Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(70)

'OK,' said Nobby, 'let's see what we've got here . . .' He walked fast along the racks, so that everyone else had to run to keep up. 'What's this?'

'Er—'

'Don't know, eh?'

'Sure . . . it's . . . it's . . .'

'A triple-stringed 2,000lb carriage-mounted siege crossbow with the double-action windlass?'

'Right.'

'Isn't this a Klatchian reinforced crossbow with the goat-leg cocking mechanism and the underhaft bayonet?'

'Er . . . yeah?'

Nobby gave it a cursory examination, and then tossed it aside.

The rest of the Night Watch looked on in astonishment. Nobby had never been known to wield any weapon beyond a knife.

'Have you got one of those Hershebian twelve-shot bows with the gravity feed?' he snapped.

'Eh? What you see is what we got, mister.'

Nobby pulled a hunting crossbow from its rack. His skinny arms twanged as he hauled on the cocking lever.

'Sold the bolts for this thing?'

'They're right there!'

Nobby selected one from the shelf and dropped it into its slot. Then he sighted along the shaft. He turned.

'I like this inventory,' said Nobby. 'We'll take it all.'

The man looked down the sights at Nobby's eye and, to Angua's horrified admiration, didn't faint.

'That little bow don't scare me,' he said.

'This little bow scare you?' said Nobby. 'No. Right. This is a little bow. A little bow like this wouldn't scare a man like you, because it's such a little bow. It'd need a bigger bow than this to scare a man like you.'

Angua would have given a month's pay to see the quartermaster's face from the front. She'd watched as Detritus had lifted down the siege bow, cocked it with one hand and a barely audible grunt, and stepped forward. Now she could imagine the eyeballs swivelling as the coldness of the metal penetrated the back of the armourer's fleshy red neck.

'Now, the one behind you, that's a big bow,' said Nobby.

It wasn't as if the six-foot iron arrow was sharp. It was supposed to smash through doorways, not do surgery.

'Can I pull the trigger yet?' Detritus rumbled, into the man's ear.

'You wouldn't dare fire that thing in here! That's a siege weapon! It'd go right through the wall!'

'Eventually,' said Nobby.

'What this bit for?' said Detritus.

'Now, look—'

'I hope you keep that thing maintained,' said Nobby. 'Them things were a bugger for metal fatigue. Especially on the safety catch.'

'What are a safety catch?' said Detritus.

Everything went quiet.

Carrot found his voice, a long way off.

'Corporal Nobbs?'

'Yessir?'

'I'll take over from this point, if you don't mind.'

He gently pushed the siege bow away, but Detritus hadn't liked the crack about people and it kept swinging back again.

'Now,' said Carrot, 'I don't like this element of coercion. We're not here to bully this poor man. He's a city employee, just like us. It's very wrong of you to put him in fear. Why not just ask?'

'Sorry, sir,' said Nobby.

Carrot patted the armourer on the shoulder.

'May we take some weapons?' he said.

'What?'

'Some weapons? For official purposes?'

The armourer looked unable to cope with this.

'You mean I got a choice?' he said.

'Why, certainly. We practise policing by consent in Ankh-Morpork. If you feel unable to agree to our request, you only have to say the word.'

There was a faint bong as the tip of the iron arrow once again bounced on the back of the armourer's skull. He sought in vain for something to say, because the only word he could think of right now was 'Fire!'

'Uh,' he said. 'Uh. Yeah. Right. Sure. Take what you want.'

'Fine, fine. And Sergeant Colon will give you a receipt, adding of course that you release the weapons of your own free will.'

'My own free will?'

'You have absolute choice in the matter, of course.'

The man's face screwed up in the effort of desperate cogitation.

'I reckon . . .'

'Yes?'

'I reckon it's OK for you to take 'em. Take 'em right away.'

'Good man. Do you have a trolley?'

'And do you happen to know what it is they say about dwarfs?' said Cuddy.

It crept over Angua once again that Carrot had no irony in his soul. He meant every word. If the man had really held out, Carrot would probably have given in. Of course, there was a bit of a gap between probably and certainly.

Nobby was down the end of the row, occasionally squeaking with delight as he found an interesting war hammer or an especially evil-looking glaive. He was trying to hold everything, all at once.

Then he dropped the lot and ran forward.

'Oh, wow! A Klatchian fire engine! This is more my meteor!'

They heard him rummaging around in the gloom. He emerged pushing a sort of bin on small squeaky wheels. It had various handles and fat leathery bags, and a nozzle at the front. It looked like a very large kettle.