Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(94)

Wheezing and farting nervously, Gaspode moved at a shambling run through the Shades and saw, with a heart that sank even further, a knot of dogs ahead of him.

He pushed and squirmed through the tangle of legs.

Angua was at bay in a ring of teeth.

The barking stopped. A couple of large dogs moved aside, and Big Fido stepped delicately forward.

'So,' he said, 'what we have here is not a dog at all. A spy, perhaps? There's always an enemy. Everywhere. They look like dogs but, inside, they're not dogs. What were you doing?'

Angua growled.

Oh lor', thought Gaspode. She could probably take down a few of 'em, but these are street dogs.

He wriggled under a couple of bodies and emerged in the circle. Big Fido turned his red-eyed gaze on him.

'And Gaspode, too,' said the poodle. 'I might have known.'

'You leave her alone,' said Gaspode.

'Oh? You'll fight us all for her, will you?' said Big Fido.

'I got the Power,' said Gaspode. 'You know that. I'll do it. I'll use it.'

'There's no time for this!' snarled Angua.

'You won't do it,' said Big Fido.

'I'll do it.'

'Every dog's paw'll be turned against you—'

'I got the Power, me. You back off, all of you.'

'What power?' said Butch. He was drooling.

'Big Fido knows,' said Gaspode. 'He's studied. Now, me an' her are going to walk out of here, right? Nice and slow.'

The dogs looked at Big Fido.

'Get them,' he said.

Angua bared her teeth.

The dogs hesitated.

'A wolf's got a jaw four times stronger'n any dog,' said Gaspode. 'And that's just a ordinary wolf—'

'What are you all?' snapped Big Fido. 'You're the pack! No mercy! Get them!'

But a pack doesn't act like that, Angua had said. A pack is an association of free individuals. A pack doesn't leap because it's told – a pack leaps because every individual, all at once, decides to leap.

A couple of the bigger dogs crouched . . .

Angua moved her head from side to side, waiting for the first assault . . .

A dog scraped the ground with its paw . . .

Gaspode took a deep breath and adjusted his jaw.

Dogs leapt.

'SIT!' said Gaspode, in passable Human.

The command bounced back and forth around the alley, and fifty per cent of the animals obeyed. In most cases, it was the hind fifty per cent. Dogs in mid-spring found their treacherous legs coiling under them—

'BAD DOG!'

—and this was followed by an overpowering sense of racial shame that made them cringe automatically, a bad move in mid-air.

Gaspode glanced up at Angua as bewildered dogs rained around them.

'I said I got the Power, didn't I?' he said. 'Now run!'

Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human things – unnecessary intelligence, names, a desire to belong, and a twitching inferiority complex. All dogs dream wolf dreams, and know they're dreaming of biting their Maker. Every dog knows, deep in his heart, that he is a Bad Dog . . .

But Big Fido's furious yapping broke the spell.

'Get them!'

Angua galloped over the cobbles. There was a cart at the other end of the alley. And, beyond the cart, a wall.

'Not that way!' whined Gaspode.

Dogs were piling along behind them. Angua leapt on to the cart.

'I can't get up there!' said Gaspode. 'Not with my leg!'

She jumped down, picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and leapt back. There was a shed roof behind the cart, a ledge above that and – a few tiles slid under her paws and tumbled into the alley – a house.

'I feel sick!'

'Futupf!'

Angua ran along the ridge of the roof and jumped the alley on the other side, landing heavily in some ancient thatch.

'Aargh!'

'Futupf!'

But the dogs were following them. It wasn't as though the alleys of the Shades were very wide.

Another narrow alley passed below.

Gaspode swung perilously from the werewolf's jaws.

'They're still behind us!'

Gaspode shut his eyes as Angua bunched her muscles.

'Oh, no! Not Treacle Mine Road!'

There was a burst of acceleration followed by a moment of calmness. Gaspode shut his eyes . . .

. . . Angua landed. Her paws scrabbled on the wet roof for a moment. Slates cascaded off into the street, and then she was bounding up to the ridge.

'You can put me down right now,' said Gaspode. 'Right now this minute! Here they come!'

The leading dogs arrived on the opposite roof, saw the gap, and tried to turn. Claws slid on the tiles.

Angua turned, fighting for breath. She'd tried to avoid breathing, during that first mad dash. She'd have breathed Gaspode.

They heard Big Fido's irate yapping.

'Cowards! That's not twenty feet across! That's nothing to a wolf!'

The dogs measured the distance doubtfully. Sometimes a dog has to get right down and ask himself: what species am I?