Thud! (Discworld 34)

Strange.

With a flick of its tail, it disappeared into an alley.

The Pork Futures Warehouse was ... one of those things, the sort that you get in a city that has lived with magic for too long. The occult reasoning, if such it could be called, was this: pork was an important commodity in the city. Future pork, possibly even pork as yet unborn, was routinely traded by the merchants. Therefore, it had to exist somewhere. And the Pork Futures Warehouse came into existence, icy cold within as the pork drifted backwards in time. It was a popular place for cold storage - and for trolls who wanted to think quickly.

Even here, away from the more troubled areas, the people on the streets were ... watchful.

And now they watched Vimes and his motley squad pull up outside one of the warehouse doors.

"I reckon at least one of us should go in wid you," Detritus rumbled, as protective as a mother hen. "Chrysoprase won"t be alone, you can bet on dat: He unslung the Piecemaker, the crossbow he had personally built from a converted siege weapon, the multiple bolts of which tended to shatter in the air from the sheer stresses of acceleration. They could remove a door not simply from its frame

but also from the world of objects bigger than a matchstick. Its incredible inaccuracy was part of the Piecemaker"s charm. The rest of the squad very quickly got behind him.

"Only you, then, sergeant," said Vimes. "The rest of you, come in only if you hear screaming. Me screaming, that is: He hesitated, and then pulled out the Gooseberry, which was still humming to itself. "And no interruptions, understand?"

"Yes, Insert Name Here! Hmm hum hmm. .

Vimes pulled open the door. Dead, freezing air poured out around him. Thick frost crackled under his feet. Instantly, his breath twinkled in clouds.

He hated the Pork Futures Warehouse. The semi-transparent slabs of yet-to-be-meat hanging in the air, accumulating reality every day, made him shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature. Sam Vimes considered crispy bacon to be a food group in its own right, and the sight of it travelling backwards in time turned his stomach the wrong way.

He took a few steps inside and looked around in the dank, chilly greyness.

"Commander Vimes," he announced, feeling a bit of a fool.

Here, away from the doors, freezing mist lay knee-high on the floor. Two trolls waded through it towards him. More lichen, he saw. More clan graffiti. More sheep skulls.

"Leave weapons here," one rumbled.

"Baaa!" said Vimes, striding between them.

There was a click behind him, and the faint song of steel wires under tension yet yearning to be free. Detritus had shouldered his bow.

"You can try takin" dis one off"f me if you like," he volunteered.

Vimes saw, further into the mist, a group of trolls. One or two of them looked like hired grunt. The others, though ... He sighed. All Detritus needed to do was fire that thing in this direction and quite a lot of the organized crime in the city would suddenly be very

disorganized, as would be Vimes if he didn"t hit the floor in time. But he couldn"t allow that. There were rules here that went deeper than the law. Besides, a forty-foot hole in the warehouse wall would take some explaining.

Chrysoprase was sitting on a frost-crusted crate. You could always tell him in a crowd. He wore suits, when few trolls aspired to more than the odd scrap of leather. He even wore a tie, with a diamond pin. And today he had a fur coat round his shoulders. That had to be for show. Trolls liked low temperatures. They could think faster when their brains were cool. That"s why the meeting had been called here. Right, Vimes thought, trying to stop his teeth from chattering, when it"s my turn it"s going to be in a sauna.

"Mister Vimes! Good o" you to be comin"," said Chrysoprase jovially. "Dese gentlemen are all high-toned businessmen of my acquaintance. I "spect you can put names to faces."

"Yeah, the Breccia," said Vimes.

"Now den, Mister Vimes, you know dat don"t exist," said Chrysoprase innocently. "We just band together to further troll interests in der city via many charitable concerns. You could say we are community leaders. Dere"s no call for name callin"."

Community leaders, Vimes thought. There"d been a lot of talk about community leaders lately, as in "community leaders appealed for calm, a phrase the Times used so often that the printers probably left it set in type. Vimes wondered who they were, and how they were appointed and, sometimes, if "appealing for calm" meant winking and saying "Do not use those shiny new battle-axes in that cupboard over there ... No, not that one, the other one." Hamcrusher had been a community leader.

"You said you wanted to talk to me alone," he said, nodding towards the shadowy figures. Some of them were hiding their faces.

"Dat is so. Oh, dese gennlemen behind me? Dey will be leavin" us now,, said Chrysoprase, waving a hand at them. "Dey"re just here so"s

you understand dat one troll, dat is yours truly, is speakin" for der many. An, at the same time, your good sergeant dere, my of frien" Detritus, is goin" outside for a smoke, would dat be der case? Dis conversation is between you an" me or it don"t happen."

Vimes turned and nodded to Detritus. Reluctantly, with a scowl at Chrysoprase, the sergeant withdrew. So did the trolls. Boots crunched over the frost, and then doors slammed shut.

Vimes and Chrysoprase looked at one another in literally frozen silence.