Men at Arms tds-15

by Terry Pratchett

  “We can't,” said Gaspode miserably.

  Other dogs slunk out of the shadows as the two of them were half led, half driven along byways that weren't even alleys any more, just gaps between walls. They opened out eventually into a bare area, nothing more than a large light well for the buildings around it. There was a very large barrel on its side in one corner, with a ragged bit of blanket in it. A variety of dogs were waiting around in front of it, looking expectant; some of them had only one eye, some of them had only one ear, all of them had scars, and all of them had teeth.

  “You,” said Black Roger, “wait here.”

  “Do not twy to wun away,” said Butch, “'cos having your intestines chewed often offends.”

  Angua lowered her head to Gaspode level. The little dog was shaking.

  “What have you got me into?” she growled. “This is the dog Guild, right? A pack of strays?”

  “Shsssh! Don't say that! These aren't strays. Oh, blimey.” Gaspode glanced around. “You don't just get any hound in the Guild. Oh, dear me, no. These are dogs that have been…” he lowered his voice, “…er… bad dogs.”

  “Bad dogs?”

  “Bad dogs. You naughty boy. Give him a smack. You bad dog,” muttered Gaspode, like some horrible litany. “Every dog you see here, right, every dog… run away Run away from his or her actual owner.”

  “Is that all?”

  “All? All? Well. Of course. You ain't exactly a dog. You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't know what it was like. But Big Fido… he told 'em. Throw off your choke chains, he said. Bite the hand that feeds you. Rise up and howl. He gave 'em pride,” said Gaspode, his voice a mixture of fear and fascination, “He told 'em. Any dog he finds not bein' a free spirit—that dog is a dead dog. He killed a Dobermann last week, just for wagging his tail when a human went past.”

  Angua looked at some of the other dogs. They were all unkempt. They were also, in a strange way, un-doglike. There was a small and rather dainty white poodle that still just about had the overgrown remains of its poodle cut, and a lapdog with the tattered remains of a tartan jacket still hanging from its shoulder. But they weren't milling around, or squabbling. They had a uniform intent look that she'd seen before, although never on dogs.

  Gaspode was clearly trembling now. Angua slunk over to the poodle. It still had a diamante collar visible under the crusty fur.

  “This Big Fido,” she said, “is he some kind of wolf, or what?”

  “Spiritually, all dogs are wolves,” said the poodle, “but cynically and cruelly severed from their true destiny by the manipulations of so-called humanity.”

  It sounded like a quote. “Big Fido said that?” Angua hazarded.

  The poodle turned its head. For the first time she saw its eyes. They were red, and as mad as hell. Anything with eyes like that could kill anything it wanted because madness, true madness, can drive a fist through a plank.

  “Yes,” said Big Fido.

  He had been a normal dog. He'd begged, and rolled over, and heeled, and fetched. Every night he'd been taken for a walk.

  There was no flash of light when It happened. He'd just been lying in his basket one night and he'd thought about his name, which was Fido, and the name on the basket, which was Fido. And he thought about his blanket with Fido on it, and his bowl with Fido on it, and above all he brooded on the collar with Fido on it, and something somewhere deep in his brain had gone “click” and he'd eaten his blanket, savaged his owner and dived out through the kitchen window. In the street outside a labrador four times the size of Fido had sniggered at the collar, and thirty seconds later had fled, whimpering.

  That had just been the start.

  The dog hierarchy was a simple matter. Fido had simply asked around, generally in a muffled voice because he had someone's leg in his jaws, until he located the leader of the largest gang of feral dogs in the city. People—that is, dogs—still talked about the fight between Fido and Barking Mad Arthur, a rottweiler with one eye and a very bad temper. But most animals don't fight to the death, only to the defeat, and Fido was impossible to defeat; he was simply a very small fast killing streak with a collar. He'd hung on to bits of Barking Mad Arthur until Barking Mad Arthur had given in, and then to his amazement Fido had killed him. There was something inexplicably determined about the dog—you could have sandblasted him for five minutes and what was left still wouldn't have given up and you'd better not turn your back on it.

  Because Big Fido had a dream.

  “Is there a problem?” said Carrot.

