Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Events of the previous day filtered through the dogged gauze of memory. Central to all of them was the face of Lord Vetinari. Vimes grew angry just thinking about that. The cool way he'd told Vimes that he mustn't take an interest in the theft from—

Vimes stared at his reflection—

—something stung his ear and smashed the glass.

Vimes stared at the hole in the plaster, surrounded by the remains of a mirror frame. Around him, the mirror glass tinkled to the floor.

Vimes stood stock still for a long moment.

Then his legs, reaching the conclusion that his brain was somewhere else, threw the rest of him to the floor.

There was another tinkle and a half bottle of Bear-hugger's exploded on the desk. Vines couldn't even remember buying it.

He scrambled forward on hands and knees and pulled himself upright alongside the window.

Images flashed through his mind. The dead dwarf. The hole in the wall . . .

A thought seemed to start in the small of his back and spread upwards to his brain: These were lath and plaster walls, and old ones at that; you could push a finger through them with a bit of effort. As for a lump of metal—

He hit the floor at the same time as a pock coincided with a hole punched through the wall on one side of the window. Plaster dust puffed into the air.

His crossbow was leaning against the wall. He wasn't an expert but, hells, who was? You pointed it and you fired it. He pulled it towards him, rolled on his back, stuck his foot in the stirrup and hauled on the string until it clicked into place.

Then he rolled back on to one knee and slotted a quarrel into the groove.

A catapult, that's what it was. It had to be. Troll-sized, perhaps. Someone up on the roof of the opera house or somewhere high . . .

Draw their fire, draw their fire . . . he picked up his helmet and balanced it on the end of another quarrel. The thing to do was crouch below the window and . . .

He thought for a moment. Then he shuffled across the floor to the corner, where there was a pole with a hook on the end. Once upon a time it had been used to open the upper windows, now long rusted shut.

He balanced his helmet on the end, wedged himself into the corner, and with a certain amount of effort moved the pole so that the helmet just showed over the window si . . .

Pock.

Splinters flew up from a point on the floor where it would undoubtedly have severely inconvenienced anyone lying on the boards cautiously raising a decoy helmet on a stick.

Vimes smiled. Someone was trying to kill him, and that made him feel more alive than he had done for days.

And they were also slightly less intelligent than he was. This is a quality you should always pray for in your would-be murderer.

He dropped the pole, picked up the crossbow, spun past the window, fired at an indistinct shape on the opera house roof opposite as if the bow could possibly carry across that range, leapt across the room and wrenched at the door. Something smashed into the doorframe as the door swung to behind him.

Then it was down the back stairs, out of the door, over the privy roof, into Knuckle Passage, up the back steps of Zorgo the Retrophrenologist,[15] into Zorgo's operating room and over to the window.

Zorgo and his current patient looked at him curiously.

Pugnant's roof was empty. Vimes turned back and met a pair of puzzled gazes.

' 'Morning, Captain Vimes,' said the retrophrenologist, a hammer still upraised in one massive hand.

Vimes smiled manically.

'Just thought—'he began, and then went on,'—I saw an interesting rare butterfly on the roof over there.'

Troll and patient stared politely past him.

'But there wasn't,' said Virnes.