Feet of Clay

Vimes stared at the words, and then at what remained of Dorfl.

‘Mr Vimes?’ said Carrot.

‘Do it,’ said Vimes.

Carrot blinked.

‘Right now,’ Vimes said. He looked back at the scrawl in his book.

WORDS IN THE HEART CAN NOT BE TAKEN.

‘And when you rebuild him,’ he said, ‘when you rebuild him … give him a voice. Understand? And get someone to look at your hand.’

‘A voice, sir?’

‘Do it!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right.’ Vimes pulled himself together. ‘Constable Angua and I will have a look around here. Off you go.’

He watched Carrot and the troll carry the remains out. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for arsenic. Maybe there’ll be some workshop somewhere. I shouldn’t think they’d want to mix the poisoned candles up with the others. Cheery’ll know what— Where is Corporal Littlebottom?’

‘Er … I don’t think I can hold on much longer …’

They looked up.

Cheri was hanging on the line of candles.

‘How did you get up there?’ said Vimes.

‘I sort of found myself going past, sir.’

‘Can’t you just let go? You’re not that high— Oh …’

A big trough of molten tallow was a few feet under her. Occasionally the surface went gloop.

‘Er … how hot would that be?’ Vimes hissed to Angua.

‘Ever bitten hot jam?’ she said.

Vimes raised his voice. ‘Can’t you swing yourself along, Corporal?’

‘All the wood’s greasy, sir!’

‘Corporal Littlebottom, I order you not to fall off!’

‘Very good, sir!’

Vimes pulled off his jacket. ‘Hang on to this. I’ll see if I can climb up …’ he muttered.

‘It won’t work!’ said Angua. ‘The thing’s shaky enough as it is!’

‘I can feel my hands slipping, sir.’

‘Good grief, why didn’t you call out earlier?’

‘Everyone seemed to be busy, sir.’

‘Turn around, sir,’ said Angua, undoing the buckles of her breastplate. ‘Right now, please! And shut your eyes!’

‘Why, what …?’

‘Rrright nowwww, sirrrrr!’

‘Oh … yes …’

Vimes heard Angua back away from the candle machine, her footsteps punctuated by the clang of falling armour. Then she started running and the footsteps changed while she was running and then …

He opened his eyes.

The wolf sailed upwards in slow motion, caught the dwarf’s shoulder in its jaws as Cheri’s grip gave way, and then arced its body so that wolf and dwarf hit the floor on the far side of the vat.

Angua rolled, whimpering.

Cheri scrambled to her feet. ‘It’s a werewolf!’

Angua rolled back and forth, pawing at her mouth.

‘What’s happened to it?’ said Cheri, her panic receding a little. ‘It looks … hurt. Where’s Angua? Oh …’

Vimes glanced at the dwarf’s torn leather shirt. ‘You wear chain mail under your clothes?’ he said.

‘Oh … it’s my silver vest … but she knew about it. I told her …’

Vimes grabbed Angua’s collar. She moved to bite him, and then caught his eye and turned her head away.

‘She only bit the silver,’ said Cheri, distractedly.

Angua pulled herself on to her feet, glared at them, and slunk off behind some crates. They heard her whimpering which, by degrees, became a voice.

‘Blasted blasted dwarfs and their blasted vests …’

‘You all right, Constable?’ said Vimes.

‘Damn silver underwear … Can you throw me my clothes, please?’

Vimes bundled up Angua’s uniform and, eyes closed for decency’s sake, handed it around the crates.

‘No one told me she was a were—’ Cheri moaned.

‘Look at it like this, Corporal,’ said Vimes, as patiently as he could. ‘If she hadn’t been a werewolf you would by now be the world’s largest novelty candle, all right?’

Angua walked from behind the crates, rubbing her mouth. The skin around it looked too pink …

‘It burned you?’ said Cheri.

‘It’ll heal,’ said Angua.

‘You never said you were a werewolf!’

‘How would you’ve liked me to have put it?’

‘Right,’ said Vimes, ‘if that’s all sorted out, ladies, I want this place searched. Understand?’

‘I’ve got some ointment,’ said Cheri meekly.

‘Thank you.’

They found a bag in a cellar. There were several boxes of candles. And a lot of dead rats.

Igneous the troll opened the door of his pottery a fraction. He’d intended the fraction to be no more than about one-sixteenth, but someone immediately pushed hard and turned it into rather more than one and three-quarters.

‘Here, what’s dis?’ he said, as Detritus and Carrot came in with the shell of Dorfl between them. ‘You can’t jus’ break in here—’

‘We ain’t just breakin’ in,’ said Detritus.

‘Dis is an outrage,’ said Igneous. ‘You got no right comin’ in here. You got no reason—’

Detritus let go of the golem and spun around. His hand shot out and caught Igneous around the throat. ‘You see dose statchoos of Monolith over dere? You see dem?’ he growled, twisting the other troll’s head to face a row of troll religious statues on the other side of the warehouse. ‘You want I should smash one open, see what dey’re fill wit’, maybe find a reason?’

Igneous’s slitted eyes darted this way and that. He might have been hard of thinking, but he could feel a killing mood when it was in the air. ‘No call for dat, I always help der Watch,’ he muttered. ‘What dis all about?’