Animals noticed them too. At the very moment the Queen stepped onto the Chalk, the hares on the downs had turned and frozen, whilst the owls out hunting had soared higher, sensing the unwelcome presence of another predator.
Humans, however, were usually the last to notice anything. Which made them so much more fun . . .
Apart from a glow above a mound on the hillside and a distant noise of roistering that the Queen recognized as being the usual sounds of the Nac Mac Feegle, there had been nothing so far to trouble the first elf incursion into the Discworld for many years, and the elves had begun to enjoy themselves. They had caroused through a couple of villages, letting out cows, upturning carts, turning the milk in the churns sour, spoiling a cask of ale and generally amusing themselves with such trifles. But the growing little town below promised all sorts of entertainment for elves who had been denied the pleasures of a raid for far too long.
Apart from the delicate tinkling of myriad bells attached to the harnesses of the raiding party’s black horses, there was silence as the elves waited for their Queen to give the signal.
She raised her arm.
But before she could do anything, suddenly, screaming through the air, there came a noise as though someone was killing a gigantic pig.
It was a sound which enveloped the whole of the Chalk. A screaming whistle which screeched around the hills, setting everyone’s teeth on edge. Down in the valley, the air now seemed to be full of fire as a huge iron monster tore along the silvery trail towards the town, clouds of steam marking its path.
The elves reeled, panic spreading rapidly from elf to elf as they shrank from the noise. From the sound. From the very scent of iron in the air.
Nonchalantly Of the Lathe the Swarf jumped down from the saddle, used his teeth to steal a stone knife from the guard, whose hands were now covering his pointy ears in an effort to block out the sound, and swiftly sliced through his bonds.
‘Told you. Iron Horse, that is,’ he said importantly. ‘Last train into Twoshirts is that. That’s where goblins work. With steel and iron.’
The Queen hadn’t flinched. She knew that. Some of the others had, but she could deal with them later – no elf should show fear in front of his queen. But in her mind, she thought: Train? It’s big. It’s iron, and we don’t know about it. And what we don’t know about it could get us killed. ‘How can we tame it?’ she demanded. ‘More importantly, can we make it ours? What grief we could make with something like that!’
Peaseblossom – a calm Peaseblossom, seemingly impervious to the general sense of terror among the elves – was at her elbow and smiled; a smile the Queen didn’t like. It cut through the dramatic style of the face he had chosen to wear, his eyes cold and merciless. He said, ‘We can torment the goblins until they tell us how to control it. Then they can do it for us.’
‘They won’t,’ said Of the Lathe the Swarf, giving Peaseblossom a dirty look. ‘Why should they?’
Peaseblossom reached down to grab the goblin, and Of the Lathe the Swarf reacted quickly, thrusting his small hands into his pockets and throwing a shower of silvery scraps over the elf. Peaseblossom screamed in pain as he fell from his horse.
The goblin laughed as the other elves hastily backed away. ‘Forgot what’s in my pockets, Mr Pee-pee flower? Told you about swarf, I did. Part of my name. Hurts, does it? Touch clever goblin these days, nasty things happens. Especially to elves.’ He pointed down at Peaseblossom, whose glamour had completely deserted him under the onslaught of the shower of iron filings.
The elf lay writhing on the grass, a small, weak, pathetic creature, crying from the pain.
‘Funny, no?’ said the goblin. ‘In this new world, little things like swarf – and goblins – do matter.’
fn1 And heard her. For Mrs Earwig’s copious amount of jewellery announced the witch with such a cheerful jangle that it was as if it had ambitions to move from being a set of charms and amulets to being a full instrumental fanfare.
fn2 Though a Feegle will cheerfully lie about almost anything, so Tiffany still went into any privy with her eyes peeled for flashes of Feegle; she had even once had a nightmare about a Feegle popping up out of the other hole of her parents’ two-holer.
CHAPTER 8
The Baron’s Arms