Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'If he lays a finger on either of 'em, with all their friends watching,' said Nobby, 'theplan is, we run away like hell—'

Veins stood out on Carrot's mighty neck. He stuck his hands on his waist and bellowed:

'Lance-Constable Detritus! Salute!'

They'd spent hours trying to teach him. Detritus' brain took some time to latch on to an idea, but once it was there, it didn't fade away fast.

He saluted.

His hand was full of dwarf.

So he saluted while holding Lance-Constable Cuddy, swinging him up and over like a small angry club.

The sound of their helmets meeting echoed off the buildings, and it was followed a moment later by the crash of them both hitting the ground.

Carrot prodded them with the toe of his sandal.

Then he turned and strode towards the dwarf marchers, shaking with anger.

In the alleyway, Sergeant Colon started to suck the rim of his helmet out of terror.

'You've got weapons, haven't you?' snarled Carrot at a hundred dwarfs. 'Own up! If the dwarfs who've got weapons don't drop them right this minute the entire parade, and I mean the entire parade, will be put in the cells! I'm serious about this!'

The dwarfs in the front row took a step backwards. There was a desultory tinkle of metallic objects hitting the ground.

'All of them,' said Carrot menacingly. 'That includes you with the black beard trying to hide behind Mr Hamslinger! I can see you, Mr Stronginthearm! Put it down. No-one's amused!'

'He's going to die, isn't he,' said Angua, quietly.

'Funny, that,' said Nobby. 'If we was to try it, we'd be little bits of mince. But it seems to work for him.'

'Krisma,' said Sergeant Colon, who was having to lean on the wall.

'Do you mean charisma?' said Angua.

'Yeah. One of them things. Yeah.'

'How does he manage it?'

'Dunno,' said Nobby. 'S'pose he's an easy lad to like?'

Carrot had turned on the trolls, who were smirking at the dwarfs' discomfiture.

'And as for you,' he said, 'I shall definitely be patrolling around Quarry Lane tonight, and I won't be seeing any trouble. Will I?'

There was a shuffling of huge oversized feet, and a general muttering.

Carrot cupped his hand to his ear.

'I couldn't quite hear,' he said.

There was a louder mutter, a sort of toccata scored for one hundred reluctant voices on the theme of 'Yes, Corporal Carrot.'

'Right. Now off you go. And let's have no more of this nonsense, there's good chaps.'

Carrot brushed the dust off his hands and smiled at everyone. The trolls looked puzzled. In theory, Carrot was a thin film of grease on the street. But somehow it just didn't seem to be happening . . .

Angua said, 'He just called a hundred trolls “good chaps”. Some of them are just down off the mountains! Some of them have got lichen on them!'