Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

There was water under him, too.

The Ankh was rising and, in accordance with laws older than those of the city, the water was finding its way back up the tunnels.

'Carrot,' Vimes whispered.

'Yes?' The voice came from somewhere in the pitch blackness to his right.

'I can't see a thing. I lost my night vision lighting that damn lamp.'

'I can feel water coming in.'

'We—' Vimes began, and stopped as he formed a mental picture of the hidden Cruces aiming at a patch of sound.

I should have shot him first, he thought. He's an Assassin!

He had to raise himself slightly to keep his face out of the rising water.

Then he heard a gentle splashing. Cruces was walking towards them.

There was a scratching noise, and then light. Cruces had lit a torch, and Vimes looked up to see the skinny shape in the glow. His other hand was steadying the gonne.

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

Then, to his everlasting horror, he heard Carrot stand up.

'Dr Cruces, I arrest you for the murder of Bjorn Hammerhock, Edward d'Eath, Beano the clown, Let-tice Knibbs and Acting-Constable Cuddy of the City Watch.'

'Dear me, all those? I'm afraid Edward killed Brother Beano. That was his own idea, the little fool. He said he hadn't meant to. And I understand that Hammerhock was killed accidentally. A freak accident. He poked around and the charge fired and the slug bounced off his anvil and killed him. That's what Edward said. He came to see me afterwards. He was very upset. Made a clean breast of the whole thing, you know. So I killed him. Well, what else could I do? He was quite mad. There's no dealing with that sort of person. May I suggest you step back, sire? I'd prefer not to shoot you. No! Not unless I have to!'

It seemed to Vimes that Cruces was arguing with himself. The gonne swung violently.

'He was babbling,' said Cruces. 'He said the gonne killed Hammerhock. I said, it was an accident? And he said no, no accident, the gonne killed Hammerhock.'

Carrot took another step forward. Cruces seemed to be in his own world now.

'No! The gonne killed the beggar girl, too. It wasn't me! Why should I do a thing like that?'

Cruces took a step back, but the gonne swung up towards Carrot. It looked to Vimes as though it moved of its own accord, like an animal sniffing the air . . .

'Get down!' Vimes hissed. He reached out and tried to find his crossbow.

'He said the gonne was jealous! Hammerhock would have made more gonnes! Stop where you are!'

Carrot took another step.

'I had to kill Edward! He was a romantic, he would have got it wrong! But Ankh-Morpork needs a king!'

The gun jerked and fired at the same moment as Carrot leapt sideways.

The tunnels were brilliant with smells, mostly the acrid yellows and earthy oranges of ancient drains. And there were hardly any air currents to disturb things; the line that was Cruces snaked through the heavy air. And there was the smell of the gonne, as vivid as a wound.

I smelled gonne in the Guild, she thought, just after Cruces walked past. And Gaspode said that was all right, because the gonne had been in the Guild – but it hadn't been fired in the Guild. I smelled it because someone there had fired the thing.

She splashed through the water into the big cavern and saw, with her nose, the three of them – the indistinct figure that smelled of Vimes, the falling figure that was Carrot, the turning shape with the gonne . . .