“Wait,” the youth said in a voice so soft that only Chester could have heard the word.
He tugged at the hilt of the Founder’s Sword with his right hand. The deep-thrust blade resisted. Curling the fingers of his left hand around the cross-guard to spread the effort, Dennis leaned back and let the weight of his upper body work for him.
The blade slid free. Slimy fluid made a sucking gurgle as it gushed from Malbawn’s beak.
“Is it into the shade that you would like me to help you, Dennis?” the robot prompted.
Dennis took a deep breath. He laid the flat of the blade across the fingers of his left hand, the only way he could carry the heavy sword without letting its point drag on the ground. He knew he wouldn’t be able to use the weapon for—he didn’t dare think how long. His whole body felt as if it were encased in bands of hot iron like a barrel while the hoops were being shrunk onto it.
“They sent me out to die,” Dennis whispered.
“That is so, Dennis,” the robot agreed calmly. “But you did not die.”
Dennis cautiously lowered his left hand and let his right take all the weight of the Founder’s Sword. Light shivered across the metal and the slime that covered half of it, but he could hold it after all.
“There’s shade in Malbawn’s hut,” he said. “Let’s see what else is waiting there.”
Together, a tentacle curled in Dennis’ palm for support and for friendship, the companions strode into the creature’s dwelling.
Dennis had expected a cramped dome. Instead, the interior stretched back into the jungle, carried on arched saplings. Light crept through chinks in the leaf-mat covers, but the same openings let in the daily rains. The atmosphere within was dank and thickened by the mold growing on the walls and the dirt floor.
Dennis slipped as something turned beneath his foot. Chester steadied him. He looked down, his pupils dilated in the dim light.
He gagged. If there’d been anything in his stomach, he would have lost it.
“Do not let life be spoiled for you because another has died,” Chester quoted.
“I should have expected the bones,” Dennis said.
Most of them were cattle bones, broad ribs and femurs massive enough each to carry its share of a half ton of cow.
The human skull that had almost thrown Dennis now quivered on the packed ground before him, smiling for the rest of eternity.
“How many…?” Dennis started to ask, but he let his voice trail off because he didn’t really know what he meant by the question. How many deaths? How many men?
How many years had this gone on, Rakastava sending visitors out to have their bones sucked clean by Malbawn?
Just inside the door was a pile of weapons, their metal parts rusty and the wood on many had rotted away. There were a few swords, but for the most part it was a rustic arsenal: spears, only a few of which had steel points; crude, single-edged knives; flails; and a club inlaid with sharpened flints…
I can see you’re a bold lad. You won’t mind leading our cattle out in the morning. We keep a herd for trade with the locals.
But not trade with the lizardfolk. For a thing that lived in the jungle and called itself Malbawn. And so long as Rakastava fed Malbawn, Malbawn wouldn’t disturb Rakastava.
Dennis’ vision blurred with tears of anger and frustration.
The only thing within the hut that wasn’t the detritus of a carnivore was the mirror to the left of the doorway. It was a large glass mounted between two piers, as high as Dennis was tall. He stared at the ghost of himself on the surface, vague because of the lighting but not distorted.
“Chester,” the youth asked. “What’s this doing here?”
“If you wish to see a thing, Dennis, or a place,” the robot replied, “you may ask the mirror and it will show you.”
“Huh?” Dennis said. He blinked. His reflection blinked back.
The sword was getting heavy. He lowered the point carefully, setting it on a cow’s pelvis rather than the slimy floor. He didn’t want to sheathe the blade until he’d wiped it clean and smoothed the nicks from its edge with his whetstone. Gray light trembled on the sword and on the glass before it.