The dragon twisted its wings, swung its huge bulk around on a pivot of air, and bore down on the roof.
Carrot grabbed Nobby around the waist and laid a hand on Colon's shoulder.
The sergeant was weeping with rage and frustration.
'Million-to-bloody-one last desperate bloody chance!'
'Sarge…'
The dragon flamed.
It was a beautifully controlled line of plasma. It went through the roof like butter.
It cut through stairways.
It crackled into ancient timbers and made them twist like paper. It sliced into pipes.
It punched through floor after floor like the fist of an angry god and, eventually, reached the big copper vat containing a thousand gallons of freshly-made mature whisky-type spirit.
It burned into that, too.
Fortunately, the chances of anyone surviving the ensuing explosion were exactly a million-to-one.
The fireball rose like a-well, a rose. A huge orange rose, streaked with yellow. It took the roof with it and wrapped it around the astonished dragon, lifting it high into the air in a boiling cloud of broken timber and bits of piping.
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