Granny dived after her, and heard her skirt rip as the pocket tore. The poker she'd brought along whirred away and clanked against one of the Dancers.
There was a series of jerks and tings as the hobnails tore out of her boots and sped toward the stones.
No iron could go through the stones, no iron at all.
Granny was already racing over the turf when she realized what that meant. But it didn't matter. She'd made a choice.
There was a feeling of dislocation, as directions danced and twirled around. And then snow underfoot. It was white. It had to be white, because it was snow. But patterns of colour moved across it, reflecting the wild dance of the permanent aurora in the sky
Diamanda was struggling. Her footwear was barely suitable for a city summer, and certainly not for a foot of snow. Whereas Granny Weatherwax's boots, even without their hobnails, could have survived a trot across lava.
Even so, the muscles that were propelling them had been doing it for too long. Diamanda was outrunning her.
More snow was falling, out of a night sky. There was a ring of riders waiting a little way from the stones, with the Queen slightly ahead. Every witch knew her, or the shape of her.
Diamanda tripped and fell, and then managed to bring herself up to a kneeling position.
Granny stopped.
The Queen's horse whinnied.
“Kneel before your Queen, you,” said the elf. She was wearing red, with a copper crown in her hair.
“Shan't. Won't,” said Granny Weatherwax.
“You are in my kingdom, woman,” said the Queen. “You do not come or go without the leave of me. You will kneel!”
“I come and go without the leave of anyone,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Never done it before, ain't starting now.”
She put a hand on Diamanda's shoulder.
“These are your elves,” she said. “Beautiful, ain't they?”
The warriors must have been more than two meters tall. They did not wear clothes so much as items strung together - scraps of fur, bronze plates, strings of brightly coloured feathers. Blue and green tattoos covered most of their exposed skin. Several of them held drawn bows, the tips of their arrows following Granny's every move.
Their hair massed around their heads like a halo, thick with grease. And although their faces were indeed the most beautiful Diamanda had ever seen, it was beginning to creep over her that there was something subtly wrong, some quirk of expression that did not quite fit.
“The only reason we're still alive now is that we're more fun alive than dead,” said Granny's voice behind her.
“You know you shouldn't listen to the crabbed old woman,” said the Queen. “What can she offer?”
“More than snow in summertime,” said Granny. “Look at their eyes. Look at their eyes.”
The Queen dismounted.
“Take my hand, child,” she said.
Diamanda stuck out a hand gingerly. There was something about the eyes. It wasn't the shape or the colour. There was no evil glint. But there was . . .
. . . a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said:
And the choice is not yours.
She tried to pull her hand away.
“Get out of her mind, old crone.”
Granny's face was running with sweat.