Thud! - Terry Pratchett [54]
“Could have been dropped by the troll,” said Carrot.
“A troll?” said Ardent, backing away.
It wasn’t the reaction Angua had expected. Ardent had been nervous already, but now, under all those wrappings, he was on the verge of panic.
“You did say a troll had attacked the grag, sir?” said Carrot.
“But we never—I never saw that before! Why didn’t we find it? Did it come back?”
“All the doors are sealed, sir,” said Carrot patiently. “Aren’t they?”
“But have we sealed it in here with us?” It was practically a shriek.
“You’d know, sir, wouldn’t you?” said Carrot. “Trolls sort of, well, stand out.”
“I must fetch guards!” said Ardent, backing away toward the single open door. “It could be anywhere!”
“Then you could be heading right toward it, sir,” said Angua.
Ardent stopped dead for a moment, and then uttered a little whimper and ran into the dark, Helmclever on his heels.
“Well, how do we all think that went?” said Angua, with a horrible smile. “And what was that you said to him in dwarfish…‘You know I am a dwarf in the brotherhood of all dwarfs’?”
“Erm, ‘With emphatic certainty you know me. I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united,’ ” said Sally carefully.
“Well done, lance constable!” said Carrot. “That was an excellent translation!”
“Yes, did you bite someone clever?” said Angua.
“I am a Black Ribboner, Sergeant,” said Sally meekly. “And I’m naturally good at languages. While we’re alone, Captain, can I mention something else?”
“Certainly,” said Carrot, trying the wheel on one of the closed doors.
“I think a lot of things are wrong here, sir. There was something very strange about the way Ardent reacted to that skull. Why would he think the troll was still here, after all that time?”
“A troll getting into a dwarf mine can do a lot of damage before it’s stopped,” said Carrot.
“Ardent really wasn’t expecting that skull, sir,” said Sally, pressing on. “I heard his heart racing. It terrified him. Er…something more, sir. There’s lots of city dwarfs here. Dozens. I can feel their hearts, too. There are six grags. Their hearts beat very slowly. And there are other dwarfs, too. Strange ones, and only a few of them. Maybe ten.”
“That’s useful to know, lance constable, thank you very much.”
“Yes, I don’t know how we managed before you came,” said Angua. She walked quickly over to the other side of the dank room so that they wouldn’t see her face.
She needed fresh air, not the pervasive, clinging, old-root-cellar reek of this place. Her head was full of shouting. The Temperance League? “Not One Drop”? Did anyone believe that for one minute? But everyone wanted to fall for it, because vampires could be so charming. Of course they were! It was part of being a vampire! It was the only way to get people to stay the night in the dreadful castle! Everyone knew a leopard couldn’t change his shorts! But no, stick on a stupid black ribbon and learn the words for “Lips that touch Ichor shall never touch Mine” and they fall for it every time. But werewolves? Well, they were just sad monsters, weren’t they? Never mind that life was a daily struggle with the inner wolf, never mind that you had to force yourself to walk past every lamppost, never mind that in every petty argument you had to fight back the urge to settle it all with just one bite.
Never mind that, because everyone knew that a creature that was a wolf and a human combined was a kind of dog. They were expected to behave.
Part of her was shouting that this wasn’t so, that this was just PLT and the known effects of a vampire’s presence, but somehow, now, with the smells around her becoming so strong that they were approaching solidity, she did not want to listen. She wanted to smell the world, she was practically climbing into her own nose.
After all, that was why she was in the Watch, wasn’t it? For her nose?
New smell, new smell…
Sharp blue-gray of lichen, the browns and purples of old carrion, undertones of wood and leather…even as a full wolf, she’d never tasted the air