He couldn’t see the vegetation that held him, though a large blossom brushed his cheek and breathed a rich purple scent into the air. He tried to pick away the vines clutching his right cuff. His left arm was entwined in a knot of brambles that anchored it as thoroughly as if he’d been tied.
“Chester—” Dennis began.
He tried to speak calmly. His mind churned with ghastly tales of trees that walked in the jungle, just out of sight of Emath, and of flowers that drank blood.
Something lanced through his cheek like hot iron.
Dennis screamed and jumped to his feet. The bramble jabs were nothing to the pain that spread from his cheek, encompassing him, devouring him—
The insect that had stung the youth buzzed away in the darkness, led by the perfume of another nightflower.
Dennis stumbled a few paces away from the bramble patch. The ground between two of the larger trees was reasonably clear. He had his left palm raised to his cheek. He wasn’t quite touching the skin, but he could feel the heat from the injured part.
“Chester,” he said, slurring the words because the side of his face was beginning to swell. “I’m all right, aren’t I?”
“You are all right, Dennis,” said the robot. “You will be better in a day.
“Perhaps,” Chester added after a pause, “you should hold a wet compress to your cheek.”
“I didn’t bring any water,” Dennis said in sudden concern. “You said there’d be water in the jungle, Chester.”
“It is beginning to rain, Dennis.”
As Dennis opened his mouth to argue, the first rush of big raindrops started to hammer down, making the leaves clatter.
Dennis looked up. A drop slapped the corner of his eye hard enough to hurt; but the rain was cooling things down, and that felt good after he’d sprinted away from the dragons in the humid atmosphere. Dust was pocking up from the trackway in miniature explosions. In a few minutes, the perimeter would a be a sea of mud—greasy and a deathtrap for anyone who tried to bolt across it.
Dennis shuddered. “Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, more to himself than to his companion.
Chester moved, a faint glimmer and a crackling of brush nearby. “There is a path here, Dennis,” he said. “If you choose to follow it.”
“Shouldn’t I? Where does it go?”
“The path goes anywhere, Dennis,” the robot said. “It goes away from Emath.”
Dennis pursed his lips. The side of his face felt stiff already. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”
His cloak felt clammy as the rain plastered it to his shoulders. Maybe it’d be drier on the trail, protected by the canopy of leaves.
Dennis pushed through the undergrowth, guided by the glint of his companion’s pointing limbs. He was a hero, after all, going off to seek adventure. That thought should keep him warm.
CHAPTER 13
The rain continued. The canopy didn’t stop it; instead, the drops collected on the tips of leaves, then overbalanced and dropped to the trail in individual cupfuls.
Dennis felt cold and wet and nothing at all of a hero.
“Even in a blameless life,” said the robot, “there are good days and bad days.”
“Chester, how far have we come?”
Dennis held the scabbard with his left hand. If he let the sword swing as he walked, his belt chafed the skin over his right hip. He was pretty sure he’d rubbed himself raw before he realized what was happening.
“We have come four miles, three hundred and twenty—one yards, Dennis.”
“Are there—” Dennis began. He grimaced to himself, then asked instead, “Do the lizard people have villages?”
“The lizardfolk have villages, Dennis,” the little robot agreed. “But there are no villages nearby.”
“Oh.”
A vine with spikes like a warclub caught at his head, right at the hairline. Dennis squealed with frustration—stopped—and freed himself by ducking carefully while his hand disengaged the thorns from his scalp.
The fresh pain was too minor to affect Dennis’ general feeling of discomfort. His head was throbbing. He thought the pulses of heat and pressure were centered on his swollen cheek, but he couldn’t be sure even of that. Maybe some of the thorns that tore him had been poisonous.