Feet of Clay

There was a commotion coming from the dragon house. Vimes entered, and shut the door behind him. He rested the crossbow
against the door.
The yammering and squeaking increased. Little gouts of flame puffed above the thick walls of the hatching pens.
Vimes leaned over the nearest one. He picked up a newly hatched dragonette and tickled it under the chin. As it flamed excitedly he lit his cigar and savored the smoke.
He blew a smoke ring at the figure hanging from the ceiling. Good
morning,” he said.
The figure twisted frantically. By an amazing piece of muscle control it had managed to catch a foot around a beam as it fell, but it couldn’t quite pull itself up. Dropping was not to be thought of. A dozen baby dragons were underneath it, jumping up and down
excitedly and flaming.
“Er… good morning,” said the hanging figure.
“Turned out nice again,” said Vimes, picking up a bucket of coal. “Although the fog will be back later, I expect.”
He took a small nugget of coal and tossed it to the dragons. They squabbled for it.
Vimes gripped another lump. The young dragon that had caught the coal already had a distinctly longer and hotter flame. “I suppose,” said the young man, “that I could not prevail upon you to let me down?”
Another dragon caught some thrown coal and belched a fireball. The young man swung desperately to avoid it.
“Guess,” said Vimes.
“I suspect on reflection, that it was foolish of me to choose the roof,” said the assassin.
“Probably,” said Vimes. He’d spent several hours a few weeks ago sawing through joists and carefully balancing the roof tiles. “I should have dropped off the wall and used the shrubbery.”
“Possibly,” said Vimes. He’d set a bear-trap in the shrubbery.
He took some more coal. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me who hired you?” “I’m afraid not, sir. You know the rules.”
Vimes nodded gravely. “We had Lady Selachii’s son up before the Patrician last week,” said Vimes. “Now, there’s a lad who needs to learn that ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘yes, please”.”
“Could be, sir.” “And then there was that business with Lord Rust’s boy. You can’t shoot servants for putting your shoes the wrong way round, you know. It’s too messy. He’ll have to learn right from left like the rest of us. And right from wrong, too.”
“I hear what you say, sir.”
“We seem to have reached an impasse,” said Vimes.
“It seems so, sir.”
Vimes aimed a lump at a small bronze and green dragon, which caught it expertly. The heat was getting intense.
“What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why you fellows mainly try it here or at the office. I mean, I walk around a lot, don’t I? You could shoot me down in the street, couldn’t you?”
“What? Like some common murderer, sir?”
Vimes nodded. It was black and twisted, but the Assassins’ Guild had honor of a sort. “How much was I worth?”
“Twenty thousand, sir.”
“It should be higher,” said Vimes.
“I agree.” If the assassin got back to the guild it would be, Vimes thought. Assassins valued their own lives quite highly.
“Let me see now,” said Vimes, examining the end of his cigar. “Guild takes fifty per cent. That leaves ten thousand dollars.”
The assassin seemed to consider this, and then reached up to his belt and tossed a bag rather clumsily towards Vimes, who caught it.
Vimes picked up his crossbow. “It seems to me,” he said, “that if a man were to be let go he might well make it to the door with no more than superficial burns. If he were fast. How fast are you?”
There was no answer.
“Of course, he’d have to be desperate,” said Vimes, wedging the crossbow on the feed table and taking a piece of cord out of his pocket. He lashed the cord to a nail and fastened the other end to the crossbows string. Then, standing carefully to one side, he
eased the trigger.
The string moved slightly.
The assassin, watching him upside-down seemed to have stopped breathing.
Vimes puffed at his cigar until the end was an inferno. Then he took it out of his mouth and leaned it against the restraining cord so that it would have just a fraction of an inch to burn before the string began to smolder.
“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he said. “I’ve never been an unreasonable man. I shall watch your career with interest.”
He tossed the rest of the coals to the dragons, and stepped outside. It looked like being another eventful day in Ankh Morpork, and it had only just begun.
As Vimes reached the house he heard a whoosh, a click, and the sound of someone running very fast towards the ornamental lake. He smiled.