Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett [112]
“Not that way!” whined Gaspode.
Dogs were piling along behind them. Angua leapt on to the cart.
“I can’t get up there!” said Gaspode. “Not with my leg!”
She jumped down, picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and leapt back. There was a shed roof behind the cart, a ledge above that and—a few tiles slid under her paws and tumbled into the alley—a house.
“I feel sick!”
“Futupf!”
Angua ran along the ridge of the roof and jumped the alley on the other side, landing heavily in some ancient thatch.
“Aargh!”
“Futupf!”
But the dogs were following them. It wasn’t as though the alleys of the Shades were very wide.
Another narrow alley passed below.
Gaspode swung perilously from the werewolf’s jaws.
“They’re still behind us!”
Gaspode shut his eyes as Angua bunched her muscles.
“Oh, no! Not Treacle Mine Road!”
There was a burst of acceleration followed by a moment of calmness. Gaspode shut his eyes…
…Angua landed. Her paws scrabbled on the wet roof for a moment. Slates cascaded off into the street, and then she was bounding up to the ridge.
“You can put me down right now,” said Gaspode. “Right now this minute! Here they come!”
The leading dogs arrived on the opposite roof, saw the gap, and tried to turn. Claws slid on the tiles.
Angua turned, fighting for breath. She’d tried to avoid breathing, during that first mad dash. She’d have breathed Gaspode.
They heard Big Fido’s irate yapping.
“Cowards! That’s not twenty feet across! That’s nothing to a wolf!”
The dogs measured the distance doubtfully. Sometimes a dog has to get right down and ask himself: what species am I?
“It’s easy! I’ll show you! Look!”
Big Fido ran back a little way, paused, turned, ran…and leapt.
There was hardly a curve to the trajectory. The little poodle accelerated out into space, powered less by muscles than by whatever it was that burned in his soul.
His forepaws touched the slates, clawed for a moment on the slick surface, and found no hold. In silence he skidded backward down the roof, over the edge—
—and hung.
He turned his eyes upward, to the dog that was gripping him.
“Gaspode? Is that you?”
“Yeff,” said Gaspode, his mouth full.
There was hardly any weight to the poodle but, then, there was hardly any weight to Gaspode. He’d darted forward and braced his legs to take the strain, but there was nothing much to brace them against. He slid down inexorably until his front legs were in the gutter, which began to creak.
Gaspode had an amazingly clear view of the street, three stories down.
“Oh, hell!” said Gaspode.
Jaws gripped his tail.
“Let him go,” said Angua indistinctly.
Gaspode tried to shake his head.
“Stop ftruggling!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Brave Dog Faves the Day! Valiant Hound in Wooftop Wefcue! No!”
The gutter creaked again.
It’s going to go, he thought. Story of my life…
Big Fido struggled around.
“What are you holding me up by?”
“Yer collar,” said Gaspode, through his teeth.
“What? To hell with that!”
The poodle tried to twist, flailing viciously at the air.
“Ftop it, you daft fbugger! You’ll haf uff all off!” Gaspode growled. On the opposite roof, the dog pack watched in horror. The gutter creaked again.
Angua’s claws scored white lines on the slates.
Big Fido wrenched and spun, fighting the grip of the collar.
Which, finally, snapped.
The dog turned in the air, hanging for a moment before gravity took hold.
“Free!”
And then he fell.
Gaspode shot backward as Angua’s paws slipped from under her, and landed further up the roof, legs spinning. Both of them made it to the crest and hung there, panting.
Then Angua bounded away, clearing the next alley before Gaspode had stopped seeing a red mist in front of his eyes.
He spat out Big Fido’s collar, which slid down the roof and vanished over the edge.
“Oh, thank you!” he shouted. “Thank you very much! Yes! Leave me here, that’s right! Me with only three good legs! Don’t you worry about me! If I’m lucky I’ll fall off before I starve! Oh yes! Story of my life!