Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

“Oh, no,” said Lady Ramkin triumphantly. “You don't get away that easily!” She reached up on to a shelf and produced a tin box. It had a slot in the lid. It rattled. On the side was the legend: The Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons.

The initial whip-round produced four dollars and thirty-one pence. After Captain Vimes gestured pointedly with the dragon, a further twenty-five dollars and sixteen pence were miraculously forthcoming. Then the mob fled.

“We made a profit on the day, anyway,” said Vimes, when they were alone again.

“That was jolly brave of you!”

“Let's just hope it doesn't catch on,” said Vimes, gingerly putting the exhausted dragon back in its pen. He felt quite lightheaded.

Once again he was aware of eyes staring fixedly at him. He glanced sideways into the long, pointed face of Goodboy Bindle Featherstone, rearing up in a pose best described as The Last Puppy in the Shop.

To his astonishment, he found himself reaching over and scratching it behind its ears, or at least behind the two spiky things at the sides of its head which were presumably its ears. It responded with a strange noise that sounded like a complicated blockage in a brewery. He took his hand away hurriedly.

“It's all right,” said Lady Ramkin. “It's his stomachs rumbling. That means he likes you.”

To his amazement, Vimes found that he was rather pleased about this. As far as he could recall, nothing in his life before had thought him worth a burp.

“I thought you were, er, going to get rid of him,” he said.

“I suppose I shall have to,” she said. “You know how it is, though. They look up at you with those big, soulful eyes-”

There was a brief, mutual, awkward silence.

“How would it be if I-”

“You don't think you might like-”

They stopped.

“It'd be the least I could do,” said Lady Ramkin.

' 'But you're already giving us the new headquarters and everything!"

“That was simply my duty as a good citizen,” said Lady Ramkin. “Please accept Goodboy as, as a friend. ”

Vimes felt that he was being inched out over a very deep chasm on a very thin plank.

“I don't even know what they eat,” he said.

“They're omnivores, actually,” she said. “They eat everything except metal and igneous rocks. You can't be finicky, you see, when you evolve in a swamp.”

“But doesn't he need to be taken for walks? Or flights, or whatever?”

“He seems to sleep most of the time.” She scratched the ugly thing on top of its scaly head. ' 'He's the most relaxed dragon I've ever bred, I must say."

“What about, er, you know?” He indicated the dunging fork.

“Well, it's mainly gas. Just keep him somewhere well ventilated. You haven't got any valuable carpets, have you? It's best not to let them lick your face, but they can be trained to control their flame. They're very helpful for lighting fires.”

Goodboy Bindle Featherstone curled up amidst a barrage of plumbing noises.

They’ve got eight stomachs, Vimes remembered; the drawings in the book had been very detailed. And there's lots of other stuff like fractional-distillation tubes and mad alchemy sets in there.

No swamp dragon could ever terrorise a kingdom, except by accident. Vimes wondered how many had been killed by enterprising heroes. It was terribly cruel to do something like that to creatures whose only crime was to blow themselves absent-mindedly to pieces in mid-air, which was not something any individual dragon made a habit of. It made him quite angry to think about it. A race of, of whittles, that's what dragons were. Born to lose. Live fast, die wide. Omnivores or not, what they must really live on was their nerves, flapping apologetically through the world in mortal fear of their own digestive system. The family would be just getting over father's explosion, and some twerp in a suit of armour would come plodding into the swamp to stick a sword into a bag of guts that was only one step away from self-destruction in any case.

Huh. It'd be interesting to see how the great dragon slayers of the past stood up to the big dragon. Armour? Best not to wear it. It'd all be the same in any case, and at least your ashes wouldn't come prepackaged in their own foil.

He stared and stared at the malformed little thing, and the idea that had been knocking for attention for the last few minutes finally gained entrance. Everyone in Ankh-Morpork wanted to find the dragon's lair. At least, wanted to find it empty. Bits of wood on a stick wouldn't do it, he was certain. But, as they said, set a thief... [16]