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“He understands what I mean. He knows I’m not—”
Whatever else Zeke planned to say, it was lost to a moment of terror when the sasquatch jumped smoothly to his feet. He leaped and squatted like an oversized ape, his legs shorter than its arms and his posture far top-heavier than a man’s.
Zeke let out a squeak and dropped the ax handle.
It clattered to the ground.
The sasquatch put one foot forward, then another. With every step, he gained confidence and speed. Rector thought about throwing the pickax; he thought about turning and running; he thought about finding another weapon, maybe grabbing Zeke’s ax and giving it a toss. But there was only time for thinking, and no time for doing.
No time to do anything but watch, and wait for the next breath and heartbeat. Wait for him to seize Zeke like he’d taken Houjin.
Except Zeke didn’t have anything edible to offer. Nothing except himself.
But by now, Angeline had caught up to them, swung around them, and gotten behind the sasquatch.
When she leaped out of the fog it was a thing of beauty. She flew with her net flung out before her, and landed just behind the sasquatch, just within range to throw the net, and pull it tight.
The sasquatch staggered. He was moving too fast to stop outright, or even turn around; but he tottered and tried to hold his feet steady. He spun like a dancer, and his spine bent and shifted, struggling to hold himself steady.
Angeline reached out with one long leg and kicked as hard as she could. She caught the creature in the soft spot behind his knee, and his knee buckled. The whole beast went down, toppling with a rolling shudder and then a low cry that shook any rooftops left standing.
The princess stood above the creature with her hands straining against the pull of the net.
“Boys!” she cried. “Help me move him! Help me tie him!”
All three lunged toward her, now that the beast was down. They wrestled with the ropes and dodged the grasping fingers and groping hands of the imprisoned thing; and when Angeline told them which way and how far, they began to shove, prod, and manhandle him back toward the jail. The irons there were rusted and the bars were uncertain, but he had to go someplace, and he couldn’t come downstairs. He couldn’t go to the underground, and he couldn’t go to the tower. He had no place of his own, not while he was as sick as the fox but a hundred times its size.
It was an hour of heavy work and terrible labor, for the sasquatch did not agree with his handling, and his four captors were working against the air, and the filters in their mask. They rolled the protesting brute when he couldn’t be compelled to walk or crawl.
But at times, Rector felt that he wasn’t fighting very hard. He was tired and sick. He had just had a meal for the first time in days. He didn’t want to be brutalized into a jail cell, but he didn’t know that that was coming. And he was still strong enough that Rector shuddered to consider how strong he must be when he hadn’t been breathing poisoned air for ages.
Something that size can’t help being strong, he thought. Something that big is dangerous because he outweighs you, not because he outruns you or outthinks you. It was almost funny, now that he looked at it. It stunned him that he’d ever been afraid of him in the first place … at least until a swing of one shoulder knocked him flat onto his back and took the wind right out of his chest.
“Watch yourself,” Angeline said. “He’s stuck, but he’s tough. ”
Rector picked himself up. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on top of his thighs. He took a moment to catch his breath and said, “I don’t think he meant that one. ”
“I don’t think he did either. Are you h
urt?”
“No, ma’am. ”
“Then come back to the party. We’re almost there, and he’s almost done fighting. ”
Houjin said, “That’s good, right?”
“Yes and no. When he’s too tired to fight, he’s too tired to be bullied along. Let’s get him settled before he faints away altogether. I don’t know if we can carry him. ”
By the time they reached the old prison on the hill, the sasquatch was barely able to stand. They’d worn him out with the journey, or so Rector hoped—otherwise, he would spring to life the moment their guard was down and kill them all, that was his personal suspicion. He watched the sasquatch exhaustedly as Angeline guided him into the sturdiest-looking cell. There was still a wall loop made to anchor chains and leg irons, and when the princess gave it a hearty yank, it didn’t budge. She affixed the net thereunto, tying it with careful knots.
When she was certain that the sasquatch would not leap up and murder the lot of them, she stood and put her hands on her hips, eyeing the unhappy creature with victory … but also pity.
“Poor thing,” she said. “I hate leaving him all tied up like this, but what can we do?”
Houjin brought forward the glass mask they’d toted all the way from the underground’s bottommost basement. “We can put this on his head, and see what happens. ”
“You think he’ll just let us do that?” Rector asked incredulously.
