The Urban Safari c9
Johanna took the last of her group of animal-hunters back into the Park to tidy up a few loose ends. She deployed a group to watch over the wood where the last baboons had gone to ground, then took the last few Assassins and Watchmen down to the picnic area where, she realised with a guilty start, two hapless Clowns were still stuck up a tree.
Vimes and his Watchmen supervised the rescue of the two Fools' Guild members, while Johanna compared notes with Ponder and Ridcully.
"Whet bothers me is thet there might be one, maybe two, more lions on the loose." she said. "I cen't trust this idiot Dibbler's record-keeping, end every bit of veldt-sense I've got is telling me there's still et least one out there"
"Typical Dibbler. He shows different numbers to different people." Ridcully agreed.
While one of the rescued clowns was content to let himself be wrapped in blankets and steered towards a hot mug of tea, the other staggered over to Johanna.
"Miss! Miss! There is another lioness. They're the ones without the manes? In the bushes over there. We could see her from the tree!"
"Thenk you." She said, kindly. Adding "People! One lest tesk! How many tranquiliser darts hev we left between us?"
The Assassins made a quick count. Precisely five darts remained, with none of the drug available for tipping more. Johanna nodded. They'd have to make every shot count, that was all. And if necessary…
"Mr Ridcully, we're running out of darts. I hate to say this, but if we fail to bring down this lest enimel, I'm relying on you to make a clean humane kill. I know you're a good enough hunter!"
"I won't fail you, m'dear." He assured her. "Been waitin' for this all day, if truth be told!"
He readied his crossbow.
Meanwhile, Vimes relaxed and reached for his cigar packet. As he was lighting a smoke, the lioness suddenly leapt out of the bushes. Straight at him, and running fast enough for two of the precious darts to miss completely.
Vimes was transfixed. He knew he had to get out of the way, but his legs weren't moving anything like fast enough, and his eyes were fixated on the sight of a charging lioness, whose jaws were opening… the roar and the stink of feral breath hit him like a hammer.
And then something cracked, ear-splittingly loudly, in the air in front of him. The lioness, mere feet away and rearing up to strike, incredibly cringed back. The ear-splitting crack happened again. The lioness retreated, snarling back with each crack… of the red-haired girl's whip. Stepping forwards, Johanna kept snapping her whip to left and right of the creature, whose ears flattened as it sought to get away from the ear-torturing noise. Vimes looked again. A second lioness emerged from bushes on the other side. Just as Johanna forced the first one to climb awkwardly onto one of the picnic tables, where it sat looking dazed and deafened, she turned her attention to the second, forcing it towards an unoccupied table , sparing an occasional whiplash to keep the first subdued, and steering the second up onto a tabletop.
"Bring the cage forward!" she snapped, without taking her eyes off the two lionesses.
As the cage was moved as near to the lions as it could possibly go, she whipped them off the tables and, with whip-cracks to alternate sides, guided them to run into the cage. The golem constable Dorfl shut the door and padlocked it, and she relaxed.
Vimes felt his legs turning to jelly. She came over to him, recoiling the whip.
"My ouma told me the noise of the whip does things to their ears that they cannot stand. You cen make them do your bidding just by exerting command and crecking the whip!"
"Sounds just like teaching." Vimes said, weakly. "It must have given you a funny feeling the first time you tried that?"
She smiled.
"Yes, Commender Vimes. It does!"
Vimes made a decision. He reached into his waist-pouch and brought out an unassigned Watch badge.
"Make that Mister Vimes" he said ."And, Gods help me and should you choose to accept it, you are now Special Constable Smith-Rhodes of the Watch."
She took the badge and saluted. "The first Essessin to become a Wetch member. I em honoured. Mister Vimes." she said.
"You've earned it. And Sybil would do a better job than that bloody animal of killing me, if I hadn't." he said, curtly.
Johanna turned, smiling, and saw the clown Bonzo regarding her with wide appraising eyes.
"Yes?" she said, inquisitively, half-expecting more praise.
