The Fifth Elephant

Vimes carefully eased it back into its spring-loaded sheath, smiled in a not very happy way, and carefully lifted out something that gleamed with the silvery light of carefully designed, beautifully engineered and very compact evil.

He thought: Sometimes it would be nice to be wrong about people.

Gaspode know they were in the high foothills now. Places to buy food were getting scarce. However carefully Carrot knocked at the door of some isolated farmstead, he'd end up having to talk to people who were hiding under the bed. People here were not used to the idea of muscular men with swords who were actually anxious to buy things.

In the end it generally worked out quicker to walk in, go through the contents of the pantry, and leave some money on the table for when the people came up out of the cellar.

It had been two days since the last cottage, and there was so little there that Carrot, to Gaspode's disgust, had just left some money.

The forest thickened. Alder became pine. There were snow showers every night. The stars were pinpoints of frost.

And, colder and harder, rising with the sunset, was the howl.

It went up on every side, a great mournful ululation across the freezing forests.

'They're so close I can smell 'em,' said Gaspode. 'They've been shadowing us for days.'

'There has never been an authenticated case of an unprovoked wolf attacking an adult human being,' said Carrot. They were both huddling under his cloak.

After a while Gaspode said, 'An' that's good, is it?'

'What do you mean?'

'We-ell, o' course us dogs only had little brains, but it seems to me that what you just said was pretty much the same as sayin' "no unprovoking human bein' has ever returned to tell the tale," right? I mean, your wolf has just got to make sure they kill people in quiet places where no one'll every know, yes?'

More snow settled on the cloak. It was large, and heavy, and a relic of many a long night in the Ankh-Morpork rain. In front of it, a fire flickered and hissed.

'I wish you hadn't said that, Gaspode.'

These were big, serious flakes of snow. Winter was moving fast down the mountains.

'You wish I hadn't said it?'

'But... no, I'm sure there's nothing to be afraid of.'

A drift had nearly covered the cloak.

'You shouldn't've traded the horse for those snowshoes back at the last place,' said Gaspode.

'The poor thing was done in. Anyway, it wasn't exactly a trade. The people wouldn't come down out of the chimney. They did say to take anything we wanted.

'They said to take everything, only spare their lives.'

'Yes. I don't know why. I smiled at them.'

There was a doggy sigh.

'Trouble is, see, you could carry me on the horse, but this is deep snow and I am a little doggie. My problems are closer to the ground. I hope I don't have to draw you a picture.'

'I've got some spare clothes in my pack. I might be able to make you a... coat—'

'A coat wouldn't do the trick.'

Another howl began, quite close this time.

The snow was falling a lot faster. The hissing of the fire turned into a sizzle. Then it went out.

Gaspode was not good at snow. It was not a precipitation he normally had to face. In the city, there was always somewhere warm if you knew where to look. Anyway, snow only stayed snow for an hour or two, and then it became brown slush and was trodden into the general slurry of the streets.

Streets. Gaspode really missed streets. He could be wise on the streets. Out here, he was dumb on mud.

'Fire's gone out,' he said.

There was no answer from Carrot.

'Fire's gone out, I said...'

This time there was a snore.

'Hey, you can't go to sleep!' Gaspode whined. 'Not now. We'll freeze to death.'

The next voice in the howl seemed only a few trees away. Gaspode thought he could see dark shapes in the endless curtain of snow.

'... if we're lucky,' he mumbled. He licked Carrot's face, a move that usually resulted in the lickee chasing Gaspode down the street with a broom. There was merely another snore.

Gaspode's mind raced.

Of course he was a dog, and dogs and wolves... well, they were the same, right? Everyone knew that. So-oo, said a treacherous inner voice, maybe it wasn't exactly Gaspode and Carrot in trouble. Maybe it was only Carrot. Yeah, right on, brothers! Let us join together in wild runs in the moonlight! But first, let us eat this monkey!

On the other paw...

He'd got hard pad, soft pad, the swinge, licky end, scroff, mange and something rather strange on the back of his neck that he couldn't quite reach. Gaspode somehow couldn't imagine the wolves saying Hey, he's one of us!

Besides, while he'd begged, fought, tricked and stolen, he'd never actually been a Bad Dog.