Thud

Okay, he thought, but what is the plan, exactly? Well, it helped that Sybil knew more or less everybody, or at least everybody who was female, of a certain age, and who had been to the Quirm College for Young Ladies at the same time as Sybil. There appeared to be hundreds of them. They all seemed to have names like Bunny or Bubbles, they kept in touch meticulously, they'd all married influential or powerful men, they all hugged one another when they met and went on about the good old days in Form 3b or whatever, and if they acted together, they could probably run the world or, it occurred to Vimes, might already be doing so.

They were Ladies Who Organize.

Vimes did his best, but he could never keep track of them. A web of correspondence held them all together, and he marvelled at Sybil's ability to be concerned over the problems of a child - which she'd never met - of a woman she hadn't seen for twenty-five years. It was a female thing.

So they would be staying in the town near the foot of the valley with a lady currently known to him only as Bunty, whose husband was the local magistrate. According to Sybil, he had his own police force. Vimes translated this, in the privacy of his head, as `he's got his own gang of thuggish, toothless, evil-smelling thief-takers, since that was what you generally got in these little towns. Still, they might be useful.

Beyond that ... there was no plan. He intended to find the dwarfs and capture and drag as many as possible back to AnkhMorpork. But that was an intention, not a plan. It was a firm intention, though. Five people had been murdered. You couldn't just turn your back on that. He'd drag 'em back and lock them up and throw everything at 'em and see what stuck. He doubted if they had many friends now. Of course, it'd get political, it always did, but at least people would know that he'd done all he could, and it was the best he could do. And with any luck it would stop anyone else getting funny ideas. And then there was the damn Secret, but it occurred to him that if he did find it, and it simply was proof that the dwarfs ambushed the trolls or the trolls ambushed the dwarfs or they both ambushed each other at the same time, well, he might as well drop it down a hole. It really wouldn't change anything. And it was unlikely to be a pot of gold; people didn't take a lot of money on to battlefields, because there wasn't very much to spend it on.

Anyway, it had been a good start. They'd clawed back some time, hadn't they? They could keep up a cracking pace and change horses at every staging inn, couldn't they? Why was he trying to persuade himself? It made sense to slow down. It was dangerous to go fast.

`If we keep up this pace we might get there the day after tomorrow, right?' he said to Willikins, as they rattled on between stands of young maize.

`If you say so, sir,' said Willikins. Vimes noted the hint of diplomacy. `You don't think so?' he said. `Come on, you can speak your mind!' `Well, sir, those dwarfs want to get there fast, d'you think?' said

Willikins.

`I expect so. I don't think they want to hang around. So?'

`So I'm just puzzled that you think they'll be using the road, sir. They could use broomsticks, couldn't they?'

`I suppose so,' Vimes conceded. `But the Archchancellor would have told me if they'd done that, surely.'

`Begging your pardon, sir, but what business would it be of his?

They wouldn't have to bother the gentlemen at the university. Everyone knows the best broomsticks are made by the dwarfs, up at Copperhead.'

The coach rolled on.

After a while Vimes observed, in the voice of one who has been thinking deeply, `They'd have to travel at night, though. They'd be spotted otherwise.'

`Very true, sir,' said Willikins, staring ahead.

There was more thoughtful silence.

`Do you think this thing could jump fences?' said Vimes.

`I'm game to give it a try, sir,' said Willikins. `I think the wizards put some thought into all this.'

`And how fast do you think it could go, for the sake of argument?' said Vimes.

'Dunno, sir. But I've got a feeling it might be pretty fast. A hundred miles in an hour, maybe?'

`You really think so? That means we could be halfway there in a couple of hours!'

`Well, you did say you wanted to get there fast, sir,' said Willikins.

This time the silence went on longer before Vimes said, `All right, stop somewhere. I want to make sure that everyone knows what we're going to do.'

`Happy to do that, sir,' said Willikins. `It'll give me a chance to tie my hat on.'

What Vimes remembered most of all about that journey - and there was so much of it he wanted to forget - was the silence. And the softness.

Oh, he could feel the wind in his face, but it was only a breeze,

even when the ground was a flat green blur. The air was shaping itself around them. When Vimes experimentally held up a piece of paper a foot above his head, it blew away in an instant.