In the grey light of dawn the trolls made quick work of clearing the track ahead. As Moist watched, he suddenly saw creatures moving in the shadows, and then a sad little voice in the vicinity of his foot said, ‘Please don’t hurt us, please! We live here, we’re gnomes, we’re cobblers, it’s what we do in these woods. We make charcoal and other things for sale, turned wood, excellent wooden furniture, and we try not to be in anyone’s way, but the dwarfs have been marching and we think the bad times are coming again and we’re scared.’

There was a sigh, then the voice went on, ‘You must know it’s the little people who’re the last to be thought of when great tribes go to war. My name is Slam, I’m the speaker for all the rest who are in hiding in these hills because we know how to hide. It’s a skill we’ve perfected over the years. May we be of assistance?’

‘Gnomes!’ said the King at Moist’s side. ‘I haven’t heard of them for ages. There used to be a lot of them once upon a time.’

And Moist thought, yes, these are the little people who get trodden on and left behind like the goblins! If they had a cheeky champion like Of the Twilight the Darkness, or Tears of the Mushroom and her wonderful harp, they’d become known gnomes. But the face of Slam suggested to him that the gnomes had been through the mill and come out as a very fine grist, and had been content to slip into obscurity and somehow were now drifting into a kind of sad oblivion.

He realized that the King was staring at the spokesgnome. Rhys said, ‘I knew you were around here, in the forests. What can I do for you?’

‘You could leave us alone, your majesty. Your absence. That’s what everybody needs. To be left alone. Left alone to get on with their lives and, indeed,’ said the little gnome more sharply, ‘to be allowed to live at all.’

The King stepped back along the track and put one hand on Iron Girder, still spluttering and steaming, and, like somebody taking an oath, which he possibly was, said, ‘I’ve known of you people since my childhood and right now, boyo, you may live as you like in these woodlands, and I’ll be the first to defend your right to do so.’

He looked around at the rest of the crew and said, ‘We must continue. There’re still a lot of miles between here and Uberwald.’

Dick, who had been in an urgent conversation with Wally by the water tender, grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, your majesty, but we’ve got a problem. There were a depot here for coal and water, but it’s been smashed, and the grags have smashed the water crane and emptied t’water. We’ve still got t’coal, but we’ve barely got enough water to get to t’next depot. The engine can’t run without water. We need to refill t’tank.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, where are t’railway folk? The way I reckoned the schedules, there should have been people ’ere all ready and waiting for us.’