Thud! Page 9

  On der oder hand…a dwarf wouldn’t know one troll from anoder, right? And no one else had seen him. So act normal, right? He’d be fine. He’d be fine. Anyway, it couldna bin him…

  It occured to Brick—yeah, dat’s my name, knew it all der time—that he still had a bit of the white powder at the bottom of the bag. All he needed to do now was find a startled pigeon and some alcohol, any alcohol at all, and he be fine. Yeah. Fine. Nothin’ to worry about at all…

  Yeah.

  When Vimes stepped out into the brilliant daylight, the first thing he did was draw a deep breath. The second thing he did was draw his sword, wincing as his sore hand protested.

  Fresh air, that was the stuff. He’d felt quite dizzy down there, and the tiny cut on his hand itched like mad. He’d better get Igor to take a look at it. You could probably catch anything in the muck down there.

  Ah, that was better. He could feel himself cooling down. The air down there had made him feel really strange.

  The crowd was a lot more like a mob now, but he saw at the second glance that it was what he thought of as a plum-cake mob. It doesn’t take many people to turn a worried, anxious crowd into a mob. A shout here, a shove there, something thrown here…and with care, every hesitant, nervous individual is being drawn into a majority that does not, in fact, exist.

  Detritus was still standing like a statue, apparently oblivious to the growing din. But Ringfounder…damn. He was arguing hotly with people at the front of the crowd. You never argued! You never got drawn in!

  “Corporal Ringfounder!” he bellowed. “To me!”

  The dwarf turned as a halfbrick sailed over the heads of the mob and clanged off his helmet. He went over like a tree.

  Detritus moved so fast that he was halfway through the crowd before the dwarf hit the cobbles. His arm dipped into the press of bodies and hauled up a struggling figure. He spun around, thudded back through the gap that hadn’t had time to close yet, and was beside Vimes before Ringfounder’s helmet had stopped rolling.

  “Well done, Sergeant,” said Vimes out of the corner of his mouth. “Did you have a plan for the next bit?”

  “I’m more der tactical kind, sir,” said Detritus.

  Oh, well. At time like this you didn’t argue, and you didn’t step back. Vimes pulled out his badge and held it up.

  “This dwarf is under arrest for assaulting a Watch officer!” he shouted. “Let us through, in the name of the law!”

  And, to his amazement, the crowd went quiet, like a lot of children when they sense that this time the teacher is really, really angry. Perhaps it was the words on the badge, he thought. You couldn’t rub them out.

  In the silence, another halfbrick dropped out of the free hand of the dwarf in Detritus’s very solid custody. Years later, Vimes would shut his eyes and still be able to recall the crunch it made when it hit the ground.

  Angua stood up, with the unconscious Ringfounder in her arms.

  “He’s concussed,” she said. “And I suggest, sir, that you turn around, just for a moment?”

  Vimes risked a glance. Ardent—or, at least, a leather-shrouded dwarf that could have been him—was standing in the shadows of the doorway. He had the attention of the crowd.

  “We’re being allowed to go?” he said to Angua, nodding to the figure.

  “I think the going is the thing, sir, don’t you?”

  “You’ve got that right, Sergeant. Detritus, keep a grip on that little bugger. Back to the nick, all of us.”

  The crowd parted to let them through, with barely a murmur. The silence followed them all the way back to the Watch house…

  …where Otto Chriek of the Times was waiting in the street, iconograph at the ready.

  “Oh no, you don’t, Otto,” said Vimes, as his squad approached.

  “I’m standing on the public highway, Mr. Vimes,” said Otto meekly. “Smile, please—”

  And he took a picture of a troll officer holding a dwarf up in the air.

  Oh well, said Vimes to himself, that’s page one sorted out. And probably the bloody cartoon, too.

  One dwarf in the cells, one in the tender, loving care of Igor, Vimes thought, as he trudged up the stairs to his office. And it’s only going to get worse. Those dwarfs were obeying Ardent, weren’t they? What would they have done if the dwarf had shaken his head?

  He landed in his chair so hard that it rolled back a foot.

