Thud (18 page)

“Thank you,” he said, as if the dwarfish interlude had not taken place. The two dwarfs hurried away.

In the thick darkness, the watchmen were left alone.

“What was all that about?” said Angua.

“Just reassuring him,” said Carrot cheerfully. He reached into a pocket. “Now we’ve arrived, let’s have some light in here, shall we?”

Angua smelled his hand move vigorously across the wall once or twice, as if he was painting. There arose an aroma of…pork pie?

“Soon be brighter,” he said.

“Captain Carrot, this wasn’t where—” Sally began.

“All in good time, Lance Constable,” said Carrot firmly. “For now, we just observe.”

“But I must tell you—”

“
Later on,
lance constable,” said Carrot a little louder. Vurms were flowing around the open door they’d arrived by, and across the stone. “By the way, er, Sally…will you be all right if we view the body?”

That’s right, Angua thought, think of
her
. I’ve dealt with blood every day. Walk a mile in
my
nostrils!

“Old blood will not be a problem, sir,” said Sally. “There’s some in here. But there’s—”

“I expect they’ve set up a morgue,” said Carrot quickly. “The death rites are quite complex.”

Morgue? A home away from home for you, my dear!
snarled Angua’s inner wolf.

The vurms were spreading out now, crawling across the wall with a purpose.

She crouched down, to bring her nose nearer to the floor. I can smell dwarfs, lots of dwarfs, Angua thought. Hard to smell trolls, especially underground. Blood on the club, like a flower. Dwarf smell on the club, but there’s dwarf smell everywhere. I can smell—hang on, that’s familiar…

The floor mostly smelled of slime and loam. Carrot’s footprints showed up, and so did
hers
. There was a lot of dwarf smell, and she could still just make out the smell of their concern. This is where they found the body, then? But this patch of mud here, this was different. It had been trodden into the floor, but it smelled just like the heavy clay from up around Quarry Lane. Who lived in Quarry Lane? Most of the trolls in Ankh-Morpork.

A clue.

She smiled in the dwindling darkness. And the trouble with clues, as Mister Vimes always said, was that they were so easy to make. You could walk around with a pocket full of the bloody things.

The darkness was disappearing because the light was growing. Angua looked up.

There was a huge, bright symbol on the wall where Carrot had touched it. He dragged some meat across it, she thought. They’ve turned up for the feast…

Ardent came back in, with Helmclever trailing after him.

He got as far as: “The door here can be opened again but, alas, we—” and stopped.

They were happy vurms. By the standards of greeny-white glow, they were brilliant.

Behind Carrot there was now a gently glowing circle, with two diagonal lines slashed through it. Both dwarfs stared at it as if in shock.

“Well, let’s take a look, shall we?” said Carrot, apparently oblivious to all this.

“—we, alas, the water…water…not
entirely
watertight…the other doors…the troll caused flooding…” Ardent murmured, not taking his eyes off the glow.

“But you say we can go through here, at least?” said Carrot politely, pointing to the sealed door.

“Er…yes. Yes. Certainly.”

The steward hurried forward and produced a key. The wheel, unlocked, turned easily. Angua was acutely aware of how the muscles on Carrot’s bare arms glistened and pumped as he pulled the metal door open.

Oh no, not
yet
, surely! She ought to have at least another day! It was the vampire, that’s what it was, standing there looking so innocent. Bits of her body
wanted
her to become a wolf, right now, to defend herself…

There was a pillared room on the other side of the door. It smelled damp and unfinished. There were vurms on the ceiling, but the floor was muddy and squelched underfoot.

Angua could make out another dwarf door across the room, and there was one on either side as well.

“We take spoil to a heap on the waste ground outside,” said Ardent. “We, er, believe the troll got in that way. It was an unpardonable oversight.” He still sounded uneasy.

“And the troll was not seen?” said Carrot, kicking at the mud.

“No. These chambers are finished. The diggers are elsewhere, but they came as soon as they could. We believe the grag had come up here for solitude. To die at the random hand of an abomination!”

“Lucky for the troll, wasn’t it, sir?” said Angua sharply. “He just
happened
to wander in and stumble across Hamcrusher?”

