"We are nearly there, commander," said Ardent, walking away. "Nearly there!"
Aimless and hopeless, the troll wandered ...
His name was Brick, although currently he couldn"t remember this. His head ached. It really ached. It was der Scrape that did it. What did dey always say? When you sinkin" to where you was cookin" up Scrape you was so low even der cockroaches had to bend down to spitting on you?
Last night ... what had happenin"? What bits did he see, what
bits did he do, what bits in der thumpin", scaldin" cauldron of his brain were real? The bit with der giant woolly elephants, dey prob"ly weren"t real. He was pretty sure there weren"t any giant woolly elephants in dis city, "cos if dere were, he would"ve seen "em before, and dere"d be big steamin" turds in der streets an" similar, you wouldn"t miss "em ...
He was called Brick because he had been born in the city, and trolls, being made of metamorphorical rock, often take on the nature of the local rocks. His hide was a dirty orange, with a network of horizontal and vertical lines; if Brick stood up close to a wall, he was quite hard to see. But most people didn"t see Brick anyway. He was the kind of person whose mere existence is an insult to all decent folk, in their opinion.
Dat mine wi" dem dwarfs, was dat real? You go an" find a place to lie down and watch der pretty pitchurs, suddenly you"re in dis dwarf hole? That couldn"a bin real! Only ... word on der street was dat some troll had got into a dwarf hole, yeah, and everyone was lookin" for dat troll an" not to shake him by der han" ... Der word said der Breccia wanted to find out real hard, and by der sound of it dey were not happy. Not happy that some dwarf who"d been puttin" der bad word on the clans was offed by a troll? Were dey mad? Actually, it didn"t matter if dey was mad or not, "cos they had ways of asking questions dat didn"t heal for months, so he better keepin" out dere way.
On der other hand ... a dwarf wouldn"t know one troll from another, right? And no one else had seen him. So act normal, right? He"d be fine. He"d be fine. Anyway, it couldn"a bin him ...
It occurred to Brick - yeah, dat"s my name, knew it all der time - that he still had a bit of the white powder at the bottom of the bag. All he needed to do now was find a startled pigeon and some alcohol, any alcohol at all, and he"d be fine. Yeah. Fine. Nothin" to worry about at all ...
Yeah.
When Vimes stepped out into the brilliant daylight the first thing he did was draw a deep breath. The second thing he did was draw his sword, wincing as his sore hand protested.
Fresh air, that was the stuff. He"d felt quite dizzy underground, and the tiny cut on his hand itched like mad. He"d better get Igor to take a look at it. You could probably catch anything in the muck down there.
Ah, that was better. He could feel himself cooling down. The air down there had made him feel really strange.
The crowd was a lot more like a mob now, but he saw at the second glance that it was what he thought of as a plum cake mob. It doesn"t take many people to turn a worried, anxious crowd into a mob. A shout here, a shove there, something thrown here ... and with care every hesitant, nervous individual is being drawn into a majority that does not in fact exist.
Detritus was still standing like a statue, apparently oblivious of the growing din. But Ringfounder ... damn. He was arguing hotly with people at the front of the crowd. You never argued! You never got drawn in!
"Corporal Ringfounder!" he bellowed. "To me!"
The dwarf turned as a half-brick sailed over the heads of the mob and clanged off his helmet. He went over like a tree.
Detritus moved so fast that he was halfway through the crowd before the dwarf hit the cobbles. His arm dipped into the press of bodies and hauled up a struggling figure. He spun round, thudded back through the gap that hadn"t had time to close yet, and was beside Vimes before Ringfounder"s helmet had stopped rolling.
"Well done, sergeant," said Vimes out of the corner of his mouth. "Did you have a plan for the next bit?"
"I"m more der tactical kind, sir," said Detritus.
Oh, well. At times like this you didn"t argue, and you didn"t step back. Vimes pulled out his badge and held it up.
"This dwarf is under arrest for assaulting a Watch officer!" he shouted. "Let us through, in the name of the law!"
And to his amazement, the crowd went quiet, like a lot of children when they sense that this time teacher is really, really angry. Perhaps it was the words on the badge, he thought. You couldn"t rub them out.
In the silence, another half-brick dropped out of the free hand of the dwarf in Detritus"s very solid custody. Years later, Vimes would shut his eyes and still be able to recall the crunch it made when it hit the ground.
Angua stood up, with the unconscious Ringfounder in her arms. "He"s concussed," she said. "And I suggest, sir, that you turn round, just for a moment?"
Vimes risked a glance. Ardent - or, at least, a leather-shrouded dwarf that could have been him - was standing in the shadows of the doorway. He had the attention of the crowd.
"We"re being allowed to go?" he said to Angua, nodding to the figure.
"I think the going is the thing, sir, don"t you?"
"You"ve got that right, sergeant. Detritus, keep a grip on that little bugger. Back to the nick, all of us."
The crowd parted to let them through, with barely a murmur. The silence followed them all the way back to the Watch House ...