Hogfather

away.
    Realization dawned.
    “I can’t ride that!” said Susan.
    W HY NOT ? Y OU HAVE HAD AN EDUCATION .
    “Enough to know that pigs don’t let people ride them!”
    M ERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF .
    Susan glanced ahead. The snow field had a cut-off look.
    Y OU MUST , said her grandfather’s voice in her head. W HEN HE REACHES THE EDGE THERE HE WILL STAND AT BAY . H E MUST NOT . U NDERSTAND ? T HESE ARE NOT REAL DOGS . I F THEY CATCH HIM HE WON’T JUST DIE, HE WILL…NEVER BE …
    Susan leapt. For a moment she floated through the air, dress streaming behind her, arms outstretched…
    Landing on the animal’s back was like hitting a very, very firm chair. It stumbled for a moment and then righted itself.
    Susan’s arms clung to its neck and her face was buried in its sharp bristles. She could feel the heat under her. It was like riding a furnace. And it stank of sweat, and blood, and pig. A lot of pig.
    There was a lack of landscape in front of her.
    The boar plowed into the snow on the edge of the drop, almost flinging her off, and turned to face the hounds.
    There were a lot of them. Susan was familiar with dogs. They’d had them at home like other houses had rugs. And these weren’t that big floppy sort.
    She rammed her heels in and grabbed a pig’s ear in each hand. It was like holding a pair of hairy shovels.
    “Turn left!” she screamed, and hauled.
    She put everything into the command. It promised tears before bedtime if disobeyed.
    To her amazement the boar grunted, pranced on the lip of the precipice and scrambled away, the hounds floundering as they turned to follow.
    This was a plateau. From here it seemed to be all edge, with no way down except the very simple and terminal one.
    The dogs were flying at the boar’s heels again.
    Susan looked around in the gray, lightless air. There had to be somewhere, some way…
    There was.
    It was a shoulder of rock, a giant knife edge connecting this plain to the hills beyond. It was sharp and narrow, a thin line of snow with chilly depths on either side.
    It was better than nothing. It was nothing with snow on it.
    The boar reached the edge and hesitated. Susan put her head down and dug her heels in again.
    Snout down, legs moving like pistons, the beast plunged out onto the ridge. Snow sprayed up as its trotters sought for purchase. It made up for lack of grace by sheer manic effort, legs moving like a tap dancer climbing a moving staircase that was heading down.
    “That’s right, that’s right, that’s—”
    A trotter slipped. For a moment the boar seemed to stand on two, the others scrabbling at icy rock. Susan flung herself the other way, clinging to the neck, and felt the dragging abyss under her feet.
    There was nothing there.
    She told herself, He’ll catch me if I fall, he’ll catch me if I fall, he’ll catch me if I fall …
    Powdered ice made her eyes sting. A flailing trotter almost slammed against her head.
    An older voice said, No, he won’t. If I fall now I don’t deserve to be caught .
    The creature’s eye was inches away. And then she knew…
    …Out of the depths of eyes of all but the most unusual of animals comes an echo. Out of the dark eye in front of her, someone looked back…
    A foot caught the rock and she concentrated her whole being on it, kicking herself upward in one last effort. Pig and woman rocked for a moment and then a trotter caught a footing and the boar plunged forward along the ridge.
    Susan risked a look behind.
    The dogs still moved oddly. There was a slight jerkiness about their movements, as if they flowed from position to position rather than moved by ordinary muscles.
    Not dogs, she thought. Dog shapes.
    There was another shock underfoot. Snow flew up. The world tilted. She felt the shape of the boar change when its muscles bunched and sent it soaring as a slab of ice and rock came away and began the long slide into darkness.
    Susan was thrown off when the creature landed, and tumbled into deep snow. She flailed around madly, expecting at any minute to begin sliding.
    Instead her hand found a snow-encrusted branch. A few feet away the boar lay on its side, steaming and panting.
    She pulled herself upright. The spur here had widened out into a hill, with a few frosted trees on it.
    The dogs had reached the gap and were milling round, struggling to prevent themselves slipping.
    They could easily clear the distance, she could see. Even the boar had managed it with her on its