Malbawn lumbered only a few steps toward Dennis as the youth back-pedaled. The creature didn’t seem able to move quickly. It paused and waved its right foreleg. The sharp chitin was streaked with Dennis’ blood.
Dennis thrust, handling the Founder’s Sword as if it were a fencing foil. His body made a smooth, straight line from his left foot to the point crushing into the joint of Malbawn’s bloody foreleg.
Dennis knew the blade had gone home even before the creature screamed. He could feel his metal grate into the soft tissue between plates of armor. Malbawn rushed forward, but its own movement completed the work of destruction. The pincers thrashed convulsively; then the whole forelimb flopped, held to the body only by a scrap of the gristly connective tissue that permitted Malbawn’s joints to bend.
Malbawn’s remaining foreleg swiped at Dennis. Instead of dodging back as he had done before, the youth ducked and let the muscles of his back absorb the blow as he thrust at the lowest joint—ankle joint—of the creature’s right hind leg.
The spiked arm struck Dennis like a falling tree, driving out his breath in a grunt of pain. He’d underestimated how much it would hurt.
The middle legs reached for his torso as the forelimb squeezed him against the yellow-gray plastron. He chopped his sword pommel at the joint of the limb holding him—felt it crunch and felt Malbawn release him as the hind leg his point had severed gave way.
Greenish fluid oozed from Malbawn’s damaged joints. The grass was spattered with it; so were Dennis’ hands and clothing. The creature staggered onto its three good legs. Its beak opened and closed, but the only sound it made were clicks and a soft hissing.
“I’ll hack you to bits!” Dennis heard himself repeat in a hoarse, horrible voice.
Malbawn tried to sidle away. It lowered its left foreleg to the ground so that the middle limb on that side could take a step backwards. The damaged joint collapsed under the weight. Dennis moved in, thrusting between the chitinous ridges of the creature’s neck and torso.
Malbawn threw all its mass forward, lurching at Dennis like the rolling boulder he had at first thought it. The left forelimb swung at him, its last segment hanging loose like the end of a flail. It struck him across the side of the head, turning his whole universe into heat and bright, roaring pulses…
CHAPTER 31
The blaze of white warmth cooled to sunlight and pain. Dennis had fallen forward, his knees on the ground and his torso sprawled against Malbawn.
One of Malbawn’s middle legs was prodding at Dennis with the disconnected sluggishness of a windmill with broken vanes. Sharp nodules on the back of the pincers left a line of bloody welts over the youth’s ribs every time they struck him.
Malbawn was dead. Half the length of Dennis’ sword had slid through the neck joint and was buried within the creature’s body. Green ichor oozed from the beak, and the only light in the faceted eyes was the sun’s reflection.
One of Chester’s tentacles wrapped the twitching leg and prevented its autonomic motions from injuring Dennis further.
“Is it your wish that I continue to run, master?” the robot asked.
Dennis couldn’t remember his metal friend ever coming so close to disobeying an ill-conceived order.
“Thank you,” the youth whispered.
The creature’s acid stench had left the inside of Dennis’ mouth raw. He tried to raise himself, but the movement caused spasms in the muscles of his ribs and lower back. He couldn’t even scream.
Three of Chester’s tentacles lifted Dennis gently, taking his weight and permitting his muscles to quiver out of their tension.
“Thank you,” Dennis repeated. “Thank you…”
“He who loves his friends, Dennis, finds his friends around him at a time of need,” the robot said. He stepped back, carrying Dennis without apparent difficulty.
Malbawn’s limb twitched once when Chester released it, then stiffened into rigidity. Sparkling insects gathered in clusters around the creature’s dripping wounds.
Dennis tried again to stand up. He managed it this time with his palm braced on Chester’s carapace and one of the robot’s tentacles curled about his waist for further support.