Men at Arms tds-15 Read online

Colon gave the body a cautious prod. It didn't move. Nothing looking like that should move. A twisted axe lay beside it.

  “Oh, no,” he breathed.

  There was a thin rope, the sort the Assassins used, hanging down from the heights. It was twitching. Colon looked up at the haze, and drew his sword.

  He could see all the way to the top, and there was no-one on the rope. Which meant—

  He didn't even look around, which saved his life.

  His dive for the floor and the explosion of the gonne behind him happened at exactly the same time. He swore afterwards that he felt the wind of the slug as it passed over his head.

  Then a figure stepped through the smoke and hit him very hard before escaping through the open door, into the rain.

  ACTING-CONSTABLE CUDDY?

  Cuddy brushed himself off.

  “Oh,” he said. “I see. I didn't think I was going to survive that. Not after the first hundred feet.”

  YOU WERE CORRECT.

  The unreal world of the living was already fading, but Cuddy glared at the twisted remains of his axe. It seemed to worry him far more than the twisted remains of Cuddy.

  “And will you look at that?” he said. “My dad made that axe for me! A fine weapon to take into the afterlife, I don't think!”

  IS THAT SOME KIND OF BURIAL CUSTOM?

  “Don't you know? You are Death, aren't you?”

  THAT DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT BURIAL CUSTOMS. GENERALLY, I MEET PEOPLE BEFORE THEY'RE BURIED. THE ONES I MEET AFTER THEY'VE BEEN BURIED TEND TO BE A BIT OVER-EXCITED AND DISINCLINED TO DISCUSS THINGS.

  Cuddy folded his arms.

  “If I'm not going to be properly buried,” he said, “I ain't going. My tortured soul will walk the world in torment.”

  IT DOESN'T HAVE TO.

  “It can if it wants to,” snapped the ghost of Cuddy.

  “Detritus! You haven't got time to ooze! Get over to the Tower! Take some people with you!”

  Vimes reached the doorway of the Great Hall with the Patrician over his shoulder and Carrot stumbling along behind him. The wizards were clustered around the door. Big heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall, hissing on the hot stones.

  Ridcully rolled up his sleeves.

  “Hell's bells! What did that to his leg?”

  “That's the gonne for you! Sort him out! And Corporal Carrot too!”

  “There's no need,” said Vetinari, trying to smile and stand up. “It's just a flesh—”

  The leg collapsed under him.

  Vimes blinked. He'd never expected this. The Patrician was the man who always had the answers, who was never surprised. Vimes had a sense that history was flapping loose…

  “We can handle it, sir,” said Carrot. “I've got men on the roofs, and—”

  “Shut up! Stay here! That's an order!” Vimes fumbled in his pouch and hung his badge on his torn jacket. “Hey, you… Pyjama! I need a sword!”

  Pyjama looked sullen.

  “I only take orders from Corporal Carrot—”

  “Give me a sword right now, you horrible little man! Right! Thank you! Now let's get to the Tow—”

  A shadow appeared in the doorway.

  Detritus walked in.

  They looked at the limp shape in his hands.

  He laid it carefully on a bench, without saying a word, and went and sat in a corner. While the others gathered round the mortal remains of Acting-Constable Cuddy, the troll removed his homemade cooling helmet and sat staring at it, turning it over and over in his hands.

  “He was on the floor,” said Sergeant Colon, leaning against the doorframe. “He must have been pushed off the stairs right at the top. Someone else was in there, too. Must've shinned down a rope and caught me a right bang on the side of the head.”

  “Being pushed down the Tower's not worth it for a shilling,” said Carrot, vaguely.

  It was better when the dragon came, thought Vimes After it'd killed someone it was at least still a dragon. It went somewhere else but you could say: that's a dragon, that is. It couldn't nip over a wall and become just another person. You always knew what you were fighting. You didn't have to—

  “What's that in Cuddy's hand?” he said. He realized he'd been staring at it without seeing it for some time.

