Guards! Guards!

allowed to happen. Not in my city.

    In fact the Shades were not a problem. Many of its denizens were out hoard-hunting anyway, and those that remained were far less inclined than hitherto to lurk in dark alleys. Besides, the more sensible of them recognized that Lady Ramkin, if waylaid, would probably tell them to pull up their socks and not be silly, in a voice so used to command that they would probably find themselves doing it.
    The wall hadn’t been knocked down yet and still bore its grisly fresco. Errol sniffed around it, trotted up the alley once or twice, and went to sleep.
    “Dint work,” said Sergeant Colon.
    “Good idea, though,” said Nobby loyally.
    “It could be all the rain and people walking about, I suppose,” said Lady Ramkin.
    Vimes scooped up the dragon. It had been a vain hope anyway. It was just better to be doing something than nothing.
    “We’d better get back,” he said. “The sun’s gone down.”
    They walked back in silence. The dragon’s even tamed the Shades, Vimes thought. It’s taken over the whole city, even when it isn’t here. People’ll start tying virgins to rocks any day now.
    It’s a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also a bloody great hot flying thing.
    He pulled out the key to the new headquarters. While he was fumbling in the lock, Errol woke up and started to yammer.
    “Not now,” Vimes said. His side twinged. The night had barely started and already he felt too tired.
    A slate slid down the roof and smashed on the cobbles beside him.
    “Captain,” hissed Sergeant Colon.
    “What?”
    “It’s on the roof, Captain.”
    Something about the sergeant’s voice got through to Vimes. It wasn’t excited. It wasn’t frightened. It just had a tone of dull, leaden terror.
    He looked up. Errol started to bounce up and down under his arm.
    The dragon— the dragon—was peering down interestedly over the guttering. Its face alone was taller than a man. Its eyes were the size of very large eyes, colored a smoldering red and filled with an intelligence that had nothing to do with human beings. It was far older, for one thing. It was an intelligence that had already been long basted in guile and marinated in cunning by the time a group of almost-monkeys were wondering whether standing on two legs was a good career move. It wasn’t an intelligence that had any truck with, or even understood, the arts of diplomacy.
    It wouldn’t play with you, or ask you riddles. But it understood all about arrogance and power and cruelty and if it could possibly manage it, it would burn your head off. Because it liked to.
    It was even more angry than usual at the moment. It could sense something behind its eyes. A tiny, weak, alien mind, bloated with self-satisfaction. It was infuriating, like an unscratchable itch. It was making it do things it didn’t want to do…and stopping it from doing things it wanted to do very much.
    Those eyes were, for the moment, focused on Errol, who was going frantic. Vimes realized that all that stood between him and a million degrees of heat was the dragon’s vague interest in why Vimes had a smaller dragon under his arm.
    “Don’t make any sudden moves,” said Lady Ramkin’s voice behind him. “And don’t show fear. They can always tell when you’re afraid.”
    “Is there any other advice you can offer at this time?” said Vimes slowly, trying to speak without moving his lips.
    “Well, tickling them behind their ears often works.”
    “Oh,” said Vimes weakly.
    “And a good sharp ‘no!’ and taking away their food bowl.”
    “Ah?”
    “And hitting them on the nose with a roll of paper is what I do in extreme cases.”
    In the slow, brightly-outlined, desperate world Vimes was now inhabiting, which seemed to revolve around the craggy nostrils a few meters away from him, he became aware of a gentle hissing sound.
    The dragon was taking a deep breath.
    The intake of air stopped. Vimes looked into the darkness of the flame ducts and wondered whether he’d see anything, whether there’d be some tiny white glow or something, before fiery oblivion swept over him.
    At that moment a horn rang out.
    The dragon raised its head in a puzzled way and made a noise that sounded vaguely interrogative without being in any way a word.
    The horn rang out again. The noise seemed to have a number of echoes that lived a life of their own. It sounded like a challenge. If that wasn’t what it was,