The dragon kennels exploded. The windows blew out. The door left the wall ahead of a great billow of black smoke and sailed into the air, tumbling slowly, to plough into the rhododendrons.
Something very energetic and hot was happening in that building. More smoke poured out, thick and oily and solid. One of the walls folded in on itself, and then another one toppled sluggishly on to the lawn.
Swamp dragons shot determinedly out of the wreckage like champagne corks, wings whirring frantically.
Still the smoke unrolled. But there was something in there, some point of fierce white light that was gently rising.
It disappeared from view as it passed a stricken window, and then, with a piece of roof tile still spinning on the top of his head, Errol climbed above his own smoke and ascended into the skies of Ankh- Morpork.
The sunlight glinted off his silver scales as he hovered about a hundred feet up, turning slowly, balancing nicely on his own flame . . .
Vimes, awaiting death on the plaza, realized that his mouth was hanging open. He shut it again.
There was absolutely no sound in the city now but the noise of Errol's ascent.
They can rearrange their own plumbing, Vimes told himself bemusedly. To suit circumstances. He's made it work in reverse. But his thingys, his genes . . . surely he must have been halfway to it anyway. No wonder the little bugger has got such stubby wings. His body must have known he wasn't going to need them, except to steer.
Good grief. I'm watching the first ever dragon to flame backwards.
He risked a glance immediately above him. The great dragon was frozen, its enormous bloodshot eyes concentrating on the tiny creature.
With a challenging roar of flame and a pummelling of air the King of Ankh-Morpork rose, all thought of mere humans forgotten.
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