Now, for instance, he was quite cognizant of the fact that Ares was trembling behind him. The bats were utterly helpless. Trapped in the dome, they could not take to the air to flee or even to fight with their claws.
"Make yourselves small!" Luxa ordered them. Ares and Aurora pressed tightly together. "The twisters cannot reach you with Gregor and me here!"
He hacked off head after head, but the onslaught only increased. Smaller snakes had joined in as well.
"The jungle!" cried Aurora. "It is shrinking!" She was right. The snakes were closing in on them. The dome was still intact but several feet closer on each side. Soon every snake would be able to reach them, and there would be no way to fight them all off.
"To the cave!" Luxa shouted to the others. "There is only one entrance; we can defend that!"
Moving as one unit, the four of them inched their way to the mouth of the cave. Gregor caught a glimpse of Luxa's blade and torch, whirling in some crisscrossing pattern as she held off the snakes while Aurora and Ares fluttered inside. Gregor and Luxa stood angled out, shoulders touching, backs to the opening, as the assault continued. For every snake they killed, another two seemed ready to take its place. It was only a matter of time before one broke through, one set of fangs made contact, and their defenses fell.
"This is no good!" shouted Gregor over the hissing. "They'll just keep up until we're beat!"
If only Ripred were here! Much as the rat infuriated Gregor, there was no better companion in a fight. Ripred would know how to get out of this alive!
Ripred ... Ripred ... what would he do? Gregor tried to picture the big scarred rat beside him at this moment. But he couldn't. Ripred wouldn't be standing in the cave mouth swatting at snakes. He would be, he would be ...
"I'm going to try something!" yelled Gregor. "Get the bats out if you can!"
And before Luxa could object, Gregor was slashing his way back to the rock. He had no more than an image in his head. The image of Ripred, fighting off the humans in the arena, shredding the plants that held the yellow pods, in battle with the ants. When he was far outnumbered, Ripred always relied on the same fighting technique. He spun. He spun in a circle so fast that no matter what adversary reached him, they would encounter his claws. Gregor had only one sword, but he had a torch and he was a much smaller target than Ripred. If he could just spin quickly enough ... !
The second Gregor's feet hit the rock they began to turn him in place. He spun with his sword in front, his torch straight behind his back. Faster and faster until there was only a blur of shooting heads, spurting blood, and twisting bodies. He stopped thinking, abandoned himself, and let his rager senses completely take over. At some point, the number of snakes lessened, but he did not let up. It was Luxa's sword, thrust out to block his own, that finally brought him back to reality. The clash of metal as their blades made contact had such force that he broke hers in two. The second he stopped spinning, he was reeling wildly around the clearing, overcome with dizziness. He crashed into the vines, which were entangled with headless snakes, and grabbed hold of anything he could as the world careened around him. It was one of the worst feelings he had ever experienced. He thought he vomited but could never clearly recollect the moment.
Then a pair of claws lifted him into the air and deposited him on Ares's back. "No," Gregor said. "Too dizzy."
"Hold fast to my fur!" ordered Ares. "We must be gone from here!"
Gregor clutched Ares's fur and just wished for the whole thing to be over.
Time passed. The world steadied. Ares landed somewhere and Luxa helped Gregor off the bat's back. Gregor sat on the ground and tried to get his bearings. Luxa held up cupped hands filled with water to his mouth, and he eagerly drank. His heart slowed down. He was all right. They were no longer in the jungle. Gregor gratefully felt the stone floor of the tunnel beneath him. He dipped his whole face into the cold stream, less to drink than to clear his head. When he sat up, feeling refreshed, the other three were staring at him uneasily.
"Are you ill?" asked Ares.
"No, not now," said Gregor. "I just got a little dizzy spinning around."
"Your mind ... it is calm?" asked Luxa tentatively.
"Think so," asked Gregor. "Actually, I feel pretty good." He did. Like when he'd run miles in track and then gotten a buzz. Only this was a much deeper sense of well-being. "Why?"
No one answered.
"What's wrong?" he said.
"When you fought, it was as if something had possessed you," said Aurora. "Your face changed. You made sounds that were not human."
"I was fighting off about a zillion snakes. It was just that rager thing," said Gregor.
"I have never seen it before," said Aurora. "Except when you hit the blood balls, but that was not the same."
When Gregor thought back, he realized that was true. Aurora had never been around when he was actually in battle. "Well, that's how I always get. Tell her, Luxa."
"No, Gregor, it was different this time," said Luxa. "Not like when I saw you fight the cutters."
"How?" asked Gregor. It had not felt that different to him. He'd felt a little more in control for a while.
Luxa chose her next words carefully. "You seemed ... to be enjoying it."
"What? Well, I wasn't!" Gregor said. "And that's a really rotten thing to say."