Ares dipped his nose to the ground and the pup ran straight down his neck and bolted between its mother's forelegs. She nuzzled it quickly, but then looked pleadingly at Hazard. "There are two more. Euclidian and Root. Do you have them?"
"Not on this flier. But there are hundreds in the nursery. They may well be there," said Hazard.
The mouse nodded and led her lone baby away.
Gregor helped pass out the rest of the pups. Two pairs of siblings were instantly claimed. When the final pup's name was called, no one answered,
"His name's Newton." Gregor held the squirming black mouse high above his head and tried to raise his voice so it filled the whole arena. "Newton!" But there was still no reply.
"I believe he is from the jungle colony," said a voice. Gregor had a bad feeling about that. Luxa had told him the mice they had seen gassed to death at the volcano had been from the jungle colony.
"Any of us will take him," said a mouse near the front.
"I can only give him to his parents now," said Hazard. "And they may still be in the Firelands."
The mice did not protest. No one wanted to further complicate the situation.
"I'll take him back to the nursery and start bringing the others," said Hazard.
"Okay, listen up! Hazard's going to be bringing in more pups. But you have to leave this space open and not rush up when he lands. All right?" said Gregor. There was a general murmur of agreement from the crowd.
Two of the Underlanders volunteered to take over Gregor's job and assist Hazard when he returned. "They await you, Overlander. At the south tunnel," someone told him.
When Ares lifted into the air, Gregor could see that none of the mice had moved. They would wait there in agonized silence as long as there was any chance their children might show up. He felt that awful helplessness that had consumed him as he'd watched the mice dying in the pit. This was just an extension of it. And at that moment, Gregor knew exactly why he was going to kill the Bane.
"Let's go train," he said, now anxious for any advantage the dagger might be able to give him.
"Yes," said Ares. "Ajax had a point. I must learn to use my wings better."
When Gregor slid off of Ares's back next to Perdita, she began to launch into a spiel about how they had all been called out of battle for further training, but Gregor cut her off.
"No, you guys are right. It would be better if I had a dagger. So how do I use it?" he asked.
Perdita clapped him on the shoulder in approval and went right into his training. They concentrated mainly on defense positions, although she did show him a couple of basic attacks. "You would have to be almost in physical contact with the gnawer to kill it," said Perdita. Gregor could see that because the dagger blade was so much shorter than his sword, this would be true. He was rarely in such close proximity to the rats.
The lesson went well. It was much easier to fight with two weapons. He remembered how having the torch in his left hand in the jungle during his spin attack had probably made the difference between life and death.
"Good, Gregor. Excellent. Now let us try you out on your flier," said Perdita.
Ares had been overhead, working with Ajax on minimizing his wingspan on different moves. He must have done well, too, because Ajax grudgingly told Perdita, "At least he is able to take instruction."
Gregor could feel the difference in Ares's flight maneuvers. They were sharper, more abrupt. Perdita and Ajax ran them through a series of drills and then Ripred showed up and they got some real practice. They dove down at him pretending they were in actual battle. At first, Gregor held back, but Ripred kept snarling at him to fight. And while Gregor knew Ripred wouldn't try to kill them, the rat had no trouble leaving a scratch or small puncture wound anytime he got through their defenses. By the end of the lesson, Gregor and Ares were pretty bloody, and even Ripred had a couple of cuts where Gregor had tagged him.
"Better," said the rat as he waved them in. "But you have a tendency to forget that dagger's in your hand and compensate with the sword."
"Yeah, I could feel myself doing it," said Gregor.
"And Ares, when you're down and decide to open those wings, do it! Bam! You can break necks with those things if you use them," said Ripred.
"So I have been telling him," said Ajax.
"I will keep working on this," said Ares.
A messenger bat arrived with an order for Ares to join the next airlift team.
"He's pretty tired," said Gregor.
"So are we all," said the bat.