"It can only be further insurance," said Howard. "You are but a short flight from your home."
A short flight? A million miles was more like it. Across the universe to the end of time and back again. Gregor didn't feel he could possibly be any farther from his home.
"I'm going after her," said Gregor. "I'm getting Ares and I'm — man!" He just remembered Ares had been sent on the airlift. "Where can I get another bat?"
"You cannot. You must know that," said Howard. "Gregor, the Fount may be safer for her at any rate. It is not under attack, the hospital not so crowded." Lizzie was tugging at his hand. "What did they do with her? Where is she?"
Gregor pulled her in for a hug. "It's okay. It's okay," he said, forcing himself to be calm for her sake. "They just moved her to another hospital."
"Up to the Fount. That is my home.... Is this Lizzie?" asked Howard.
"I was — going to — see her," said Lizzie.
"Here comes that panic attack," thought Gregor.
"My mother lives at the Fount. She works in the hospital, as I do. I am sure she will take very good care of her," said Howard.
"I'm going to go talk to Solovet," said Gregor. "Where is she?"
"I believe she is overseeing the battlefield," said Howard.
"You go back to the code room, okay, Liz?" said Gregor.
"I don't — know the way!" said Lizzie.
"I could take you," said Howard gently. He was the oldest of five kids. Gregor remembered how great he was with Boots and Hazard.
"Please. Take her back. And I'll go see about Mom," said Gregor.
Getting to the battlefield was no easy matter. Even finding a way out of the palace took some doing. Usually he came and went on a bat. The lowest doors and windows were two hundred feet in the air. The guards at the platform that lowered to the ground flatly refused to give him a ride. Finally he found an unsuspecting young bat in High Hall who agreed to carry him to the arena for "training." Going to the arena would at least get Gregor outside of the palace, but it was in the opposite direction he needed to go. So, once the bat had flown off, he ran back across the city. The streets were congested with wagons pulling food and supplies to the palace. He dodged people and questions and kept moving past the palace until he reached the northernmost part of the wall that surrounded the city.
He was in luck. A door had been opened to allow the farmers to bring in the harvested crops. At least he did not have to find some way over the wall. But he knew the guards would recognize him — as an Overlander and, therefore, as the warrior — and they'd have strict orders to keep him in the city. Rather than risk being turned back and reported, he stowed away behind some baskets in a wagon heading back out to the fields. This would at least get him partway to the battlefield.
As the wagon rolled away from the city, he worked out what he would say to Solovet. He would tell her, in no uncertain terms, that either she would bring his mother back or he would not fight for her. Period. He knew he could end up in the dungeon. But eventually she would need him to fight the Bane. And she'd want him better trained and willing to follow orders. Wouldn't she? Or would she just see the whole thing. as another challenge to her authority and make an example of him? Maybe he'd get better results if he approached it from another angle and told her Lizzie couldn't work without her mom nearby.
The wagon came to a stop several miles from the city. The fields were well lit with a system of gaslights, so he still had to take care not to be seen. Gregor slipped out the back and found himself waist deep in some kind of wheatlike plants. He ducked down and continued to move through the field until it simply ran out. The Underlanders were harvesting their way toward the city. He had reached the end of the crops and nothing but stubble lay between him and the wall from which the war was being waged. He decided to run for it. Who was going to stop him out here, anyway? A couple of farmers?
Gregor did hear some shouts as he sprinted across the barren fields, but no one was actively pursuing him. He guessed they figured he'd be stopped by the wall and, since he didn't have a flier, pretty much stuck there. That was okay. If he made it to the wall he'd make it to Solovet. He did see a bat fly over him, probably to report his presence, and for a moment he was distracted watching it, wondering if guards would be sent to carry him back.
That's when he tripped. He thought he had just caught his foot on some stubble, but when his hands hit the ground he could see the thin layer of earth cracking beneath him and the rock floor giving way under that. "It's another earthquake!" he thought.
But as the three-foot claw broke through the field and slammed within inches of his arm, he knew this was no earthquake.
Chapter 14
Gregor jerked his arm back and instinctively rolled away from the claw. He was on his back, about to spring up, when the earth at his feet burst open and a massive paw shot into the air. He yanked his legs in and scuttled backward like a crab, as the paw, with its five ivory-white claws, descended, leaving a deep furrow in the ground.
For a second, it crossed Gregor's mind that the thing was attached to the Bane. That the white rat had grown so disproportionately large that it now had these deadly, shovel-like paws. But this was no rat paw. Even the Bane couldn't grow claws a yard long. So what was it?
As Gregor twisted over onto his feet, hoping to make a run for it, the area before him erupted in a fountain of dirt. He caught just a glimpse of a bizarre, pink flower about the size of a manhole cover before it was on his face. "It's one of those killer plants! Like in the jungle!" he thought. The fleshy tentacles brushing over his lips and eyes made his skin crawl. "Eugh!" he cried as he jumped up and stumbled back. His hands gripped the hilts of his weapons, but he stopped just before he drew them. He was not under attack.
For the first time he got a good look at the creatures coming out of the ground. They definitely weren't plants. Or rats, either, although he was pretty sure they came from the rodent family. They had large bodies covered with dark, bristly fur and long, powerful tails. Each had four paws equipped with five killer claws. The back paws were noticeably smaller and weaker looking than the front ones, though. Coming out of the place where one would expect a nose was a large rose-colored blossom rimmed with waving tentacles.
Strange as they were, the animals seemed somehow familiar. But why? And then Gregor remembered.
It had been a warm summer day when he was about seven. His family was down at the family farm in Virginia. Gregor's dad had been teaching him how to play Ping-Pong in the basement. He'd been chasing down a ball that had landed under an old armchair, and when he'd stood up, there it was. Trapped in the window well where it must have fallen. Unhappily crawling along the gravel. A star-nosed mole. Of course you could measure its weight in ounces instead of hundreds of pounds, but otherwise it was remarkably like the creatures surrounding Gregor now. He had loved the mole, so they had watched it for a while. His dad had explained how it usually stayed underground, how those front feet were amazing at digging and, even though it couldn't see well, that bizarre nose was so sensitive to touch it could basically feel what something was. They had finally gotten a shovel from the shed, gently scooped it out, and set it free. But Gregor had been left with a warm feeling about the funny little creature.