Rincewind darted from his hiding place, turned, and hurled his burden through the Drum’s nearest window.
Withel saw it arrive. The bag arced across the room, turning slowly in the air, and burst on the edge of a table. A moment later gold coins were rolling across the floor, spinning, glittering.
The room was suddenly silent, save for the tiny noises of gold and the whimpers of the wounded. With a curse Withel despatched the assassin he had been fighting. “It’s a trick!” he screamed. “No-one move!”
Three score men and a dozen trolls froze in mid-grope.
Then, for the third time, the door burst open. Two trolls hurried through it, slammed it behind them dropped the heavy bar across it and fled down the stairs.
Outside there was a sudden crescendo of running feet. And, for the last time, the door opened. In fact it exploded, the great wooden bar being hurled far across the room and the frame itself giving way. Door and frame landed on a table, which flew into splinters. It was then that the frozen fighters noticed that there was something else in the pile of wood. It was a box, shaking itself madly to free itself of the smashed timber around it.
Rincewind appeared in the ruined doorway hurling another of his gold grenades. It smashed into a wall, showering coins.
Down in the cellar Broadman looked up, muttered to himself, and carried on with his work. His entire spindlewinter’s supply of candles had already been strewn on the floor, mixed with his store of kindling wood. Now he was attacking a barrel of lamp oil. “inn-sewer-ants” he muttered. Oil gushed out and swirled around his feet.
Withel stormed across the floor, his face a mask of rage. Rincewind took careful aim and caught the thief full in the chest with a bag of gold. But now Ymor was shouting, and pointing an accusing finger. A raven swooped down from its perch in the rafters and dived at the wizard, talons open and gleaming.
It didn’t make it. At about the halfway point the Luggage leapt from its bed of splinters, gaped briefly in mid-air, and snapped shut.
It landed lightly. Rincewind saw its lid open again, slightly. Just far enough for a tongue, large as a palm leaf, red as mahogany, to lick up a few errant feathers.
At the same moment the giant candlewheel fell from the ceiling, plunging the room into gloom. Rincewind, coiling himself like a spring, gave a standing jump and grasped a beam, swinging himself up into the relative safety of the roof with a strength that amazed him.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” said a voice by his ear.
Down below, thieves, assassins, trolls and merchants all realised at about the same moment that they were in a room made treacherous of foothold by gold coins and containing something, among the suddenly menacing shapes in the semi-darkness, that was absolutely horrible. As one they made for the door, but had two dozen different recollections of its exact position.
High above the chaos Rincewind stared at Twoflower.
“Did you cut the lights down?” he hissed.
“Yes.”
“How come you’re up here?”
“I thought I’d better not get in everyone’s way-“
took the proffered beer.
“So?” he said. “I’ll kill him. Then you rob him. Is he that funny looking one over there?”
“Yes.”
Zlorf stared at Twoflower, who grinned at him.
He shrugged. He seldom wasted time wondering why people wanted other people dead. It was just a living. “Who is your client, may I ask?” said Ymor.
Zlorf held up a hand. “Please!” he protested. “Professional etiquette.”
“Of course. By the way-“
“Yes?”
“I believe I have a couple of guards outside-“
“Had.”
“And some others in the doorway across the street-“