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The look of mild panic took up its familiar place on Simon's face. He gave Esk a pleading glance as Treatle took the reins from his hands, but she ignored him.
o;Oh bugger,” he said, under his breath. “Hey! You!”
Granny Weatherwax was in trouble.
First of all, she decided, she should never have allowed Hilta to talk her into borrowing her broomstick. It was elderly, erratic, would fly only at night and even then couldn't manage a speed much above a trot.
Its lifting spells had worn so thin that it wouldn't even begin to operate until it was already moving at a fair lick. It was, in fact, the only broomstick ever to need bump-starting.
And it was while Granny Weatherwax, sweating and cursing, was running along a forest path holding the damn thing at shoulder height for the tenth time that she had found the bear trap.
The second problem was that a bear had found it first. In fact this hadn't been too much of a problem because Granny, already in a bad temper, hit it right between the eyes with the broomstick and it was now sitting as far away from her as it was possible to get in a pit, and trying to think happy thoughts.
It was not a very comfortable night and the morning wasn't much better for the party of hunters who, around dawn, peered over the edge of the pit.
“About time, too,” said Granny. “Get me out.”
The startled heads withdrew and Granny could hear a hasty whispered conversation. They had seen the hat and broomstick.
Finally a bearded head reappeared, rather reluctantly, as if the body it was attached to was being pushed forward.
“Um,” it began, “look, mother -”
“Im not a mother,” snapped Granny. “I'm certainly not your mother, if you ever had mothers, which I doubt. If I was your mother I'd have run away before you were born.”
“It's only a figure of speech,” said the head reproachfully.
“It's a damned insult is what it is!”
There was another whispered conversation.
“If I don't get out,” said Granny in ringing tones, “there will be Trouble. Do you see my hat, eh? Do you see it?”
The head reappeared.
“That's the whole point, isn't it?” it said. “I mean, what will there be if we let you out? It seems less risky all round if we just sort of fill the pit in. Nothing personal, you understand.”
Granny realized what it was that was bothering her about the head.
“Are you kneeling down?” she said accusingly. “You're not, are you! You're dwarves!”
Whisper, whisper.
“Well, what about it?” asked the head defiantly. “Nothing wrong with that, is there? What have you got against dwarves?”
“Do you know how to repair broomsticks?”
“Magic broomsticks?”
“Yes!”
Whisper, whisper.
“What if we do?”
“Well, we could come to some arrangement . . . .”
The dwarf halls rang to the sound of hammers, although mainly for effect. Dwarves found it hard to think without the sound of hammers, which they found soothing, so well-off dwarves in the clerical professions paid goblins to hit small ceremonial anvils, just to maintain the correct dwarvish image.
