Men at Arms recap

As Captain Vimes prepares to retire and marry Lady Sybil, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is being expanded to include its first troll, dwarf, and a guarded young woman recruit named Angua. A one-of-a-kind weapon, the gonne, which can kill at a distance and whispers to whoever holds it, is stolen from the Assassins' Guild, and a string of killings follows. Edward d'Eath, an assassin obsessed with restoring the monarchy, believes Carrot is the rightful heir and means to use the gonne and the murders to force a king back onto the throne. The Watch investigates against the wishes of the Guilds and the Patrician. The weapon corrupts a series of hands until the Guild's own head, Dr Cruces, is wielding it. Carrot uncovers the truth, kills Cruces, and the gonne is destroyed. Presented with real proof of his royal descent, Carrot deliberately refuses the crown and stays a watchman. Vimes marries Sybil and, rather than retiring, is made Commander of a much larger Watch by Vetinari.

Previously, in Guards! Guards!: Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch had dwindled to a handful of hopeless men led by the drunken, cynical Captain Sam Vimes, alongside Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs. The earnest, dwarf-raised recruit Carrot Ironfoundersson joined their ranks, and together they helped foil a secret brotherhood's plot to seize the city by summoning a dragon. In the aftermath the Watch regained a little respect, Vimes began courting the wealthy dragon-breeding noblewoman Lady Sybil Ramkin, and the Patrician, Lord Vetinari, remained the cold and calculating master of the city. A quiet suggestion was left unresolved: that Carrot may be of Ankh-Morpork's lost royal line.

Captain Vimes is only days from retiring to marry Lady Sybil, while the City Watch is being enlarged and opened up, awkwardly taking on its first troll, its first dwarf, and other recruits from the city's varied peoples, including a watchful young woman named Angua. As the changeover begins, a unique and dangerous object is stolen from the Assassins' Guild museum, and a young assassin obsessed with the city's lost kings quietly pursues a scheme of his own.

The gonne passes from hand to hand, corrupting each holder, until it reaches Dr Cruces, the head of the Assassins' Guild, who is behind the killings. Carrot confronts and kills him, driving a sword clean through him, and the deadly weapon is destroyed so it can whisper to no one else. The investigation also confirms, with heraldic and physical proof, that Carrot is almost certainly the true heir to Ankh-Morpork's throne, and Carrot, wanting nothing to do with kingship, quietly sets the evidence aside and remains an ordinary officer, content to keep the pragmatic Vetinari in power. The cost is real: the dwarf recruit Cuddy is killed during the case. Angua's secret, that she is a werewolf, comes out, and she and Carrot grow close. Vimes marries Lady Sybil; instead of the quiet retirement he expected, Vetinari makes him Commander of the newly enlarged City Watch, now permanently staffed by trolls, dwarfs, a werewolf, and others, marking the Watch's transformation into a genuine force.