Then it fell to its knees, clenched its teeth and turned its face upwards, like a man tortured beyond his wits, and beseeching the gods of fortune and the tempest, screamed:
"That! Is!! Not!!! My!!!! Cow!!!!!"
The cry echoed around the cavern and broke through mere rock, so great was the force behind it, melted mere mountains, screamed across the miles ... And in the sombre nursery Young Sam stopped crying and looked around, suddenly happy but puzzled, and said, to his despairing mother"s surprise, "Co!"
The dwarfs backed away down the slope. Overhead, the vurms were still pouring in, outlining the invader against their greenwhite glow.
"Where"s my cow? Is that my cow?" it demanded, following them.
In every part of the cavern dwarfs had stopped work. There was hesitancy in the air. This was only one man, after all, and the thought in many minds was: what is someone else going to do about this? It had not yet progressed to: what am Igoing to do about this? Besides, where was the cow? There were cows down here?
"It goes, "Neigh!" It is a horse! That"s not my cow!"
Dwarfs looked at one another. Where was the horse, then? Did you hear a horse? Who else is down here?
The four guards had retreated to the cavern for advice and reorientation. There were a number of deep-downers there, clustered in frantic conversation and watching the approaching man.
In Vimes"s strobing vision there were fluffy bunnies, too, and quacky ducks...
He had dropped to his knees again, and was staring at the ground, and crying.
Half a dozen shrouded dark guards stepped out from the group. One of them carried, ahead of him, a flame weapon, and advanced on the figure cautiously. The flame of its little pilot light was the brightest thing in the cave.
The figure looked up, the light reflected red in its eyes, and growled: "Is that my cow?"
Then it threw the axe overarm, full at the guard. It struck the flame weapon, which exploded.
"It goes, "Hruuugh!""
"Hg!!" said Young Sam, as his mother hugged him and stared blankly at the wall.
Burning oil fountained across the dark. Some of it splashed on Vimes"s arm. He slapped at it. There was pain, intense pain, but he knew this only in the same way that he knew the moon existed. It was there, but it was a long way off and didn"t affect him very much.
"That"s not my cow!" he said, standing up.
He strode on now, over the burning oil, through red-edged smoke, past the dwarfs rolling desperately on the ground to put out the flames. He seemed to be looking for something.
Two more guards ran at him. Without appearing to notice them, Vimes crouched and whirled the sword around in a circle. A little
lamb rocked in front of his eyes.
A dwarf with greater presence of mind than the others had found a crossbow and was taking aim when he had to stop to brush away the bats streaming past him. He raised the bow again, looked round at a noise like two slabs of meat being slapped together, and was picked up and thrown across the cave by a naked woman. An astonished miner swung his axe at the smiling girl, who vanished in a cloud of bats.
There was a lot of yelling going on. Vimes paid it no attention. Dwarfs were running through the smoke. He merely slapped them aside. He had found what he was seeking.
"Is that my cow? It goes, "Mooooo!""
Picking up another fallen axe, Vimes started to run. "Yes! That"s my cow!"
The grags were behind a ring of guards, in a frantic huddle, but Vimes"s eyes were on fire and there were flames streaming from his helmet. A dwarf holding a flame-thrower threw it down and fled.
"Hooray, hooray, it"s a wonderful day, for I have found my cow!"
... and perhaps that, it was said later, was what did it. Against the berserker, there is no defence. They had sworn to fight to the death, but not to this death. The slowest four guards went down to the axe and the sword, the others scattered and ran.
And now Vimes paused in front of the cowering old dwarfs, raising the weapons over his head And halted, rocking like a statue
Night, for ever. But within it, a city, shadowy and only real in certain ways. The entity cowered in its alley, where the mist was rising. This could not have happened!