Thud! (Discworld 34)

"He pick me up one day. Gimme food," Brick mumbled. "He show me where to come for more. He tole me t"keep off"f the stuff, too. But..."

"Yes ... ?"Vimes prompted.

Brick waved a pair of scarred, knobbly arms in a gesture that said, far more coherently than he could, that there was the whole universe on one side and Brick on the other, and what could anyone do against odds like that?

And so he"d been handed over to Detritus, Vimes thought. That evened the odds somewhat.

He stood up and nodded to Detritus. "Should I take anything, sergeant?"

The troll thought about this. "No," he said, "but maybe dere"s some finkin" you could leave behind."

I should be in charge of the mine raid, thought Vimes. We might be starting a war after all, and I"m sure people would like to think that someone high up was there when it happened. So why do I think it"s more important that I see the mysterious Mr Shine?

Captain Carrot had been busy. The city dwarfs liked him. So he"d done what Vimes could not have done, or at least done well, which was take a muddy dwarf necklace to a dwarf home down in New Cobblers and explain to two dwarf parents how it had been found. Things had happened quite fast after that, and another reason for the speed was that the mine was shut. Guards and workers and dwarfs seeking guidance on the path of dwarfdom had turned up to be met with locked doors. Money was owing, and dwarfs got very definite about things like that. A lot of the huge body of dwarf lore was about contracts. You were supposed to get paid.

No more politics, Vimes told himself. Someone killed four of our dwarfs, not some crazy rabble-rouser, and left them down there in the dark. I don"t care who they are, they"re going to be dragged

into the light. It"s the law. All the way to the bottom, all the way to the top.

But it"s going to be done by dwarfs. Dwarfs will go to that well, and dig out that mud again, and bring up the proof.

He walked into the main office. Carrot was there, along with half a dozen dwarf officers. They looked grim.

"All set?" said Vimes.

"Yes, Sir. We"ll meet the others at Empirical Crescent."

"You"ve got enough diggers?"

"All dwarfs are diggers, sir," said Carrot solemnly. "There"s timber on the way, and winching gear too. Some of the miners joining us helped dig that tunnel, sir. They knew those lads. They"re a bit bewildered and angry."

"I"ll bet. They believe us, then, do they?" said Vimes.

"Er ... more or less, sir. If the bodies aren"t there, though, we"re going to be in trouble."

"Very true. Did your lads know what they were digging for?"

"No, Sir. They just got orders from the dark dwarfs. And different squads dug in different directions. A long way in different directions. As far as Money Trap Lane and Ettercap Street, they think."

"That"s a big slice of the city!"

"Yessir. But there was something odd."

"Do go on, captain," said Vimes. "We"re good at odd."

"Every so often everyone had to stop work and the foreign dwarfs listened at the walls with a big, er, thing, like an ear trumpet. Sally found something like that when she was down there."

"They were listening? In soggy mud? Listening for what? Singing worms?"

"The dwarfs don"t know, sir. Trapped miners, they thought. I suppose it makes sense. A lot of the digging is through old stonework, so I suppose it"s possible that other miners could be trapped somewhere that"s got air."

"Not to last for weeks, though, surely? And why dig in different directions?"

"It"s a puzzle, sir, there"s no doubt about it. But we"ll get to the bottom of it soon enough. Everyone"s very keen."

"Good. But play down the Watch side, will you? This is a bunch of concerned citizens trying to find their loved ones after a reported mining disaster, okay? The watchmen are just helping them out."

"You mean "remember I"m a dwarf" sir?"