Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane - 2 (18 page)

Gregor popped another piece of chocolate into the little rat's mouth, and it was gobbled up. The Bane seemed to think better of him now that he had given it chocolate. It relaxed a little, back into his body, which made it easier to hold on to.

"You think we're almost out of here?" Gregor said as they swept out of a tunnel.

"See for yourself," said Ares.

Gregor shone the flashlight around the place they'd just entered. Lying on the floor were Goldshard, Snare, and the third rat. "No! What are we doing back here?" he gasped.

"Perhaps you should try navigating!" said Ares. What with him insisting on taking the Bane, having no sword, and being pretty worthless in general at the moment, Gregor could tell the bat had lost patience with him.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," said Gregor.

"It is our scent, Overlander," said Ares. "They track us with such ease. I cannot lose them."

"Hey, I know!" said Gregor. "Maybe we can trick them!" He'd seen some movie once where a guy running from bloodhounds had fooled them. "We need to confuse their noses." But with what?

Gregor ripped the bandage from his arm. It was soaked with blood and pus and ointment.

"Fly around the cone, Ares! I need to touch the top of every tunnel."

Ares followed his instructions, if not his plan. "Why do we do this?"

Gregor held out the bandage and swiped it along the inside of every tunnel entrance as they passed it. "I'm just trying to spread our scent around."

They completed the full circle, hitting each tunnel opening. Gregor tossed the bandage up the last one.

"They come!" warned Ares.

"Get out! Get out now!" said Gregor.

Ares dipped into a tunnel they had not yet tried. After about thirty seconds, they could hear the rats reaching the cone. And they
were
confused. Different rats were calling for them to chase down different tunnels. A big argument broke out, and then the sound of fighting.

It grew softer as they moved away, until Gregor could no longer hear it at all.

Ares zigzagged down a tunnel, and this one opened out over a nice, wide, shallow stream.

"I must stop for a moment...I must drink..." Ares landed on the edge of the stream, panting. He dunked his face in the water, gulping it down.

Gregor got down and scooped up handfuls of water for himself and the Bane. The stream was not too deep, but the current was fairly strong and he didn't want the baby being swept away.

Ares raised his wet face. "I have only just thought of something," said Ares. "This stream.

Where do you suppose it goes?"

"I don't know. A bigger stream. Maybe a river eventually, or —" Gregor caught Ares's drift. On his very first night in Regalia, when he'd tried to escape, he'd followed the water out of the palace. It had led to a river that had led to the Waterway. "It's sure worth a try."

Gregor hauled the Bane onto Ares's back, and they took off again.

It was not too promising for a while. The main thing about the stream was that it was long and it had as many twists and turns as the tunnels in the maze. Gregor could feel Ares's wings slowing; he was going to have to have a real rest soon. But to stop in the maze was certain death. The rats would catch up to them. Gregor had no sword. The baby would begin to cry again, and then they would —

"A river," Ares puffed out. "A river is at hand."

In another minute, they followed the stream out of the tunnel and into a huge cavern. A river ran through it. They were out of the maze!

Ares flew up high above the water. There were stony cliffs along the sides.

"Any rats around?" asked Gregor.

"Just the one on my back," said Ares.

"You want to pull over and take a break?" said Gregor.

"In a short while. I want to put more distance between the gnawers and us. They will be coming, Overlander. We have the Bane," said Ares.

"Yeah, I bet they hate that," said Gregor. He petted the Bane's head. It was getting used to him now. It curled up against him and gave a big yawn. "You've had a pretty big day, huh, little guy?" It didn't take long for it to fall asleep.

They flew awhile in silence. Then Ares spoke in an odd voice. "Overlander, I think I know this place. I think we both do."

"What?" said Gregor. How could he possibly know where they were?

"Shine your light down," said Ares.

Gregor obeyed. There below them was the river, very wide now, and very strong.

Hanging down from the high banks on either side of it were the remnants of a broken bridge.

