Valentine drew his legworm goad, buried it in the back of one as it began to roll, and pulled Gail tight to him as they ended up on its back.
The earthen bowl writhed with searching legworms.
Valentine anchored one of his cargo hooks in the loose skin atop the legworm, and looped a chain around Gail. Her white fingers gripped it while the legworm's back rose and fell as it negotiated the lip of the crater.
A Reaper flew through the air. Well, half of one. Its waist and legs were still on the ground.
Another jumped atop the back of a moving legworm and ran toward them like the hero of a Western on top of a train, arms out and reaching.
Two legworm muzzles rose from either side, one catching it by the head and arms, the other by its waist.
"Make a wish," Valentine said. Gail shifted position so that she wasn't resting on her belly, and gasped at the scene behind her.
The Reaper parted messily.
More legworms carefully stabbed down with their muzzles, lifted them covered with black goo and shreds of black cloth, then stabbed down again.
"Help!" Gail screamed.
A bony, blue-veined Reaper hand gripped her leg, pulling her off the legworm.
She clutched at Valentine and the securing chain. He shifted his grip on his legworm goad. He brought down the crowbarlike shovel edge on the Reaper's head. Skin peeled back, revealing a black, goo-smeared skull.
The Reaper made a sideways climb, more like a spider than a man, still pulling at Gail so hard that Valentine feared both she and the baby would be divided between the antagonists in Solomonic fashion.
Valentine crossed the shimmying legworm back, jumping as the Reaper swung its free arm. He buried the goad in the forearm holding Gail, and the Reaper released its grip.
Stars-a ringing sound-pain.
The Reaper had struck him backhand across the jaw. Something felt horribly loose on the left side of his head; bone held only by skin sagged at the side of his face. Valentine blindly swung with the goad as he backpedaled, then lost his balance. This time Gail screamed as he clutched at her to keep from falling off.
Valentine's vision cleared and he saw, and worse, felt, the Reaper straddling him. The goad was gone, his pistol was gone. He put up a hand against the tongue already licking out of the Reaper's mouth. It pulled his shirt open.
Valentine groped at his belt. He had another cargo hook. . . .
Gail struck the Reaper across the back of its neck with her hands interlocked, but it ignored her the way it would a butterfly alighting.
Valentine brought up the cargo hook-feeling the pointed tongue probe at his collarbone-and buried the hook into the Reaper's jaw, returning pain for pain. He pulled, desperate, and the black-fanged mouth closed on its own tongue.
The Reaper's eyes widened in surprise and the tongue was severed. The cut-off end twitched on Valentine's bare chest. Valentine slid and gripped the Reaper by its waist with his legs. It brought up its bad arm to try to pull the hook out, fumbling with the chain.
Valentine pulled, hard, putting his back muscles into the effort, straining-God, how his jaw hurt as he gritted his teeth-the Reaper looking oddly like a hooked bass with eyes glazed and confused-hurt it bad enough and the Kurian shuts down the connection?-and the Reaper's jaw came free in a splatter of blood. The Reaper swung at his eyes but Valentine got a shoulder up. He punched, hard, into the open wound at the bottom of its head and groped with his hand wrist-deep in slimy flesh. He dug with fingers up the soft palate.
The Reaper's eyes rolled back into its skull as he squeezed the base of its brain like a sponge.
Gail whacked it again and it toppled off the back of the legworm. Valentine sucked in air and pain with each breath.
"You look funny," Gail said.
"I bet I do," Valentine said, though it hit his ears as "I et I oo." Valentine examined his chest. The tiny wound from the Reaper's tongue had a splattering of Reaper blood all around it. It itched. He tore up some of the fiberglass-like legworm skin and blotted the tarry substance away.
The legworm they rode waved its snout in the air as it hurried around the perimeter of the pushed-up earth. When it slowed to re-descend into the pit, Valentine removed his first cargo hook, used it to lower Gail, and dropped off himself. He retrieved his goad and the other cargo hook.
This time she clung to him as he carried her, running for the telephone poles.
* * * *
Valentine heard voices, and turned toward the sound.