  He’d met deep-down dwarfs before. They’d been weird, but he’d been able to deal with them. The Low King was a deep-downer, and Vimes had got on with him well enough, once you accepted that the fairy-tale dwarf in the Hogfather beard was an astute politician. He was a dwarf with a vision. He dealt with the world. Ha, “he’d seen the light.” But those in the new mine…

  He hadn’t seen them, even though they were sitting in a room made brilliant with the light of hundreds of candles. That seemed odd, since the grags themselves were completely shrouded in their pointy black leather. But maybe it was some mystic ceremony, and who’d look for sense there? Maybe you got a more holy dark in the midst of light? The brighter the light the blacker the shadow?

  Ardent had spoken in a language that sounded like dwarfish, and out of the dark hoods had come answers and questions, all barked out in the same harsh, brief syllables.

  At one point, Vimes was asked to repeat the meat of his statement made up above, which had seemed too far away now. He’d done so, and there’d been a long-drawn-out discussion in what he’d come to think of as Deep Dwarf. And all the time he felt that eyes he could not see were watching him very hard indeed. It didn’t help that his head had been aching like mad and there were shooting pains going up and down his arm.

  And that was it. Had they understood him? He didn’t know. Ardent had said that they agreed with considerable reluctance. Had they? He hadn’t a clue, not a clue, to what had really been said. Would Carrot be given access to a crime scene that had not been interfered with in any way? Vimes grunted. Huh. What do you think, boys and girls?

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, and then stared at his right hand. Igor had gone on at length about “tiny invithible biting creatureth” and used some vicious ointment that probably killed anything of any size or visibility. It had stung like seven hells for five minutes, but the sting had gone and seemed to have taken the pain with it. Anyway…what mattered was that the Watch was officially on this case.

  His eye was caught by the top sheet of paperwork in his in-tray.* He groaned as he picked it up.

  To: His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Watch

  From: Mr. A. E. Pessimal, Inspector of the Watch

  Your Grace:

  I hope you will not mind giving me as soon as possible the answers to the following questions:

  1) What is Corporal “Nobby” Nobbs for? Why do you employ a known petty thief?

  2) I timed two officers in Broad Way earlier, and in the space of one hour they made no arrests. Why was this an economic use of their time?

  3) The level of violence used by troll officers against troll prisoners appears excessive. Could you please comment upon this?

  …and so on. Vimes read on with his mouth open. All right, the man wasn’t a copper—definitely not—but surely he had a fully functional brain? Oh, good grief, he’d even spotted the monthly discrepancy in the petty-cash box! Would A. E. Pessimal understand if Vimes explained that Nobby’s services over the years more than made up for the casual petty theft, which you accepted as a kind of mild nuisance?

  Would that be an economic use of my time? I think not.

  As he put the paper back in the tray, he spotted a sheet underneath, in Cheery’s handwriting. He picked it up and read it.

  Two dwarfs and one troll had handed in their badges this morning, citing “family reasons.” Damn. That was seven officers lost this week. Bloody Koom Valley, it got everywhere. Oh, it couldn’t be fun, heavens knew, being a troll holding the line against a bunch of your fellow trolls and defending a dwarf like t
he late Hamcrusher. It probably wasn’t any funner being a dwarf hearing that some troll street gang beat up your brother because of what that idiot had said. Some people would be asking: Whose side are you on? If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Huh. If you not an apple, you’re a banana…

  Carrot came in quietly and placed a plate on the desk.

  “Angua told me all about it,” he said. “Well done, sir.”

  “What do you mean, well done?” said Vimes, looking at his healthy sandwich lunch. “I nearly started a war!”

  “Ah, but they didn’t know you were bluffing.”

  “I probably wasn’t.” Vimes carefully lifted the top of the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, and smiled inwardly. Good old Cheery. She knew what a Vimes BLT was all about. It was about having to lift up quite a lot of crispy bacon before you found the miserable skulking vegetables. You might never notice them at all.

  “I want you to take Angua down there with you again,” he said. “And…yes, Lance Constable von Humpeding. Our little Sally. Just the job for a vampire who fortuitously has arrived in the nick of time, eh? Let’s see how good she is.”

