Guards Guards - Carrot vs Guards

“You Watch men make me want to throw up,” he said conversationally. “Poncing around all the time, never doing a proper job of work. Throwing your weight about as if you counted for something. So me and Clarence are going to show you what real guarding is all about, isn't that right?”

I could just about manage one of them, Vimes thought as he took a few steps backward. If he was facing the other way, at least.

Clarence propped his spear against the gateway and spat on his hands.

There was a long, terrifying ululation. Vimes was amazed to realise it wasn't coming from him.

Carrot appeared around the corner at a dead run. He had a felling axe in either hand.

His huge leather sandals flapped on the cobblestones as he bounded closer, accelerating all the time. And all the time there was this cry, deedahdeedahdeedah, like something caught in a trap at the bottom of a two-tone echo canyon.

The two palace guards stood rigid with astonishment.

“I should duck, if I was you,” said Vimes from near ground level.

The two axes left Carrot's hands and whirred through the air making a noise like a brace of partridges. One of them hit the palace gate, burying half the head in the woodwork. The other one hit the shaft of the first one, and split it. Then Carrot arrived.

Vimes went and sat down on a nearby bench for a while, and rolled himself a cigarette.

Eventually he said, “I think that's about enough, constable. I think they'd like to come quietly now.”

“Yes, sir. What are they accused of, sir?” said Carrot, holding one limp body in either hand.

“Assaulting an officer of the Watch in the execution of his duty and ... oh, yes. Resisting arrest.”

“Under Section (vii) of the Public Order Act of 1457?” said Carrot.

“Yes,” said Vimes solemnly. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“But they didn't resist very much, sir,” Carrot pointed out.

“Well, attempting to resist arrest. I should just leave them over by the wall until we come back. I don't expect they'll want to go anywhere.”

***

Guards Guards - p218