'Oh, come on, ' said Nobby.
'Shutup, shutup, shutup!' groaned Colon. 'Do you see it, I said!'
'I think I can see it, Sarge,' said Carrot loyally.
'Right. Right,' said the sergeant, swaying backwards and forwards with effort. 'Right. Good lad. Okay. Now keep an eye on it, right?'
He grunted, and loosed the arrow.
Several things happened so fast that they will have to be recounted in stop-motion prose. Probably the first was the bowstring slapping into the soft inner part of Colon's wrist, causing him to scream and drop the bow. This had no effect on the path of the arrow, which was already flying straight and true towards a gargoyle on the rooftop just across the road. It hit it on the ear, bounced, ricocheted off a wall six feet away, and headed back towards Colon apparently at a slightly increased speed, going past his ear with a silky humming noise.
It vanished in the direction of the city walls.
After a while Nobby coughed and gave Carrot a look of innocent inquiry.
'About how big,' he said, 'is a dragon's voonerables, roughly?'
'Oh, it can be a tiny spot,' said Carrot helpfully.
'I was sort of afraid of that,' said Nobby. He wandered to the edge of the roof, and pointed downwards. 'There's a pond just here,' he said. 'They use it for cooling water in the stills. I reckon it's pretty deep, so after the sergeant has shot at the dragon we can jump in it. What d'you say?'
'Oh, but we don't need to do that,' said Carrot. 'Because the sergeant's lucky arrow would of hit the spot and the dragon'll be dead, so we won't have anything to worry about.'
'Granted, granted,' said Nobby hurriedly, looking at Colon's scowling face. 'But just in case, you know, if by a million-to-one chance he misses — I'm not saying he will, mark you, you just have to think of all eventualities — if, by incredible bad luck, he doesn't quite manage to hit the voonerable dead on, then your dragon is going to lose his rag, right, and it's probably a good idea to not be here. It's a long shot, I know. Call me a worry-wart if you like. That's all I'm saying.'
Sergeant Colon adjusted his armour haughtily.
'When you really need them the most,' he said, 'million-to-one chances always crop up. Well-known fact.'
'The sergeant is right, Nobby,' said Carrot virtuously. 'You know that when there's just one chance which might just work-well, it works. Otherwise there'd be no,' he lowered his voice,'I mean, it stands to reason, if last desperate chances didn't work, there'd be no ... well, the gods wouldn't let it be any other way. They wouldn't.'
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