'Captain Vimes—'
'It's all right. We know. Give him your weapons, people. That's an order, Carrot. One official issue sword, one pike or halberd, one night stick or truncheon, one crossbow. That's right, isn't it, Sergeant Colon?'
'Yessir.'
Carrot hesitated only a moment.
'Oh, well,' he said. 'My official sword is in the rack.'
'What's that one in your belt?'
Carrot said nothing. However, he shifted position slightly. His biceps strained against the leather of his jerkin.
'Official sword. Right,' said Quirke. He turned. He was one of those people who would recoil from an assault on strength, but attack weakness without mercy. 'Where's the gritsucker?' he said. 'And the rock?'
'Ah,' said Vimes, 'you are referring to those representative members of our fellow sapient races who have chosen to throw in their lots with the people of this city?'
'I mean the dwarf and the troll,' said Quirke.
'Haven't the faintest idea,' said Vimes cheerfully. It seemed to Angua that he was drunk again, if people could get drunk on despair.
'We dunno, sir,' said Colon. 'Haven't seen 'em all day.'
'Probably fighting up in Quarry Lane with the rest of them,'' said Quirke. 'You can't trust people of their type. You ought to know that.'
And it also seemed to Angua that although words like halfpint and gritsucker were offensive, they were as terms of universal brotherhood compared to words like 'people of their type' in the mouth of men like Quirke. Much to her shock, she found her gaze concentrating on the man's jugular vein.
e Ankh-Morpork didn't know Ankh-Morpork had them,' said Detritus.
'Right. You're right. This place is old. We're in the bowels of the earth.'
'In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself,' said Detritus, awe and wonder in his voice. 'Truly, this a land of opportunity.'
'Here's some more writing,' said Cuddy. He scraped away some slime.
' “Cirone IV me fabricat”,' he read aloud. 'He was one of the early kings, wasn't he? Hey . . . do you know what that means?'
'No-one's been down here since yesterday,' said Detritus.
'No! This place . . . this place is more than two thousand years old. We're quite probably the first people to come down here since—'
'Yesterday,' said the troll.
'Yesterday? Yesterday? What's yesterday got to do with it?'
'Footprints still fresh,' said Detritus.
He pointed.
There were footprints in the mud.
'How long have you lived here?' said Cuddy, suddenly feeling very conspicuous in the middle of the tunnel.
'Nine-er years. That is the number of years I have lived here. Nine-er,' said Detritus, proudly. 'It only one of a large . . . number of numbers I can count to.'
'Have you ever heard of tunnels under the city?'
'No.'