Lords And Ladies Part 43

Herne the Hunted, G.o.d of the chased, crept through the bushes and wished fervently that G.o.ds G.o.ds had G.o.ds. had G.o.ds.

The elves had their backs to him as they hunkered down to watch closely.

Herne the Hunted crawled under a clump of bramble, tensed, and sprang.

He sank his teeth in an elf's calf until they met, and was flung away as it screamed and turned.

He dropped and ran.

That was the problem. He wasn't built to fight, there was not an ounce of predator in him. Attack and run, that was the only option.

And elves could run faster.

He bounced over logs and skidded through drifts of leaves, aware even as his vision fogged that elves were overtaking him on either side, pacing him, waiting for him to...

The leaves exploded. The little G.o.d was briefly aware of a fanged shape, all arms and vengeance. Then there were a couple of disheveled humans, one of them waving an iron bar around its head.

Herne didn't wait to see what happened next. He dived through the apparition's legs and ran on, but a distant warcry echoed in his long, floppy ears: "Why, certainly, I'll have your whelk! How do we do it? Volume!"

Nanny Ogg and Casanunda walked in silence back to the cave entrance and the flight of steps. Finally, as they stepped out into the night air, the dwarf said, "Wow."

"It leaks out even up here," said Nanny. "Very mackko place, this."

"But I mean, good grief-"

"He's brighter than she is. Or more lazy," said Nanny. "He's going to wait it out."

"But he was-"

"They can look like whatever they want, to us," said Nanny. "We see the shape we've given 'em." She let the rock drop back, and dusted off her hands.

"But why should he want to stop her?"

"Well, he's her husband, after all. He can't stand her. It's what you might call an open marriage."

"Wait what what out?" said Casanunda, looking around to see if there were anymore elves. out?" said Casanunda, looking around to see if there were anymore elves.

"Oh, you know," said Nanny, waving a hand. "All this iron and books and clockwork and universities and reading and suchlike. He reckons it'll all pa.s.s, see. And one day it'll all be over, and people'll look up at the skyline at sunset and there he'll he'll be." be."

Casanunda found himself turning to look at the sunset beyond the mound, half-imagining the huge figure outlined against the afterglow.

"One day he'll be back," said Nanny softly. "When even the iron in the head is rusty."

Casanunda put his head on one side. You don't move around among a different species for most of your life without learning to read a lot of their body language, especially since it's in such large print.

"You won't entirely be sorry, eh?" he said.

"Me? I don't want 'em back! They're untrustworthy and cruel and arrogant parasites and we don't need 'em one bit."

"Bet you half a dollar?"

Nanny was suddenly fl.u.s.tered.

"Don't you look at me like that! Esme's right. Of course she's right. We don't want elves anymore. Stands to reason."

"Esme's the short one, is she?"

"Hah, no, Esme's the tall one with the nose. You know her."

"Right, yes."

"The short one is Magrat. She's a kind-hearted soul and a bit soft. Wears flowers in her hair and believes in songs. I reckon she'd be off dancing with the elves quick as a wink, her."

More doubts were entering Magrat's life. They concerned crossbows, for one thing. A crossbow is a very useful and usable weapon designed for speed and convenience and deadliness in the hands of the inexperienced, like a faster version of an out-of-code TV dinner. But it is designed to be used once, by someone who has somewhere safe to duck while they reload. Otherwise it is just so much metal and wood with a piece of string on it.

Then there was the sword. Despite Shawn's misgivings, Magrat did in theory know what you did with a sword. You tried to stick it into the enemy by a vigorous arm motion, and the enemy tried to stop you. She was a little uncertain about what happened next. She hoped you were allowed another go.

She was also having doubts about her armor. The helmet and the breastplate were OK, but the rest of it was chain-mail. And, as Shawn Ogg knew, chain-mail from the point of view of an arrow can be thought of as a series of loosely connected holes.

The rage was still there, the pure fury still gripped her at the core. But there was no getting away from the fact that the heart it gripped was surrounded by the rest of Magrat Garlick, spinster of this parish and likely to remain so.

