Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett [97]
Saturday grunted something and walked away.
There was a hammering on the door and someone started fumbling with keys.
“We don’t want to hang around here,” said Granny. “Come on.”
They helped one another out through the hole.
Saturday was on the other side of a small courtyard, striding toward the sound of the ball.
And there was something behind him, trailing out like the tail of a comet.
“What’s that?”
“Mrs. Gogol’s doing,” said Granny Weatherwax grimly.
Behind Saturday, widening as it snaked through the palace grounds to the gate, was a stream of deeper darkness in the air. At first sight it seemed to contain shapes, but closer inspection indicated that they weren’t shapes at all but a mere suggestion of shapes, forming and reforming. Eyes gleamed momentarily in the swirl. There was the chittering of crickets and the whine of mosquitoes, the smell of moss and the stink of river mud.
“It’s the swamp,” said Magrat.
“It’s the idea of the swamp,” said Granny. “It’s what you have to have first, before you have the swamp.”
“Oh, dear,” said Nanny. She shrugged. “Well, Ella’s got away and so have we, so this is the part where we escape, yes? That’s what we’re supposed to do.”
None of them moved.
“They aren’t very nice people in there,” said Magrat, after a while, “but they don’t deserve alligators.”
“You witches stand right there,” said a voice behind them. Half a dozen guards were crowded around the hole in the wall.
“Life’s certainly busier in the city,” said Nanny, pulling another hatpin from her hat.
“They’ve got crossbows,” warned Magrat. “There’s not much you can do against crossbows. Projectile weapons is Lesson Seven and I haven’t had that yet.”
“They can’t pull triggers if they think they’ve got flippers,” said Granny menacingly.
“Now,” said Nanny, “let’s not have any of that, eh? Everyone knows the good ones always win specially when they’re outnumbered.”
The guards emerged.
As they did so a tall black shape dropped noiselessly from the wall behind them.
“There,” said Nanny, “I said he wouldn’t go far from his mummy, didn’t I?”
One or two of the guards realized that she was staring proudly past them, and turned.
As far as they were concerned, they confronted a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of black hair, an eyepatch and a very wide grin.
He stood with his arms casually folded.
He waited until he had their full attention, and then Greebo let his lips part slowly.
Several of the men took a step backward then.
One of them said, “Why worry? It’s not as if he’s got a weap—”
Greebo raised one hand.
Claws make no noise as they slide out, but they ought to. They ought to make a noise like “tzing.”
Greebo’s grin widened.
Ah! These still worked…
One of the men was bright enough to raise his crossbow but stupid enough to do it with Nanny Ogg standing behind him with a hatpin. Her hand moved so swiftly that any wisdom-seeking saffron-clad youth would have started the Way of Mrs. Ogg there and then. The man screamed and dropped the bow.
“Wrowwwl…”
Greebo leapt.
Cats are like witches. They don’t fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There’s no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won’t know they’ve lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There’s no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.
Cats do not, of course, rationalize this far. They just like to send someone limping off minus a tail and a few square inches of fur.
Greebo’s technique was unscientific and wouldn’t have stood a chance against any decent swordsmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.
The witches watched with interest.
“I think we can leave him now,” said Nanny. “I think he’s having fun.”
They hurried toward the hall.
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