  “That troll insulted that dwarf,” said Stronginthearm the dwarf.

  “I heard Acting-Constable Detritus give an order to Lance-Constable… Hrolf Pyjama,” said Carrot. “What about it?”

  “He's a troll!”

  “Well?”

  “He insulted a dwarf!”

  “Actually, it's a technical milit'ry term—” said Sergeant Colon.

  “That damn troll just happened to save my life today,” shouted Cuddy.

  “What for?”

  “What for? What for? 'Cos it was my life, that's what for! I happen to be very attached to it!”

  “I didn't mean—”

  “You just shut up, Abba Stronginthearm! What do you know about anything, you civilian! Why're you so stupid? Aargh! I'm too short for this shit!”

  A shadow loomed in the doorway. Coalface was a basically horizontal shape, a dark mass of fracture lines and sheer surfaces. His eyes gleamed red and suspicious.

  “Now you're letting it go!” moaned a dwarf.

  “This is because we have no reason to keep him locked up,” said Carrot. “Whoever killed Mr Hammerhock was small enough to get through a dwarf's doorway. A troll his size couldn't manage that.”

  “But everyone knows he's a bad troll!” shouted Stronginthearm.

  “I never done nuffin,” said Coalface.

  “You can't turn him loose now, sir,” hissed Colon. “They'll set on him!”

  “I never done nuffin.”

  “Good point, sergeant. Acting-Constable Detritus!”

  “Sir?”

  “Volunteer him.”

  “I never done nuffin.”

  “You can't do that!” shouted the dwarf.

  “Ain't gonna be in no Watch,” growled Coalface.

  Carrot leaned towards him. “There's a hundred dwarfs over there. With great big axes,” he whispered.

  Coalface blinked.

  “I'll join.”

  “Swear him in, acting-constable.”

  “Permission to enrol another dwarf, sir? To maintain parity?”

  “Go ahead, Acting-Constable Cuddy.”

  Carrot removed his helmet and wiped his forehead.

  “I think that's about it, then,” he said.

  The crowd stared at him.

  He smiled brightly.

  “No-one has to stay here unless they want to,” he said.

  “I never done nuffin.”

  “Yes… but… look,” said Stronginthearm. “If he didn't kill old Hammerhock, who did?”

  “I never done nuffin.”

  “Our inquiries are proceeding.”

  “You don't know!”

  “But I'm finding out.”

  “Oh, yes? And when, pray, will you know?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  The dwarf hesitated.

  “All right, then,” he said, with extreme reluctance. “Tomorrow. But it had better be tomorrow.”

  “All right,” said Carrot.

  The crowd dispersed, or at least spread out a bit. Trolls, dwarfs and humans alike, an Ankh-Morpork citizen is never keen on moving on if there's some street theatre left.

  Acting-Constable Detritus, his chest so swollen with pride and pomposity that his knuckles barely touched the ground, reviewed his troops.

  “You listen up, you horrible trolls!”

  He paused, while the next thoughts shuffled into position.

  “You listen up good right now! You in the Watch, boy
! It a job with opportunity!” said Detritus. “I only been doin' it ten minute and already I get promoted! Also got education and training for a good job in Civilian Street!

  “This your club with a nail in it. You will eat it. You will sleep on it! When Detritus say Jump, you say… what colour! We goin' to do this by the numbers! And I got lotsa numbers!”

  “I never done nuffin.”

  “You Coalface, you smarten up, you got a field-marshal's button in your knapsack!”

  “Never took nuffin, neither.”

  “You get down now and give me thirty-two! No! Make it sixty-four!”

  Sergeant Colon pinched the bridge of his nose. We're alive, he thought. A troll insulted a dwarf in front of a lot of other dwarfs. Coalface… I mean, Coalface, I mean, Detritus is Mr Clean by comparison… is free and now he's a guard. Carrot laid out Mayonnaise. Carrot's said we'll sort it all out by tomorrow, and it's dark already. But we're alive.

  Corporal Carrot is a crazy man.

  Hark at them dogs. Everyone's on edge, in this heat.

  Angua listened to the other dogs howling, and thought about wolves.

