The wind soughed across the moors on the edge of Lancre, and hissed through the heather.

Around some old mounds, half buried in brambles, it shook the wet branches of a single thorn tree, and shredded the curling smoke that drifted up through the roots.

There was a single scream.

Down below, the Nac mac Feegle were doing their best, but strength is not the same as weight and mass and even with pixies hanging on to every limb and Big Aggie herself sitting on Verence’s chest he was still hard to control.

“I think mebbe the drink was a wee bitty too trackle?” said Big Aggie’s man, looking down at Verence’s bloodshot eyes and foaming mouth. “I’m sayin’, mebbe it was wrong jus’ giving him fifty times more than we tak’. He’s not used to it…”

Big Aggie shrugged.

In the far corner of the barrow half a dozen pixies backed out of the hole they’d hacked into the next chamber, dragging a sword. For bronze, it was quite well preserved—the old chieftains of Lancre reckoned to be buried with their weapons in order to fight their enemies in the next world, and since you didn’t become a chieftain of ancient Lancre without sending a great many enemies to the next world, they liked to take weapons that could be relied upon to last.

Under the direction of the old pixie, they maneuvered it within reached of Verence’s flailing hand.

“Are ye scrat?” said Big Aggie’s man. “Yin! Tan! Tetra!”

The Feegle leapt away in every direction. Verence rose almost vertically, bounced off the roof, grabbed the sword, hacked madly until he’d cut a hole through to the outside world, and escaped into the night.

The pixies clustered around the walls of the barrow turned their eyes to their Kelda.

Big Aggie nodded.

“Big Aggie says ye’d best see him come to nae harm,” said the old pixie.

A thousand small but very sharp weapons waved in the smoky air.

“Hoons!”

“Kill ’em a’!”

“Nac mac Feegle!”

A few seconds later the chamber was empty.