"Oh," said Gregor. And the memory of that day flashed before his eyes. Running across the bridge, trying to go back for Boots, Ripred carrying him by his backpack as the bridge swung dizzyingly below, being smacked to the ground by Ripred's tail while the rat and Luxa and Henry and Gox had hacked away at the ropes that held the bridge and the pack of rats catching up to the cockroaches and his baby sister and — and —

It was the place where Tick had died.

"You're right," said Gregor. "How did we end up here, do you think?"

"The Tankard, the Labyrinth, and what remains of this bridge are all in the rats' domain,"

said Ares. "At least now we have some sense of where we are."

The bat coasted in and landed on the riverbank across from where the bridge had been hacked off. "It will be safer on this side. The rats would have great difficulty swimming the river, which is, as we know, filled with flesh-eating fish."

Gregor climbed off Ares's back holding the Bane, who was snoring softly. They were at the mouth of a tunnel. He ran his flashlight beam over the surrounding rocks, remembering how they'd been filled with waiting rats on their first visit. Now the rocks were empty. "Anything in the tunnel?" he asked Ares.

The bat shook his head. "Not as far as I can tell. I believe we are safe for the moment.

Overlander, I must rest."

He could see Ares's weary eyes starting to shut.

"You go ahead and sleep. I'll keep watch," he said. "And, Ares? You were amazing back there."

"I was not bad," Ares agreed, and promptly fell asleep, his back to the tunnel wall.

Gregor trained his flashlight down the tunnel. If any intruders appeared, he would be ready. He sat cross-legged on the ground with the Bane on his lap. The baby stirred restlessly in its sleep, probably reliving the trauma of the last few hours. He patted its back to quiet it. The Bane's fur was stiff with its mother's dried blood.

The baby snuggled closer to him. It was so much like holding Boots. Boots. Why wasn't he crying about her? He had cried for a roach, in a cave just across the river there, but hadn't shed one tear for his sister. He remembered how Luxa had told him, in that same cave, that she hadn't cried since her parents died. It had been that bad. Maybe something like that was happening to Gregor.

His fingers traced the outline of one of the baby's soft ears.

So it turned out Sandwich had been right again. The rats had killed Boots, and he could not kill the Bane. Although, Gregor didn't think he could have killed the Bane even if Boots had survived. Or could he have? If he had thought that only one of them could live? He didn't know.

But it didn't matter anymore.

"Now what?" he thought. "Now what?" He had to think clearly. He had to figure out what to do with the Bane.

He couldn't take it back to the rats' land. Goldshard had lost her life trying to protect it from her fellow rats. If he showed up with it in Regalia, he bet the humans would decide to kill it. If they let it live, which seemed unlikely, the rats would definitely overrun the city trying to get it back. For a brief moment he wondered if he could take it home with him, but he knew his mom wouldn't have any part in raising a ten-foot rat, especially when Boots had —

Okay, so what did that leave? Nothing, pretty much.

He looked out over the water.

This was such a sad place. Not just because of Tick, but because when he'd come through here on the first quest, he'd been in a party of ten, and of that ten, how many were still alive? He did the math in his head. Three. Only three. Tick had died here. Henry and Gox were lost when they rescued his father. Luxa, Aurora, Temp, and precious Boots drowned at the Tankard. The only ones left alive were he and Ares and Ripred.

Ripred. He was going to go crazy when he found out Gregor hadn't killed the Bane. He wanted the Bane dead. That's why he'd brought Twitchtip and tried to teach Gregor echolocation.

But then Ripred hadn't known the Bane was a baby, either. Would that make any difference to the rat? Maybe, just maybe, it would.

Gregor felt a plan beginning to form in his head.

Ares awoke after about three hours, famished. He went down to the river and came back with a large fish, not one of the flesh-eating kind. The Bane awoke and wolfed down fish with the bat while Gregor scraped the mold off a piece of cheese and finished the last of the bread.

While they ate, he bounced his plan off Ares. "Okay, I have an idea about what to do with the Bane."

"I am listening," said Ares.

"This tunnel, it leads back to Ripred's nest," said Gregor.

"Does it?" said Ares.

"Yeah, remember? Twitchtip said his nest was where we first met him. And we first met him at the other end of this tunnel," said Gregor.

"Oh, yes, after we had fought the spinners," said Ares.

