'Chose it yourself, did you? No, only joking. You can't do brains.'
'I've got a dithtant couthin at Untheen Univerthity, you know.'
'Really? What's he do there?'
'Floatth around in hith jar,' said Igor proudly. 'Thall I thow you the holy water thellar? The old marthter built up a very good collection.'
'Sorry? A vampire collected holy water?' said Magrat.
'I think I'm beginning to understand,' said Nanny. 'He was a sportsman, right?'
'Egthactly!'
'And a good sportsman always gives the valiant prey a decent chance,' said Nanny. 'Even if it means having a cellar of Chateau Nerf de Pope. Sounds an intelligent bird, your old boy. Not like this new one. He's just clever.'
'I don't follow you,' said Magrat.
'Being killed's nothing to a vampire,' said Nanny. 'They always find a way of coming back. Everyone knows that, who knows anything about vampires. If they're not too hard to kill and it's all a bit of an adventure for people, well, like as not they'll just stake him or chuck him in the river and go home. Then he has a nice restful decade or so, bein' dead, and comes back from the grave and away he goes again. That way he never gets totally wiped out and the lads of the village get some healthy exercise.'
'The Magpyrs will come after us,' said Magrat, clutching the baby to her. 'They'll see we're not in Lancre and they'll know we couldn't have gone down to the plains. They'll find the smashed coach, too. They'll find us, Nanny.'
Nanny looked at the array of jars and bottles, and the stakes neatly organized in order of size.
'It'll take them a little while,' she said. 'We've got time to get... prepared.'
She turned around with a bottle of blessed water in one hand, a crossbow loaded with a wooden bolt, and a bag of musty lemons in her mouth.
'Eg oo it I ay,' she said.
'Pardon?' said Magrat.
Nanny spat out the lemons.
'Now we'll try things my way,' she said. 'I'm not good at thinkin' like Granny but I'm bloody good at actin' like me. Headology's for them as can handle it. Let's kick some bat.'
The wind soughed across the moors on the edge of Lancre, and hissed through the heather.
Around some old mounds, half buried in brambles, it shook the wet branches of a single thorn tree, and shredded the curling smoke that drifted up through the roots.
There was a single scream.
Down below, the Nac mac Feegle were doing their best, but strength is not the same as weight and mass and even with pixies hanging on to every limb and Big Aggie herself sitting on
Verence's chest he was still hard to control.
'I think mebbe the drink was a wee bitty too trackle?' said Big Aggie's man, looking down at Verence's bloodshot eyes and foaming mouth. 'I'm sayin', mebbe it was wrong jus' giving him fifty times more than we tak'. He's not used to it...'
Big Aggie shrugged.
In the far corner of the barrow half a dozen pixies backed out of the hole they'd hacked into the next chamber, dragging a sword. For bronze, it was quite well preserved - the old chieftains of Lancre reckoned to be buried with their weapons in order to fight their enemies in the next world, and since you didn't become a chieftain of ancient Lancre without sending a great many enemies to the next world, they liked to take weapons that could be relied upon to last.
Under the direction of the old pixie, they manoeuvred it within reach of Verence's flailing hand.
'Are ye scrat?' said Big Aggie's man. 'Yin! Tan! Tetra!'
The Feegle leapt away in every direction. Verence rose almost vertically, bounced off the roof, grabbed the sword, hacked madly until he'd cut a hole through to the outside world, and escaped into the night.
The pixies clustered around the walls of the barrow turned their eyes to their Kelda.