He was halfway across when he remembered Boots wasn't on his back. She had been with him so continually on the journey, he had begun to think of them as inseparable. But now she was on Temp!
Gregor turned abruptly to go back. Ripred, as if anticipating just this move, spun Gregor forward and snagged the backpack with his teeth. Gregor felt himself lifted into the air as Ripred ran flat out for the far side of the river.
"Boots!" yelled Gregor. "Boots!"
Ripred moved like lightning. As he reached the opposite bank, he dumped Gregor on the ground and joined Luxa and Henry, who were frantically trying to hack through the silk ropes supporting the bridge.
Gregor aimed his flashlight and saw that Gox was about three quarters of the way across. Behind her, carrying his sister, Temp struggled along with Boots. Between Boots and the twenty killer rats that were now streaming across the bridge -- there was only Tick.
"Boots!" Gregor screamed, and dove back for the bridge. Ripred's tail caught him across the chest and flung him back onto the ground, knocking the wind from him. He gasped, trying to fill his lungs, then got to his knees and crawled toward the bridge. He had to help her. He had to.
Gox zipped off the bridge and began to snap threads with her jaws. "No!" coughed Gregor. "My sister!" He pulled up to his feet just in time to catch another blow from Ripred's tail.
The roaches were within ten feet of the bank when the rats caught up with them. There was no discussion between them; it was as if the bugs had worked out this whole scenario long ago. Temp put on a burst of speed for the end of the bridge, and Tick turned to face down the army of rats alone.
As they bounded at her, Tick flew directly into the face of the lead rat, causing it to startle back in surprise. Until that moment, Gregor hadn't even realized the roaches had wings. Maybe the rats didn't know, either. But it didn't take them long to recover. The lead rat sprang forward and crushed Tick's head in its jaws.
Temp collapsed on the bank just as the bridge gave way. Twenty rats, the leader still holding Tick in its teeth, plunged into the river below. As if this sight wasn't horrific enough, the water churned as enormous piranha-like fish surfaced and fed on the screaming rats.
Chapter 23
"Move it, move it, move it!" instructed Ripred, herding them all from the open bank and into a tunnel. He forced them along for a few minutes until they were well out of sight and, hopefully, out of smell of the tunnel entrance. At a small chamber, he gave the order to halt. "Stop you. Sit you. Slow your hearts."
Wordlessly, the remaining members of the quest sunk to the floor of the tunnel. Gregor sat with Temp, his back to the others. He pawed up Temp's back, found Boots's hot little fingers, and entwined them with his own. He had almost lost her. Lost her for good. She would never have had the chance to meet their dad or get back to his mom's arms or play in the sprinkler with him and Lizzie or do anything ever again.
He did not want to look at the rest of the questers. Every one of them would have watched Boots and the crawlers fall into the river to stop the rats. He had nothing to say to them.
And then there was Tick. Brave little Tick, who had flown into the face of an army of rats to save his baby sister. Tick -- who never spoke much. Tick -- who shared her food. Tick -- who was after all just a roach. Just a roach who had given all the time she had left so that Boots could have more.
Gregor pressed Boots's fingers against his lips and felt scalding tears begin to slide down his cheeks. He hadn't cried, not the whole time he'd been down here, and there had been plenty of bad stuff. But somehow Tick's sacrifice had crushed whatever thin shell remained between him and sorrow. From now on, he felt an allegiance to the roaches that he knew would never fade. He would never again take a roach's life. Not here and not -- if by some miracle they made it home -- in the Overland.
He felt his shoulders began to shake. Probably the others thought he was ridiculous, crying over a roach, but he didn't care. He hated them. He hated them all.
Temp, whose antennas had drooped down over his head, reached out and touched Gregor with a feeler. "Thank you. To weep when Tick has lost time."
"Boots would weep, too, if she weren't..." Gregor couldn't go on as another wave of sobs swept over him. He was glad Boots hadn't witnessed Tick's death. She would have been upset and she wouldn't have understood it. He didn't really understand it, either.
Gregor felt a hand on his shoulder and jerked away. He knew it was Luxa, but he didn't want to talk to her. "Gregor," she whispered sadly. "Gregor, know you we would have caught Boots and Temp if they fell. We would have caught Tick, too, had there been any reason."
He pressed his hand against his eyes to stop his tears, and nodded. Well, at least that was a little better. Of course Luxa would have dived after Boots if she'd fallen. The Underlanders didn't worry about falling the way he did, not with their bats.
"It's okay," he said. "I know." When Luxa sat beside him, he didn't move away. "I guess you think it's pretty stupid, me crying over a roach."
"You do not yet know the Underlanders if you think we lack tears," said Luxa. "We weep. We weep, and not just for ourselves."
"Not for Tick, though," said Gregor with a trace of bitterness.
"I have not wept since the death of my parents," said Luxa quietly. "But I am thought to be unnatural in this respect."
Gregor felt more tears slipping down his cheeks when he thought of how badly you had to be hurt to lose the ability to cry. He forgave Luxa everything at that moment. He even forgot why he needed to forgive her.
"Gregor," she said softly when his tears had stopped. "If you return to Regalia, and I do not... tell Vikus that I understood."
"Understood what?" asked Gregor.
"Why he left us with Ripred," said Luxa. "We had to have a gnawer. I see now he was trying to protect us."