Guards! Guards! recap

Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch has shrunk to three hopeless men under the cynical, drunken Captain Vimes, until the arrival of Carrot Ironfoundersson, a giant young man raised by dwarfs who takes the law with absolute seriousness. Meanwhile a secret brotherhood, egged on by its hooded Supreme Grand Master, uses stolen magic to summon a dragon, intending to frighten the city into accepting a puppet king. The plan goes wrong: the great dragon has ambitions of its own and installs itself as ruler, demanding treasure and a human sacrifice. Working with the dragon-breeding noblewoman Lady Sybil Ramkin, Vimes and the Watch struggle to fight back. In the end the runt swamp dragon Errol, whom Vimes has adopted, proves able to reshape his own body and superheat his flame, and he drives the great dragon off. The Supreme Grand Master is exposed as the Patrician's own secretary and dies; Vetinari is restored, the Watch regains a little respect, and Vimes and Lady Sybil are drawn together.

The Night Watch of Ankh-Morpork has decayed into a tiny, ignored remnant: the drunken Captain Vimes, the timid Sergeant Colon, and the light-fingered Corporal Nobbs, patrolling a city where the real power lies with the guilds and with the Patrician, Lord Vetinari. Into this joke of a force comes Carrot Ironfoundersson, a huge, earnest young man raised by dwarfs and determined to uphold the law to the letter. At the same time, a secret brotherhood led by a hooded Supreme Grand Master is meeting in shadow, working a stolen magic meant to summon a dragon and seize control of the city.

The summoned dragon makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork, terrorizing the city and demanding tribute and a sacrificial victim; Lady Sybil is offered up, and Vimes and the Watch have to act. The runt swamp dragon Errol, sickly and strange, turns out to be able to reshape his own body and superheat his flame, and he pursues the great dragon into the sky and drives it off for good; the two dragons ultimately fly away together. The hooded Supreme Grand Master is revealed to have been the Patrician's ambitious secretary all along, and his scheme collapses with his death. Lord Vetinari, briefly imprisoned during the crisis, resumes control with his usual composure and grants the Watch a modest new standing in the city. Vimes and Lady Sybil Ramkin begin a courtship. A quieter thread is left hanging: Carrot carries a plain sword and bears marks of birth that hint he may be of the city's lost royal line, but neither he nor anyone else moves to act on it.