Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Shoot them all. Clean up the world.

'Shut up!' Vimes, a red-eyed, dust-coated, slime-dripping thing from out of the earth, glared at the quaking student.

'Where did Cruces go?' The mist rolled around his head. His hand creaked with the effort of not firing.

The young man jerked a finger urgently towards a flight of stairs. He'd been standing very close when the gonne fired. Plaster dust draped him like devil's dandruff.

The gonne sped away again, dragging Vimes past the boys and up the stairs, where black mud still trailed. There was another corridor there. Doors were opening. Doors closed again after the gonne fired again, smashing a chandelier.

The corridor gave out on to a wide landing at the top of a much more impressive flight of stairs and, opposite, a big oaken door.

Vimes shot the lock off, kicked at the door and then fought the gonne long enough to duck. A crossbow bolt whirred over his head and hit someone, far down the corridor.

Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!

Cruces was standing by his desk, feverishly trying to slot another bolt into his bow—

Vimes tried to silence the singing in his ears.

But . . . why not? Why not fire? Who was this man? He'd always wanted to make the city a cleaner place, and he might as well start here. And then people would find out what the law was . . .

Clean up the world.

Noon started.

The cracked bronze bell in the Teachers' Guild began the chime, and had midday all to itself for at least seven clangs before the Guild of Bakers' clock, running fast, caught up with it.

Cruces straightened up, and began to edge towards the cover of one of the stone pillars.

'You can't shoot me,' he said, watching the gonne. 'I know the law. And so do you. You're a guard. You can't shoot me in cold blood.'

Vimes squinted along the barrel.

It'd be so easy. The trigger tugged at his finger.

A third bell began chiming.

'You can't just kill me. That's the law. And you're a guard,' Dr Cruces repeated. He licked his dry lips.

The barrel lowered a little. Cruces almost relaxed.

'Yes. I am a guard.'

The barrel rose again, pointed at Cruces' forehead.

'But when the bells stop,' said Vimes, quietly, 'I won't be a guard any more.'

Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!

Vimes forced the butt under his arm, so that he had one hand free.

'We'll do it by the rules,' he said. 'By the rules. Got to do it by the rules.'

Without looking down, he tugged his badge off the remains of his jacket. Even through the mud, it still had a gleam. He'd always kept it polished. When he spun it once or twice, like a coin, the copper caught the light.

Cruces watched it like a cat.

The bells were slackening. Most of the towers had stopped. Now there was only the sound of the gong on the Temple of Small Gods, and the bells of the Assassins' Guild, which were always fashionably late.