  He tugged at it. It was a strip of black cloth.

  “Assassins wear that,” said Colon blankly.

  “So do lots of other people,” said Ridcully. “Black's black.”

  “You're right,” said Vimes. “Taking any action on the basis of this would be premature. You know, it'd probably get me fired.”

  He waved the cloth in front of Lord Vetinari.

  “Assassins everywhere,” he said, “on guard. Seems they didn't notice anything, eh? You gave them the bloody gonne because you thought they were the best to guard it! You never thought of giving it to the guards!”

  “Aren't we going to give chase, Corporal Carrot?” said Pyjama.

  “Chase who? Chase where?” said Vimes. “He hit old Fred on the head and did a runner. He could trot around a corner, chuck the gonne over a wall, and who'd know? We don't know who we're looking for!”

  “I do,” said Carrot.

  He stood up, holding his shoulder.

  “It's easy to run,” he said. “We've done a lot of running. But that's not how you hunt. You hunt by sitting still in the right place. Captain, I want the sergeant to go out there and tell people we've got the killer.”

  “What?”

  “His name is Edward d'Eath. Say we've got him in custody. Say he was caught and badly injured, but he's alive.”

  “But we haven't—”

  “He's an Assassin.”

  “We haven't—”

  “Yes, captain. I don't like telling lies. But it might be worth it. Anyway, it's not your problem, sir.”

  “It isn't? Why not?”

  “You're retiring in less than an hour.”

  “I'm still captain right now, corporal. So you have to tell me what's going on. That's how things work.”

  “We haven't got time, sir. Do it, Sergeant Colon.”

  “Carrot, I still run the Watch! I'm the one supposed to give the orders.”

  Carrot hung his head.

  “Sorry, captain.”

  “Right. So long as that's understood. Sergeant Colon?”

  “Sir?”

  “Put out the news that we've arrested Edward d'Eath. Whoever he is.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And your next move, Mr Carrot?” said Vimes.

  Carrot looked at the assembled wizards.—

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Ook?”

  “First, we need to get into the library—”

  “First,” said Vimes, “someone can lend me a helmet. I don't feel I'm at work without a helmet. Thanks, Fred. Right… helmet… sword… badge. Now…”

  There was sound under the city. It filtered down by all sorts of routes, but it was indistinct, a hive noise.

  And there was the faintest of glows. The waters of the Ankh, to use the element in its broadest sense, had washed, to bend the definition to its limit, these tunnels for centuries.

  Now there was an extra sound. Footsteps padded over the silt, barely perceptible unless ears had become accustomed to the background noise. And an indistinct shape moved through the gloom, paused at a circle of darkness leading to a smaller tunnel…

  “How do you feel, your lordship?” said Corporal Nobbs the upwardly mobile.

  “Who are you?”

  “Corporal Nobbs, sir!” said Nobby, saluting.

  “Do we employ you?”

  “Yessir!”

  “Ah. You're the dwarf, are you?”

  “Nossir. That was the late Cuddy, sir! I'm one of the human beings, sir!”

  “You're not employed as the result of any… special hiring procedures?”

  “Nossir,” said Nobby, proudly.

  “My word,” said the Patrician. He was feeling a little light-head
ed from loss of blood. The Archchancellor had also given him a long drink of something he said was a marvellous remedy, although he'd been unspecific as to what it cured. Verticality, apparently. It was wise to remain sitting upright, though. It was a good idea to be seen to be alive. A lot of inquisitive people were peering around the door. It was important to ensure that rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated.

  Corporal self-proclaimed-human Nobbs and some other guards had closed in around the Patrician, on Captain Vimes' orders. Some of them were a lot bulkier than he rather muzzily remembered.

  “You there, my man. Have you taken the King's Shilling?” he inquired of one.

  “I never took nuffin.”

  “Capital, well done.”

  And then the crowds scattered. Something golden and vaguely dog-like burst through, growling, its nose close to the ground. And was gone again, covering the ground to the library in long, easy strides. The Patrician was aware of conversation.

