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.
It appeared to examine him for some time, turning him this way and that. Then, moving on its three free legs and flapping its wings occasionally to help with its balance, it trotted away across the plaza and headed towards the what once had been the Patrician's palace. To what once had been the king's palace, too.
It ignored the frightened spectators silently pressing themselves against the walls. The arched gateway was shouldered aside with depressing ease. The doors themselves, tall and iron-bound and solid, lasted a surprising ten seconds before collapsing into a heap of glowing ash.
The dragon stepped through.
Lady Ramkin turned in astonishment. Vimes had started to laugh.
There was a manic edge to it and there were tears in his eyes, but it was still laughter. He laughed and laughed until he slid gently down the edge of the fountain, his legs splaying out in front of him.
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