The Fifth Elephant

'I would be so grateful,' said Vimes. He took in the good but old clothes, the faded gentility, and played the only card in his hand. 'I am His Grace the Duke of Ankh, although I appreciate this fact is not evident at the—'

There was a three-fold sigh.

'Ankh-Morpork!'

'You haf a magnificent opera house and many fine galleries.'

'Such vonderful avenues!'

'A veritable heaven of culture and sophistication and unattached men of quality!'

'Er, I said Ankh-Morpork,' said Vimes. 'With an A and an M.'

'Ve have always dreamed of going there.'

'I'll have three coach tickets sent along immediately I get home,' said Vimes, his mind's ear hearing the crunch of speeding paws over snow. 'But, dear ladies, if you could fetch me those things—'

They hurried away, but the youngest lingered by the door.

'Do you have long cold winters in Ankh-Morpork?' she said.

'Just muck and slush, usually.'

'Any cherry orchards?'

'I don't think we have any, I'm afraid.'

She punched the air. 'Yesss!'

A few minutes later Vimes was alone in the barn, wearing a pair of ancient black trousers that he'd tied at the waist with rope, and holding an axe that was surprisingly sharp.

He had five minutes, perhaps. Wolves probably didn't stop to worry about heart attacks.

There was no point in simply running. They could run faster. He needed to stay near civilization and its hallmarks, like trousers.

Maybe time was on Vimes's side. Angua was never very talkative about her world, but she had said that, in either shape, a werewolf slowly lost some of the skills of the other shape. After several hours on two legs her sense of smell dropped from uncanny to merely good. And after too long as a wolf... it was like being drunk, as far as Vimes understood it; a little inner part of you was still trying to give instructions, but the rest of you was acting stupid. The human part started to lose control.

He looked around the barn again. There was a ladder to an upper gallery. He climbed it and looked out of a glassless window across a snowy meadow. There was a river in the distance, and what looked very much like a boathouse.

Now, how would a werewolf think?

The werewolves slowed as they reached the building. Their leader glanced at a lieutenant and nodded. It loped off in the direction of the boathouse. The others followed Wolf inside. The last became human for a moment to pull the doors shut and drop the bar across.

Wolf stopped near the centre of the barn. Hay had been scattered over the floor in great fluffy piles.

He scraped gently with a paw, and wisps fell away from a rope that was stretched taut.

Wolf took a deep breath. The other werewolves, sensing what was going to happen, looked away. There was a moment of struggling shapelessness, and then he was rising slowly on two feet, blinking in the dawn of humanity.

That's interesting, thought Vimes, up on the gallery. For a second or two after changing, they're not entirely up on current events...

'Oh, your grace,' said Wolf, looking around. 'A trap? How very... civilized.'

He caught sight of Vimes, who was standing on the higher floor, by the window.

'What was it supposed to do, your grace?'

Vimes reached down to the oil lamp. 'It was supposed to be a decoy,' he said.

He hurled the lamp down on to the dry hay and flicked his cigar after it. Then he grabbed the axe and climbed through the window just as the spilled oil went whump.

Vimes dropped into the deep snow and ran towards the boathouse.

There were other tracks leading to it, not human. When he reached the door he swung wildly at the darkness just inside, and his reward was a cut-off yelp.

The skiff that was housed in the tumbledown shed was a quarter full of dark water, but he didn't dare .think about bailing yet. He grabbed the dusty oars and rowed with considerable effort and not much speed out on to the river.

He groaned. Wolf was trotting across the snow, with the rest of the pack behind him. They all seemed to be there.

Wolf cupped his hands. 'Very civilized, your grace! But, you see, when you set fire to a barn

full of wolves, they panic, your grace! But when they're werewolves, one of them just opens the door! You cannot kill werewolves, Mister Vimes!'

'Tell that to the one in the boathouse!' Vimes shouted, as the current took the boat.

Wolf looked into the shadows for a moment and then cupped his hands again. 'He will recover, Mister Vimes!'

Vimes swore under his breath, because despite all his hopes a couple of werewolves had plunged into the water upstream and were swimming strongly towards the opposite bank. But that was a doggy thing, wasn't it? Leap joyfully into the water outdoors, but fight like hell against a tub.

Wolfgang had started to trot along the bank. The ones in the water emerged on the far bank. Now they were keeping pace with the boat on both sides.

But the current was carrying it along faster now. Vimes started to bail with both hands.

'You can't outrun the river, Wolf!' he shouted.