Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms

“It's easy! I'll show you! Look!”

Big Fido ran back a little way, paused, turned, ran… and leapt.

There was hardly a curve to the trajectory. The little poodle accelerated out into space, powered less by muscles than by whatever it was that burned in his soul.

His forepaws touched the slates, clawed for a moment on the slick surface, and found no hold. In silence he skidded backwards down the roof, over the edge—

–and hung.

He turned his eyes upwards, to the dog that was gripping him.

“Gaspode? Is that you?”

“Yeff,” said Gaspode, his mouth full.

There was hardly any weight to the poodle but, then, there was hardly any weight to Gaspode. He'd darted forward and braced his legs to take the strain, but there was nothing much to brace them against. He slid down inexorably until his front legs were in the gutter, which began to creak.

Gaspode had an amazingly clear view of the street, three storeys down.

“Oh, hell! ” said Gaspode.

Jaws gripped his tail.

“Let him go,” said Angua indistinctly.

Gaspode tried to shake his head.

“Stop ftruggling!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Brave Dog Faves the Day! Valiant Hound in Wooftop Wefcue! No!”

The gutter creaked again.

It's going to go, he thought. Story of my life…

Big Fido struggled around.

“What are you holding me up by?”

“Yer collar,” said Gaspode, through his teeth.

“What? To hell with that! ”

The poodle tried to twist, flailing viciously at the air.

“Ftop it, you daft fbugger! You'll haf uff all off!” Gaspode growled. On the opposite roof, the dog pack watched in horror. The gutter creaked again.

Angua's claws scored white lines on the slates.

Big Fido wrenched and spun, fighting the grip of the collar.

Which, finally, snapped.

The dog turned in the air, hanging for a moment before gravity took hold.

“Free!”

And then he fell.

Gaspode shot backwards as Angua's paws slipped from under her, and landed further up the roof, legs spinning. Both of them made it to the crest and hung there, panting.

Then Angua bounded away, clearing the next alley before Gaspode had stopped seeing a red mist in front of his eyes.

He spat out Big Fido's collar, which slid down the roof and vanished over the edge.

“Oh, thank you!” he shouted. “Thank you very much' Yes! Leave me here, that's right! Me with only three good legs! Don't you worry about me! If I'm lucky I'll fall oft before I starve! Oh yes! Story of my life! You and me, kid Together! We could have made it!”

He turned and looked at the dogs lining the roofs or, the other side of the street.

“You lot! Go home! BAD DOG!” he barked.

He slithered down the other side of the roof. There was an alley there, but it was a sheer drop. He crept along the roof to the adjoining building, but there was no way down. There was a balcony a storey below, though.

“Lat'ral thinking,” he muttered. “That's the stuff. Now, a wolf, your basic wolf, he'd jump, and if he couldn't jump, he'd be stuck. Whereas me, on account of uperior intelligence, can assess the whole wossname and arrive at a solution through application of mental processes.”

He nudged the gargoyle squatting on the angle of the gutter.

“Ot oo oo ont?”

“If you don't help me down to that balcony, I'll widdle in your ear.”

BIG FIDO?

“Yes?”

HEEL.

There were, eventually, two theories about the end of Big Fido.

The one put forward by the dog Gaspode, based on observational evidence, was that his remains were picked up by Foul Ole Ron and sold within five minutes to a furrier, and that Big Fido eventually saw the light of day again as a set of ear muffs and a pair of fleecy gloves.

The one believed by every other dog, based on what might tentatively be called the truth of the heart, was that he survived his fall, fled the city, and eventually led a huge pack of mountain wolves who nightly struck terror into isolated farmsteads. It made digging in the middens and hanging around back doors for scraps seem… well, more bearable. They were, after all, only doing it until Big Fido came back.

His collar was kept in a secret place and visited regularly by dogs until they forgot about it.

Sergeant Colon pushed open the door with the end of his pike.

The Tower had floors, a long time ago. Now it was hollow all the way up, criss-crossed by golden shafts of light from ancient window embrasures.

One of them, filled with glittering motes of dust, lanced down on what, not long before, had been Acting-Constable Cuddy.

Colon gave the body a cautious prod. It didn't move. Nothing looking like that should move. A twisted axe lay beside it.

“Oh, no,” he breathed.

There was a thin rope, the sort the Assassins used, hanging down from the heights. It was twitching. Colon looked up at the haze, and drew his sword.

He could see all the way to the top, and there was no-one on the rope. Which meant—

He didn't even look around, which saved his life.

His dive for the floor and the explosion of the gonne behind him happened at exactly the same time. He swore afterwards that he felt the wind of the slug as it passed over his head.

Then a figure stepped through the smoke and hit him very hard before escaping through the open door, into the rain.

ACTING-CONSTABLE CUDDY?

Cuddy brushed himself off.

“Oh,” he said. “I see. I didn't think I was going to survive that. Not after the first hundred feet.”

YOU WERE CORRECT.

The unreal world of the living was already fading, but Cuddy glared at the twisted remains of his axe. It seemed to worry him far more than the twisted remains of Cuddy.

“And will you look at that?” he said. “My dad made that axe for me! A fine weapon to take into the afterlife, I don't think!”

IS THAT SOME KIND OF BURIAL CUSTOM?

“Don't you know? You are Death, aren't you?”

THAT DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT BURIAL CUSTOMS. GENERALLY, I MEET PEOPLE BEFORE THEY'RE BURIED. THE ONES I MEET AFTER THEY'VE BEEN BURIED TEND TO BE A BIT OVER-EXCITED AND DISINCLINED TO DISCUSS THINGS.

Cuddy folded his arms.

“If I'm not going to be properly buried,” he said, “I ain't going. My tortured soul will walk the world in torment.”

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO.

“It can if it wants to,” snapped the ghost of Cuddy.

“Detritus! You haven't got time to ooze! Get over to the Tower! Take some people with you!”

Vimes reached the doorway of the Great Hall with the Patrician over his shoulder and Carrot stumbling along behind him. The wizards were clustered around the door. Big heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall, hissing on the hot stones.

Ridcully rolled up his sleeves.

“Hell's bells! What did that to his leg?”

“That's the gonne for you! Sort him out! And Corporal Carrot too!”

“There's no need,” said Vetinari, trying to smile and stand up. “It's just a flesh—”

The leg collapsed under him.

Vimes blinked. He'd never expected this. The Patrician was the man who always had the answers, who was never surprised. Vimes had a sense that history was flapping loose…

“We can handle it, sir,” said Carrot. “I've got men on the roofs, and—”

“Shut up! Stay here! That's an order!” Vimes fumbled in his pouch and hung his badge on his torn jacket. “Hey, you… Pyjama! I need a sword!”

Pyjama looked sullen.

“I only take orders from Corporal Carrot—”

“Give me a sword right now, you horrible little man! Right! Thank you! Now let's get to the Tow—”

A shadow appeared in the doorway.