Night Watch

their approach. Some men walk in a way that projects bad news ahead of them.
    Vimes crouched behind the makeshift wall and peered through a crack. They’d snatched a few crossbows from aimless soldiers on the way here, but by the look of it Carcer’s men had at least fifteen between them. And they outnumbered the lilac lads almost two to one.
    If push came to shove, he’d take Carcer out right now. It wasn’t the way it ought to go. He wanted people to see the man hang, he wanted the city to execute him. Going back empty-handed would leave a loose end flapping.
    He heard the sound of sobbing from further along the barricade. It wasn’t young Sam, he knew, and Nobby Nobbs had probably cried all the tears a body was capable of some time ago. It was Reg. He sat with his back to the makeshift defense, the threadbare flag across his knees and tears dripping off his chin.
    “Reg, you ought to go,” Vimes hissed. “You don’t even have a weapon.”
    “What’s the good of it, eh?” said Reg. “You were bloody right, Sarge! Things just go round and round! You got rid of the bloody Unmentionables and here they are again! What’s the point, eh? This city could be such a great place but no , oh no, the bastards always end up on top! Nothing ever bloody changes! They just take our money and mess us around!”
    Carcer had stopped twenty yards from the barricade, and was watching it carefully.
    “Way of the world, Reg,” murmured Vimes, counting enemies under his breath.
    And a big covered cart came around the corner, rocking under its load. It rolled to a halt a little way from Carcer’s crew, partly because the way was blocked but mostly, perhaps, because one of the men had walked up to the driver and aimed a crossbow at his head.
    “And now the bloody bastards have won,” moaned Reg.
    “Every day of the week, Reg,” said Vimes, trying to follow the movements of too many people at once.
    The other men were spreading out. After all, they had the firepower. He couldn’t let them get behind the barricade.
    The man holding up Mr. Dibbler, the cart driver, wasn’t paying too much attention. Now Vimes wished he’d put himself in the wagon. Oh, well, someone had to start the rumble—
    “Yeah? You want to shoot something? Bastards!”
    They all stared, Carcer too. Reg had stood up, was waving the flag back and forth, was clambering over the barricade…
    He held the flag like a banner of defiance.
    “You can take our lives but you’ll never take our freedom!” he screamed.
    Carcer’s men looked at one another, puzzled by what sounded like the most badly thought-out war cry in the history of the universe. Vimes could see their lips moving as they tried to work it out.
    Carcer raised his crossbow, gestured to his men, and said: “Wrong!”
    Reg was hit by five heavy bolts, so that he did a little dance before falling to his knees. It happened within seconds.
    Vimes opened his mouth to give the order to charge, and shut it when he saw Reg raise his head. In silence, using the flagpole as an aid, Reg got back to his feet.
    Three more arrows hit him. He looked down at his skinny chest bristling with feathers and took a step forward. And another.
    One of the crossbowmen drew his sword and ran at the stricken man, and was knocked into the air by a blow from Reg that must have felt like it had come from a sledgehammer. And in the ranks of the crew there was a fight. Someone in a copper’s uniform had drawn his own sword and taken out two bowmen. And the man at the cart was running back to the action…
    “Get them!” Vimes yelled and leaped over the barricade.
    There was no plan anymore. Dickins and his men poured out of the cart. There were still loaded crossbows out there, but a bow is suddenly not the weapon you want to be holding when angry swords are approaching from both directions.
    It’ll come when you call…
    All plans, all futures, all politics…were elsewhere. Vimes scooped up a fallen sword and with a sword in either hand screamed wordless defiance and launched himself at the nearest enemy. The man went down headless.
    He saw Snouty go down in the melee, and sprang over him to catch his attacker in a windmill of blades. And then he spun around to confront Knocker, who dropped his sword and ran. And Vimes ran on, not fighting but hacking, ducking strokes without seeing them, blocking attacks without turning his head, letting the ancient senses do their work. Someone was slicing toward young Sam;