Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett [26]
“That’s where they’ve got the floral sundial, isn’t it?” said the captain desperately.
“Yessir. Very nice, sir. All done with little flowers, sir.”
There was a sound like something hitting something else repeatedly with something heavy and wooden. Vimes winced.
“I don’t think he’d of been happy in the Watch, sir,” said the sergeant, in a kindly voice.
The door of the Mended Drum had been torn off during riots so often that specially-tempered hinges had recently been installed, and the fact that the next tremendous crash tore the whole door and doorframe out of the wall only showed that quite a lot of money had been wasted. A figure in the midst of the wreckage tried to raise itself on its elbows, groaned, and slumped back.
“Well, it would seem that it’s all—” the captain began, and Nobby said: “It’s that bloody troll!”
“What?” said Vimes.
“It’s the troll! The one they have on the door!”
They advanced with extreme caution.
It was, indeed, Detritus the splatter.
It is very difficult to hurt a creature that is, to all intents and purposes, a mobile stone. Someone seemed to have managed it, though. The fallen figure was groaning like a couple of bricks being crushed together.
“That’s a turnup for the books,” said the sergeant vaguely. All three of them turned and peered at the brightly-lit rectangle where the doorway had been. Things had definitely quietened down a bit in there.
“You don’t think,” said the sergeant, “that he’s winning, do you?”
The captain thrust out his jaw. “We owe it to our colleague and fellow officer,” he said, “to find out.”
There was a whimper from behind them. They turned and saw Nobby hopping on one leg and clutching a foot.
“What’s up with you, man?” said Vimes.
Nobby made agonized noises.
Sergeant Colon began to understand. Although cautious obsequiousness was the general tenor of Watch behavior, there wasn’t one member of the entire squad who hadn’t, at some time, been at the wrong end of Detritus’s fists. Nobby had merely tried to play catch-up in the very best traditions of policemen everywhere.
“He went and kicked him inna rocks, sir,” he said.
“Disgraceful,” said the captain vaguely. He hesitated. “Do trolls have rocks?” he said.
“Take it from me, sir.”
“Good grief,” Vimes said. “Dame Nature moves in strange ways, doesn’t she.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the sergeant obediently.
“And now,” said the captain, drawing his sword, “forward!”
“Yessir.”
“This means you too, Sergeant,” the captain added.
“Yessir.”
It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military maneuvers, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.
They peered cautiously around the ravished doorway.
There were a number of people sprawled across the tables, or what remained of the tables. Those who were still conscious looked unhappy about it.
Carrot stood in the middle of the floor. His rusty chain mail was torn, his helmet was missing, he was swaying a little from side to side and one eye was already starting to swell, but he recognized the captain, dropped the feebly-protesting customer he was holding, and threw a salute.
“Beg to report thirty-one offenses of Making an Affray, sir, and fifty-six cases of Riotous Behavior, forty-one offenses of Obstructing an Officer of the Watch in the Execution of his Duty, thirteen offenses of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, six cases of Malicious Lingering, and—and—Corporal Nobby hasn’t even shown me one rope yet—”
He fell backward, breaking a table.
Captain Vimes coughed. He wasn’t at all sure what you were supposed to do next. As far as he knew, the Watch had never been in this position before.
“I think you should get him a drink, Sergeant,” he said.
“Yessir.”
“And get me one, too.”
“Yessir.”
“Have one yourself, why don’t you.”
“Yessir.”
“And you, Corporal, will you please—what are you doing?”
“Searchingthebodiesir,” said Nobby quickly, straightening up. “For incriminating evidence, and that.”
“In their money pouches?”
Nobby thrust his