Chapter Fourteen

“How was I to know it wouldnae work?” Anj complained as she walked towards the Yorick/Jeff/Headcrow pile. “It should have worked. It worked in the movie.”
Yorick rolled gracelessly off the pile and staggered to his feet, still clutching my leg.
“We all got down, at least.” He said. “If not all in one piece.”
Jeff reached out, grabbed the stump end of my my detached leg, and pulled himself upright using Yorick as an anchor. I shuddered and grabbed at the stump.
“Gah! Don’t do that!”
I levered myself to my foot and carefully hopped over towards the Grave of the Spicy King, leaned against it, and pulled up my trouser cuff to look at my leg-stump. Snapped cords hung from the broken stitching, and the broken-off end of a bone protruded a little way out of dry flesh.
“I don’t know how, but I could feel you pulling on my leg.” I complained as I poked at the stump. “Why does my leg have the consistency of an overcooked steak? How does that work?”
Anj and Jeff both sniggered, earning them a confused look from Headcrow as he sat up and hugged his long legs for balance, looking out from below his own knees.
“Pulling his leg?” Anj suggested.
“How did I not see that one?” Headcrow softly headbutted his thigh a few times, then looked at me. “If you can still feel it, then we can most likely just stitch it back on; It’s still connected to you.”
“What if it wasn’t?” Asked Jeff. “What do you do then?”
“Mostly just tape a bunch of cats together.” Came a voice from above as Archie lowered himself towards the top of the big obelisk, turning slowly in the air as he descended.
Yorick and Headcrow both looked like they were about to ask something, but Jeff got in first.
“What’s spinning a web like?” He enquired. “Is it like you’re doing a really long poop?”
Headcrow stretched out an arm, snatched my leg, and threw it at him, hitting Jeff squarely in the muzzle with my toes.

I sat leaning against the Grave of the Spicy King, extracting the broken cords and trying to knot them back together. Anj sat on the gravestone, and Yorick leaned against it. In front of us a three-way slap fight between Jeff, Headcrow, and Archie tumbled around.
“Looks like Headcrow has the reach advantage, but Archie is winning on number of limbs?” Anj offered. “And Jeff … ?
Yorick nodded.
“Jeff seems to be more mobile than either of them, from what I can see.”
Jeff sprang out of the scrum and landed on top of the big obelisk, posing in an arms-raised victory stance for a moment before my leg caught him in the gut & he folded over, toppling off again.
Anj leaned down and grabbed a badly knotted strand from me with a muttered “I can do better than that.”
“What’s a bit annoying is that I can still feel my leg.” I said, handing the other cord fragments up to Anj. “So all of that is kind of distracting. And a bit ticklish maybe?”
Yorick made a thoughtful noise, then lowered his hand, palm-up, in front of me. One finger was detached, and as I watched, it arched like a caterpillar, then stood on its tip and hopped around.
“Just a thought.” Yorick muttered, somehow raising a nonexistent eyebrow.
I leaned forward and stared at the ongoing scuffle, trying to concentrate, or at least to identify who was currently holding my leg. Anj tapped me on the shoulder and handed down the cords, now braided together into a single slightly lumpy strand.
“Wait.” She suggested. “For the opportune moment.”

Jeff and Archie simultaneously swept Headcrow’s legs out from under him, making the scarecrow topple, his arms flailing wildly. Jeff hurled himself upwards, just barely snagging my leg with one foot on the way past; Archie reared up, stepping on Headcrow for a little more reach, trying to grab my toes.
At the top of Jeffs arc, Anj and Yorick both tapped me on the shoulders.
“Now.” They murmured.
My severed leg twisted in Jeff’s grasp, flicked upwards to kick off his stomach, and hurtled downwards to rebound heel-first off Archie’s head. It hopped hard onto Headcrow, pushing him back down, then bounced a few jumps towards me, coming to rest upright beside the gravestone in an oddly smug way.
“Good leg.” Anj said, patting it on the stump. “Well done.”