Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Vimes put down his coffee cup.

Whoever had shot those lead balls at him had been very accurate across several hundred yards, and had got off six shots faster than anyone could fire an arrow . . .

Vimes picked up the pipes. Six little pipes, six shots. And you could carry a pocketful of these things. You could shoot further, faster, more accurately than anyone else with any other kind of weapon . . .

So. A new type of weapon. Much, much faster than a bow. The Assassins wouldn't like that. They wouldn't like that at all. They weren't even keen on bows. The Assassins preferred to kill up close.

So they'd put the . . . the gonne safely under lock and key. The gods alone knew how they'd come by it in the first place. And a few senior Assassins would know about it. They'd pass on the secret: beware of things like this . . .

'Down there! He went into Grope Alley!'

'Slow down! Slow down!'

'Why?' said Detritus.

'It's a dead end.'

The two Watchmen lumbered to a halt.

Cuddy knew that he was currently the brains of the partnership, even though Detritus was presently counting, his face beaming with pride, the stones in the wall beside him.

Why had they chased someone halfway across the dry ? Because they'd run away. No-one ran away from the Watch. Thieves just flashed their licences. Unlicensed thieves had nothing to fear from the Watch, since they'd saved up all their fear for the Thieves' Guild. Assassins always obeyed the letter of the law. And honest men didn't run away from the Watch.[18] Running away from the Watch was downright suspicious.

The origin of Grope Alley's name was fortunately lost in the celebrated mists of time, but it had come to be deserved. It had turned into a kind of tunnel as upper storeys were built out and over it, leaving a few inches of sky.

Cuddy peered around the corner, into the gloom.

Click. Click.

It came from deep in the darkness.

'Detritus?'

'Yeah?'

'Did he have any weapons?'

'Just a stick. One stick.'

'Only . . . I smell fireworks.'

Cuddy pulled his head back, very carefully.

There had been the smell of fireworks in Hammer-hock's workshop. And Mr Hammerhock ended up with a big hole in his chest. And a sense of named dread, which is much more specific and terrifying than nameless dread, was stealing over Cuddy. It was similar to the feeling you get when you're playing a high stakes game and your opponent suddenly grins and you realize that you don't know all the rules but you do know you'll be lucky to get out of this with, if you are very fortunate, your shirt.

On the other hand . . . he could picture Sergeant Colon's face. We chased this man into an alley, sarge, and then we came away . . .

He drew his sword.

'Lance-Constable Detritus?'

'Yes, Lance-Constable Cuddy?'

'Follow me.'

Why? The damn thing was made of metal, wasn't it? Ten minutes in a hot crucible and that'd be the end of the problem. Something like that, something dangerous, why not just get rid of it? Why keep it?

But that wasn't human nature, was it? Sometimes things were too fascinating to destroy.