Guards! Guards!

thought.
    “There will be better things,” whispered Wonse, temporarily relieved at the change in direction.
    There had better be.
    “Can I—” Wonse hesitated–“can I ask you a question?”
    Ask.
    “You don’t need to eat people, surely? I think that’s the only problem from people’s point of view, you see,” he added, his voice speeding up to a gabble. “The treasure and everything, that doesn’t have to be a problem, but if it’s just a matter of, well, protein, then perhaps it has occurred to a powerful intellect such as your own that something less controversial, like a cow, might—”
    The dragon breathed a horizontal streak of fire that calcined the opposite wall.
    Need? Need? it roared, when the sound had died away. You talk to me of need? Isn’t it the tradition that the finest flower of womanhood should be sent to the dragon to ensure peace and prosperity?
    “But, you see, we have always been moderately peaceful and reasonably prosperous—”
    DO YOU WANT THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS TO CONTINUE?
    The force of the thought drove Wonse to his knees.
    “Of course,” he managed.
    The dragon stretched its claws luxuriantly.
    Then the need is not mine, it is yours , it thought.
    Now get out of my sight.
    Wonse sagged as it left his mind.
    The dragon slithered over the cut-price hoard, leapt up onto the ledge of one of the hall’s big windows, and smashed the stained glass with its head. The multicolored image of a city father cascaded into the other debris below.
    The long neck stretched out into the early evening air, and turned like a seeking needle. Lights were coming on across the city. The sound of a million people being alive made a muted, deep thrumming.
    The dragon breathed deeply, joyfully.
    Then it hauled the rest of its body onto the ledge, shouldered the remains of the window’s frame aside, and leapt into the sky.

    “What is it?” said Nobby.
    It was vaguely round, of a woodish texture, and when struck made a noise like a ruler plucked over the edge of a desk.
    Sergeant Colon tapped it again.
    “I give in,” he said.
    Carrot proudly lifted it out of the battered packaging.
    “It’s a cake,” he said, shoving both hands under the thing and raising it with some difficulty. “From my mother.” He managed to put it on the table without trapping his fingers.
    “Can you eat it?” said Nobby. “It’s taken months to get here. You’d think it would go stale.”
    “Oh, it’s to a special dwarfish recipe,” said Carrot. “Dwarfish cakes don’t go stale.”
    Sergeant Colon gave it another sharp rap. “I suppose not,” he conceded.
    “It’s incredibly sustaining,” said Carrot. “Practically magical. The secret has been handed down from dwarf to dwarf for centuries. One tiny piece of this and you won’t want anything to eat all day.”
    “Get away?” said Colon.
    “A dwarf can go hundreds of miles with a cake like this in his pack,” Carrot went on.
    “I bet he can,” said Colon gloomily, “I bet all the time he’d be thinking, ‘Bloody hell, I hope I can find something else to eat soon, otherwise it’s the bloody cake again.’”
    Carrot, to whom the word irony meant something to do with metal, picked up his pike and after a couple of impressive rebounds managed to cut the cake into approximately four slices.
    “There we are,” he said cheerfully. “One for each of us, and one for the captain.” He realized what he had said. “Oh. Sorry.”
    “Yes,” said Colon flatly.
    They sat in silence for a moment.
    “I liked him,” said Carrot. “I’m sorry he’s gone.”
    There was some more silence, very similar to the earlier silence but even deeper and more furrowed with depression.
    “I expect you’ll be made captain now,” said Carrot.
    Colon started. “Me? I don’t want to be captain! I can’t do the thinking. It’s not worth all that thinking, just for another nine dollars a month.”
    He drummed his fingers on the table.
    “Is that all he got?” said Nobby. “I thought officers were rolling in it.”
    “Nine dollars a month,” said Colon. “I saw the pay scales once. Nine dollars a month and two dollars plumes allowance. Only he never claimed that bit, Funny, really.”
    “He wasn’t the plumes type,” said Nobby.
    “You’re right,” said Colon. “The thing about the captain, see, I read this book once…you know we’ve all got alcohol in our bodies…sort of natural alcohol? Even if you never touch a drop in your life, your