Terry Pratchett - Thud

`About a hundred years old,' he said. `From the last big battle, a hundred years ago. We get the occasional piece of armour, too. We put it all in the charnel house and from time to time the dwarfs or the trolls come with a cart to sort through it and carry it away. They take it very seriously.'

`Any treasure?' said Vimes.

'Hah. Not that I get told about. But I'd hear about it if there was anything big.' The magistrate sighed. `Every year people come to search for it. Sometimes they are lucky.'

`They find gold?'

`No, but they get back alive. The others? They wash up out of the caves, in the fullness of time.' He selected a pipe from a rack on his desk and began to fill it. `I'm amazed that anyone feels it necessary to take weapons up the valley. It'll kill you on a whim. Will you take one of my lads, commander?'

`I have my own guide,' said Vimes, and then added: `But thank you.'

Mr Waynesbury puffed his pipe. `As you wish, of course,' he said. `I shall watch the river, in any case.'

Angua and Sally had been put in the same bedroom. Angua tried to feel good about that. The woman wasn't to know. Anyway, it was nice to get between clean sheets, even if the room had a slightly musty smell. More must, less vampire, she thought; look on the bright side.

In the darkness, she opened one eye.

Someone had moved silently across the room. They'd made no

noise but, nevertheless, their passage had stirred the air and changed the texture of the subtle night sounds.

They were at the window now. It was bolted shut, and a faint noise was probably the bolt being slipped back.

It was easy to tell when the window itself was opened: new scents flooded in.

There was a creak that possibly only a werewolf would have heard, followed by a sudden rustling of many leathery wings. Little leathery wings.

Angua shut her eye again. The little minx! Maybe she just didn't care any more? No point in trying to follow her, though. She debated the wisdom of shutting the window and bolting the door, just to see what excuses she came up with, but dismissed the idea. No good telling Mister Vimes yet, either. What could she prove? It'd all be put down to the werewolf/vampire thing ...

And now Koom Valley stretched away ahead of Vimes, and he could see why he hadn't made plans. You couldn't make plans for Koom Valley. It'd laugh at them. It would push them away, like it pushed away roads.

`Of course, you're seeing it at its best at this time of year,' said Cheery.

'By best you mean - ?' Vimes prompted.

`Well, it's not actually trying to murder us, sir. And there're the

birds. And when the sun's right, you get some wonderful rainbows.'

There were lots of birds. Insects bred like mad in the wide,

shallow pools and dams that littered the floor of the valley in late

spring. Most of them would be dry by the late summer, but for now

Koom Valley was a smorgasbord of things that went `bzz!'. And the

birds had come up from the plains to feast on all of it. Vimes wasn't good at birds, but they mostly looked like swallows, millions of them. There were nests on the nearest cliff, a good half-mile away, and Vimes could hear the chattering from here. And where trees and rocks had piled up in a dam, saplings and green plants had sprouted.

Below the narrow track the party had taken, waters gushed from half a dozen caves and joined together for one wild waterfall into the plain.

`It's all so ... so alive,' said Angua. `I thought it would be just barren rock.'

'Dat's what it is like up at der battle place,' said Detritus, spray glistening on his skin. `My dad took me up dere when we were comin' to der city. He showed me dis kind o' rocky place, hit me on der head, and said, "Remember".'

`Remember what?' said Sally.

`He didn't say. So I just, you know, gen'rally remembered:

I didn't expect this, Vimes thought. It's so ... chaotic. Oh, well, let's get clear of the cliff wall, at least. All these bloody great boulders must have got here from somewhere.

`I can smell smoke,' Angua announced after a while, as they made their way unsteadily across the debris-strewn track.

`Camp fires from up the valley,' said Cheery. `Early arrivals, I expect.'

`You mean people queue up for a place in the battle?' said Vimes. `Watch this boulder, it's slippery.'

`Oh, yes. The fighting doesn't start until Koom Valley Day. That's tomorrow.'

`Damn, I lost track. Will it affect us down here?'

Bashfullsson coughed politely. `I don't think so, commander. This area is too dangerous to fight in.'

`Well, yes, I can see it would be terrible if anyone got hurt,' said Vimes, climbing over a long heap of rotting timber. `That would spoil the day for everyone.'

Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insectbuzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days.

But the dwarfs and the trolls ... they fight it again for real. Like, perhaps, if they fight it enough times they'll get it right?

Now there was a hole in the track in front of him, half blocked with the winter's debris, but still managing to swallow a whole streamlet. It poured, foaming, into the depths. There was a booming noise, far below. When he knelt down and touched the water, it was so cold it stung.

`Yes, watch out for sinkholes, commander,' said Bashfullsson. `This is limestone. Water wears it away quite quickly. We'll probably see some much bigger ones. Often they're hidden by rotting debris. Watch where you tread.'

`Don't they get blocked up?'

`Oh, yes, sir. You've seen the size of the rocks that roll down here.' `It must be like a giant game of billiards!'

`Something like that, I expect,' said Bashfullsson carefully.

After ten minutes, Vimes sat down on a log, pulled off his helmet, took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

`It's getting hotter,' he said. `And everywhere in this bloody place looks the same- Ow!' He slapped at his wrist.

`The midges can be a bit extreme, sir,' Cheery volunteered. `It's said that when they bite extra hard, there's a storm coming.

They both looked up at the mountains. There was a yellow haze at the far end of the valley, and clouds between the peaks.

`Oh, good,' said Vimes. `Because it feels like that bite went to the bone.'

`I wouldn't worry too much, commander,' said Cheery. `The big Koom Valley storm was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.'

`It certainly is a lifetime if you were caught in it,' said Vimes. `This damn place is getting to me, I don't mind admitting it.'

By now the rest of the squad had caught up. Sally and Detritus were visibly suffering from the heat. The vampire sat down in the shade of a big rock without saying anything. Brick lay down by the icy stream and stuck his head in it.

`I'm afraid I'm not much help here, sir,' said Angua. `I can smell dwarf, but that's about it. There's just too much damn water everywhere!'

`Maybe we won't need your nose,' said Vimes. He unslung the tube that contained Sybil's sketch, unrolled the drawing and pinned the ends together.

`Give me a hand with this, will you, Cheery?' he said. `Everyone else, get some rest. And don't laugh.'

He lowered the circlet of mountains over his head. There was a cough from Angua, which he pretended to ignore.

`Okay,' said Vimes, turning the stiff paper to get the mountains lined up just above their pencilled outlines. `That's Copperhead over there and Cori Celesti over there ... and they line up pretty well against the drawing. We're practically on top of it already!'