"Yes, they will have big headaches later on! We are werewolves, Ankh-Morpork! Quite hard to stop!"
"You said that you - "
"Your Mister Sleeps could run much faster than you, Ankh-Morpork!"
"Fast enough?"
"No! And the man with the little black hat could fight better than you, too!"
"Well enough?"
"No!" shouted Wolfgang cheerfully.
Vimes growled. Even assassins didn"t deserve that kind of death. "It"ll be sunset soon!" he shouted.
"Yes! I lied about the sunset!"
"Well, wake me up at dawn, then. I could do with the sleep!"
"You will freeze to death, Civilized Man!"
"Good!" Vimes looked around at the other trees. Even if he could jump to one, they were all conifers, painful to land in and easy to fall out of.
"Ah, this must be the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour, yes?"
"No, that was just irony," Vimes shouted, still looking for an arboreal escape route. "You"ll know when we"ve got on to the famous Ankh-Morpork sense of humour when I start talking about breasts and farting, you smug bastard!"
So, what were his options? Well, he could stay in the tree and die, or run for it and die. Of the two, dying in one piece seemed better.
Y OU"RE DOING VERY WELL FOR A MAN OF YOUR AGE.
Death was sitting on a higher branch of the tree.
"Are you following me or what?"
A RE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE WORDS "DEATH WAS HIS CONSTANT COMPANION"?
"But I don"t usually see you!"
P OSSIBLY YOU ARE IN A STATE OF HEIGHTENED AWARENESS CAUSED BY LACK OF FOOD, SLEEP AND BLOOD?
"Are you going to help me?"
W ELL... . Y ES .
"When?"
E R, WHEN THE PAIN IS TOO MUCH TO BEAR . Death hesitated, and then went on. E VEN AS I SAY IT I REALIZE THAT THIS ISN"T THE ANSWER YOU WERE LOOKING FOR, HOWEVER.
The sun was near the horizon now, getting big and red.
Racing the sun... That was another Uberwald sport, wasn"t it? Be home safe before the sun sets.
Half a mile or more, through deep snow on rising ground.
Someone was climbing up the tree. He felt it shake. He looked down. In the cold blue gloom a naked man was quietly pulling himself from branch to branch.
Vimes was enraged. They weren"t supposed to do this!