Men at Arms

it.

    Sergeant Colon pushed open the door with the end of his pike.
    The Tower had floors, a long time ago. Now it was hollow all the way up, criss-crossed by golden shafts of light from ancient window embrasures.
    One of them, filled with glittering motes of dust, lanced down on what, not long before, had been Acting-Constable Cuddy.
    Colon gave the body a cautious prod. It didn’t move. Nothing looking like that should move. A twisted axe lay beside it.
    “Oh, no,” he breathed.
    There was a thin rope, the sort the Assassins used, hanging down from the heights. It was twitching. Colon looked up at the haze, and drew his sword.
    He could see all the way to the top, and there was no one on the rope. Which meant—
    He didn’t even look around, which saved his life.
    His dive for the floor and the explosion of the gonne behind him happened at exactly the same time. He swore afterwards that he felt the wind of the slug as it passed over his head.
    Then a figure stepped through the smoke and hit him very hard before escaping through the open door, into the rain.

    ACTING-CONSTABLE CUDDY?
    Cuddy brushed himself off .
    “Oh,” he said. “I see. I didn’t think I was going to survive that. Not after the first hundred feet.”
    YOU WERE CORRECT.
    The unreal world of the living was already fading, but Cuddy glared at the twisted remains of his axe. It seemed to worry him far more than the twisted remains of Cuddy.
    “And will you look at that?” he said. “My dad made that axe for me! A fine weapon to take into the afterlife, I don’t think!”
    IS THAT SOME KIND OF BURIAL CUSTOM?
    “Don’t you know? You are Death, aren’t you?”
    THAT DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT BURIAL CUSTOMS. GENERALLY, I MEET PEOPLE BEFORE THEY’RE BURIED. THE ONES I MEET AFTER THEY’VE BEEN BURIED TEND TO BE A BIT OVER-EXCITED AND DISINCLINED TO DISCUSS THINGS.
    Cuddy folded his arms.
    “If I’m not going to be properly buried,” he said, “I ain’t going. My tortured soul will walk the world in torment.”
    IT DOESN’T HAVE TO.
    “It can if it wants to,” snapped the ghost of Cuddy.

    “Detritus! You haven’t got time to ooze! Get over to the Tower! Take some people with you!”
    Vimes reached the doorway of the Great Hall with the Patrician over his shoulder and Carrot stumbling along behind him. The wizards were clustered around the door. Big heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall, hissing on the hot stones.
    Ridcully rolled up his sleeves.
    “Hell’s bells! What did that to his leg?”
    “That’s the gonne for you! Sort him out! And Corporal Carrot too!”
    “There’s no need,” said Vetinari, trying to smile and stand up. “It’s just a flesh—”
    The leg collapsed under him.
    Vimes blinked. He’d never expected this. The Patrician was the man who always had the answers, who was never surprised. Vimes had a sense that history was flapping loose…
    “We can handle it, sir,” said Carrot. “I’ve got men on the roofs, and—”
    “Shut up! Stay here! That’s an order!” Vimes fumbled in his pouch and hung his badge on his torn jacket. “Hey, you…Pyjama! I need a sword!”
    Pyjama looked sullen.
    “I only take orders from Corporal Carrot—”
    “Give me a sword right now, you horrible little man! Right! Thank you! Now let’s get to the Tow—”
    A shadow appeared in the doorway.
    Detritus walked in.
    They looked at the limp shape in his hands.
    He laid it carefully on a bench, without saying a word, and went and sat in a corner. While the others gathered round the mortal remains of Acting-Constable Cuddy, the troll removed his homemade cooling helmet and sat staring at it, turning it over and over in his hands.
    “He was on the floor,” said Sergeant Colon, leaning against the doorframe. “He must have been pushed off the stairs right at the top. Someone else was in there, too. Must’ve shinnied down a rope and caught me a right bang on the side of the head.”
    “Being pushed down the Tower’s not worth it for a shilling,” said Carrot, vaguely.
    It was better when the dragon came, thought Vimes. After it’d killed someone it was at least still a dragon. It went somewhere else but you could say: that’s a dragon, that is. It couldn’t nip over a wall and become just another person. You always knew what you were fighting. You didn’t have to—
    “What’s that in Cuddy’s hand?” he said. He realized he’d been staring at it without seeing it for some time.
    He tugged