  “Fred?”

  “Yes, Nobby?”

  “Did that look a bit familiar to you?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Nobby fidgeted awkwardly.

  “You should've bawled her out for not being in uniform,” he said.

  “Bit tricky, that.”

  “If I'd run through here without me clothes on, you'd fine me a half a dollar for being improperly dressed—”

  “Here's half a dollar, Nobby. Now shut up.”

  Lord Vetinari beamed at them. Then there was the guard in the corner, another of the big lumpy ones—

  “Still all right, your lordship?” said Nobby.

  “Who's that gentleman?”

  He followed the Patrician's gaze.

  “That's Detritus the troll, sir.”

  “Why is he sitting like that?”

  “He's thinking, sir.”

  “He hasn't moved for some time.”

  “He thinks slow, sir.”

  Detritus stood up. There was something about the way he did it, some hint of a mighty continent beginning a tectonic movement that would end in the fearsome creation of some unscalable mountain range, which made people stop and look. Not one of the watchers was familiar with the experience of watching mountain building, but now they had some vague idea of what it was like: it was like Detritus standing up, with Cuddy's twisted axe in his hand.

  “But deep, sometimes,” said Nobby, eyeing various possible escape routes.

  The troll stared at the crowd as if wondering what they were doing there. Then, arms swinging, he began to walk forward.

  “Acting-Constable Detritus… er… as you were.” Colon ventured.

  Detritus ignored him. He was moving quite fast now, in the deceptive way that lava does.

  He reached the wall, and punched it out of the way.

  “Has anyone been giving him sulphur?” said Nobby.

  Colon looked around at the guard. “Lance-Constable Bauxite! Lance-Constable Coalface! Apprehend Acting-Constable Detritus!”

  The two trolls looked first at the retreating form of Detritus, then at one another, and finally at Sergeant Colon.

  Bauxite managed a salute.

  “Permission for leave to attend grandmother's funeral, sir?”

  “Why?”

  “It her or me, sarge.”

  “We get our goohuloog heads kicked in,” said Coalface, the less circuitous thinker.

  A match flared. In the sewers, its light was like a nova.

  Vimes lit first his cigar, and then a lamp.

  “Dr Cruces?” he said.

  The chief of Assassins froze.

  “Corporal Carrot here has a crossbow too,” he said. “I'm not sure if he'd use it. He's a good man. He thinks everyone else is a good man. I'm not. I'm mean, nasty and tired. And now, doctor, you've had time to think, you're an intelligent man… What were you doing down here, please? It can't be to look for the mortal remains of young Edward, because our Corporal Nobbs has taken him off to the Watch morgue this morning, probably nicking any small items of personal jewellery he had on him, but that's just Nobby's way. He's got a criminal mind, has our Nobby. But I'll say this for him: he hasn't got a criminal soul.

  “I hope he's cleaned the clown make-up off the poor chap. Dear me. You used him, didn't you? He killed poor old Beano, and then he got the gonne, and he was there when it killed Hammerhock, he even left a bit of his Beano wig in the timbers, and just when he could have done with some good advice, such as to turn himself in, you killed him. The point, the interesting point, is that young Edward couldn't have been the man on the Tower a little while ago. Not with the stab wound in his heart and everything. I know that being dead isn't always a barrier to quiet enjoyment in this city, but I don't think young Edward has been up and about much. The piece of cloth was a nice touch. But, you know, I've never believed in that stuff—footprints in the flower bed, telltale buttons, stuff like that. People think that stuff's policing. It's not. Policing's luck and slog, most of the time. But lots of people'd believe it. I mean, he's been dead… what… not two days, and it's nice and cool down here… you could haul him up, I daresay you could fool people who didn't look too close once he was on a slab, and you'd have got the man who shot the Patrician. Mind you, half the city would be fighting the other half by then, I daresay. Some more deaths would be involved. I wonder if you'd care.” He paused. “You still haven't said anything.”

