Thud!

side of this door?”
    Ardent pushed through the throng of dwarfs.
    “No, I believe not,” he said. “Is the troll still behind it?”
    Carrot glanced at Sally, who shrugged. Vampires had never developed the ability to listen for troll hearts. There was no point.
    “Possibly, but I don’t think so,” said Carrot. “Please unlock it. We might yet find a trail!”
    “Captain Carrot, you know that the safety of the mine must always come first!” said Ardent. “Of course you must give chase. But first we will open the door, and make certain there is no danger behind it. You must concede us that.”
    “Let them,” hissed Angua. “It’ll be a clearer scent. I’ll be okay.”
    Carrot nodded, and whispered back: “Well done!”
    Under her flesh, she felt her tail want to wag. She wanted to lick his face. It was the dog part of her doing the thinking. You’re a good dog. It was important to be a good dog.
    Carrot pulled her aside as a couple of dwarfs approached the door purposefully.
    “But it’s long gone,” she murmured as two more dwarfs came up behind the first two. “The scent’s twelve hours old, at least—”
    “What are they doing?” said Carrot, half to himself. The two new dwarfs were covered from head to toe in leather, like Ardent, but wore chain mail over the top of it; their helmets were quite unadorned, but covered the whole face and head, with only a slit for the eyes. Each dwarf carried a large black pack on his back and held a lance in front of him.
    “Oh no,” said Carrot,” surely not here—”
    At a word of command, the door was swung open, revealing only darkness beyond.
    The lances spat flame, long yellow tongues of it, and the black dwarfs walked slowly along behind them. Smoke, heavy and greasy, filled the air.
    Angua fainted.

D arkness.
    Sam Vimes struggled up the hill, tired to the bone.
    It was warm, warmer than he’d expected. Sweat stung his eyes. Water splashed under his feet and made his boots slip. And, ahead, up the slope, a child was screaming.
    He knew he was shouting. He would hear the breath wheezing in his throat, could feel his lips moving, but he couldn’t hear the words he was reciting over and over again.
    The darkness felt like cold ink. Tendrils of it dragged at his mind and his body, slowing him down, dragging him back…
    And now they came at him with flames—
    Vimes blinked, and found himself staring at the fireplace. The flames flicked peacefully.
    There was the swish of a dress as Sybil came back into the room, sat down, and picked up her darning.
    He watched her dully. She was darning his socks. They had maids in this place and she darned his socks. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have so much money that he could have a new pair of socks every day. But she’d picked up the idea that it was a wifely duty, and so she did it. It was comforting, in a strange sort of way. It was only a shame that she wasn’t, in fact, any good at mending holes, so Sam ended up with sock heels that were huge welts of criss-crossing wool. He wore them anyway, and never mentioned it.
    “A weapon that fires flame,” he said slowly.
    “Yes, sir,” said Carrot.
    “Dwarfs have weapons that fire flame.”
    “The deep-downers use them to explode pockets of mine gas,” said Carrot. “I never expected to see them here!”
    “It’s a weapon if some bastard points it at me!” said Vimes. “How much gas did they expect to find in Ankh-Morpork?”
    “Sir? Even the river catches fire in a hot summer!”
    “Okay, okay. I’ll grant you that,” Vimes conceded unwillingly. “Make sure the word gets out, will you? Anyone seen aboveground with one of those things, we’ll shoot first and there will be no point in asking questions afterwards. Good grief, that’s all we need. Have you got anything more to tell me, Captain?”
    “Well, afterwards we did get to see Hamcrusher’s body,” said Carrot. “What can I say? On his wrist the draht that identifies him, and his skin was pale. There was a terrible wound on the back of his head. They say it’s Hamcrusher. I can’t prove it. What I can say is that he didn’t die where they said he did, or when they said he did.”
    “Why?” said Vimes.
    “Blood, sir,” said Sally. “There should have been blood everywhere. I looked at the wound. What that club hit over the head was already a corpse, and he wasn’t killed in that tunnel.”
    Vimes took several slow breaths. There was so much bad stuff here you needed to