"Right, so I say we go find Ripred and give him the Bane and let him deal with it," said Gregor. Ares opened his mouth to object, but Gregor held up his hand. "Wait! Only tell me why we can't do it if you can come up with a better plan."

There was a very, very long pause. "I do not have a better plan, but this one has no possible good endings," said Ares.

"Probably not," said Gregor. "So, should we give it a try?"

***

Ares insisted Gregor sleep for a few hours. When he woke, they began their trek into the tunnel. It was narrow initially, but soon opened up into a space wide enough for Ares to fly, which was a relief, since Gregor's arms were aching from carrying the Bane.

They stopped to break for a drink at a stream in a cavern.

"Remember you this place?" asked Ares.

"No," said Gregor. "Wait, maybe..." They had stopped here to rest when Ripred was their guide. "Is this where Henry tried to kill Ripred in his sleep?"

"Yes, and you stepped between them," said Ares.

"I couldn't figure out if you knew Henry was going to try to kill him," said Gregor.

"I did not. It was one of many things Henry neglected to mention to me," said Ares.

Gregor could tell he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

As they flew on, the Bane began to whimper for its mother again. How bizarre this must all seem to the baby rat. Flying through the air on a bat, being held by a human, knowing something very wrong had happened to its mother. Gregor fed it the rest of the chocolate bar from the Labyrinth. He had one left but decided to save it for a real emergency.

The smell of rotten eggs began to permeate the tunnel, and Gregor knew that they were fast approaching the cavern where they had first encountered the spiders, Treflex and Gox. Ares landed at the entrance, and they went in on foot. The sulfur-scented water still rained down the walls. There, on the floor, was the husk of Treflex's body, all that remained of the spider after his companion, Gox, had drained his insides.

"Want to rest?" asked Gregor.

"Not here," said Ares.

"Good," Gregor said, even though what lay ahead was nasty.

The tunnel dripped the evil-smelling water down on them. Ripred had taken them through it with the idea of concealing their scent from the rats, and they had certainly reeked of rotten eggs when they came out. This trip was, if possible, less comfortable. Gregor had been wearing a hard hat the first trip, which had offered some protection. He had not been injured. He had been eager to find his father instead of dreading the moment when they next met. And he had been carrying Boots on his back, not a rat in his arms.

Poor Ares had ridden on Temp's back before, because the tunnel was so narrow and long.

Now he limped along, scraping his wings on stone outcroppings, ducking his head in the eye-stinging drizzle.

In minutes, they were all soaked. The rat mewed miserably. Gregor trudged along, putting one foot in front of the other. He and Ares did not speak the entire time they were in the tunnel, although it was many hours.

When eventually they staggered out of the mouth into open space, Gregor's knees gave way under him and he sat on the ground hard. He expected the Bane, who'd been squirming for most of the trip, to try to run off. Instead, it burrowed up under his shirt and pressed against his chest.

Ares slumped against a rock next to him.

"Are there rats around?" asked Gregor.

"About ten are coming now. But that is what we want, right?" said Ares.

"That is what we want," said Gregor.

Neither of them made any attempt to move as the rats surrounded them. And then, he saw the diagonal scar that split Ripred's face.

"If I had known that you were coming, I'd have fixed the place up," said Ripred.

"Don't bother. We won't be here long. I just came to give you a present," said Gregor.

"For me? You shouldn't have," said Ripred.

"You brought me Twitchtip," said Gregor.

"Not because I expected anything in return," said Ripred. His nose was beginning to move; his eyes fastened on the lump under Gregor's shirt.

"You're getting something, anyway," Gregor said, and pulled up his shirt. The Bane slid out on the floor in front of him. Every rat except Ripred gasped. Seeing another rat, the baby started to run to Ripred, but it jumped back at the violent hiss that issued from his mouth and scurried over to Ares.

"You don't like little kids, do you?" said Gregor. Ripred had hissed at Boots, too.

"Not this one in particular," snarled Ripred. "What's it doing here?"

"I didn't know where else to take it," said Gregor.

"You were supposed to kill it!" said Ripred.

"But I didn't. I brought it to you," said Gregor.