“I thought I’d killed you,” he babbled. “I thought I’d never see you again, Chester, and I wanted to die.”
There was a faint wash of verdigris on the robot’s limbs and carapace, but the metal was whole again and the tentacles that encircled Dennis’ shoulders were as smooth and supple as ever before.
“Whether we stay here or go back is up to you, Dennis,” Chester said quietly.
The digestive juices were burning almost the whole of the youth’s body by now, as though Mother Grimes had surrounded him with fire before he slew her.
“Oh,” Dennis said. “Of course.”
He reached his sword arm out through the opening, then cocked his body free like a contortionist avoiding further contact with the house.
Avoiding contact with the creature that looked like a house with a little old lady inside.
The new sword fit well into the scabbard made for the old one. The smith who’d hammered out the Founder’s Sword for King Hale must have seen the real thing somewhere to copy the style and dimensions so accurately.
Dennis sheathed the weapon, stripped off his ragged clothes, and rubbed his body with handfuls of dry grass. The stems and leaves prickled, but they scraped away the fluids that smeared him and seemed even to reduce the redness and swelling which the slime had already caused.
The exterior of what had been Mother Grimes looked like a puffball, half-deflated and already rotting. Dennis couldn’t imagine how he’d thought it was a house.
“Let’s go back to Rakastava, Chester,” Dennis said. Now that things were calm, his body sagged with the effort it had delivered.
He left his clothing where it lay. The garments were still crumbling, though the weight of direct sunlight seemed to be slowing the process. He carried the belt, the damaged scabbard, and the star-metal sword instead of wearing them against his bare, swollen skin.
“Is it me or yourself that you would have carry the baton, Dennis?” the robot prompted.
“There’s nothing of men in that thing, Chester,” the youth replied with a vehemence that surprised even him. “I’ll take the sword, for it’s a fine sword and I’ve lost the one I came with. But that other thing—”
He spat. “I want it no more than I want Malduanan tramping at my side, Chester.”
“Do not slight a little thing, lest you suffer for its lack,” Chester murmured.
But one of his tentacles looped around the scabbard, taking the weight from his exhausted master as they trudged back to Rakastava.
CHAPTER 42
Rakastava was so underpopulated that Dennis encountered only three of its citizens on his way to his room.
He expected to be laughed at. He was a ludicrous figure, tired, naked and blotched with swellings.
The woman and men who faced Dennis, from around corners or a doorway, fled in the opposite direction as soon as their eyes took him in. A naked wildman might frighten anybody, but there was more to it than that. One of the men bobbed a nervous bow, and the woman muttered, “Prince Dennis,” before she bolted away.
They were in awe of him. Not even because he’d killed monsters.
The folk of Rakastava were in awe of Dennis’ willingness to go well beyond the city’s walls.
“They’re all cowards,” he muttered as the door of his room opened with its promise of bath and balm. He was too exhausted to put real venom into the observation.
“Not all of them are cowards, Dennis,” Chester disagreed in a mild tone. Then he added, “The Princess Aria will be at meal in the assembly hall when you have bathed.”
Dennis grinned. “Not all of them,” he agreed.
But the cheerful expression faded when he remembered the way Gannon’s image looked at the princess—and the way the princess looked back.
CHAPTER 43
The evening meal had started by the time Dennis joined the gathering. There was an empty space on the bench between Conall and his blond daughter.
Aria glanced around as Dennis approached. The way her face brightened to see him made memories of her mirrored image less bitter.
Conall peered at the youth. “You’ve been—” he said, then looked down and took another forkful of ‘meat’.