  She'd run with the pack a few times, and knew about wolves. These dogs weren't wolves. Wolves were peaceful creatures, on the whole, and fairly simple. Come to think of it, the leader of the pack had been rather like Carrot. Carrot fitted into the city in the same way he'd fitted into the high forests.

  Dogs were brighter than wolves. Wolves didn't need intelligence. They had other things. But dogs… they'd been given intelligence by humans. Whether they wanted it or not. They were certainly more vicious than wolves. They'd got that from humans, too.

  Big Fido was forging his band of strays into what the ignorant thought a wolf pack was. A kind of furry killing machine.

  She looked around.

  Big dogs, little dogs, fat dogs, skinny dogs. They were all watching, bright-eyed, as the poodle talked.

  About Destiny.

  About Discipline.

  About the Natural Superiority of the Canine Race.

  About Wolves. Only Big Fido's vision of wolves weren't wolves as Angua knew them. They were bigger, fiercer, wiser, the wolves of Big Fido's dream. They were Kings of the Forest, Terrors of the Night. They had names like Quickfang and Silverback. They were what every dog should aspire to.

  Big Fido had approved of Angua. She looked very much like a wolf, he said.

  They all listened, totally entranced, to a small dog who farted nervously while he talked and told them that the natural shape for a dog was a whole lot bigger. Angua would have laughed, were it not for the fact that she doubted very much if she'd get out of there alive.

  And then she watched what happened to a small rat-like mongrel which was dragged into the centre of the circle by a couple of terriers and accused of fetching a stick. Not even wolves did that to other wolves. There was no code of wolf behaviour. There didn't need to be. Wolves didn't need rules about being wolves.

  When the execution was over, she found Gaspode sitting in a corner and trying to be unobtrusive.

  “Will they chase us if we sneak off now?” she said.

  “Don't think so. Meeting's over, see?”

  “Come on, then.”

  They sauntered into an alley and, when they were sure they hadn't been noticed, ran like hell.

  “Good grief,” said Angua, when they had put several streets between them and the crowd of dogs. “He's mad, isn't he?”

  “No, mad's when you froth at the mouf,” said Gaspode. “He's insane. That's when you froth at the brain.”

  “All that stuff about wolves—”

  “I suppose a dog's got a right to dream,” said Gaspode.

  “But wolves aren't like that! They don't even have names!”

  “Everyone's got a name.”

  “Wolves haven't. Why should they? They know who they are, and they know who the rest of the pack are. It's all… an image. Smell and feel and shape. Wolves don't even have a word for wolves! It's not like that. Names are human things.”

  “Dogs have got names. I've got a name. Gaspode. 'S'my name,” said Gaspode, a shade sullenly.

  “Well… I can't explain why,” said Angua. “But wolves don't have names.”

  The moon was high now, in a sky as black as a cup of coffee that wasn't very black at all.

  Its light turned the city into a network of silver lines and shadows.

  Once upon a time the Tower of Art had been the centre of the city, but cities tend to migrate gently with time and Ankh-Morpork's centre was now several hundred yards away. The tower still dominated the city, though; its black shape reared against the evening sky, contriving to look blacker than mere shadows would suggest.

  Hardly anyone ever looked at the Tower of Art, because it was always there. It was just a thing. People hardly ever look at familiar things.

  There was a very faint clink of metal on stone. For a moment, anyone close to the tower and looking in exactly the right place might have fancied that a patch of even blacker darkness was slowly but inexorably moving towards the top.

  For a moment, the moonlight caught a slim metal tube, slung across the figure's back. Then it swung into shadow again as it climbed onwards.

  The window was resolutely shut.

  “But she always leaves it open,” Angua whined.

  “Must have shut it tonight,” said Gaspode. “There's a lot of strange people about.”

  “But she knows about strange people,” said Angua. “Most of them live in her house!”

  “You'll just have to change back to human and smash the window.”

  “I can't do that! I'd be naked!”

  “Well, you're naked now, ain't you?”

  “But I'm a wolf! That's different!”

  “I've never worn anything in my whole life. It's never bothered me.”

  “The Watch House,” muttered Angua. “There'll be something at the Watch House. Spare chainmail, at least. A sheet or something. And the door doesn't shut properly. Come on.”

