"Forget about it," said Gregor. "I only did it because I need you." He didn't want Ripred thinking they were friends or anything.
"Did you? I'm glad," said Ripred. "I thought I detected in you a sense of fair play. Most dangerous in the Underland, boy."
Gregor wished everybody would just shut up about what was dangerous to him in the Underland. The whole place was one big minefield. He ignored Ripred's comment and continued to apply the spider-webs. Behind him he heard Luxa whisper to Henry, "Why did you not tell us?"
"To keep you safe," Henry whispered back.
"Safe," thought Gregor. "Right." Even if he got back to the Overland, Gregor didn't think he would ever feel safe again.
"You must not do this again, Henry," he heard Luxa say. "You cannot take him alone."
"I could have, if the Overlander had not interfered," said Henry.
"No, the risk is too great, and we may have need of him," said Luxa. "Let the rat be."
"Is that an order, Your Highness?" asked Henry with a slight edge to his voice.
"If that is the only way you will heed my advice, then yes," said Luxa earnestly. "Hold your sword until we better understand our condition."
"You speak most exactly like that old fool Vikus," said Henry.
"No, I speak as myself," said Luxa, stung. "And as one who wishes us both to survive."
The cousins realized their voices had risen to the point where everyone could hear them, so they stopped talking. In the silence, Ripred resumed gnawing on the bone he'd been carrying around. The scraping grated on Gregor's nerves. "Do you think you could stop that, please?" he asked.
"No, actually I can't," said Ripred. "Rats' teeth continue to grow our entire lives, which necessitates gnawing to keep them at a manageable length. If I didn't gnaw frequently, my lower teeth would soon grow through the top of my skull and puncture my brain and alas, kill me."
"Glad I asked," said Gregor, slapping a last piece of web on Ripred and leaning back against the cavern wall. "So, now what?"
"Well, since obviously no one's going back to dreamland, we may as well make tracks for your father," said Ripred, rising to his feet.
Gregor went to get Boots. As soon as he touched her he felt alarmed. Her face was burning like a furnace. "Oh, no," he said helplessly. "Hey, Boots. Hey, little girl." He gently shook her shoulder. She whimpered something in her sleep but didn't wake up. "Luxa, something's wrong. Boots is sick," he said.
Luxa laid her hand on Boots's forehead. "She is fevered. She has caught some pestilence from the land of rats." Pestilence. Gregor hoped that wasn't as serious as it sounded. Luxa dug through the vials Solovet had left with them and held one up uncertainly. "I think this is for fever."
Ripred took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. "No, that kills pain." He buried his snout in the pack and rooted out a blue glass bottle. "You need this one.
Give her only a few drops. She cannot handle more at her size."
Gregor was reluctant to give her any of the strange medicine, but Boots was so hot. He slipped a few drops between her lips and thought she swallowed it. He tried to lift her up to put her in the pack, and she moaned in pain. He bit his lip. "She can't ride with me; it hurts her."
They laid Boots on a blanket on Temp's back. Gox spun a web to secure her to the shell.-Gregor felt sick with worry.
And eight will be left when we count up the dead.
He couldn't lose Boots. He just couldn't. He had to get her home. He should have left her in Regalia. He should never have agreed to the quest. If anything happened to Boots, it would be his fault.
The gloom of the tunnel soaked through his skin and into his veins. He wanted to scream out in pain, but the darkness choked him. He would have given almost anything for just one glimpse of the sun.
The party limped along slowly, painfully, suspi ciously, preoccupied by the worries they all shared, but no one spoke aloud. Even Ripred, by far the most hardened of the group, seemed to hunch down under the weight of the situation.
This general despair was just one of the reasons they didn't detect the score of rats until they were almost on top of them. Even Ripred could not distinguish the smell of rats in a place reeking of rats. The bats couldn't sense them in the narrow tunnel as they approached the increasingly loud river. The humans could see nothing in the gloom.
Ripred led them out of the tunnel into a huge cavern divided by a deep canyon. A wide, powerful river ran through it. A swinging bridge spanned the river. It must have been made with the combined efforts of several species in better times. Thick silk woven by the spiders supported thin slats of stone cut by the humans. They must have needed the bats' flying abilities, too, to build such a bridge.
When Gregor shone his flashlight up to see how the bridge was secured, he caught sight of them. Twenty rats sitting motionless on the rocks above the opening to the tunnel. Right above their heads. Waiting.
"Run!" Ripred yelled, and literally snapped his teeth at Gregor's heels. Gregor stumbled forward onto the bridge and began to cross, his feet slipping on the worn stone slats. He could feel Ripred's hot breath on his neck. Henry and Luxa were flying ahead of him, jetting across the river.