Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett [118]
He launched himself at them, and caught a boot just as it was disappearing into the room above. It kicked at him, and he heard Cruces hit the floor.
Vimes grabbed the edge of the hatchway and struggled through it.
This wasn’t a tunnel. It looked like a cellar. He slipped on mud and hit a wall clammy with slime. What was Ankh-Morpork built on? Right…
Cruces was only a few yards away, scrambling and slipping up a flight of steps. There had been a door at the top but it had long ago rotted.
There were more steps, and more rooms. Fire and flood, flood and rebuilding. Rooms had become cellars, cellars had become foundations. It wasn’t an elegant pursuit; both men slithered and fell, clambered up again, fought their way through hanging curtains of slime. Cruces had left candles here and there. They gave just enough light to make Vimes wish they didn’t.
And then there was dry stone underfoot and this wasn’t a door, but a hole knocked through a wall. And there were barrels, and sticks of furniture, ancient stuff that had been locked up and forgotten.
Cruces was lying a few feet away, fighting for breath and hammering another rack of pipes into the gonne. Vimes managed to pull himself up on to his hands and knees, and gulped air. There was a candle wedged into the wall nearby.
“Got…you,” he panted.
Cruces tried to get to his feet, still clutching the gonne.
“You’re…too old…to run…” Vimes managed.
Cruces made it up upright, and lurched away. Vimes thought about it. “I’m too old to run,” he added, and leapt.
The two men rolled in the dust, the gonne between them. It struck Vimes much later that the last thing any man of sense would do was fight an Assassin. They had concealed weapons everywhere. But Cruces wasn’t going to let go of the gonne. He held it grimly in both hands, trying to hit Vimes with the barrel or the butt.
Curiously enough, Assassins learned hardly any unarmed combat. They were generally good enough at armed combat not to need it. Gentlemen bore arms; only the lower classes used their hands.
“I’ve got you,” Vimes panted. “You’re under arrest. Be under arrest, will you?”
But Cruces wouldn’t let go. Vimes didn’t dare let go; the gonne would be twisted out of his grip. It was pulled backward and forward between them in desperate, grunting concentration.
The gonne exploded.
There was a tongue of red fire, a firework stink and a zing-zing noise from three walls. Something struck Vimes’ helmet and zinged away toward the ceiling.
Vimes stared at Cruces’ contorted features. Then he lowered his head and yanked the gonne hard.
The Assassin screamed and let go, clutching at his nose. Vimes rolled back, gonne in both hands.
It moved. Suddenly the stock was against his shoulder and his finger was on the trigger.
You’re mine.
We don’t need him any more.
The shock of the voice was so great that he cried out.
He swore afterwards that he didn’t pull the trigger. It moved of its own accord, pulling his finger with it. The gonne slammed into his shoulder and a six-inch hole appeared in the wall by the Assassin’s head, spraying him with plaster.
Vimes was vaguely aware, through the red mist rising around his vision, of Cruces staggering to a door and lurching through it, slamming it behind him.
All that you hate, all that is wrong—I can put it right.
Vimes reached the door, and tried the handle. It was locked.
He brought the gonne around, not aware of thinking, and let the trigger pull his finger again. A large area of the door and frame became a splinter-bordered hole.
Vimes kicked the rest of it away and followed the gonne.
He was in a passageway. A dozen young men were looking at him in astonishment from half-open doors. They were all wearing black.
He was inside the Assassins’ Guild.
A trainee Assassin looked at Vimes with his nostrils.
“Who are you, pray?”
The gonne swung toward him. Vimes managed to haul the barrel upward just as it fired, and the shot took away a lot of ceiling.
“The law, you sons of bitches!” he shouted.
They stared at him.
Shoot them all. Clean up the world.
“Shut