Thud!

That’s a feast for vurms. I wanted to shake Ardent up a bit. Make him nervous, like you taught me. I wanted to show him I knew about signs. I am a dwarf, after all.”
    “Captain, this is probably not the time to break it to you, but—”
    “Oh, I know people laugh, sir. A six-foot dwarf! But being a human just means being born to human parents. That’s easy. Being a dwarf doesn’t mean being born to dwarfs, though it’s a good start. It’s about certain things you do. Certain ceremonies. I’ve done them. So I’m a human and a dwarf. The deep-downers find it a bit hard to deal with that.”
    “It’s mystic again, is it?” said Vimes wearily.
    “Oh yes, sir.” Carrot coughed. Vimes recognized that particular cough. It meant that bad news was on the captain’s mind and he was wondering how to shape it to fit the available not-going-totally-postal space in Vimes’s head.
    “Out with it, Captain.”
    “Er…this little chap turned up,” said Carrot, opening his hand. The Gooseberry imp sat up.
    “I ran all the way, Insert Name Here,” it said proudly.
    “We spotted it jogging along the gutter,” said Carrot. “It wasn’t hard to see, glowing pale green like that.”
    Vimes pulled the Gooseberry box out of his pocket and put it on the floor. The imp climbed inside.
    “Ooh, that feels so good,” it said. “Don’t talk to me about rats and cats!”
    “They chased you? But you’re a magical creature, aren’t you?” said Vimes.
    “They don’t know that!” said the imp. “Now, what was it…oh, yes. You asked me about the night soil removal. Over the past three months the extra honey wagon load has averaged forty tons a night.”
    “Forty tons? That’d fill a big room! Why didn’t we know about it?”
    “You did, Insert Name Here!” said the imp proudly. “But they were leaving from every gate, you see, and probably no guard ever spotted more than one or two extra carts.”
    “Yes, but they turned in reports every night! Why didn’t we spot it?”
    There was an awkward pause.
    The imp coughed. “Um…no one read the reports, Insert Name Here. They appear to be what we in the trade call write-only documents.”
    “Wasn’t anyone supposed to be reading them?” Vimes demanded.
    There was another thundering silence.
    “I rather think you were, dear,” said Sybil, paying attention to her darning.
    “But I’m in charge!” Vimes protested.
    “Yes, dear. That’s the point, really.”
    “But I can’t spend all my time shuffling bits of paper!”
    “Then get someone else to do it, dear,” said Sybil.
    “Can I do that?” said Vimes.
    “Yes, sir,” said Carrot. “You’re in charge.”
    Vimes looked at the imp, which gave him a willing grin.
    “Can you go through all of my in-tray—”
    “…floor…” murmured Sybil.
    “—and tell me what’s important?”
    “Happy to, Insert Name Here! Only one question, Insert Name Here. What is important?”
    “Well, the fact that the honey wagons are carting a whole lot more muck out of the city is pretty damn important, don’t you think?”
    “I wouldn’t know, Insert Name Here,” said the imp. “I do not, in fact, think as such. But I surmise that, if I had drawn your attention to such a fact a month ago, you would have told me to stick my head up a duck’s bottom.”
    “That’s true,” said Vimes, nodding. “I probably would. Captain Carrot?”
    “Sir!” said Carrot, sitting up straight.
    “What’s the situation on the street?”
    “Well, troll gangs have been wandering around the city all day. Dwarfs, too. Now a lot of the dwarfs are hanging around in the square, sir, and a fair number of trolls are congregating in the Plaza of Broken Moons.”
    “How many are we talking about here?” said Vimes.
    “About a thousand, all told. They’ve been drinking, of course.”
    “Just in the mood for a fight, then.”
    “Yes, sir. Just drunk enough to be stupid but too sober to fall over,” said Carrot.
    “Interesting observation, Captain,” said Vimes thoughtfully.
    “Yes, sir. The word is that they’ll start at nine. Arrangements have been made, I gather.
    “Then I think before it gets dark there should be a load of coppers in the Cham, right between them, don’t you?” said Vimes. “Get the word out to the Watch houses.”
    “I’ve done that, sir,” said Carrot.
    “And get some barricades sorted out.”
    “All arranged, sir.”
    “And call out the Specials?”
    “I put the word out an hour ago,