Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(99)

Cruces took a step back, but the gonne swung up towards Carrot. It looked to Vimes as though it moved of its own accord, like an animal sniffing the air . . .

'Get down!' Vimes hissed. He reached out and tried to find his crossbow.

'He said the gonne was jealous! Hammerhock would have made more gonnes! Stop where you are!'

Carrot took another step.

'I had to kill Edward! He was a romantic, he would have got it wrong! But Ankh-Morpork needs a king!'

The gun jerked and fired at the same moment as Carrot leapt sideways.

The tunnels were brilliant with smells, mostly the acrid yellows and earthy oranges of ancient drains. And there were hardly any air currents to disturb things; the line that was Cruces snaked through the heavy air. And there was the smell of the gonne, as vivid as a wound.

I smelled gonne in the Guild, she thought, just after Cruces walked past. And Gaspode said that was all right, because the gonne had been in the Guild – but it hadn't been fired in the Guild. I smelled it because someone there had fired the thing.

She splashed through the water into the big cavern and saw, with her nose, the three of them – the indistinct figure that smelled of Vimes, the falling figure that was Carrot, the turning shape with the gonne . . .

And then she stopped thinking with her head and let her body take over. Wolf muscle drove her forward and up into a leap, water droplets flying from her mane, her eyes fixed on Cruces' neck.

The gonne fired, four times. It didn't miss once.

She hit the man heavily, knocking him backwards.

Vimes rose in an explosion of spray.

'Six shots! That's six shots, you bastard! I've got you now!'

Cruces turned as Vimes waded towards him, and scurried towards a tunnel, throwing up more spray.

Vimes snatched the bow from Carrot, aimed desperately and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

'Carrot! You idiot! You never cocked the damn thing!'

Vimes turned.

'Come on, man! We can't let him get away!'

'It's Angua, captain.'

'What?'

'She's dead!'

'Carrot! Listen. Can you find the way out in this stuff? No! So come with me!'

'I . . . can't leave her here. I—'

'Corporal Carrot! Follow me!'

Vimes half ran, half waded through the rising water towards the tunnel that had swallowed Cruces. It was up a slope; he could feel the water dropping as he ran.

Never give the quarry time to rest. He'd learned that on his first day in the Watch. If you had to chase, then stay with it. Give the pursued time to stop and think and you'd go round a corner to find a sock full of sand coming the other way.

The walls and ceiling were closing in.

There were other tunnels here. Carrot had been right. Hundreds of people must have worked for years to build this. What Ankh-Morpork was built on was Ankh-Morpork.

Vimes stopped.

There was no sound of splashing, and tunnel mouths all around.

Then there was a flash of light, up a side tunnel.

Vimes scrambled towards it, and saw a pair of legs in a shaft of light from an open trapdoor.

He launched himself at them, and caught a boot just as it was disappearing into the room above. It kicked at him, and he heard Cruces hit the floor.

Vimes grabbed the edge of the hatchway and struggled through it.

This wasn't a tunnel. It looked like a cellar. He slipped on mud and hit a wall clammy with slime. What was Ankh-Morpork built on? Right. . .

Cruces was only a few yards away, scrambling and slipping up a flight of steps. There had been a door at the top but it had long ago rotted.

There were more steps, and more rooms. Fire and flood, flood and rebuilding. Rooms had become cellars, cellars had become foundations. It wasn't an elegant pursuit; both men slithered and fell, clambered up again, fought their way through hanging curtains of slime. Cruces had left candles here and there. They gave just enough light to make Vimes wish they didn't.

And then there was dry stone underfoot and this wasn't a door, but a hole knocked through a wall. And there were barrels, and sticks of furniture, ancient stuff that had been locked up and forgotten.

Cruces was lying a few feet away, fighting for breath and hammering another rack of pipes into the gonne. Vimes managed to pull himself up on to his hands and knees, and gulped air. There was a candle wedged into the wall nearby.

'Got. . . you,' he panted.

Cruces tried to get to his feet, still clutching the gonne.

'You're . . . too old . . . to run . . .' Vimes managed.

Cruces made it up upright, and lurched away. Vimes thought about it. 'I'm too old to run,' he added, and leapt.

The two men rolled in the dust, the gonne between them. It struck Vimes much later that the last thing any man of sense would do was fight an Assassin. They had concealed weapons everywhere. But Cruces wasn't going to let go of the gonne. He held it grimly in both hands, trying to hit Vimes with the barrel or the butt.


Curiously enough, Assassins learned hardly any unarmed combat. They were generally good enough at armed combat not to need it. Gentlemen bore arms; only the lower classes used their hands.

'I've got you,' Vimes panted. 'You're under arrest. Be under arrest, will you?'

But Cruces wouldn't let go. Vimes didn't dare let go; the gonne would be twisted out of his grip. It was pulled backwards and forwards between them in desperate, grunting concentration.