"Well… er… nothing realy, miss. That was some trick with the lions, miss!"
"Thenk you."
"I was just trying to visualise what you'd look like in a leotard. And spangly tights. With that whip…."
Johanna's eyes narrowed. Her right hand rested on her whip.
The other clown, sensing danger, hastily cut in with
"Please, miss! He don't mean nothing kinky. It's just that he's been doing History of the Circus. He thinks the circus needs new acts to renew it and freshen it up, and your lion-taming thing hasn't been done before!"
His friend nodded frantically.
"It'd pull the punters in if it was done by a young lady, but not you!. Hence the leotard and the spanglies! Maybe a Ringmaster's top hat and frock coat to give her some gravitarse, distinguish her from the tightrope walkers! It's all about glamour, see, and a woman with a whip in complete control! The crfowds'll love it!"
"Hmmm…" Johanna thought, stroking her jaw.
"Look, come and esk for me et the Essessins' Guild, we're just next door, and we cen work something out. But the copyright on the ect is MINE, elright?"
"Yes, miss!" chorused the two clowns.
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As night fell, the last handful of free baboons clung, scared, tired, hungry and thirsty, to the reassuring greenery of the tree canopy. They had seen the rest of their phalange alternately doped, caged or killed outright, and had terrible memories of the huge dog-like creature, something more than just a mere animal, that had effortlessly killed the pack leader, whose body still remained torn and cold on the forest floor below.
And the humans were still out there, watching and waiting. There was no way out, and they knew it.
And now a new terror was descending from the skies.
It took the form of a flock of chittering black bird-like somethings, which sent a cloud of psychic terror out in front of them. In normal circumstances, a bat caught by a baboon would just be a brief crunchy snack, something to play with, maybe pull the wings off before killing it. But these bats were something other, something almost outside the collective experience of the phalange. The oldest surviving animal had a folk-memory, inherited from a grandsire, that some of the less stupid and more advanced humans could be shape-changers who could assume animal form at will. She dimly recalled, as a cub, being terrified at night by stories of the were-leopards, humans belonging to a tribal society who could assume leopard form at will, combining the power of animals with the malice of humans. Now the stories took new force. Were there were-humans here in this strange foreign land, capable of adopting animal form?
And then the bats attacked, pressing that cloud of bowel-emptying fear down on the baboons. In a panic, the youngest creature broke cover and leapt for the ground, followed by others.
And the growling of the terrible dog-like creature met them at ground level, forcing, directing, their panicked run across the grass to the cages.
The terrible cages that had contained them during the terrible weeks of the sea-voyage. The baboons had sworn they would never be caged again. But a certainty was growing that inside the cage was the only safe place. Herded by the sweeping, chittering, flotilla of bats and the running passes of the large killer dog, the baboons fought to be safe and inside.
The alpha female watched in horror as the dog-like creature writhed and changed shape and became a white-skinned human female with long yellow-white hair.
So there are shape-shifters among the humans!
The yellow-haired female bounded forward, heard a second human voice say They're all in the cage, Angua. I can't hear any heartbeats outside it!, then closed the cage door and swiftly snapped a padlock closed.
Where the bats had been stood a second, slighter, human female, this one with black hair. She paused, and said "tcchh!", then extended her arm for the last couple of bats to land on. They somehow shimmered, and we re-absorbed into her body.
Other human females, black-clad, ran forward with bundles of the extra optional skins that humans wore over their bare flesh. The two naked females dressed quickly, and were soon black-clad like the rest.
Let's call it a day now. I'll call up the golems to carry the cage.
What about… you know, the three we had to kill?
Miss Smith-Rhodes was fairly definite about those. They're to go on covered stretchers and be delivered to Mr Behemya's workshop. Just off Cunning Artificers. He knows what's needed, she said.
Oh, Chaim Behemya? The…
Well, in the state they're in, it's not as if Doughnut Jimmy could make a difference. I think I can see her point.
And the last active animal-hunters left the Park.
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The next morning, the aftermath began.