"No, sir, and it's getting tricky with the vampire."
"Well, if they're suspicious now then they'll be certain if we drop a flask of coffee on them!"
"Sergeant Angua says we'll probably get away with it, sir. She didn't say why." The gnome looked expectantly at Vimes. So did his buzzard. "They've come a long way, sir. For a bunch of girls. Well... mostly girls."
Vimes reached out absent-mindedly to pet the bird.
"Don't, sir! She'll have your thumb off!" Buggy yelled.
There was a knock on the door, and Reg came in with a tray of raw meat. "Saw Buggy overhead, so I thought I'd nip down to the kitchens, sir."
"Well done, Reg. Don't they ask why you want raw meat?"
"Yes, sir. I tell them you eat it, sir."
Vimes paused before answering. Reg meant well, after all.
"Well, it probably can't do my reputation any harm," he said. "By the way, what was going down in the crypt?"
"Oh, they're not what I'd call proper zombies, sir," said Reg, selecting a piece of meat and dangling it in front of Morag. "More like dead men walking."
"Er... yes?" said Vimes.
"I mean there's no real thinking going on," the zombie went on, picking up another lump of raw rabbit. "No embracing the opportunities of a life beyond the grave, sir. They're just a lot of old memories on legs. That sort of thing gives zombies a bad name, Mister Vimes. It makes me so angry!" Morag tried to snap at another lump of bloody rabbit fur that Reg, oblivious for the moment, was waving aimlessly.
"Er... Reg?" said Buggy.
"How hard can it be, sir, to move with the times? Now take me, for example. One day I woke up dead. Did I - "
"Reg!" Vimes warned as Morag's head bobbed back and forth.
" - take it lying down? No! And I didn't - "
"Reg, be careful! She's just had two of your fingers off!"
"What? Oh." Reg held up a denuded hand and stared at it. "Oh, now, will you look at that?" He peered down at the floor, with a hope that was quickly dashed. "Blast. Any chance we can make her throw up?"
"Only by sticking your remaining fingers down her throat, Reg. Sorry. Buggy, do the best you can, please. And you, Reg, go back downstairs and see if they've got any coffee, will you?"
"Oh dear," murmured Shufti.
"It's big," said Tonker.
Blouse said nothing.
"Not seen it before, sir?" said Jackrum cheerfully, as they stared at the distant keep.
If there is a fairy-tale scale for castles, where the top end is occupied by those white, spire-encrusted castles with the blue pointy roofs, then Kneck Keep was low, black and clung to its outcrop like a storm cloud. A bed of the Kneck ran round it; along the peninsula on which it was built, the approach road was wide, and bereft of cover, and an ideal stroll for those who were tired of life. Blouse took all this in.
"Er, no, sergeant," he said. "I've seen pictures, of course, but... they don't do it justice."
"Any of them books you read tell you what to do, sir?" said Jackrum. They were lying in some bushes half a mile away from the keep.
"Possibly, sergeant. In The Craft of War, Song Sung Lo said: to win without fighting is the greatest victory. The enemy wishes us to attack where he is strongest. Therefore, we will disappoint him. A way will present itself, sergeant."
"Well, it's never presented itself to me, and I've been here dozens of times," said Jackrum, still grinning. "Hah, even the rats'd have to disguise themselves as washerwomen to get in that place! Even if you get up that road, you've got narrow entrances, holes in the ceiling to pour hot oil through, gates everywhere that a troll couldn't smash through, coupla mazes, a hundred little ways you can be shot at. Oh, it's a wonderful place to attack."
"I wonder how the Alliance got in?" said Blouse.