Hogfather

     'Bob bob bob?' it suggested.  'Merry Solstice? Tweetie tweet?  What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?'

     The dogs backed away.

     The snow broke off the snowman in chunks, revealing a gaunt figure in a flapping black robe.

     Death spat out the carrot.

HO. HO. HO.

     The grey bodies smeared and rippled as the hounds sought desperately to change their shape.

     YOU COULDN'T RESIST IT? IN THE END? A MISTAKE, I FANCY.

     He  touched the  scythe. There  was a  click  as the blade flashed into life.

     IT GETS UNDER  YOUR SKIN, LIFE, said  Death, stepping forward. SPEAKING METAPHORICALLY, OF COURSE. IT'S A HABIT THAT'S  HARD TO GIVE UP. ONE PUFF OF BREATH IS NEVER ENOUGH. YOU'LL FIND YOU WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER.

     A dog started  to  slip on  the snow  and scrabbled desperately to save itself from the long, cold drop.

AND, YOU SEE,  THE  MORE YOU  STRUGGLE FOR EVERY MOMENT, THE MORE ALIVE YOU STAY... WHICH IS WHERE I COME IN, AS A MATTER OF FACT.

     The  leading dog  managed,  for a moment,  to become a grey  led figure before being dragged back into shape.

     FEAR,  TOO, IS AN  ANCHOR, said  Death.  ALL THOSE SENSES, WIDE OPEN TO EVERY FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD. THAT BEATING HEART. THAT RUSH OF BLOOD. CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT, DRAGGING YOU BACK?

     Once again the Auditor managed to retain a shape for a few seconds, and managed to say: 'You cannot do this, there are rules!'

YES. THERE ARE RULES. BUT YOU BROKE THEM. HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU?

     The scythe blade was a thin blue outline in the grey light.

     Death  raised  a  thin  finger to  where his lips might have been,  and suddenly looked thoughtful.

     AND NOW THERE REMAINS ONLY ONE FINAL QUESTION, he said.

     He  raised  his hands, and  seemed to grow.  Light  flared  in his  eye sockets. When he spoke next, avalanches fell in the mountains.

HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY... OR NICE? HO. HO. HO.

     Susan heard the wails die away.

     The boar lay in  white snow that was now red with blood. She knelt down and tried to lift its head.

     It was dead. One eye stared at nothing. The tongue lolled.

     Sobs welled up  inside her.  The tiny part of Susan that  watched,  the inner  baby-sitter,  said  it  was  just exhaustion and  excitement  and the backwash of adrenalin. She couldn't be crying over a dead pig.

     The rest of her drummed on its flank with both fists.

     'No, you can't! We saved you! Dying isn't how it's supposed to go!'

     A breeze blew up.

     Something  stirred  in the  landscape,  something under the  snow.  The branches  on  the ancient trees  shook gently, dislodging little  needles of ice.

     The sun rose.

     The light streamed over Susan like a silent  gale. It was dazzling. She crouched  back, raising  her forearm to  cover  her eyes. The great red ball turned frost to fire along the winter branches.

     Cold light slammed into the mountain peaks, making every one a blinding, silent volcano. It rolled  onward, gushing into the valleys and thundering up the slopes, unstoppable...

     There was a groan.

     A man lay in the snow where the boar had been.

     He was naked except for an animal skin loincloth. His hair was long and had been  woven  into a  thick plait down his back, so matted with blood and grease that  it looked like felt. And he was bleeding everywhere the  hounds had caught him.

     Susan watched for  a  moment, and  then, thinking  with something other than her head, methodically tore some  strips from her petticoat  to bandage the more unpleasant wounds.

     Capability,  said the  small part  of  her  mind.  A rational  head  in emergencies.

     Rational something, anyway.

     It's probably some kind of character flaw.

     The man was tattooed. Blue  whorls and  spirals haunted his skin, under the blood.

     He opened his eyes and stared at the sky.

     'Can you get up?'

     His gaze flicked to her. He tried moving and then fell back.

     Eventually  she managed to  pull the man up into a sitting position. He swayed as she put one of his arms across her shoulders and  then heaved  him to his  feet. She  did her best to  ignore  the  sting,  which had an almost physical force.

     Downhill seemed the best option.  Even if his brain wasn't working yet, his feet seemed to get the idea.

     They lurched  down through the freezing woods, the snow  glowing orange in  the risen sun. Cold  blue  gloom  lurked in hollows  like little cups of winter.

     Beside her, the tattooed man  made  a gurgling sound. He slipped out of her grasp and  landed on  his knees in the snow, clutching at his throat and choking. His breath sounded like a saw.

     'What now? What's the matter? What's the matter?'

     He rolled his eyes at her and pawed at his throat again.

     'Something stuck?' She slapped him  as hard as  she  could on the back, but now he was on his hands and knees, fighting for breath.

     She put her  hands under his shoulders and pulled him  upright, and put her  arms around his waist. Oh, gods, how was it supposed  to go, she'd gone to classes about it, now, didn't you have to bunch  up one fist and then put the other hand around it and then pull up and in like this...

     The  man  coughed  and something bounced off a tree and landed  in  the snow.