Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Behind them the pursuers, suddenly trying to make progress in a gap barely wide enough to accommodate a troll, realized that they were pushing and shoving with their mortal enemies and started to fight one another in the quickest, nastiest and above all narrowest battle ever held in the city.

Cuddy waved Detritus to a halt and peered around a comer.

'I think we're safe,' he said. 'All we have to do is get out of the other end of this and get back to the Watch House. OK?'

He turned around, failed to see the troll, took a step forward, and vanished temporarily from the world of men.

'Oh, no,' said Sergeant Colon. 'He promised he wasn't going to touch it any more! Look, he's had a whole bottle!'

'What is it? Bearhugger's?' said Nobby.

'Shouldn't think so, he's still breathing. Come on, help me up with him.'

The Night Watch clustered around. Carrot had deposited Captain Vimes on a chair in the middle of the Watch House floor.

Angua picked out the bottle and looked at the label.

'C M. O. T. Dibbler's Genuine Authentic Soggy Mountain Dew,' she read. 'He's going to die! It says, “One hundred and fifty per cent proof”!'

'Nah, that's just old Dibbler's advertising,' said Nobby. 'It ain't got no proof. Just circumstantial evidence.'

'Why hasn't he got his sword?' said Angua.

Vimes opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the concerned face of Nobby.

'Aargh!' he said. 'Swor'? Gi' it 'way! Hooray!'

'What?' said Colon.

'No mo' Watsh! All go' . . .'

'I think he's a bit drunk,' said Carrot.

'Drun'? 'm not drun'! You wouldn'dare call m' drun' if I was sober!'

t one of you get him a blanket or something?' he said.

A very fat man said, 'Huh? Who'd use a blanket after it had been on a troll?'

'Hah, yes, good point,' said Cuddy. He glanced at the five holes in Detritus' breastplate. They were at about head height, for a dwarf. 'Could you come over here for a moment, please?'

The man grinned at his friends, and sauntered over.

'I expect you can see the holes in his armour, right?' said Cuddy.

C. M. O. T. Dibbler was a survivor. In the same way that rodents and insects can sense an earthquake ahead of the first tremors, so he could tell if something big was about to go down on the street. Cuddy was being too nice. When a dwarf was nice like that, it meant he was saving up to be nasty later on.

'I'll just, er, go about my business, then,' he said, and backed away.

'I've got nothing against dwarfs, mind you,' said the fat man. 'I mean, dwarfs is practically people, in my book. Just shorter humans, almost. But trolls . . . weeeelll . . . they're not the same as us, right?'

' 'scuse me, 'scuse me, gangway, gangway,' said Dibbler, achieving with his cart the kind of getaway customarily associated with vehicles that have fluffy dice on the windscreen.

'That's a nice coat you've got there,' said Cuddy.

Dibbler's cart went around the corner on one wheel.

'It's a nice coat,' said Cuddy. 'You know what you should do with a coat like that?'