggest boots I’ve ever seen on such little folk. And, you know, with all the walking on t’lines and cinders and all, our boots wear out too damn quickly. I mean, look at these. Worn in all weathers. You said you were cobblers. Can you work metal an’ all? Because if you can, what we really need are lads who can make heavy boots for t’railway workers. I’d be dead chuffed if you could. Boots for lads on t’permanent way’ve got to be permanent boots.’

Slam beamed. ‘If someone could send us the specifications as soon as possible we’ll send a sample. And, for your interest, mister engineer, we are not little folk. We are big on the inside.’

He was interrupted by Detritus coming through the undergrowth like a creature from the dawn of time, followed by Bluejohn in his role as heavy weapon. Bluejohn carefully put down two corpses and a mangled water crane.