Recent events have raised the Night Watch's profile, bringing a slew of new recruits. Angua gets shot 3 times by Cruces as a werewolf can only be killed with a silver weapon, Angua is revived upon the moon's rising. Cruces gives Carrot the evidence that he is the royal heir, upon which Carrot kills Cruces with his sword and has both the evidence and the dismantled gonne buried with Cuddy. Vimes and Carrot confront and disarm Cruces, and Carrot helps Vimes resist the gonne's allure. The Watch prevent Cruces from killing Vetinari, but Cuddy and Angua are killed in the process. Cruces, head of the Assassin's Guild, Cruces murders him and takes up the plan himself.

Any possessor of the gonne seems to become obsessed with the device. It is revealed that d'Eath has stolen the gonne, the Disc's first and only handheld firearm, from the Assassins' Guild, with the intention of discrediting Vetinari's government through the murders. Angua works with the talking dog Gaspode, and also forms a romantic connection with Carrot, who loses his virginity to her but handles the discovery that she is a werewolf poorly. Cuddy and Detritus are forced to work together, resulting in them becoming friends as they overcome their deep-seated racial enmity. When a string of seemingly random murders occur among the Guilds of the city, Lord Vetinari forbids Vimes to investigate in a successful ploy to ensure Vimes does investigate. He also must deal with a new group of recruits that he has been required to take on for the sake of diversity: Cuddy (a dwarf), Detritus (a troll), and Angua (a werewolf-but Carrot is unaware of this, and believes she is included because she is female). Meanwhile, Captain Samuel Vimes, captain of the Sybil Ramkin, the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork. He researches the history of the royal family and determines that Carrot Ironfoundersson is in fact the rightful heir to the throne.

Edward d'Eath, an Assassin and son of a down-and-out noble family, becomes convinced that the restoration of the Ankh-Morpork monarchy will solve the social change in the city which he blames for his family's humbling.

Men at arms pratchett