There were no elves visible in the town, but she could see where they had been. Doors hung off their hinges. The place looked as though it had been visited by Genghiz Cohen.*

Now she was on the track that led to the stones. It was wider than it had been; the horses and carriages had churned it on the way up, and the fleeing people had turned it into a mire on the way down.

She knew she was being watched, and it almost came as a relief when three elves stepped out from under the trees before she'd even lost sight of the castle.

The middle one grinned.

"Good evening, girl," it said. "My name is Lord Lankin, and you will curtsy when you talk to me."

The tone suggested that there was absolutely no possibility that she would disobey. She felt her muscles strain to comply.

Queen Ynci wouldn't have obeyed...

"I happen to be practically the queen," she said.

It was the first time she'd looked an elf in the face when she was in any condition to notice details. This one was currently wearing high cheekbones and hair tied in a ponytail; it wore odds and ends of rags and lace and fur, confident in the knowledge that anything would look good on an elf.

It wrinkled its perfect nose at her.

"There is only one Queen in Lancre," it said. "And you are, most definitely, not her."

Magrat tried to concentrate.

"Where is she, then?" she said.

The other two raised their bows.

"You are looking for the Queen? Then we will take you to her," Lankin stated. "And, lady, should you be inclined to make use of that nasty iron bow there are more archers hidden in the trees."

There was indeed a rustling in the trees on one side of the track, but it was followed by a thump. The elves looked disconcerted.

"Get out of my way," said Magrat.

"I think you have a very wrong idea," said the elf. Its smile widened, but vanished when there was another sylvan crash from the other side of the track.

"We felt you coming all the way up the track," said the elf. "The brave girl off to rescue her lover! Oh, the romance! Take her."

A shadow rose up behind the two armed elves, took a head in either hand, and banged them together.

The shadow stepped forward over their bodies and, as Lankin turned, caught it with one roundarm punch that picked it up and slammed it into a tree.

Magrat drew her sword.

Whatever this was, it looked worse than elves. It was muddy and hairy and almost troll-like in its build, and it reached out for the bridle with an arm that seemed to extend forever. She raised the sword- "Oook?"

"Put the sword down, please please, miss!"

The voice came from somewhere behind her, but it sounded human and worried. Elves never sounded worried.

"Who are you?" she said, without turning around. The monster in front of her gave her a big, yellow-toothed grin.

"Um, I'm Ponder Stibbons. A wizard. And he's he's a wizard, too." a wizard, too."

"He's got no clothes on!"

"I could get him to have a bath, if you like," said Ponder, slightly hysterically. "He always puts on an old green dressing gown when he's had a bath."

Magrat relaxed a bit. No one who sounded like that could be much of a threat, except to themselves.

"Whose side are you on, Mr. Wizard?"

"How many are there?"

"Oook?"

"When I get off this horse," said Magrat, "it'll bolt. So can you ask your...friend to let go of the bridle? He'll be hurt."

"Oook?"

"Um. Probably not."

Magrat slid off. The horse, relieved of the presence of iron, bolted. For about two yards.

"Oook."

The horse was struggling to get back on its feet.

Magrat blinked.

"Um, he's just a bit annoyed at the moment," said Ponder. "One of the...elves...shot him with an arrow."

"But they do that to control people!"

"Um. He's not a person."

"Oook!"

"Genetically, I mean."

Magrat had met wizards before. Occasionally one visited Lancre, although they didn't stay very long. There was something about the presence of Granny Weatherwax that made them move on.

They didn't look like Ponder Stibbons. He'd lost most of his robe and, of his hat, only the brim remained. Most of his face was covered in mud, and there was a multicolored bruise over one eye.

"Did they do that that to you?" to you?"

"Well, the mud and the torn clothes is just from, you know, the forest. And we've run into-"

"Ook."

"-over elves a few times. But elves a few times. But this this is when the Librarian hit me." is when the Librarian hit me."

"Oook."

"Thank goodness," Ponder added. "Knocked me cold. Otherwise I'd be like the others."

A foreboding of a conversation to come swept over Magrat.

"What others?" she snapped.

"Are you alone?"

"What others?"

"Have you any idea idea what's been happening?" what's been happening?"

Magrat thought about the castle, and the town.

"I might be able to hazard a guess," she said.