Thud!

anthracite into Raja’s eager gullet. Her female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel back or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around little gold-wrapped chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons that made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.
    Vimes flinched as Raja burped.
    “That was a dwarf, wasn’t it?” said Sybil, cradling Young Sam. “One of those deep-down ones you see about?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why did it try to kill me?”
    When people are trying to kill you, it means you’re doing something right. It was a rule Sam had lived by. But this…even a real stone killer like Chrysophrase wouldn’t have tried something like this. It was insane. They will burn. They will burn…
    “I think they’re frightened of what I’m going to find out,” said Vimes. “I think it’s all gone wrong for them, and they want to stop me.”
    Could they have been that stupid? he wondered. A dead wife? A dead child? Could they think that would mean for one moment that I’d stop? As it is, when I catch up with whoever ordered this, and I will, I hope there’s someone there to hold me back.
    They will burn for what they did.
    “Oh, Sam…” murmured Sybil, the iron mast falling for a moment.
    “I’m sorry. I never expected this,” said Vimes. He put the dragon down and held her carefully, almost fearfully. The rage had been so strong; he felt he might grow spikes, or snap into shards. And the headache was coming back, like a lump of lead nailed just over his eyes.
    “Whatever happened to all that, you know, hi-ho, hi-ho, and being kind to poor lost orphans in the forest, Sam?” Sybil whispered.
    “Willikins is in the house,” he said. “Purity is as well.”
    “Let’s go and find them, then,” said Sybil. She grinned, a little damply. “I wish you wouldn’t bring your work home with you, Sam.”
    “This time it followed me,” said Vimes grimly. “But I intend to tidy it up, believe me.”
    They shall bur —no! They shall be hunted down to any hole they hide in and brought back to face justice. Unless (oh please!) they resist arrest…
    Purity was standing in the hall, alongside Willikins. She was holding a trophy Klatchian sword, without much conviction. The butler had augmented his weaponry with a couple of meat cleavers, which he hefted with a certain worrying expertise.
    “My gods, man, you’re covered in blood!” Sybil burst out.
    “Yes, Your Ladyship,” said Willikins smoothly. “May I say in mitigation that it is not, in fact, mine.”
    “There was a dwarf in the dragon house,” said Vimes. “Any sign of any others?”
    “No, sir. The ones in the cellar had an apparatus for projecting fire, sir.”
    “The dwarf we saw had one too,” said Vimes, adding: “It didn’t do him any good.”
    “Indeed, sir? I apprised myself of its use, sir, and tested my understanding by firing it down the tunnel they had arrived by until it ran out of igniferous juice, sir. Just in case there were more. It is for this reason, I suspect, that the shrubbery at Number Five is on fire.”
    Vimes hadn’t met Willikins when they were both young. The Cockbill Street Roaring Lads had a treaty with Shamlegger Street, thus allowing them to ignore that flank while they concentrated on stopping the territorial aggression of the Pigsty Hill Dead Marmoset Gang. He was glad he hadn’t fetched up against young Willikins.
    “They must have come up for air there,” he said. “The Jeffersons are on holiday.”
    “Well, if they’re not ready for that sort of thing, they shouldn’t be growing rhododendrons,” said Sybil matter-of-factly. “What now, Sam?”
    “We’re staying the night at Pseudopolis Yard,” said Vimes. “Don’t argue.”
    “Ramkins have never run away from anything ,” Sybil declared.
    “Vimeses have run like hell all the time,” said Vimes, too diplomatic to mention the aforesaid ancestors who came home in pieces. “That means you fight where you want to fight. We’re all going to go and get the coach, and we’re all going down to the Yard. When we’re there, I’ll send people back to pick up our stuff. Just for one night, all right?”
    “What would you like me to do with the visitors, sir?” said Willikins, with a sidelong