Thud! (Discworld 34)

"Not exactly prisoners," Angua said. "We can"t go anywhere. But since we wouldn"t know where to go even if we could go somewhere, it"s all a bit superfluous. Sorry I"m only in a shift, sir, you know how it is. The dwarfs have promised to fetch my gear. Er ... it"s all gone political, sir. The dwarf in command is a decent sort but he"s way out of his depth, so he"s sticking with what he

knows, sir. And, er, he doesn"t know a lot. Do you remember anything about what happened? You"ve been out for a good twenty minutes."

"Yes. There were ... woolly lambs. .. Vimes"s voice trailed into silence for a while. Somehow, what he"d just said took the ring of veracity and dropped it in a deep, deep hole. "There weren"t woolly lambs, right?"

"I didn"t see any," said Angua carefully. "I did see a striding, screaming, vengeful maniac, sir. But in a good way," she added.

The internal Vimes looked at memories he didn"t remember from the first time around.

"I-"he began.

"Everything"s ... sort of fine, sir," said Angua quickly. "But come and see this. Bashfullsson said you ought to see everything.!

"Bashfullsson ... he"s the know-it-all dwarf, right?" he said.

"Ah, it"s all coming back, sir," said Angua. "Good. He was a bit worried about that."

Vimes was steadier on his feet now, but his right arm hurt like hell and all the other pains that the day had accumulated were coming back and waving. Angua carefully led him through puddles and across rocks as slippery as wet marble until they reached a stalagmite. It was about eight feet high.

It was a troll. It wasn"t a rock shaped like a troll, it was a troll. They only got stonier when they died, Vimes knew, but the lines of this one had been softened by the milky rock dripped on its head.

"But now look at this, sir," said Angua, leading him on. "They were destroying them.

There was another stalagmite, lying on its side in a pool. It had been smashed off at the base. And it was ... a dwarf.

Dwarfs crumble after death just like humans, but all the armour, mail, chains and heavy leather mean there"s no great change to the eye of the casual observer. The flowing rock had covered it all in a glistening shroud.

Vimes straightened up and looked across the cavern. Shapes loomed in the gloom, all the way to the near wall where the drip of ages had formed a perfect ivory waterfall, frozen in time.

"There are more?"

"About twenty, sir. Half of them had been smashed before you ... arrived. Look at this one over here, sir. You can just make them out. They"re sitting back to back, sir."

Vimes stared at the figures under the glaze, and shook his head. A dwarf and a troll, together, cemented in rock.

"Is there anything to eat?" he said. It wasn"t the most awe-inspired thing to say, but it came from the stomach, with feeling.

"Our rations got lost in the excitement, sir. But the dwarfs will share theirs. They aren"t unfriendly, sir. Just cautious."

"Share? They have dwarf bread?"

"I"m afraid so, sir."

"I thought it was illegal to give that to prisoners. I think I"ll wait, thanks. And now, sergeant, you can tell me about the excitement."

It hadn"t exactly been an ambush; the dwarfs just caught up with them. Their captain had been given rather wide orders to follow Vimes and his party, and there had been a certain chilliness when he found that the party included two trolls. This was still Koom Valley, after all. Vimes felt a pang of sympathy for him; he"d had a simple job to do, and suddenly it was full of politics. Been there, done that, bought the singlet.

Forward Grag Bashfullsson, who had a way with words. Since they were all going the same way ...

And it had been a long way. The fleeing dwarfs had brought

down the ceiling not far from the entrance tunnel, and a journey that had taken Vimes a few minutes had taken the pursuers the best part of a day, even with Sally scouting ahead. Angua spoke of caves even bigger than this, of vast waterfalls in the dark. Vimes said, yes, he knew.

Then the words of Where"s My Cow? had boomed under Koom Valley, shaking the rock of ages and making the stalactites hum in sympathy, and the rest had been a matter of running ...

"I can remember reading to Young Sam," said Vimes slowly. "But there were these ... strange pictures in my head." He stopped. All that anger, all that red-hot rage, had flowed out of him in a torrent, without thought. "I killed those damn soldiers. .

"Most of them, sir," said Angua cheerfully. "And there"s a couple of miners who got in the way who"ll be aching for months."