Hogfather

     Susan's  arms clung to  its neck  and her face was  buried in its sharp bristles. She could feel the heat under her. It was like riding a furnace.

     And it stank of sweat, and blood, and pig. A lot of pig.

     There was a lack of landscape in front of her.

     The  boar  ploughed  into  the snow on  the  edge  of the  drop, almost flinging her off, and turned to face the hounds.

     There were a lot of them. Susan was familiar with dogs. They'd had them at home like other houses had rugs. And these weren't that big floppy sort.

     She rammed her heels in and grabbed  a pig's ear  in each  hand. It was like holding a pair of hairy shovels.

     'Turn left!' she screamed, and hauled.

     She put everything into  the command. It promised  tears before bedtime if disobeyed.

     To her amazement the boar grunted, pranced on the lip  of the precipice and scrambled away, the hounds floundering as they turned to follow.

     This was a plateau. From here it  seemed  to  be all edge, with no  way down except the very simple and terminal one.

     The dogs were flying at the boar's heels again.

     Susan  looked  around  in  the  grey, Sightless  air.  There  had to be somewhere, some way...

     There was.

     It was a shoulder of  rock, a giant knife-edge connecting this plain to the  hills  beyond. It was sharp and narrow, a thin line of snow with chilly depths on either side.

     It was better than nothing. It was nothing with snow on it.

     The boar reached  the edge and hesitated. Susan  put her head down  and dug her heels in again.

     Snout  down, legs moving like pistons,  the beast plunged out  onto the ridge.  Snow sprayed up as its  trotters sought for purchase. It made up for lack of grace by  sheer manic effort, legs moving like a tap dancer climbing a moving staircase that was heading down.

     'That's right, that's right, that's...'

     A trotter slipped.  For a moment  the boar  seemed to stand on two, the others  scrabbling at icy rock.  Susan flung herself the other way, clinging to the neck, and felt the dragging abyss under her feet.

     There was nothing there.

     She told  herself, "He'll catch me if I  fall he'll catch  me if I fall, he'll catch me if I fall..."

     Powdered ice made her eyes sting.  A  flailing  trotter  almost slammed against her head.

     An older voice said, "No, he  won't. If I fall now I don't deserve to be caught."

     The creature's eye was inches away. And then she knew...

     ... Out  of the depths of eyes of  all but the most unusual  of animals comes an echo. Out of the dark eye in front of her, someone looked back...

     A  foot  caught the  rock and she concentrated  her  whole being on it, kicking herself upward in one last effort. Pig and woman rocked for a moment and then a trotter caught a  footing and the  boar plunged forward along the ridge.

    Susan risked a look behind.

     The dogs  still moved oddly.  There was a slight jerkiness about  their movements, as if they  flowed from position to position rather than moved by ordinary muscles.

     Not dogs, she thought. Dog shapes.

     There was  another shock underfoot. Snow flew up. The world tilted. She felt  the shape  of the boar change when its muscles  bunched  and  sent  it soaring  as  a slab of ice and rock came away and began  the long slide into darkness.

     Susan  was thrown  off  when the creature landed, and tumbled into deep snow. She flailed around madly, expecting at any minute to begin sliding.

     Instead her hand  found a snow-encrusted branch.  A few feet  away  the boar lay on its side, steaming and panting.

     She pulled  herself upright. The spur here had widened out into a hill, with a few frosted trees on it.

     The  dogs had  reached  the gap and were milling  round,  struggling to prevent themselves slipping.

     They could easily clear the distance,  she could see. Even the boar had managed it with  her on  its  back. She put both hands around the branch and heaved; it came away with a crack, like a broken  icicle,  and  she waved it like a club.

     'Come on,' she said. 'Jump! Just you try it! Come on!'

     One did. The branch caught it  as it  landed, and  then Susan  spun and brought the branch  around on the upswing, lifted the dazed animal  off  its feet and out over the edge.

     For a moment  the shape wavered  and then,  howling, it dropped out  of sight.

     She danced a few steps of rage and triumph.

     'Yes! Yes! Who wants some? Anyone else?'

     The other dogs looked her in the eye, decided that no one did, and that there wasn't. Finally,  after one or two nervous  attempts, they  managed to turn, still sliding, and tried to make it back to the plateau.

     A figure barred their way.

     It  hadn't been  there a  moment ago  but  it looked permanent  now. It seemed to have been made of snow, three balls of snow piled on  one another. It had black dots for eyes. A  semi-circle of more dots formed the semblance of a mouth. There was a carrot for the nose.

     And, for the arms, two twigs.

     At this distance, anyway.

     One of them was holding a curved stick.

     A raven wearing a damp piece of red paper landed on one arm.