Men at Arms

Sergeant Colon pinched the bridge of his nose. We're alive, he thought. A troll insulted a dwarf in front of a lot of other dwarfs. Coalface… I mean, Coalface, I mean, Detritus is Mr Clean by comparison… is free and now he's a guard. Carrot laid out Mayonnaise. Carrot's said we'll sort it all out by tomorrow, and it's dark already. But we're alive.

Corporal Carrot is a crazy man.

Hark at them dogs. Everyone's on edge, in this heat.

Angua listened to the other dogs howling, and thought about wolves.

She'd run with the pack a few times, and knew about wolves. These dogs weren't wolves. Wolves were peaceful creatures, on the whole, and fairly simple. Come to think of it, the leader of the pack had been rather like Carrot. Carrot fitted into the city in the same way he'd fitted into the high forests.

Dogs were brighter than wolves. Wolves didn't need intelligence. They had other things. But dogs… they'd been given intelligence by humans. Whether they wanted it or not. They were certainly more vicious than wolves. They'd got that from humans, too.

Big Fido was forging his band of strays into what the ignorant thought a wolf pack was. A kind of furry killing machine.

She looked around.

Big dogs, little dogs, fat dogs, skinny dogs. They were all watching, bright-eyed, as the poodle talked.

About Destiny.

About Discipline.

About the Natural Superiority of the Canine Race.

About Wolves. Only Big Fido's vision of wolves weren't wolves as Angua knew them. They were bigger, fiercer, wiser, the wolves of Big Fido's dream. They were Kings of the Forest, Terrors of the Night. They had names like Quickfang and Silverback. They were what every dog should aspire to.

Big Fido had approved of Angua. She looked very much like a wolf, he said.

They all listened, totally entranced, to a small dog who farted nervously while he talked and told them that the natural shape for a dog was a whole lot bigger. Angua would have laughed, were it not for the fact that she doubted very much if she'd get out of there alive.

And then she watched what happened to a small rat-like mongrel which was dragged into the centre of the circle by a couple of terriers and accused of fetching a stick. Not even wolves did that to other wolves. There was no code of wolf behaviour. There didn't need to be. Wolves didn't need rules about being wolves.

When the execution was over, she found Gaspode sitting in a corner and trying to be unobtrusive.

“Will they chase us if we sneak off now?” she said.

“Don't think so. Meeting's over, see?”

“Come on, then.”

They sauntered into an alley and, when they were sure they hadn't been noticed, ran like hell.

“Good grief,” said Angua, when they had put several streets between them and the crowd of dogs. “He's mad, isn't he?”

“No, mad's when you froth at the mouf,” said Gaspode. “He's insane. That's when you froth at the brain.”

“All that stuff about wolves—”

“I suppose a dog's got a right to dream,” said Gaspode.

“But wolves aren't like that! They don't even have names!”

“Everyone's got a name.”

“Wolves haven't. Why should they? They know who they are, and they know who the rest of the pack are. It's all… an image. Smell and feel and shape. Wolves don't even have a word for wolves! It's not like that. Names are human things.”

“Dogs have got names. I've got a name. Gaspode. 'S'my name,” said Gaspode, a shade sullenly.

“Well… I can't explain why,” said Angua. “But wolves don't have names.”

The moon was high now, in a sky as black as a cup of coffee that wasn't very black at all.

Its light turned the city into a network of silver lines and shadows.

Once upon a time the Tower of Art had been the centre of the city, but cities tend to migrate gently with time and Ankh-Morpork's centre was now several hundred yards away. The tower still dominated the city, though; its black shape reared against the evening sky, contriving to look blacker than mere shadows would suggest.

Hardly anyone ever looked at the Tower of Art, because it was always there. It was just a thing. People hardly ever look at familiar things.

There was a very faint clink

of metal on stone. For a moment, anyone close to the tower and looking in exactly the right place might have fancied that a patch of even blacker darkness was slowly but inexorably moving towards the top.

For a moment, the moonlight caught a slim metal tube, slung across the figure's back. Then it swung into shadow again as it climbed onwards.

The window was resolutely shut.

“But she always leaves it open,” Angua whined.

“Must have shut it tonight,” said Gaspode. “There's a lot of strange people about.”

“But she knows about strange people,” said Angua. “Most of them live in her house!”

“You'll just have to change back to human and smash the window.”

“I can't do that! I'd be naked!”

“Well, you're naked now, ain't you?”

“But I'm a wolf! That's different!”

“I've never worn anything in my whole life. It's never bothered me.”