Guards! Guards!

that’s different from bunging someone to a dragon just because it’s feeling peckish.”
    “That’s the spirit!” said Sergeant Colon.
    “Taxes is one thing, but eating people is another.”
    “Well said!”
    “If we all say we won’t put up with it, what can the dragon do?”
    Nobby opened his mouth. Colon clamped a hand over it and raised a triumphant fist in the air.
    “It’s just what I’ve always said,” he said. “The people united can never be ignited!”
    There was a ragged cheer.
    “Hang on a minute,” said a small man, slowly. “As far as we know, the dragon’s only good at one thing. It flies around the city setting fire to people. I’m not actually certain what is being proposed that would stop it doing this.”
    “Yes, but if we all protest—” said the first speaker, his voice modulated with uncertainty.
    “It can’t burn everybody ,” said Colon. He decided to play his new ace again and added, proudly, “The people united can never be ignited!” There was rather less of a cheer this time. People were reserving their energy for worrying.
    “I’m not exactly sure I understand why not. Why can’t it burn everyone and fly off to another city?”
    “Because…”
    “The hoard,” said Colon. “It needs people to bring it treasure.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, maybe, but how many, exactly?”
    “What?”
    “How many people? Out of the whole city, I mean. Perhaps it won’t need to burn the whole city down, just some bits. Do we know what bits?”
    “Look, this is getting silly,” said the first speaker. “If we go around looking at the problems the whole time, we’ll never do anything.”
    “It just pays to think things through first, that’s all I’m saying. Such as, what happens even if we beat the dragon?”
    “Oh, come on!” said Sergeant Colon.
    “No, seriously. What’s the alternative?”
    “A human being, for a start!”
    “Please yourself,” said the little man primly. “But I reckon one person a month is pretty good compared to some rulers we’ve had. Anyone remember Nersh the Lunatic? Or Giggling Lord Smince and his Laugh-A-Minute Dungeon?”
    There was a certain amount of mumbling of the “he’s got a point” variety.
    “But they got overthrown!” said Colon.
    “No they didn’t. They were assassinated.”
    “Same thing,” said Colon. “I mean, no one’s going to assassinate the dragon. It’d take more than a dark night and a sharp knife to see it off, I know that.”
    I can see what the captain means, he thought. No wonder he always has a drink after he thinks about things. We always beat ourselves before we even start. Give any Ankh-Morpork man a big stick and he’ll end up clubbing himself to death.
    “Look here, you mealy-mouthed little twerp,” said the first speaker, picking up the little one by his collar and curling his free hand into a fist, “I happen to have three daughters, and I happen to not want any of them et, thank you very much.”
    “Yes, and the people united…will…never…be…”
    Colon’s voice faltered. He realized that the rest of the crowd were all staring upward.
    The bugger, he thought, as rationality began to drain away. It must have flannel feet.
    The dragon shifted its position on the ridge of the nearest house, flapped its wings once or twice, yawned, and then stretched its neck down into the street.
    The man blessed with daughters stood, with his fist upraised, in the center of a rapidly expanding circle of bare cobbles. The little man wriggled out of his frozen grasp and darted into the shadows.
    It suddenly seemed that no man in the entire world was so lonely and without friends.
    “I see,” he said quietly. He scowled up at the inquisitive reptile. In fact it didn’t seem particularly belligerent. It was looking at him with something approaching interest.
    “I don’t care!” he shouted, his voice echoing from wall to wall in the silence. “We defy you! If you kill me, you might as well kill all of us!”
    There was some uneasy shuffling of feet among those sections of the crowd who didn’t feel that this was absolutely axiomatic.
    “We can resist you, you know!” growled the man. “Can’t we, everyone. What was that slogan about being united, Sergeant?”
    “Er,” said Colon, feeling his spine turn to ice.
    “I warn you, dragon, the human spirit is—”
    They never found out what it was, or at least what he thought it was, although possibly in the dark hours of a sleepless night