‘Bread,’ the wolf replied temptingly. ‘Also milk. And a chance to get one back on the Yellowhairs. Interested?’

‘Bread?’ the elf repeated.

‘Bread,’ Fang confirmed. ‘And milk. And I’m not talking about the poxy little saucerfuls they deign to put out for you every once in a blue moon. I’m talking loaves and pints here. All the bread and milk you and your people need for a month, for just five minutes’ work. And no shoemaking.’

The elf squirmed restlessly under his paw. ‘Say, how do I know I can trust you?’ she said. ‘Wolf speaks with long pink tongue. You could be setting me up.’

The wolf yawned, making the elf shrink away instinctively. ‘Why should I bother?’ he said. ‘Wolfpack’s got no quarrel with you guys, even if you are thieving little scum. After all,’ he added, ‘it wasn’t us who cheated you out of your ancestral lands in exchange for beads and firewater.’

‘All right. First, you get your paw off me. Then we talk.’

Fang raised his paw a sixteenth of an inch; there was a faint gossamer blur, and the elf shot like a bullet into a patch of stinging nettles. ‘Shit,’ she muttered.

‘Happier now?’

‘Okay, Mister Wolf,’ said the elf, ‘you got yourself a deal. What you want me to do?’

Carefully the wolf explained, and a few minutes later the elf broke cover and whizzed in vertiginous zigzags across the open ground. When she was ten yards or so from the front door she changed course and started running round the cottage, whooping and yelling and shooting arrows from her tiny bow. It worked; almost immediately a gang of axe-wielding woodcutters burst out of the hydrangea bushes and let out after her, swinging wildly and chopping divots out of the lovingly manicured lawn. When the pursuers and the pursued were safely out of range, the wolf got up and trotted casually to the front door, which had been left ajar. He jumped up, put his forepaws against it and pushed until it swung open. And that, of course, was as far as he got. In the fraction of a second between the searing flash of blue light and the completion of the process of turning into a frog, the wolf had just enough time to reflect that not all old women who live alone in isolated cottages deep in the forest are kindly old grandmothers.

Chapter 2

They called him the Dwarf With No Name.

Where he came from, nobody knew, although since the same was true of all dwarves that didn’t really signify. Nobody cared much, either. But when he swaggered into town and strolled in under the swinging doors of the Buttercup Tea Rooms, small cuddly animals dived for cover and pixies dashed back to their workshops and started roughing out tiny coffins.

‘Milk,’ the dwarf growled, flinging a handful of chocolate money on the bar top. ‘Gimme the bottle.’

Mrs Twinklenose, the elderly hedgehog who’d run the Buttercup since the first prospectors struck treacle south of the Rio Gordo, picked up one of the coins, bit it, swore, spat, took the gold foil off, bit it again and slid a pint bottle along the polished surface of the bar. Without looking, the dwarf reached a hand up above his head, caught the bottle just as it cleared the edge, stuck a thumb through the foil and drank messily.

‘Another,’ he muttered, wiping milk drops from his ginger beard. ‘Keep ‘em coming till I say when.’

Mrs Twinklenose shrugged. ‘You got it, mister,’ she said. ‘There’s a couple of pigs been in here looking for you.’

The dwarf looked up. ‘Pigs?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know no pigs.’

‘Reckon they know you,’ the hedgehog said indifferently. ‘If you’re Dumpy the dwarf, that is.’

The dwarf reached up and balanced a half-empty milk bottle on the edge of the bar. ‘I ain’t heard that name in a long while,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In fact, I ain’t never heard it this side of the Candyfloss Mountains. Who did you say these pigs were?’

‘Just pigs,’ Mrs Twinklenose answered, polishing a glass against the plush fur of her tummy. ‘Never could tell them critters apart, and that’s the truth.’

‘Gimme another milk.’

Business was quiet in the Buttercup that afternoon. Customers who drifted in — thirsty ladybirds with trail-dust caking their wing-cases, fluffy pink bunnies from the treacle mines, the occasional stoat and weasel newly arrived on the riverboats and looking for some action, all the regular extras you’d normally expect to find in an alphabet-spaghetti Western — tended to swallow their drinks quickly and leave as soon as they set eyes on the dwarf. The heaped plate of currant buns grew staler by the minute, and the ice-cream cake melted into a sticky pool. The dwarf didn’t take any notice; he stayed where he was, slumped under a bar stool, methodically gulping down the house semi-skimmed by the pint. Several times Mrs Twinklenose tried to suggest politely that since there weren’t any other customers, she’d quite like to close up for the day, but the dwarf proved resolutely hint-proof and silent. It was nearly dark when he looked up, pushed his hood back and said, ‘These pigs.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Did they happen to mention when they’d be back?’

Mrs Twinklenose shook her head, accidentally impaling a dozen sticky buns on her neck spines. ‘Never said nothing to me. You could maybe ask over at the hotel or the livery stable.’

‘Nope.’ The dwarf tilted back his head, drained the last drop out of the bottle and licked a few white globules out of his moustache. ‘Reckon I’ll stay here, in case I miss them. You got any better stuff than this? This ain’t fit to go on a pixie’s cornflakes.’

Reluctantly Mrs Twinklenose reached under the counter and produced a pint of gold-top, the condensation misting its sides. ‘Full cream’s extra,’ she said without hope. The dwarf nodded and tossed her some more coins, but she could tell by the thunk they made on the bar top that they were phoney; solid gold, not chocolate at all. She sighed and dropped them in the spittoon.

The dwarf sniffed, his nose wrinkling; then he drained his milk, wiped the tip of his nose and stood up. A moment later the door swung open. Trotters pecked tentatively at the floorboards. Someone snuffled and cleared his throat.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the smaller of the two pigs, ‘but are you Dumpy the dwarf?’

The dwarf turned slowly round, his thumbs tucked inside his belt-buckle, ‘Maybe I am,’ he drawled, ‘and maybe I ain’t. Who wants to know?’

The two pigs exchanged nervous glances. ‘He’s taller than I thought he’d be,’ whispered the bigger pig.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ his colleague hissed back. ‘And for crying out loud don’t let him hear you say…’ The pig glanced up, then down, and realised that the dwarf was staring at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stuttered, ‘you’ve got to excuse my brother, he’s only ever lived with pigs, he doesn’t know how to behave around regular people.’

‘Who’re you callin’ regular, friend?’

The pig became pinker than usual, until he looked like a ten-year-old girl’s idea of a chic colour-scheme. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘can’t we please start again? My name’s Julian, this is Desmond, we’ve got another brother called Eugene. We live out on the other side of the Big Forest. Can we buy you a drink?’

The dwarf leaned against the side of the bar and folded his arms. ‘Reckon you can, at that,’ he said affably. ‘Milk.’

Mrs Twinklenose produced another bottle and slid it across the counter. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Because they’re with you, it’s okay. But usually we don’t serve his kind in here. Except,’ she added meaningfully, ‘as scratchings. Just so as you know.’

‘They’re with me,’ the dwarf grunted, spearing his thumb through the foil and spurting milk up his nose. ‘All right, boys, what can I do for you?’

Julian swallowed. He felt as if he had an apple in his mouth. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s like this.’