He peered through the mist shreds at the surrounding buildings, getting his bearings. So the dragon had been hovering-he paced forward-here.
'And,' said Vimes, 'this is where it was killed.'
He fumbled in his pockets. There were all sorts of things in there — keys, bits of string, corks. His finger closed on a stub end of chalk.
He knelt down. Errol jumped off his shoulder and waddled away to inspect the detritus of the celebration. He always sniffed everything before he ate it, Vimes noticed. It was a bit of a puzzle why he bothered, because he always ate it anyway.
Its head had been about, let's see, here.
He walked backwards, dragging the chalk over the stones, progressing slowly over the damp, empty square like an ancient worshipper treading a maze. Here a wing, curving away towards a tail which stretched out to here, change hands, now head for the other wing . . .
When he finished he walked to the centre of the outline and ran his hands over the stones. He realized he was half-expecting them to be warm.
Surely there should be something. Some, oh, he didn't know, some grease or something, some crispy fried dragon lumps. Errol started eating a broken bottle with every sign of enjoyment. 'You know what I think?' said Vimes. 'I think it went somewhere.'
Thunder rolled again.
'All right, all right,' muttered Vimes. 'It was just a thought. It wasn't that dramatic.'
Errol stopped in mid-crunch.
Very slowly, as though it was mounted on very smooth, well-oiled bearings, the dragon's head turned to face upwards.
What it was staring at intently was a patch of empty air. There wasn't much else you could say about it.
Vimes shivered under his cape. This was daft.
'Look, don't muck about,' he said, 'there's nothing there.'
Errol started to tremble.
'It's just the rain,' said Vimes. 'Go on, finish your bottle. Nice bottle.'
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