Carrot’s boot struck something metallic. He kicked some more mud away.

“You’ve laid rails?” he said. “You must be shifting a lot of spoil, sir.”

“Better to push than to carry,” said Ardent. “Now, I have arranged for—”

“Hold on, what’s this?” said Carrot. He squatted down and pulled at something pale. “It’s a piece of bone, by the look of it. On a string.”

“There are plenty of old bones,” said Ardent. “Now, I—”

It came free with a
gloop
, and grinned at them in the sickly light.

“It doesn’t look
very
old, sir,” said Carrot.

Just one breath was enough for Angua.

“It’s a sheep skull,” she said. “About three months dead.” Oh,
another
clue, she added to herself. Nice and convenient for us to find, too.

“Could have been dropped by the troll,” said Carrot.

“A troll?” said Ardent, backing away.

It wasn’t the reaction Angua had expected. Ardent had been nervous already, but now, under all those wrappings, he was on the verge of panic.

“You did say a troll had attacked the grag, sir?” said Carrot.

“But we never—I never saw that before! Why didn’t we find it? Did it come back?”

“All the doors are sealed, sir,” said Carrot patiently. “Aren’t they?”

“But have we sealed it in here with us?” It was practically a shriek.

“You’d know, sir, wouldn’t you?” said Carrot. “Trolls sort of, well, stand out.”

“I must fetch guards!” said Ardent, backing away toward the single open door. “It could be anywhere!”

“Then you could be heading right toward it,
sir
,” said Angua.

Ardent stopped dead for a moment, and then uttered a little whimper and ran into the dark, Helmclever on his heels.

“Well, how do we all think that went?” said Angua, with a horrible smile. “And what was that you said to him in dwarfish…‘You know I am a dwarf in the brotherhood of all dwarfs’?”

“Erm, ‘With emphatic certainty you know me. I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united,’ ” said Sally carefully.

“Well done, lance constable!” said Carrot. “That was an excellent translation!”

“Yes, did you bite someone clever?” said Angua.

“I
am
a Black Ribboner, Sergeant,” said Sally meekly. “And I’m naturally good at languages. While we’re alone, Captain, can I mention something else?”

“Certainly,” said Carrot, trying the wheel on one of the closed doors.

“I think a lot of things are wrong here, sir. There was something very strange about the way Ardent reacted to that skull. Why would he think the troll was still here, after all that time?”

“A troll getting into a dwarf mine can do a lot of damage before it’s stopped,” said Carrot.

“Ardent really wasn’t expecting that skull, sir,” said Sally, pressing on. “I heard his heart racing. It terrified him. Er…something more, sir. There’s lots of city dwarfs here. Dozens. I can feel their hearts, too. There are six grags. Their hearts beat very slowly. And there are other dwarfs, too. Strange ones, and only a few of them. Maybe ten.”

“That’s useful to know, lance constable, thank you very much.”

“Yes, I don’t know how we managed before you came,” said Angua. She walked quickly over to the other side of the dank room so that they wouldn’t see her face.

She needed fresh air, not the pervasive, clinging, old-root-cellar reek of this place. Her head was full of shouting. The Temperance League? “Not One Drop”? Did anyone believe that for one
minute
? But everyone wanted to fall for it, because vampires could be so
charming
. Of course they were! It was part of being a vampire! It was the only way to get people to stay the night in the dreadful castle! Everyone knew a leopard couldn’t change his shorts! But no, stick on a stupid black ribbon and learn the words for “Lips that touch Ichor shall never touch Mine” and they fall for it every time. But werewolves? Well, they were just sad monsters, weren’t they? Never mind that life was a daily struggle with the inner wolf, never mind that you had to force yourself to walk past every lamppost, never mind that in every petty argument you had to fight back the urge to settle it all with just one bite.

Never mind that, because everyone
knew
that a creature that was a wolf and a human combined was a kind of dog. They were
expected
to behave.

Part of her was shouting that this wasn’t so, that this was just PLT and the known effects of a vampire’s presence, but somehow, now, with the smells around her becoming so strong that they were approaching solidity, she did not want to listen. She wanted to smell the world, she was practically climbing into her own nose.

