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By Root 371 0

been captured and their prospective queen had gone out to save him. He pointed out their responsibility as loyal subjects. He pointed out that other people currently not here but at home hiding under the bed would, after the glorious victory, wish they’d been there too instead of under the aforesaid bed which they were hiding under, you know, the bed he’d just mentioned. In fact it was better that there were so few here to face the enemy, because that meant that there would be a higher percentage of honor per surviving head. He used the word “glory” three times. He said that in times to come people would look back on this day, whatever the date was, and proudly show their scars, at least those who’d survived would show their scars, and be very proud and probably have drinks bought for them. He advised people to imitate the action of the Lancre Reciprocating Fox and stiffen some sinews while leaving them flexible enough so’s they could move their arms and legs, in fact, probably it’d be better to relax them a bit now and stiffen them properly when the time came. He suggested that Lancre expected everyone to do their duty. And um. And uh. Please?

The silence that followed was broken by Nanny Ogg, who said, “They’re probably considering it a bit, Shawn. Why don’t you take Mr. Wizard here up to his room and help him with his crossbow?”

She nodded meaningfully in the direction of the stairs.

Shawn wavered, but not for long. He’d seen the glint in his mother’s eye.

When he’d gone, Nanny climbed up on the same table.

“Well,” she said, “it’s like this. If you go out there you may have to face elves. But if you stops here, you definitely have to face me. Now, elves is worse than me, I’ll admit. But I’m persistent.”

Weaver put up a tentative hand.

“Please, Mrs. Ogg?”

“Yes, Weaver?”

“What exactly is the action of the Reciprocating Fox?”

Nanny scratched her ear.

“As I recall,” she said, “its back legs go like this but its front legs go like this.”

“No, no, no,” said Quarney the storekeeper. “It’s its tail that goes like that. Its legs go like this.”

“That’s not reciprocating, that’s just oscillating,” said someone. “You’re thinking of the Ring-tailed Ocelot.”

Nanny nodded.

“That’s settled, then,” she said.

“Hold on, I’m not sure—”

“Yes, Mr. Quarney?”

“Oh…well…”

“Good, good,” said Nanny, as Shawn reappeared. “They was just saying, our Shawn, how they was swayed by your speech. Really pussiked up.”

“Cor!”

“They’re ready to follow you into the jaws of hell itself, I expect,” said Nanny.

Someone put up their hand.

“Are you coming too, Mrs. Ogg?”

“I’ll just stroll along behind,” said Nanny.

“Oh. Well. Maybe as far as the jaws of hell, then.”

“Amazing,” said Casanunda to Nanny, as the crowd filed reluctantly toward the armory.

“You just got to know how to deal with people.”

“They’ll follow where an Ogg leads?”

“Not exactly,” said Nanny, “but if they know what’s good for ’em they’ll go where an Ogg follows.”

Magrat stepped out from under the trees, and the moorland lay ahead of her.

A whirlpool of cloud swirled over the Dancers, or at least, over the place where the Dancers had been. She could make out one or two stones by the flickering light, lying on their side or rolled down the slope of the hill.

The hill itself glowed. Something was wrong with the landscape. It curved where it shouldn’t curve. Distances weren’t right. Magrat remembered a woodcut shoved in as a place marker in one of her old books. It showed the face of an old crone but, if you stared at it, you saw it was also the head of a young woman; a nose became a neck, an eyebrow became a necklace. The images seesawed back and forth. And like everyone else, she’d squinted herself silly trying to see them both at the same time.

The landscape was doing pretty much the same thing. What was a hill was also at the same time a vast snowbound panorama. Lancre and the land of the elves were trying to occupy the same space.

The intrusive country wasn’t having it all its own way. Lancre was fighting back.

There was a circle of tents just on the cusp of