Thud! (Discworld 34)

He had a board. He said he was a keen player.

That"s not my cow!

That was a dwarf under pressure if ever I saw one; he looked as if he was dying to tell me something ...

Where"s my cow? That look in his eyes ... Is that my cow?

I was so angry. Don"t tell the Watch? What did they expect? You"d have thought he would have known ...

It goes, "Hruuugh!" He knew I"d go spare!

It is a hippopotamus! He wanted me to be angry!

That"s not my cow!

He damn well wanted me to be angry!

Vimes snorted and crowed his way through the rest of the zoo, missing out not one hark or squeak, and tucked up his son with a kiss.

There was the sound of tinkling glass from downstairs. Oh, someone"s dropped a glass, said his front brain. But his back brain, which had steered him safely through these mean streets for more than fifty years, whispered: like hell they did!

Cook had the evening off. Purity would be up in her room. Sybil was out feeding the dragons. That left Willikins. Butlers didn"t drop things.

From below there was a quiet ugh, and then the thud of something hitting meat.

And Vimes"s sword was on the hook at the other end of the hall, because Sybil didn"t like him wearing it in the house.

As quietly as possible he looked around for something, anything, that could be turned into a weapon. Regrettably, they had, when choosing toys for Young Sam, completely neglected the whole area of hard things with sharp edges. Bunnies, chuckies and piggies there were in plenty, but- Ah. Vimes spotted something that would do, and wrenched it free.

Moving soundlessly on thick, over-darned socks, he crept down the stairs.

The door to the wine cellar was open. Vimes didn"t drink these days, but guests did, and Willikins in accordance with some butlerian duty to generations just arrived or as yet unborn cared for it and bought in the occasional promising vintage. Was there the crackle of glass being trodden on? Okay, did the stairs creak? He"d find out.

He reached the vaulted cellar and stepped carefully out of the light filtering down from the hall.

Now he could smell it ... the faint reek of black oil.

The little bastards! And they could see in the dark, too, right? He fumbled in his pocket for his matches, while his heart

thudded in his ears. His fingers closed over a match, he took a deep

breath

One hand grasped his wrist, and as he swung madly at the

darkness with the hind leg of a rocking-horse this too was wrested from him. Instinctively, he kicked out, and there was a grunt. His arms were released, and from somewhere near the floor the voice of Willikins, rather strained, said, "Excuse me, sir, I appear to have walked into your foot."

"Willikins? What the hell"s been happening?"

"Some dwarfish gentlemen called while you were upstairs, sir," said the butler, unfolding slowly. "Through the cellar wall, in fact. I regret to say that I found it necessary to deal somewhat strictly with them. I fear one might be dead."

Vimes peered around. "Might be dead? Is he still breathing?"

"I do not know, sir." Willikins applied a match, with great care, to a stub of candle. "I heard him gurgling, but he appears to have stopped. I"m sorry to say that they came upon me when I was leaving the ice store and I was forced to defend myself with the first thing that came to hand."

"Which was....?"

"The ice knife, sir," said Willikins levelly. He held up eighteen inches of sharp serrated steel, designed to slice ice into convenient blocks. "The other gentleman I have lodged on a meat hook, sir."