Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [112]
“I know it’s you, Carry,” he shouted.
“I’ve got a crossbow!”
“You can only fire it once!”
“I want to turn Patrician’s Evidence!”
“Guess again!”
Carry lowered his voice. “They just said I could get the damn’ golem to do it. I didn’t think anyone was going to get hurt.”
“Right, right,” said Vimes. “You made poisoned candles because they gave a better light, I expect.”
“You know what I mean! They told me it would all be all right and—”
“Which they would ‘they’ be?”
“They said no one would ever find out!”
“Really?”
“Look, look, they said they could…” The voice paused, and took on that wheedling tone the bluntwitted use when they’re trying to sound sharp.
“If I tell you everything, you’ll let me go, right?”
The two sergeants had caught up. Vimes pulled Detritus towards him, although in fact he ended up pulling himself towards Detritus.
“Go round the corner and see he doesn’t come out of the alley the other way,” he whispered. The troll nodded.
“What’s it you want to tell me, Mr. Carry?” said Vimes to the darkness in the alley.
“Have we got a bargain?”
“What?”
“A bargain.”
“No, we damn’ well haven’t got a bargain, Mr. Carry! I’m not a tradesman! But I’ll tell you something, Mr. Carry. They betrayed you!”
There was silence from the darkness, and then a sound like a sigh.
Behind Vimes, Sergeant Colon stamped his feet on the cobbles to keep warm.
“You can’t stay in there all night, Mr. Carry,” said Vimes.
There was another sound, a leathery sound. Vimes glanced up into the coils of fog. “Something’s not right,” he said. “Come on!”
He ran into the alley. Sergeant Colon followed, on the basis that it was fine to run into an alley containing an armed man provided you were behind someone else.
A shape loomed at them.
“Detritus?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Where did he go? There are no doors in the alley!”
Then his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom. He saw a huddled outline at the foot of a wall, and his foot nudged a crossbow. “Mr. Carry?”
He knelt down and lit a match.
“Oh, nasty,” said Sergeant Colon. “Something’s broken his neck…”
“Dead, is he?” said Detritus. “You want I should draw a chalk outline round him?”
“I don’t think we need bother, Sergeant.”
“It no bother, I’ve got der chalk right here.”
Vimes looked up. Fog filled the alley, but there were no ladders, no handy low roofs.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Angua faced the king.
She resisted a terrible urge to change. Even a werewolf’s jaws probably wouldn’t have any effect on the thing. It didn’t have a jugular.
She daren’t look away. The king moved uncertainly, with little jerks and twitches that in a human would suggest madness. Its arms moved fast but erratically, as if signals that were being sent were not arriving properly. And Dorfl’s attack had left it damaged. Every time it moved, red light shone from dozens of new cracks.
“You’re cracking up!” she shouted. “The oven wasn’t right for pottery!”
The king lunged at her. She dodged and heard its hand slice through a rack of candles.
“You’re cranky! You’re baked like a loaf! You’re half-baked!”
She drew her sword. She didn’t usually have much use for it. She found a smile would invariably do the trick.
A hand sliced the top off the blade.
She stared at the sheared metal in horror and then somersaulted back as another blow hummed past her face.
Her foot slipped on a candle and she fell heavily, but with enough presence of mind to roll before a foot stamped down.
“Where’ve you gone?” she yelled.
“Can you get it to move a little closer to the doors, please?” said a voice from the darkness on high.
Carrot was crawled out along the rickety structure that supported the production line.
“Carrot!”
“Almost there…”
The king grabbed at her leg. She lashed out with her foot and caught it on the knee.
To her amazement she made it crack. But the fire below was still there. The pieces of pottery seemed to float on it. No matter what anyone did the golem could keep going, even if it were just a cloud of dust held together.
“Ah. Right,” said Carrot, and dropped off the gantry.
He landed