  “You have no understanding,” said Cruces.

  “Yes?”

  “D'Eath was right. He was mad, but he was right.”

  “About what, Dr Cruces?” said Vimes.

  And then the Assassin was gone, diving into a shadow.

  “Oh, no,” said Vimes.

  A whisper echoed around the man-made cavern.

  “Captain Vimes? One thing a good Assassin learns is—”

  There was a thunderous explosion, and the lamp disintegrated.

  “—never stand near the light.”

  Vimes hit the floor and rolled. Another shot hit a foot away, and he felt the splash of cold water.

  There was water under him, too.

  The Ankh was rising and, in accordance with laws older than those of the city, the water was finding its way back up the tunnels.

  “Carrot,” Vimes whispered.

  “Yes?” The voice came from somewhere in the pitch blackness to his right.

  “I can't see a thing. I lost my night vision lighting that damn lamp.”

  “I can feel water coming in.”

  “We—” Vimes began, and stopped as he formed a mental picture of the hidden Cruces aiming at a patch of sound.

  I should have shot him first, he thought. He's an Assassin!

  He had to raise himself slightly to keep his face out of the rising water.

  Then he heard a gentle splashing. Cruces was walking towards them.

  There was a scratching noise, and then light. Cruces had lit a torch, and Vimes looked up to see the skinny shape in the glow. His other hand was steadying the gonne.

  Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

  They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

  So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

  Then, to his everlasting horror, he heard Carrot stand up.

  “Dr Cruces, I arrest you for the murder of Bjorn Hammerhock, Edward d'Eath, Beano the clown, Lettice Knibbs and Acting-Constable Cuddy of the City Watch.”

  “Dear me, all those? I'm afraid Edward killed Brother Beano. That was his own idea, the little fool. He said he hadn't meant to. And I understand that Hammerhock was killed accidentally. A
freak accident. He poked around and the charge fired and the slug bounced off his anvil and killed him. That's what Edward said. He came to see me afterwards. He was very upset. Made a clean breast of the whole thing, you know. So I killed him. Well, what else could I do? He was quite mad. There's no dealing with that sort of person. May I suggest you step back, sire? I'd prefer not to shoot you. No! Not unless I have to!”

  It seemed to Vimes that Cruces was arguing with himself. The gonne swung violently.

  “He was babbling,” said Cruces. “He said the gonne killed Hammerhock. I said, it was an accident? And he said no, no accident, the gonne killed Hammerhock.”

  Carrot took another step forward. Cruces seemed to be in his own world now.

  “No! The gonne killed the beggar girl, too. It wasn't me! Why should I do a thing like that?”

  Cruces took a step back, but the gonne swung up towards Carrot. It looked to Vimes as though it moved of its own accord, like an animal sniffing the air…

  “Get down!” Vimes hissed. He reached out and tried to find his crossbow.

  “He said the gonne was jealous! Hammerhock would have made more gonnes! Stop where you are!”

  Carrot took another step.

  “I had to kill Edward! He was a romantic, he would have got it wrong! But Ankh-Morpork needs a king!”

  The gun jerked and fired at the same moment as Carrot leapt sideways.

  The tunnels were brilliant with smells, mostly the acrid yellows and earthy oranges of ancient drains. And there were hardly any air currents to disturb things; the line that was Cruces snaked through the heavy air. And there was the smell of the gonne, as vivid as a wound.

  I smelled gonne in the Guild, she thought, just after Cruces walked past. And Gaspode said that was all right, because the gonne had been in the Guild—but it hadn't been fired in the Guild. I smelled it because someone there had fired the thing.

  She splashed through the water into the big cavern and saw, with her nose, the three of them—the indistinct figure that smelled of Vimes, the falling figure that was Carrot, the turning shape with the gonne…

  And then she stopped thinking with her head and let her body take over. Wolf muscle drove her forward and up into a leap, water droplets flying from her mane, her eyes fixed on Cruces' neck.