The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett [108]
He drove it into the werewolf’s throat, and was rewarded with a horrible noise. Then he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled, let go and slammed the palm of his hand into its face in a mad attempt to prevent it having a second to think. He couldn’t allow that—he could see the size of the man’s muscles.
The werewolf reacted, instead.
There was that sudden moment of morphological inexactitude. A nose turned into a muzzle while Vimes’s fist was en route, but when the wolf opened its mouth to lunge at him two things occurred to it.
One was that it was high in a tree, not a tenable position for a shape designed for fast-paced living on the ground. The other was gravity.
“Down there it’s the lore,” Vimes panted, as its paws scrabbled for purchase on the greasy branch, “But up here it’s me.”
He reached up, grabbed the branch above him, and kicked down with his feet.
There was a yelp, and another yelp as the wolf slid and hit the next branch down.
About halfway toward the ground it tried to change back again, combining in one falling shape all the qualities of something not good at staying in trees with something not good at landing on the ground.
“Gotcha!” screamed Vimes.
In the forest all around, a howling went up.
The branch he was clinging to…snapped. For a moment he hung by the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya, caught on a snag, and then their ancient fabric ripped off him and he dropped.
His progress was a little faster, since the falling werewolf had removed a lot of branches on the way down, but the landing was softer because the werewolf was just getting to its feet.
Vimes’s flailing hand grabbed a broken branch.
A weapon.
Thought more or less stopped when his fingers closed. Whatever replaced it in the pathways of his brain was gushing up from somewhere else, thousands of years old.
The werewolf struggled up and turned on him. The branch caught it across the side of the head.
Steam rose off Sir Samuel Vimes as he lurched forward, snarling incoherently. He smacked the club down again. He roared. There were no words there. It was a sound from before words. If there was any meaning in it at all, it was a lament that he couldn’t cause enough pain…
The wolf whined, stumbled, rolled over…and Changed.
The human extended a bleeding hand toward him in supplication.
“Ple-ease…”
Vimes hesitated, club raised.
The red rage drained away.
In one movement, changing from man to wolf as it moved, the werewolf sprang.
Vimes went backward into the snow. He could feel the breath and the blood, but not the pain—
No talons ripped, no teeth tore.
And the weight was lifted. Hands pulled the body off him.
“Bit of a close one there, sir,” said a voice cheerfully. “Best not to give them any quarter, really.” There was a spear right through the werewolf.
“Carrot?”
“We’ll get a fire going. It’s easy if you dip the wood in the fat springs first.”
“Carrot?”
“I shouldn’t think you’ve eaten. There’s not much game this close to the town, but we’ve still got some—”
“Carrot?”
“Er…yes, sir?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s all a bit complicated, sir. Here, let me help you up—”
Vimes shook him off as he tried to help him to his feet.
“I got this far, thank you, I think I’m capable of standing up,” he said, and forced his legs to support him.
“You seem to have lost your trousers, sir.”
“Yes, it’s the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humor once again,” growled Vimes.
“Only…Angua will be back soon, and…and…”
“Sergeant Angua’s family, Captain, are in the habit of running around the woods in the snow stark bol—stark naked!”
“Yes, sir, but…I mean…you know…it’s not really…”
“I’ll give you five minutes to find a clothes shop, shall I? Otherwise—Look, where the hell are all the werewolves, eh? I was expecting to drop into a heap of snarling jaws, and now you’re here, thank you very much, and there’s no werewolves!”
“Gavin’s people chased them away, sir. You must’ve heard the howl go up.”
“Gavin’s people, eh? Well,