THE SEA HAG(77)

Rakastava lunged at him.

Chester looped a tentacle around the blunt, scaly muzzle and kept the jaws from opening. The head struck Dennis like the tide racing through a bore, slamming him down. His armor rang with the impact and on the stone he fell back against.

Dennis couldn't remember where he was. It was too bright. He was in a cavern of gray, dripping stone that he'd never seen before, struggling with a fiery serpent instead of a thing of shadow.

He rose to his feet. His skin prickled all over, but his muscles responded like the parts of a machine.

Like a machine. Rakastava's mouth was open. The suckers of his tongue clasped Chester's body while the robot's metal tentacles wrapped around the monster's neck. Chester was trying to prevent Rakastava from twisting him down so that a forefoot could crush his carapace against the stone.

Dennis, seeing that the monster was fully occupied, took one step forward and thrust with a surgeon's precision at the joint of Rakastava's head and neck.

Sullen red beams shot from the monster's eyes. They clung to Dennis like streams of bird-lime. He cried out, but his movements were as slow as a swimmer's. He tried to reach Rakastava before—

Foreclaws locked around the small metal egg of Chester's body. The robot's tentacles resisted for a moment, but the monster's relentless grip broke them loose at last.

Rakastava banged Chester down on the coping like a lizard smashing open a bird's egg. Chips of stone spalled away. Chester wrapped his tentacles around the foreleg that held him, trying to pry loose the claws.

Rakastava struck the robot again while the red eyes glared at Dennis.

Where the light touched his armor, the star-metal grew hot. Dennis twisted.

The beams from Rakastava's eyes slipped from the polished black surface, allowing the youth to lunge forward unexpectedly. Dennis was off-balance and almost as surprised as the monster, so his stroke was an inexpert one—

But driven by the hysterical strength of his fear for his companion. The sword's keen edge split scales and the flesh of Rakastava's forearm. It stuck in one of the bones instead of slicing through the gristle of a joint as it would have done had skill rather than desperation aimed the blow.

But the bone cracked.

Rakastava howled like sheets of rock sliding past one another in an earthquake.

Chester rolled free, scuttling as if he were a mouse after the cat has gouged it deep. Dennis braced himself, panting and flexing his arms. His armor cooled slowly; and, in cooling, it heated the flesh it had protected.

Rakastava squirmed toward the youth. The movement might have been intended as a feint, because when Dennis stood his ground, the monster didn't press the attack home.

The eyes focused on Dennis. The youth trembled with adrenalin, waiting for the light and the heat, waiting to squirm free of the immaterial grip before he cooked in his casing of undamaged metal.

Waiting to strike home and feel his blade grate through the vertebrae of Rakastava's remaining neck.

The beams of light pinned Chester to the ground.

Dennis lunged. Rakastava's left foreleg hung useless, oozing fiery blood, but the right leg shot out and hooked its claws around Dennis' foot as he slid forward to support his thrust.

The youth skidded. His sword cut a jagged, empty arc in the air above him.

Rakastava's eyes drew Chester, rasping and sparking on the stone, close to the massive serpent body while Dennis struggled to get up. When the robot was directly in front of Rakastava, the good foreleg clamped firmly around Chester's carapace.

Dennis swung, but the eyes' red beams jerked at his arm. He stumbled forward; the stroke went aside.

Rakastava's eyes held the sword arm up at an angle. "Now you will die, little human," the creature said as its jaws crashed shut on Dennis' neck and torso.

The black metal belled but didn't give under the pressure. Rakastava's teeth squealed vainly against the armor.

Dennis was sweating from heat and exertion. The vambrace covering his right forearm looked red when he saw it through the visor slots. He couldn't be sure whether the metal was glowing or just colored by the bloody light that bathed it.

The monster stopped chewing on the refractory metal and jerked its head back while the eyes still pulled at Dennis' wrist. The two antagonists were only inches apart, both panting. Rakastava's breath was a hot, moist cloud through the visor.

"Could I but close your eyes, Rakastava," Dennis shouted as his arm pulsed, "I'd have your head off."

"Could I but wrench your helmet off, human," Rakastava boomed, "I'd suck you from your armor like the meat from a shrimp. And so I shall!"

The sucker-knobbed tongue flicked out. One fork groped to either side of Dennis' neck.

He heard the click of a latch opening. The suckers began to tug apart the halves of the helmet.