  She trotted off along the street, with Gaspode whimpering along behind her.

  Someone was singing.

  “Blimey,” said Gaspode, “look at that.”

  Four Watchmen slogged past. Two dwarfs, two trolls. Angua recognized Detritus.

  “Hut, hut, hut! You without doubt the horriblest recruits I ever see! Pick up them feet!”

  “I never done nuffin!”

  “Now you doin somefin for the first time in your horrible life, Lance-Constable Coalface! It a man life in the Watch!”

  The squad rounded the corner.

  “What's been going on?” said Angua.

  “Search me. I might know more if one of 'em stops for a widdle.”

  There was a small crowd around the Watch House in Pseudopolis Yard. They seemed to be Watchmen, too. Sergeant Colon was standing under a flickering lamp, scribbling on his clipboard and talking to a small man with a large moustache.

  “And your name, mister?”

  “SILAS! CUMBERBATCH!”

  “Didn't you used to be town crier?”

  “THAT'S RIGHT!”

  “Right. Give him his shilling. Acting-Constable Cuddy? One for your squad.”

  “WHO'S ACTING-CONSTABLE CUDDY?” said Cumberbatch.

  “Down here, mister.”

  The man looked down.

  “BUT YOU'RE! A DWARF! I NEVER—”

  “Stand to attention when you're talking to a superierierior officer!” Cuddy bellowed.

  “Ain't no dwarfs or trolls or humans in the Watch, see,” said Colon. “Just Watchmen, see? That's what Corporal Carrot says. Of course, if you'd like to be in Acting-Constable Detritus' squad—”

  “I LIKE DWARFS,” said Cumberbatch, hurriedly. “ALWAYS HAVE. NOT THAT THERE ARE ANY IN THE WATCH, MIND,” he added, after barely a second's thought.

  “You learn quick. You'll go a long way in this man's army,” said Cuddy. “You could have a field-marshal's bottom in your napkin any day now. AAAAaa
bbbb-wut tn! Hut, hut, hut—”

  “Fifth volunteer so far,” said Colon to Corporal Nobbs, as Cuddy and his new recruit pounded off into the darkness. “Even the Dean at the University tried to join. Amazing.”

  Angua looked at Gaspode, who shrugged.

  “Detritus is certainly clubbing 'em into line,” said Colon. “After ten minutes they're putty in his hands. Mind you,” he added, “after ten minutes anything's putty in them hands. Reminds me of the drill sergeant we had when I was first in the army.”

  “Tough, was he?” said Nobby, lighting a cigarette.

  “Tough? Tough? Blimey! Thirteen weeks of pure misery, that was! Ten-mile run every morning, up to our necks in muck half the time, and him yelling a blue streak and cussin' us every living moment! One time he made me stay up all night cleaning the lavvies with a toothbrush! He'd hit us with a spiky stick to get us out of bed! We had to jump through hoops for that man, we hated his damn guts, we'd have stuck one on him if any of us had the nerve but, of course, none of us did. He put us through three months of living death. But… y'know… after the passing-out parade… us looking at ourselves all in our new uniforms an' all, real soldiers at last, seein' what we'd become… well, we saw him in the bar and, well… I don't mind telling you…” The dogs watched Colon wipe away the suspicion of a tear.

  “…Me and Tonker Jackson and Hoggy Spuds waited for him in the alley and beat seven kinds of hell out of him, it took three days for my knuckles to heal.” Colon blew his nose. “Happy days… Fancy a boiled sweet, Nobby?”

  “Don't mind if I do, Fred.”

  “Give one to the little dog,” said Gaspode. Colon did, and then wondered why.

  “See?” said Gaspode, crunching it up in his dreadful teeth. “I'm brilliant. Brilliant.”

  “You'd better pray Big Fido doesn't find out,” said Angua.

  “Nah. He won't touch me. I worry him. I've got the Power.” He scratched an ear vigorously. “Look, you don't have to go back in there, we could go and—”

  “No.”

  “Story of my life,” said Gaspode. “There's Gaspode. Give him a kick.”

  “I thought you had this big happy family to go back to.” said Angua, as she pushed open the door.