“Where is it?” he asked. His friends didn’t answer that, either.

The question answered itself when the low-lying clouds thinned and stretched, revealing a pair of glimmering gold eyes. The eyes did not glow, but they flashed, flickering like a cat’s, or like any nighttime thing that roams and stalks.

Houjin stayed steadiest. He kept the point of his sharpened bar aimed at the thing’s face. Zeke took up a defensive position at Huey’s shoulder, prepared to swing the huge ax at anything that came close enough to hit, assuming he could lift it off his shoulder.

Rector plastered himself against the slimy wall, his pickax hanging from one hand. It knocked against his thigh. He clutched the weapon higher, up against his chest.

The bright-eyed thing came forward in a slinking crouch. It snarled and slathered as it crept, its joints stiff and its ears flattened. It approached them unhappily, nervously, curiously.

Hungrily.

“Mad dog,” Rector wheezed.

Houjin disagreed. “No. A fox. It’s a Blight-poisoned fox.”

“Never seen one of them before,” Zeke marveled, still arched and primed for battle.

Rector asked, “Is it dead? A rotter fox?”

Zeke shook the ax. “Go on, you. Get out of here.”

Huey said, “Not dead. Real sick, though. The birds fight off the Blight—they live with it. Four-footed things don’t handle it so good.”

The ragged creature paced forward slowly and stopped within a few feet, as if considering what to do. Three people to one small, ill animal … it weighed the odds, and weighed its own hunger. It growled, yipped, and shook its head, but did not retreat.

“You see.” Houjin planted his feet apart, ready to strike if he had to. “It’s thinking. Or it’s trying to. Rotters don’t think.”

Zeke swung the ax in the fox’s general direction. “Get along, you dumb thing. Get out of here. Don’t bother us, and we won’t bother you.”

His ax went wobbly, due to its weight. He drew it back up and held it with both hands.

The fox quivered and hopped back half a step. It snapped its jaws, spraying yellow-tinged spittle in every direction. Then it made up its mind, turned sharply, and dashed away. It disappeared through the fog in an instant, and the sound of its small feet—its little claws clicking against pebbles—lingered only a moment longer.

All three boys exhaled hard and let their weapons fall to their sides.

“I’m glad we didn’t have to kill it,” Zeke confessed.

Houjin said, “I don’t know. It isn’t happy being alive in here.”

This time, Rector agreed with Houjin. “Should’ve just smashed its head in. Would’ve done it a kindness.”

But Zeke still sagged, looking unhappy behind his visor. “I feel sorry for it. I wish we could’ve caught it, maybe let it go outside the wall.”