Discworld 15 - Men at Arms

So many crimes are solved by a happy accident—by the random stopping of a car, by an overhead remark, by someone of the right nationality happening to be within five miles of the scene of the crime without an alibi…

The Battle of Koom Valley is the only one known to history where both sides ambushed each other.

The bulk of the Armoury loomed against the sunset.
It was strange to find an armoury in a city which relied on deceit, bribery and assimilation to defeat its enemies but, as Sergeant Colon said, once you’d won their weapons off ’em you needed somewhere to store the things.

Cuddy peered at the letters hacked deeply into the stone.
‘ “VIA CLOACA”,’ he said. ‘Hmm. Well, now … via is an old word for street or way. Cloaca means …’
He peered into the gloom.
‘This is a sewer,’ he said.
‘What that?’
‘It’s like … well, where do trolls dump their … rubbish?’ said Cuddy.
‘In street,’ said Detritus. ‘Hygienic.’
‘This is … an underground street just for … well, for crap,’ said Cuddy. ‘I never knew Ankh-Morpork had them.’
‘Maybe Ankh-Morpork didn’t know Ankh-Morpork had them,’ said Detritus.
‘Right. You’re right. This place is old. We’re in the bowels of the earth.’
‘In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself,’ said Detritus, awe and wonder in his voice. ‘Truly, this a land of opportunity.’

The funeral was over. The jesters, jokers and clowns were going about their business, getting stuck in doorways on the way. There was much pushing and shoving and honking of noses and falling of prats. It was a scene to make a happy man slit his wrists on a fine spring morning.

The river Ankh is probably the only river in the universe on which the investigators can chalk the outline of the corpse.

It was a war axe, and so heavy that Vimes’ arm sagged. Intricate etched lines covered the blade. It must have represented weeks of work.
‘Not your actual Saturday night special, eh?’
‘Oh no,’ said Carrot, ‘that’s a burial weapon.’
‘I should think it is!’
‘I mean, it’s made to be buried with a dwarf. Every dwarf is buried with a weapon. You know? To take with him to … wherever he’s going.’
‘But it’s fine workmanship! And it’s got an edge like — aargh,’ Vimes sucked his finger, ‘like a razor.’
Carrot looked shocked. ‘Of course. It’d be no good him facing them with an inferior weapon.’
‘What them are you talking about?’
‘Anything bad he encounters on his journey after death,’ said Carrot, a shade awkwardly.
‘Ah.’ Vimes hesitated. This was an area in which he did not feel comfortable.
‘It’s an ancient tradition,’ said Carrot.
‘I thought dwarfs didn’t believe in devils and demons and stuff like that.’
‘That’s true, but … we’re not sure if they know.’
‘Oh.’

They looked at their drinks. Very slowly, like a mighty sequoia beginning the first step towards resurrection as a million Save The Trees leaflets, Detritus toppled backwards with his mug still in his hand. Apart from the 90° change in position, he didn’t move a muscle.

Come to think of it, there were always just guards at a guard’s funeral.
Of course it wasn’t like that now. Sergeant Colon had been happily married for years, perhaps because he and his wife arranged their working lives so that they only met occasionally, normally on the doorstep. But she left him decent meals in the oven, and there was clearly something there; they’d got grandchildren, even, so obviously there had been times when they’d been unable to avoid each other. Young Carrot had to fight young women off with a stick. And Corporal Nobbs … well, he probably made his own arrangements. He was said to have the body of a twenty-five year old, although no one knew where he kept it.

Um…Captain Vimes kind of hinted, sir…”

“How did he hint?”

Colon took a step back.

“He sort of said, ‘Fred, she’s a damn werewolf. I don’t like it any more than you do, but Vetinari says we’ve got to take one of them as well, and a werewolf’s better than a vampire or a zombie, and that’s all there is to it.’ That’s what he hinted.”

“I see.”

“Er…sorry about that, sir.”

“Just let’s get through the day, Fred. That’s all—”