Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

“If you like,” said Vimes.

“Hurrah.”

So much for community policing, Vimes thought. He peered out from behind the fountain again.

A voice immediately above him rumbled, “Say what you like, I still swear it's a magnificent specimen.”

Vimes's gaze travelled upwards until it crested the edge of the fountain's top bowl.

“Have you noticed,” said Sybil Ramkin, hauling herself upright by a piece of eroded statuary and dropping down in front of him, “how every time we meet, a dragon turns up?” She gave him an arch smile. “It's a bit like having your own tune. Or something.”

“It's just sitting there,” said Vimes hurriedly. “Just looking around. As if it's waiting for something to happen.”

The dragon blinked with Jurassic patience.

The roads off the square were packed with people. That's the Ankh-Morpork instinct, Vimes thought. Run away, and then stop and see if anything interesting is going to happen to other people.

There was a movement in the wreckage near the dragon's front talon, and the High Priest of Blind Io staggered to his feet, dust and splinters cascading from his robes. He was still holding the ersatz crown in one hand.

Vimes watched the old man look upwards into a couple of glowing red eyes a few feet away.

“Can dragons read minds?” whispered Vimes.

“I'm sure mine understand every word I say,” hissed Lady Ramkin. “Oh, no! The silly old fool is giving it the crown!”

“But isn't that a smart move?” said Vimes. “Dragons like gold. It's like throwing a stick for a dog, isn't it?”

“Oh dear,” said Sybil Ramkin. “It might not, you know. Dragons have such sensitive mouths.”

The great dragon blinked at the tiny circle of gold.

Then, with extreme delicacy, it extended one metre-long claw and hooked the thing out of the priest's trembling fingers.

“What d'you mean, sensitive?” said Vimes, watching the claw travel slowly towards the long, horse-like face.

“A really incredible sense of taste. They're so, well, chemically orientated.”

“You mean it can probably taste gold?” whispered Vimes, watching the crown being carefully licked.

“Oh, certainly. And smell it.”

Vimes wondered what the chances were of the crown being made of gold. Not high, he decided. Gold foil over copper, perhaps. Enough to fool human beings. And then he wondered what someone's reaction would be if they were offered sugar which turned out, once you'd put three spoonfuls in your coffee, to be salt.

The dragon removed the claw from its mouth in one graceful movement and caught the high priest, who was just sneaking away, a blow which knocked him high into the air. When he was screaming at the top of the arc the great mouth came around and-“Gosh!” said Lady Ramkin.

There was a groan from the watchers.

“The temperature of the thing!” said Vines. “I mean, nothing left! Just a wisp of smoke!”

There was another movement in the rubble. Another figure pulled itself upright and leaned dazedly against a broken spar.

It was Lupine Wonse, under a coating of soot.

Vimes watched him look up into a pair of nostrils the size of drain-covers.

Wonse broke into a run. Vimes wondered what it felt like, running away from something like that, expecting any minute your backbone to reach, very briefly, a temperature somewhere beyond the vaporisation point of iron. He could guess.

Wonse made it halfway across the square before the dragon darted forward with surprising agility for such a bulk and snatched him up. The talon swept on upward until the struggling figure was being held a few feet from the dragon's face.