After all, that was why she was in the Watch, wasn’t it? For her nose?

New smell, new smell…

Sharp blue-gray of lichen, the browns and purples of old carrion, undertones of wood and leather…even as a full wolf, she’d never tasted the air so forensically as this. Something else, sharp, chemical…The air was full of the smell of damp and dwarfs, but these little traces ran through it like a piccolo hornpipe through a requiem, and formed one thing…

“Troll,” she croaked. “Troll. Troll with skull belt and head-locks. On Slab, or something like it! Troll!” Angua was almost barking at the far door now. “Open the door! This way!”

She was barely needing her eyes now, but there on the metal of the door, in charcoal, someone had drawn a circle with two diagonal lines through it.

Suddenly Carrot was by her side. At least he had the decency not to say “Are you sure?” as he rattled the big wheel. The door was locked.

“I don’t think there’s water behind this,” he said.

“Oh, really?” Angua managed. “You know that was just…to keep us out!”

Carrot turned. Running toward them was a squad of dwarfs. They were heading for the door as though quite oblivious to the presence of the watchmen.

“
Don’t
let them go through first!” said Angua through gritted teeth. “Trail is…faint!”

Carrot drew his sword with one hand and held up his badge with the other.

“City Watch!” he roared. “Lower your weapons, please! Thank you!”

The squad slowed, which meant that, in the nature of these things, those at the back piled into the hesitant ones in front.

“This is a crime scene!” Carrot announced. “I am still the smelter! Mr. Ardent, are you there? Do you have guards on the other side of this door?”

Ardent pushed through the throng of dwarfs.

“No, I believe not,” he said. “Is the troll still behind it?”

Carrot glanced at Sally, who shrugged. Vampires had never developed the ability to listen for troll hearts. There was no point.

“Possibly, but I don’t think so,” said Carrot. “Please unlock it. We might yet find a trail!”

“Captain Carrot, you know that the safety of the mine must always come first!” said Ardent. “Of course you must give chase. But first we will open the door, and make certain there is no danger behind it. You must concede us that.”

“Let them,” hissed Angua. “It’ll be a clearer scent. I’ll be okay.”

Carrot nodded, and whispered back: “Well done!”

Under her flesh, she felt her tail want to wag. She wanted to lick his face. It was the dog part of her doing the thinking. You’re a good dog. It was important to be a good dog.

Carrot pulled her aside as a couple of dwarfs approached the door purposefully.

“But it’s long gone,” she murmured as two more dwarfs came up behind the first two. “The scent’s twelve hours old, at least—”

“What are they doing?” said Carrot, half to himself. The two new dwarfs were covered from head to toe in leather, like Ardent, but wore chain mail over the top of it; their helmets were quite unadorned, but covered the whole face and head, with only a slit for the eyes. Each dwarf carried a large black pack on his back and held a lance in front of him.

“Oh no,” said Carrot,” surely not here—”

At a word of command, the door was swung open, revealing only darkness beyond.

The lances spat flame, long yellow tongues of it, and the black dwarfs walked slowly along behind them. Smoke, heavy and greasy, filled the air.

Angua fainted.

D
arkness.

Sam Vimes struggled up the hill, tired to the bone.

It was warm, warmer than he’d expected. Sweat stung his eyes. Water splashed under his feet and made his boots slip. And, ahead, up the slope, a child was screaming.

He knew he was shouting. He would hear the breath wheezing in his throat, could feel his lips moving, but he couldn’t hear the words he was reciting over and over again.

The darkness felt like cold ink. Tendrils of it dragged at his mind and his body, slowing him down, dragging him back…

And now they came at him with flames—

Vimes blinked, and found himself staring at the fireplace. The flames flicked peacefully.

There was the swish of a dress as Sybil came back into the room, sat down, and picked up her darning.

He watched her dully. She was darning his socks. They had maids in this place and
she
darned his
socks.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t have so much money that he could have a new pair of socks every day. But she’d picked up the idea that it was a wifely duty, and so she did it. It was comforting, in a strange sort of way. It was only a shame that she wasn’t, in fact, any good at mending holes, so Sam ended up with sock heels that were huge welts of criss-crossing wool. He wore them anyway, and never mentioned it.