Feet of Clay

There were men slumped all over the alley.

'Hello, hello, hello, what's all this, then?' said Carrot.

A man who was holding his arm and groaning looked up at him. 'We were viciously attacked!'

'We don't have time for this,' said Vimes.

'We may have,' said Angua. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the wall opposite, on which was written in a familiar script:

NO MASTER…

Carrot hunched down and spoke to the casualty. 'You were attacked by a golem, were you?' he said.

'Right! Vicious bugger! Just walked out of the fog and went for us, you know what they're like!'

Carrot gave the man a cheerful smile. Then his gaze travelled along the man's body to the big hammer lying in the gutter, and moved from that to the other tools strewn around the scene of the fight. Several had their handles broken. There was a long crowbar, bent nearly into a circle.

'It's lucky you were all so well armed,' he said.

'It turned on us,' said the man. He tried to snap his fingers. 'Just like that — aargh!'

'You seem to have hurt your fingers …'

'You're right!'

'It's just that I don't understand how it could have turned on you and just walked out of the fog,' said Carrot.

'Everyone knows they're not allowed to fight back!'

' 'Fight back',' Carrot repeated.

'It's not right, them walking around the streets like that,' the man muttered, looking away.

There was the sound of running feet behind them and a couple of men in blood-stained aprons caught up with them. 'It went that way!' one yelled. 'You'll be able to catch up with it if you hurry!'

'Come on, don't hang around! What do we pay our taxes for?' said the other.

'It went all round the cattle yards and let everything out. Everything! You can't move on Pigsty Hill!'

'A golem let all the cattle out?' said Vimes. 'What for?'

'How should I know? It took the yudasgoat out of Sock's slaughterhouse so half the damn things are following it around! And then it went and put old Fosdyke in his sausage machine—'

'What?'

'Oh, it didn't turn the handle. It just shoved a handful of parsley in his mouth, dropped an onion down his trousers, covered him in oatmeal and dropped him in the hopper!'

Angua's shoulders started to shake. Even Vimes grinned.

'And then it went into the poultry merchant's, grabbed Mr Terwillie, and' — the man stopped, aware there was a lady present, even if she was making snorting noises while trying not to laugh, and continued in a mumble — 'made use of some sage and onion. If you know what I mean …'

'You mean he—?' Vimes began.

'Yes!'

His companion nodded. 'Poor old Terwillie won't be able to look sage and onion in the face again, I reckon.'

'By the sound of it, that's the last thing he'll do,' said Vimes.

Angua had to turn her back.

'Tell him about what happened in your pork butcher's,' said the man's companion.

'I don't think you'll need to,' said Vimes. ‘I’m seeing a pattern here.'

'Right! And poor young Sid's only an apprentice and didn't deserve what it done to him!'

'Oh, dear,' said Carrot. 'Er…I think I've got an ointment that might be—'

'Will it help with the apple?' the man demanded.

'It shoved an apple in his mouth?'

'Wrong!'

Vimes winced. 'Ouch …'

'What's going to be done, eh?' said the butcher, his face a few inches from Vimes's.

'Well, if you can get a grip on the stem—'

'I'm serious! What are you going to do? I'm a taxpayer and I know my rights!'

He prodded Vimes in the breastplate. Vimes's expression went wooden. He looked down at the finger, and then back up at the man's large red nose.

'In that case,' said Vimes, 'I suggest you take another apple and—'

'Er, excuse me,' said Carrot loudly, 'You're Mr Maxilotte, aren't you? Got a shop in the Shambles?'

'Yes, that's right. What of it?'

'It's just that I don't recall seeing your name on the register of taxpayers, which is very odd because you said you were a taxpayer, but of course you wouldn't lie about a thing like that and anyway when you paid your taxes they would have given you a receipt because that's the law and I'm sure you'd be able to find it if you looked—'

The butcher lowered his finger. 'Er, yes …'

'I could come and help you if you'd like,' said Carrot.

The butcher gave Vimes a despairing look.

'He really does read that stuff,' said Vimes. 'For pleasure. Carrot, why don't you scarp—? My gods, what the hell is that?'

There was a bellow further up the street.

Something big and muddy was approaching at a sort of menacing amble. In the gloom it looked vaguely like a very fat centaur, half-man, half… in fact it was, he realized as it bounced nearer, half- Colon, half-bull.

Sergeant Colon had lost his helmet and had a certain look about him that suggested he had been close to the soil.

As the massive bull cantered past, the sergeant rolled his eyes wildly and said, 'I daren't get off! I daren't get off!'

'How did you get on?' shouted Vimes.

'It wasn't easy, sir! I just grabbed the 'orns, sir, next minute I was on its back!'

'Well, hang on!'

'Yes, sir! Hanging on sir!'

Rogers the bulls were angry and bewildered, which counts as the basic state of mind for full-grown bulls.[16]

But they had a particular reason. Beef cattle have a religion. They are deeply spiritual animals. They believe that good and obedient cattle go to a better place when they die, through a magic door. They don't know what happens next, but they've heard that it involves really good eating and, for some reason, horseradish.

Rogers had been quite looking forward to it. They were getting a bit creaky these days, and cows seemed to run faster than they had done when they were lads. They could just taste that heavenly horseradish …

And instead they'd been herded into a crowded pen for a day and then the gate had been opened and there'd been animals everywhere and this did not look like the Promised Lard.

And someone was on their back. They'd tried to buck him off a few times. In Rogers' heyday the impudent man would by now be a few stringy red stains on the ground, but finally the arthritic bulls had given up until such time as they could find a handy tree on which to scrape him off.

They just wished the wretched man would stop yelling.