Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [9]
He turned a pale face towards them and pointed to the road ahead.
There was a wolf there.
Not a usual kind of wolf. It had a blond coat, which around its ears was almost long enough to be a mane. And wolves did not normally sit calmly on their haunches in the middle of a street.
This one was growling. A long, low growl. It was the audible equivalent of a shortening fuse.
The horse was transfixed, too frightened to stay where it was but far too terrified to move.
One of the men carefully reached for a crossbow. The growl rose slightly. He even more carefully took his hand away. The growl subsided again.
“What is it?”
“It’s a wolf!”
“In a city? What does it find to eat?”
“Oh, why did you have to ask that?”
“Good morning, gentlemen!” said Carrot, as he stopped leaning against the wall. “Looks like the fog’s rising again. Thieves’ Guild licenses, please?”
They turned. Carrot gave them a happy smile and nodded encouragingly.
One of the men patted his coat in a theatrical display of absent-mindedness.
“Ah. Well. Er. Left the house in a bit of a hurry this morning, must’ve forgotten—”
“Section Two, Rule One of the Thieves’ Guild Charter says that members must carry their cards on all professional occasions,” said Carrot.
“He’s not even drawn his sword!” hissed the most stupid of the three-strong gang.
“He doesn’t need to, he’s got a loaded wolf.”
Someone was writing in the gloom, the scritching of their pen the only sound.
Until a door creaked open.
The writer turned as quick as a bird. “You? I told you never to come back here!”
“I know, I know, but it’s that damn thing! The production line stopped and it got out and it’s killed that priest!”
“Did anyone see it?”
“In the fog we had last night? I shouldn’t think so. But—”
“Then it is not, ah-ha, a matter of significance.”
“No? They’re not supposed to kill people. Well…that is,” the speaker conceded, “not by smashing them on the head, anyway.”
“They will if so instructed.”
“I never told it to! Anyway, what if it turns on me?”
“On its master? It can’t disobey the words in its head, man.”
The visitor sat down, shaking his head. “Yeah, but which words? I don’t know, I don’t know, this is getting too much, that damn’ thing around all the time—”
“Making you a fat profit—”
“All right, all right, but this other stuff, the poison, I never—”
“Shut up! I’ll see you again tonight. You can tell the others that I certainly do have a candidate. And if you dare come here again…”
The Ankh-Morpork Royal College of Heralds turned out to be a green gate in a wall in Mollymog Street. Vimes tugged on the bell-pull. Something clanged on the other side of the wall and immediately the place erupted in a cacophony of hoots, growls, whistles and trumpetings.
A voice shouted. “Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant! And thee shall have a sugar lump like a good boy. William! Stop that at once! Put him down! Mildred, let go of Graham!”
The animal noises subsided a bit and footsteps approached. A wicket gate in the main door opened a fraction.
Vimes saw an inch-wide segment of a very short man.
“Yes? Are you the meat man?”
“Commander Vimes,” said Vimes. “I have an appointment.”
The animal noises started up again.
“Eh?”
“Commander Vimes!” Vimes shouted.
“Oh. I suppose thee’d better come in.”
The door swung open. Vimes stepped through.
Silence fell. Several dozen pairs of eyes regarded Vimes with acute suspicion. Some of the eyes were small and red. Several were big and poked just above the surface of the scummy pond that occupied a lot of space in the yard. Some were on perches.
The yard was full of animals, but even they were crowded out by the smell of a yard full of animals. And most of them were clearly very old, which didn’t do anything for the smell.
A toothless lion yawned at Vimes. A lion running, or at least lounging around loose was amazing in itself, but not so amazing as the fact that it was being