Thud!

sorts in jail, and they often yelled a bit, but with this one he didn’t know what was worse, the sobbing or the silence. He’d put on candlestick on a stool by the bars, too, because the dwarf carried on alarmingly if there wasn’t enough light.
    He stirred the tea reflectively and handed the mug to Nobby.
    “We’ve got a rum ’un here, I reckon,” he said. “A dwarf that’s scared of the dark? Not right in the head, then. Wouldn’t touch his tea and biscuit. What do you think?”
    “I think I’ll have his biscuit,” said Nobby, reaching over to the plate.
    “Why’re you down here, anyway?” said Fred. “I’m surprised you ain’t out there a-ogling of young women.”
    “Tawneee’s going out boozing with the girls tonight,” said Nobby.
    “Ah, you want to warn her about that sort of thing,” said Fred Colon. “You know what it’s like in the center when the pubs and clubs empty. There’s throwin’ up and yellin’ and unladylike behavior and takin’ their vests off and I don’t know what. ’S called…” he scratched his head “…minge drinking.”
    “She’s only gone out with Angua and Sally and Cheery, Sarge,” said Nobby, taking another biscuit.
    “Ooo, you wanna watch that, Nobby. Women gangin’ up on man—” Fred paused. “A vampire and a werewolf out on the razzle? Take my tip, lad, stay indoors tonight. And if they start behaving in—”
    He stopped as the sound of Sam Vimes’s voice came down the spiral stone steps, followed closely by its owner.
    “So, I’ve got to stop them forming a block, right?”
    “If you’re playing the troll side, yes,” said a new voice. “A tight group of dwarfs is bad news for trolls.”
    “Troll shove, dwarfs throw?”
    “Right.”
    “And the central rock, no one can jump that, right?” said Vimes.
    “Yes.”
    “I still think the dwarfs have it all their own way.”
    “We shall see. The important thing—”
    Vimes stopped when he saw Nobby and Colon.
    “Okay, lads, I’ll talk to the prisoner now,” he said. “How is he?”
    Fred indicated the hunched figure on the narrow bunk in the corner cell.
    “Captain Carrot tried talking to him for nearly half an hour, and you know he’s got a way with people,” he said. “Didn’t get as much as a sentence out of him. I read him his rights but don’t ask me if he understood ’em. He didn’t want his tea and biscuit, at any rate. That’s rights 5 and 5b,” he added, looking Bashfullsson up and down. “He gets right 5c only if we’ve got Teatime Assortment.”
    “Can he walk?” said Vimes.
    “He sort of shuffles, sir.”
    “Fetch him out, then,” said Vimes, and, seeing Fred’s inquiring look at Bashfullsson, he went on: “This gentleman is here to make sure we don’t use the rubber truncheon, Sergeant.”
    “Didn’t know we had one, Mister Vimes,” said Fred.
    “We haven’t,” said Vimes. “No point in hitting ’em with something that bounces, eh?” he added, looking at Bashfullsson, who smiled, once again, his strange little smile.
    One candle burned on the table. For some reason, Fred had seen fit to put another one on a stool near the one occupied cell.
    “Isn’t it a bit dark in here, Fred?” said Vimes as he pushed aside the debris of mugs and old newspapers that covered most of the table.
    “Yessir. The dwarfs came and nicked some of our candles to put ’round their heathe—that nasty sign,” said Fred, with a nervous look at Bashfullsson. “Sorry, sir.”
    “I don’t know why we can’t just burn it,” grumble Vimes, setting out the Thud board.
    “That would be dangerous, now that the Summoning Dark is in the world,” said Bashfullsson.
    “You believe in that stuff?” said Vimes.
    “Believe? No,” said the grag. “I just know it exists. The troll pieces go all ’round the central stone, sir,” he added helpfully.
    Populating the board with its little warriors took some time, but so did the arrival of Helmclever. With Fred Colon steering him gently by a shoulder, he walked like someone in a dream, his eyes turned up so that they mostly showed the whites. His iron boots scraped on the flagstones.
    Fred pushed him gently into a chair and put the second candle beside him. Like magic, the dwarf’s eyes focused on the little stone armies to the exclusion of everything else in the jail.
    “We’re playing a game, Mr. Helmclever,” said Vimes quietly. “And you can choose your side.”
    Helmclever reached out with a trembling