“Bastard, come!  Come on!”

The puppy ran back to us.  There was nothing we could do for Bentley.

😦

I hopped down and grabbed Bitch as Bastard came back to us.  He growled as I approached, but he didn’t protest as I took Bitch into my arms and dragged her back toward Grue and Sirius.

I suppose Mannequin wouldn’t want to actually kill Bitch before the deadline of his trial. Killing a candidate who hasn’t failed your test seems like a faux pas.

Grue didn’t dismount, but I doubted he would have managed well if he had, given his injured leg.  I tried to ignore Mannequin’s steady approach as I propped Bitch’s limp form up against Sirius’ side long enough to lift her arms up to Grue’s waiting hands.

Grue hasn’t said anything in this chapter yet. I suppose he hasn’t really needed to, but still.

Together, we hauled her up so she was lying astride Sirius’ shoulders, just in front of Grue.

“Gas,” I muttered.  “There’s a cloud of gas around him.”

Looks like it might be about to change, with Taylor talking to him.

“Fuck me,” Grue said.  “I’d hoped we could at least hit him.”

Yeeah. He’s protected himself against the only things you had that could damage him, with this.

I looked at Bastard.  Too small to ride.  He was the size of a pony, but he wasn’t built for riding in the same way, and the spikes and bony plates that covered him were too densely packed for me to find any sort of flat patch to sit on.

A pony, you say?

…by the way, in my surprisingly difficult search for a good size comparison between an actual pony and a human, I found this:

Judging by a different image showing the difference between a horse and a pony, that dog actually looks like it’s an appropriate size for Bastard.

I reached for the chain that trailed from his muzzle.

Hmm, what are you going to do then?