Thud! - Terry Pratchett [77]
Vimes muttered something about “not long ago.”
“Go and have some more. And then find me the murderer. Quickly. Good day to you.”
Not just thrones trembling, Vimes managed to think. Your chair is wobbling a bit, too. Pretty soon some people will be saying: Who let all these dwarfs in here? They undermine our city and they don’t obey our laws. And the trolls? We used to chain ’em up like guard dogs, and now they’re allowed to walk around threatening real people!
They’d be gathering now, the plotters, the people who chatted quietly in the corner at parties, the people who know how to fashion opinions into knives. Last night’s little fray had been turned into a joke that had probably dismayed the party people, but you couldn’t do it twice. Once things began to spread, once a few humans had been killed, you wouldn’t need to talk behind closed doors anymore. The mob would scream on your behalf.
They undermine our city and they don’t obey our laws…
He climbed in the coach on legs that were only marginally under his control, muttered an instruction to head for Pseudopolis Yard, and fell asleep.
It was still nighttime in the city of endless rain. It was never not nighttime. No sun rose here.
The creature lay coiled in its alley.
Something was seriously wrong. It had expected resistance. There was always resistance, and it always overcame it. But even now, when the invisible bustle of the city had slowed, there was no way in. Time and again it’d be sure that it had found a point of control, some tide of rage it could use, and time and again it’d be slammed back here, into this dark alley where the gutters overflowed.
This was not the usual kind of mind. The creature struggled. But no mind had ever beaten it yet. There was always a way…
Through the ruin of the world the troll staggers…
Brick lurched out of Dolly Sisters Watch house, clutching his head with one hand and, in the other, holding the bag that contained as many of his teeth as Detritus had been able to find. The sergeant had been very decent about dat, Brick thought. Detritus had also explained to him exactly what would have happened to him had his second blow hit the human, graphically indicating that finding Brick’s teeth would have been secondary to finding a head to put them in.
He’d gone on to say, though, that there might be a place in the Watch for any troll who could still stand up after a head full of Big Hammer, and maybe Brick might like to conduct his future behavior with an eye to this.
So, Brick thought, insofar as the term could be applied to any brain activity within two days of Big Hammer, der future was looking so bright dat he had to walk along wid his eyes almost shut, although dat was probably der Big Hammer again.
But—
He’d heard the other trolls talking. And the watchmen, too. All dis stuff about a troll killing a dwarf down in dat new mine. Now, Brick was still certain he hadn’t killed no dwarf, even after half an ounce of Scrape. He’d gone over and over it in what currently remained of his mind. Trouble was, der Watch had all dese tricks dese days, dey could tell what a guy had for dinner just by looking at his plate. An’ he’d lost a skull down dere, too, he was sure o’ dat. Like, dey could jus’ sniff it and know it was him! Except it wasn’t him, right? ’Cos dey said der troll dropped his club, an’ Brick still had his club, ’cos he hit dat top watchman wi’ it, so maybe that was what dey called an Ally By? Yes? Despite the cerebral gurgling noise of the Big Hammer draining away from his