  “Just those two, sir?”

  “Er, yes. They both have very good night vision, yes?” Vimes looked down at his sandwich, and mumbled: “We can’t take any artificial light down there.”

  “A murder investigation in the dark, sir?”

  “I had no choice!” said Vimes hotly. “I know a sticking point when I see one, Captain. No artificial light. Well, if they want to play silly buggers, I’m their boy. You know about mines, and both the ladies have got night vision built in. Well, the vampire has, and Angua can practically see with her nose. So that’s it. Do the best you can. The place is full of those damn glow beetles. They should help.”

  “They’ve got vurms?” said Carrot. “Oh. Well, I know some tricks there, sir.”

  “Good. They say a big troll did it and ran away. Make of that what you will.”

  “There might be some protests about Sally, sir,” said Carrot.

  “Why? Will they spot she’s a vampire?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think they—”

  “Then don’t tell ’em,” said Vimes. “You’re the…smelter, it’s up to you what, er, tools you use. Seen this?”

  He waved the report about the three officers he was trying not to think of as deserters.

  “Yes, sir. I was meaning to talk to you about that. It might help if we changed the patrols a bit,” said Carrot.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Er…it would be quite easy to arrange the patrol schedules so that trolls and dwarfs don’t have to go on the beat together, sir. Um…some of the lads say they’d be a bit happier if we could…”

  Carrot let the sentence die away in the stony glare.

  “We’ve never paid any attention to an officer’s species when we do the roster, Captain,” said Vimes coldly. “Except for the gnomes, of course.”

  “There’s your precedent, then—” Carrot began.

  “Don’t be daft. A typical gnome room is about twice the size of a shoebox, Captain! Look, you can see this idea is nuts. Dangerous nuts, too. We’d have to patrol troll with troll, dwarf, with dwarf and human with human—”

  “Not necessarily, sir. Humans could patrol with either of the others.”

  Vimes rocked his chair forward. “No, they couldn’t! This is not about common sense, this is about fear! If a troll sees a dwarf and a human patrolling together, he’ll think: ‘There’s the enemy, two against one.’ Can’t you see where this is going? When a copper’s in a tight corner and blows his whistle for backup, I don’t want him demanding that when it arrives it’s the right damn shape!” He calmed down a little, opened his notebook, and tossed it on the desk. “And talking of shapes, do you know what this means? I spotted it in the mine, and a dwarf called Helmclever scrawled it with some spilt coffee, and you know what? I think he was only half-aware that he’d done it.”

  Carrot picked up the notebook and regarded the sketch solemnly for a moment.

  “Mine sign, sir,” he said. “It means ‘The Following Dark.’ ”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Er…that things are pretty bad down there, sir,” said Carrot earnestly. “Oh dear.” He put the notebook down slowly, as if half-afraid that it might explode.

  “Well, there has been a murder, Captain,” Vimes pointed out.

  “Yes, sir. But this might mean something worse, sir. Mine sign is a very strange phenomenon.”

  “There was a sign like it over the door, only there was just one line and it was horizontal,” Vimes added.

  “Oh, that’d be the Long Dark rune, sir,” said Carrot dismissively. “It’s just the symbol for a mine. Nothing to worry about.”

  “But this other one is? Is it anything to do with grags sitting in a room surrounded by lighted candles?”

  It was always nice to surprise Carrot, and this time he looked amazed. “How did you work that out, sir?”

  “It’s only words, Captain,” said Vimes, waving a hand. “ ‘The Following Dark’ doesn’t sound good. Time to stay brightly lit, maybe? When I met them, they were surrounded by candles. I thought maybe it was some kind of ceremony.”

  “Could be,” Carrot agreed, carefully. “Thank you for this, sir. I’ll go prepared.”

  As Carrot reached the door, Vimes added, “One thing, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Vimes didn’t look up from the sandwich, from which he was daintily separating fragments of the L and the T from the crispy B.

  “Just remember you’re a copper, will you?” he said.

