'And there were bits of burned rope and pulleys.'

'I smelled dragon,' said Vimes.

'Sure, captain?'

'Trust me.' Vimes grimaced. If you spent any time in Lady Ramkin's company, you soon found out what dragons smelled like. If something put its head in your lap while you were dining, you said nothing, you just kept passing it titbits and hoped like hell it didn't hiccup.

'There was a glass case in that room,' he said. 'It was smashed open. Hah! Something was stolen. There was a bit of card in the dust, but someone must have pinched it while old Cruces was talking to me. I'd give a hundred dollars to know what it said.'

'Why, captain?' said Corporal Carrot.

'Because that bastard Cruces doesn't want me to know.'

'I know what could have blown the hole open,' said Angua.

'What?'

'An exploding dragon.'

They walked in stunned silence.

'That could do it, sir,' said Carrot loyally. 'The little devils go bang at the drop of a helmet.'

'Dragon,' muttered Vimes. 'What makes you think it was a dragon, Lance-Constable Angua?'

Angua hesitated. 'Because a dog told me' was not, she judged, a career-advancing thing to say at this point.

'Woman's intuition?' she suggested.

'I suppose,' said Vimes, 'you wouldn't hazard an intuitive guess as to what was stolen?'

Angua shrugged. Carrot noticed how interestingly her chest moved.

'Something the Assassins wanted to keep where they could look at it?' she said.

'Oh, yes,' said Vimes. 'I suppose next you'll tell me this dog saw it all?'

'Woof?'

Edward d'Eath drew the curtains, bolted the door and leaned on it. It had been so easy!

He'd put the bundle on the table. It was thin, and about four feet long.

He unwrapped it carefully, and there . . . it . . . was.

It looked pretty much like the drawing. Typical of the man – a whole page full of meticulous drawings of crossbows, and this in the margin, as though it hardly mattered.

It was so simple! Why hide it away? Probably because people were afraid. People were always afraid of power. It made them nervous.

Edward picked it up, cradled it for a while, and found that it seemed to fit his arm and shoulder very snugly.

You're mine.

And that, more or less, was the end of Edward d'Eath. Something continued for a while, but what it was, and how it thought, wasn't entirely human.

It was nearly noon. Sergeant Colon had taken the new recruits down to the archery butts in Butts Treat.

Vimes went on patrol with Carrot.

Tags: Terry Pratchett Discworld Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net