The Fifth Elephant

hands, Your Grace.”
    Vimes glanced up at the inn sign. Crudely painted on the boards was a large red head, complete with trunk and tusks.
    “This is the Inn of the Fifth Elephant,” said Inigo. “You left the law behind when we passed Lancre, Your Grace. Here it’s the lore . What you keep is what you can. What’s yours is what you fight for. The fittest survive.”
    “Ankh-Morpork is pretty lawless, too, Mister Skimmer.”
    “Ankh-Morpork has many laws. It’s just that people don’t obey them. And that, Your Grace, is quite a different bowl of fat, mhm, mmm.”
    They set off in convoy. Detritus sat on the roof on the leading coach, which lacked a door and most of one side. The view was flat and white, a featureless expanse of snow.
    After a while they passed a clacks tower. Burn marks on one side of the stone base suggested that someone had thought that no news was good news, but the semaphore shutters were clacking and twinkling in the light.
    “The whole world is watching,” said Vimes.
    “But it’s never cared,” said Skimmer. “Up until now. And now it wants to rip the top off the country and take what’s underneath, mph, mhm.”
    Ah, thought Vimes, our killer clerk does have more than one emotion.
    “Ankh-Morpork has always tried to get on well with other nations,” said Sybil. “Well…these days, at least.”
    “I don’t think we exactly try , dear,” said Vimes. “It’s just that we found that—Why’re we stopping?”
    He pulled down the window.
    “What happening, Sergeant?”
    “Waiting for dese dwarfs, sir,” the troll called down.
    Several hundred dwarfs, four abreast, were trotting across the white plain toward them. There was, Vimes thought, something very determined about them.
    “Detritus?”
    “Yessir?”
    “Try not to look too troll-like, will you?
    “Tryin’ like hell, sir.”
    The column was abreast of them before someone barked the command to halt. A dwarf detached himself from the rest and walked over to the coach.
    “Ta’grdzk?” he bellowed.
    “Would you like me to take care of this, Your Grace?” said Inigo.
    “I’m the damn ambassador,” said Vimes. He stepped down.
    “Good morning, dwarf (indicating miscreant), I am Overseer Vimes of the Look.”
    Lady Sybil heard Inigo give a little groan.
    “Krz? Gr’dazak yad?”
    “Hang on, hang on, I know this one… I am sure you are a dwarf of no convictions. Let us shake our business, dwarf (indicating miscreant) .”
    “Yes, that will just about do it, I think,” said Inigo. “Mmm, mhm.”
    The senior dwarf had gone red in those areas of his face that could be seen behind the hair. The rest of the squad were taking a renewed interest in the coach.
    The leader took a deep breath.
    “D’kraha?”
    Cheery dropped down from the coach. Her leather skirt flapped in the wind.
    As one dwarf, the column swiveled to stare at her. Their leader went pop-eyed.
    “B’dan? K’raa! D’kraga ‘ha’ak’!”
    Vimes saw the expression that appeared on Cheery’s small round face.
    Above him there was a clunk as Detritus rested the loaded Piecemaker on the edge of the coach.
    “I know dat word he said to her,” he announced to the world. “It is not a good word. I do not want to hear dat word again.”
    “Well, this is all very jolly, mph, mhm,” said Inigo, getting down. “And now if everyone will just relax for a moment we might get out of here alive, mmm.”
    Vimes reached up and carefully pushed the end of Detritus’s crossbow toward a less threatening direction.
    Inigo talked very fast in what seemed to Vimes to be a torrent of perfect Dwarfish, although he was sure he heard the occasional “mmm.” He opened his leather case and produced a couple of documents affixed with big waxy seals. These were inspected with considerable suspicion. The dwarf pointed at Cheery and Detritus. Inigo flapped a hand impatiently, the universal symbol for dismissing that which was not important. More papers were examined.
    Eventually, with more universal body language meaning “I could do something bad to you but right now it’s just too much bother” the dwarf waved Inigo away, gave Vimes a look that suggested that, against all physical evidence, Vimes was beneath him, and strode back to his troops.
    An order was barked. The dwarfs set off again, leaving the road and heading off toward the forest.
    “Well, that all seems sorted out,” said Inigo, getting back into the coach. “Miss Littlebottom was a bit of a