  Sally knew something was up as soon as she got back into the locker room, in her shiny new breastplate and soup-bowl helmet. Coppers of various species were standing around trying to look nonchalant. Coppers are never any good at this at all.

  They watched as she approached her locker. She opened the door, therefore, with due care. The shelf was full of garlic.

  Ah. It starts, and so soon, too. Just as well she’d been prepared…

  Here and there, behind her, she heard the faint coughs and throat clearings of people trying not to laugh. And there was smirking going on; a smirk makes a subtle noise if you’re listening for it.

  She reached into the locker with both hands and pulled out two big fat bulbs. All eyes were on her, all coppers were motionless as she walked slowly around the room.

  The reek of garlic was strong on one young constable, whose big grin was suddenly caked with nervousness at the corners. He had the look about him of the kind of fool who’d do anything for a giggle.

  “Excuse me, Constable, but what is your name?” she said meekly.

  “Er…Fittly, miss…”

  “Are these from you?” Sally demanded. She let her canines extend just enough to notice.

  “…er, only a joke, miss…”

  “Nothing funny about it,” said Sally sweetly. “I like garlic. I love garlic. Don’t you?”

  “Er…yeah…” said the unhappy Fittly.

  “Good,” said Sally.

  With a speed that made him flinch, she rammed a bulb into her mouth and bit down heavily.

  The crunching was the only sound in the locker room.

  And then she swallowed.

  “Oh dear, where are my manners, Constable?” she said, holding out the other bulb. “This one’s yours…”

  Laughter broke out around the room. Coppers are like any other mob. The table’s been turned, and this way around it’s funnier. It’s a bit of a laugh, a bit of fun. No harm done, eh?

  “Come on, Fittly,” said someone. “It’s only fair. She ate hers!” And someone else, as someone always does, began to clap and urge “Eat! Eat!” Others took it up, encouraged by the fact that Fittly had gone bright red.

  “Eat! eat! eat! eat! eat! eat! eat! eat! eat!eat!eat!—”

  A man without an option, Fittly grabbed the bulb, forced it into his mouth, and bit it hard,
to the accompaniment of cheers. A moment later, Sally saw his eyes widen.

  “Lance Constable von Humpeding?”

  She turned. A young man of godlike proportions* was standing in the doorway. Unlike the armor of the other officers, his breastplate shone and the chain mail was quite devoid of rust.

  “Everything all right?” The officer glanced at Fittly, who’d dropped to his knees and was coughing garlic across the room, but somehow quite failed to see him.

  “Er, fine, sir,” said Sally, puzzled, as Fittly began to throw up.

  “We’ve met already. Everyone calls me Captain Carrot. Come with me, please.”

  Out in the main office, Carrot stopped and turned. “All right, Lance Constable…you had a bulb already prepared, right? Don’t look like that, there’s a vegetable barrow out in the square today. It’s not hard to work out.”

  “Er…Sergeant Angua did warn me…”

  “So…?”

  “So I carved a garlic out of a turnip, sir.”

  “And the one you gave Fittly?”

  “Oh, that was a carved turnip, too. I try not to touch garlic, sir,” said Sally. Oh gods, this one really was attractive…

  “Really? Turnip? He seemed to take it badly,” said Carrot.

  “I put a few fresh chili seeds in it,” Sally added. “About thirty, I think.”

  “Oh? Why did you do that?”

  “Oh, you know, sir,” said Sally, radiating innocence. “A bit of a laugh, a bit of fun. No harm done, eh?”

  The captain appeared to consider this.

  “We’ll leave it at that, then,” he said. “Now, Lance Constable, have you ever seen a dead body?”

  Sally waited to see if he was serious. Apparently, he was.

  “Strictly speaking, no, sir,” she said.

  Vimes fretted through the afternoon. There was, of course, the paperwork. There was always the paperwork. The trays were only the start. Heaps of it were ranged accusingly along one wall, and gently merging.* He knew that he had to do it. Warrants, dockets, Watch orders, signatures—that was what made the Watch a police force rather than just a bunch of fairly rough fellows with inquisitive habits. Paperwork: you had to have lots of it, and it had to be signed by him.