The trip out to Lancre had been almost uneventful. Alice had latched on to a party of Dwarfs heading back into the Mountains, reasoning that if you were heading into bandit country, a dozen dwarfs would make as good an escort as any. For some reason, it had felt oddly fitting. Oh, there had been that ambush in the Rammerorks by old-time Gnolls, but it had served only to earn her the respect of her traveling companions. Gnolls, after all, were a life-form dwarfs hated second only after trolls, and a dozen axes assisted by Alice's shovel and pick had seen them off. Mimbrenoso Gnolls1, she had thought, identifying the warpaint on the bodies. The worst kind. It had been fun, in a way: a light workout. The Gnoll war-chief had sneered derisively at what he thought was a frightened woman ineffectually poking a shovel at him, right up until the moment where she had screamed and half-swung, half-thrust, and he had discovered the cutting blade of the spade had been honed to razor-sharpness. His body, slow to pick up the message that he was dead, had run on for a few paces, while Alice had given in to a strange primal instinct, followed the parabola of the severed head, and swung her spade just so, overhand, so that the flat of the shovel blade met the head with a dull thwackkk!, propelling it over the top of a net being carried between two more Gnolls who were now approaching her more circumspectly.
The war-cry Forty-love! escaped her lips, and a little part of Alice was disappointed that the head had not been returned to her so that she could hit it back again. Dismissing the thought, she dropped the shovel, took her pick in both hands, and ran at the nearest half of the net-carrying couple, who sought to retreat, but only tangled himself in his own net. His struggles to free himself were ended only by his discovery that Alice kept the pickaxe point every bit as sharp as the shovel-blade.
And then it ended, with Alice wondering where all that stuff about Forty-love had come from, and why it had been so vitally important to send the head over and not into the net.2
The Dwarfs had gone straight on to Copperhead, while Alice led her pack-horse into Lancre town. She stabled the horses and negociated for a room at the local inn, The Goat and Compasses, where she exhaled, relaxed, and unpacked her copy of Birdwhistle to plan her itinery for the next few weeks. She decided to go down to the bar later and engage a few locals in conversation to see if they could add to any of the tales in Birdwhistle's book, or give any further information as to likely sites.
She felt as a woman traveling alone she was safe enough: her archaeological tools had traveled with her, together with her sword and the Hublandish double-recurved hunting-bow. The pistol crossbows were a courtesy detail, and there were other useful devices secreted about her person that would remain secret for now. Besides, the Dwarfs appeared in awe of her after the episode with the gnolls, and there was nobody like a thirsty Dwarf for spreading a reputation. She checked the edge on her spade: still sharp, although a day or two of using it for its proper purpose would soon dull it down. She smelt the air: she knew she was going to like it here.
1 On Roundworld, Mimbrenoso Apaches practiced hospitality to travellers of the razor-and-red-hot-knife variety.
2 Tennis as we know it does not seem to be known on the Disc. Maybe Alice caught an inspiration particle at an otherwise inopportune time. She has a lot of the attributes of a Roundworld tennis player, after all.