Brigid and Grant were alerted to the danger too late. Their vision still impaired, they heard Kane’s outcry, but barely a second before they were struck by the troll and his steel flail.
By Kane’s perceptions, the stunted creature moved as if he were on a vid tape sped up to an inhumanly fast, frenzied rhythm. The troll sprang outward, nearly brushing the ceiling with the crown of his head, and whipped the length of chain down at Grant in the same motion. The grapnel claws and links struck sparks from his helmet.
The troll landed on Brigid’s shoulders, bouncing off them, using her body as a springboard to launch another of his fantastic leaps. Grant and Brigid cried out simultaneously, more in alarm than pain. Grant staggered sideways, and Brigid fell to her hands and knees.
The troll landed in a squat, lips writhing over stumpy teeth. His breath puffed out before him in a cloud. He said something, a word Kane couldn’t hear through his headpiece, then he bounded at him again, snapping out the hooks in front of him.
Kane kicked himself down the passageway as the prongs missed impacting with his faceplate by a fraction of an inch. He half staggered, half drifted along the corridor, arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance.
The troll’s leap dropped him to within three feet of Kane. He gave the chain an expert, snapping jerk, pulling it back. Kane got his boots planted solidly beneath him, gathered his muscles and dived forward.
The troll tried a backward bound, but Kane’s left hand tangled in his dirty jumpsuit, fingers digging into the hard muscles beneath.
Mouth open in a silent snarl, the troll struck at his face with the hooks. As Kane swiftly lowered his head, they clanged loudly against the top of the helmet and the two of them tumbled headlong down the passageway.
The troll fought savagely, with muscles of surprising strength and with reflexes just shy of superhuman swiftness. In a revolving whirl of limbs and bodies, they rolled from one curving wall to the other. Due to the reduced gravity, Kane felt exhilaratingly buoyant.
The troll’s free hand clawed for the air-circulation assembly on the back of Kane’s helmet, but he forced the little man’s hand away. He dropped onto his back, the troll on top of him. Placing both boot soles flat against the troll’s pelvis, he bent his knees, then straightened out his legs in a powerful, levering kick.
Like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, the troll shot straight up, the top of his head crashing into a ceiling light. It shattered in a brief flurry of sparks. The troll slammed to the deck, hitting it spread-eagled on his back. A few shards of glass sprinkled down onto him.
The little creature wasn’t dead or even unconscious, but his black eyes bore a dazed sheen as he tried to push himself up. He managed to achieve a sitting position, but not before Brigid lunged forward, jamming the short barrel of the Ingram against the side of his head.
“Settle down, Frog-boy,” she said, even though he couldn’t hear her.
The troll felt the pressure of the blaster bore and remained where he was, chest rising and falling. His respiration rate was ragged, labored.
Getting to his feet, Kane kneaded feeling back into his arm. His knife wounds stung and pulled, and his sore knee throbbed. Grant glared at the little man, pointing his Sin Eater at his face. The troll glared back, fearlessly and defiantly.
“He’s one tough little monkey,” Kane commented. “Where’d he come from?”
Grant pointed to a double set of open doors a few yards down the corridor. “He rnust’ve come from that elevator while we were still blind.”
“Think he speaks Englishor at all?” Brigid inquired.
“If he does,” Grant said dourly, “we’ll have to yell so he can hear us through our helmets.”
Brigid stood up, gesturing with the Ingram for the troll to do the same. Regarding them with a sulky stare, he did so. Kane pointed to the open doors, then to the three of them.
Nodding, the troll began a shambling, leg-spraddled walk to the elevator, listing slightly from side to side. If he had slouched a little, his knuckles would have dragged on the floor. Kane attributed his curious gait to the elongated thumb near his heel.