'I just think you are an amazingly lucky man, Mr Oats.'
On the other hand... here was someone who'd been told about Granny Weatherwax, and had still walked through these woods that scared him stiff to see her, even though she was possibly a cockroach or a boiled lobster. No one in Lancre ever came to see Granny unless they wanted something. Oh, sometimes they came with little presents (because one day they'd want something again), but they generally made sure she was out first. There was more to Mr Oats than met the eye. There had to be.
A couple of centaurs burst out of the bushes ahead of them and cantered away down the path. Oats grabbed a tree.
'They were running around when I came up!' he said. 'Are they usual?'
'I've never seen them before,' said Agnes. 'I think they're from Uberwald.'
'And the horrible little blue goblins? One of them made a very unpleasant gesture at me!'
'Don't know about them at all.'
'And the vampires? I mean, I knew that things were different here, but really-'
'Vampires?!' shouted Agnes. 'You saw the vampires? Last night?'
'Well, I mean, yes, I studied them at length at the seminary, but I never thought I'd see them standing around talking about drinking blood and things, really, I'm surprised the King allows it-'
'And they didn't... affect your mind?'
'I did have that terrible migraine. Does that count? I thought it was the prawns.'
A cry rang through the woods. It seemed to
have many components, but mostly it sounded as though a turkey was being throttled at the other end of a tin tube.
'And what the heck was that?' shouted Oats.
Agnes looked around, bewildered. She'd grown up in the Lancre woods. Oh, you got strange things sometimes, passing through, but generally they contained nothing more dangerous than other people. Now, in this tarnished light, even the trees were starting to look suspicious.
'Let's at least get down to Bad Ass,' she said, tugging at Oats's hand.
'You what?'
Agnes sighed. 'It's the nearest village.'
'Bad Ass?'
'Look, there was a donkey, and it stopped in the middle of the river, and it wouldn't go backwards or forwards,' said Agnes, as patiently as possible. Lancre people got used to explaining this. 'Bad Ass. See? Yes, I know that "Disobedient Donkey" might have been more... acceptable, but-'
The horrible cry echoed around the woods again. Agnes thought of all the things that were rumoured to be in the mountains, and dragged Oats after her like a badly hitched cart.
Then the sound was right in front of them and, at a turn in the lane, a head emerged from a bush.
Agnes had seen pictures of an ostrich.
So... start with one of them, but make the head and neck in violent yellow, and give the head a huge ruff of red and purple feathers and two big round eyes, the pupils of which jiggled drunkenly as the head moved back and forth...
'Is that some sort of local chicken?' warbled Oats.
'I doubt it,' said Agnes. One of the long feathers had a tartan pattern.
The cry started again, but was strangled halfway through when Agnes stepped forward, grabbed the thing's neck and pulled.
A figure rose from the undergrowth, dragged up by his arm.
'Hodgesaargh?'