Thud! (Discworld 34)

"We take spoil to a heap on the waste ground outside," said Ardent. "We, er, believe the troll got in that way. It was an unpardonable oversight." He still sounded uneasy.

"And the troll was not seen?" said Carrot, kicking at the mud.

"No. These chambers are finished. The diggers are elsewhere, but they came as soon as they could. We believe the grag had come up here for solitude. To die at the random hand of an abomination!"

"Lucky for the troll, wasn"t it, sir?" said Angua sharply. "He just happened to wander in and stumble across Hamcrusher?"

Carrot"s boot struck something metallic. He kicked some more mud away. "You"ve laid rails?" he said. "You must be shifting a lot of spoil, sir.,

"Better to push than to carry," said Ardent. "Now, I have arranged for-"

"Hold on, what"s this?" said Carrot. He squatted down and pulled at something pale. "It"s a piece of bone, by the look of it. On a string."

"There are plenty of old bones," said Ardent. "Now, I-"

It came free with a gloop, and grinned at them in the sickly light.

"It doesn"t look very old, sir," said Carrot.

Just one breath was enough for Angua.

"It"s a sheep skull," she said. "About three months dead." Oh, another clue, she added to herself. Nice and convenient for us to find, too.

"Could have been dropped by the troll," said Carrot.

"A troll?" said Ardent, backing away.

It wasn"t the reaction Angua had expected. Ardent had been

nervous already, but now, under all those wrappings, he was on the verge of panic.

"You did say a troll had attacked the grag, sir?" said Carrot.

"But we never- I never saw that before! Why didn"t we find it? Did it come back?"

"All the doors are sealed, sir," said Carrot patiently. "Aren"t they?" "But have we sealed it in here with us?" It was practically a shriek. "You"d know, sir, wouldn"t you?" said Carrot. "Trolls sort of, well,

stand out."

"I must fetch guards!" said Ardent, backing away towards the single open door. "It could be anywhere!"

"Then you could be heading right towards it, sir," said Angua.

Ardent stopped dead for a moment, and then uttered a little whimper and ran into the dark, Helmclever on his heels.

"Well, how do we all think that went?" said Angua, with a horrible smile. "And what was that you said to him in dwarfish - "You know I am a dwarf in the brotherhood of all dwarfs"?"

"Erm, "With emphatic certainty you know me. I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united"," said Sally carefully.

"Well done, lance-constable!" said Carrot. "That was an excellent translation!"

"Yes, did you bite someone clever?" said Angua.

"I am a Black Ribboner, sergeant," said Sally meekly. "And I"m naturally good at languages. While we"re alone, captain, can I mention something else?"

"Certainly," said Carrot, trying the wheel on one of the closed doors.

"I think a lot of things are wrong here, sir. There was something very strange about the way Ardent reacted to that skull. Why would he think the troll was still here, after all that time?"