Gregor the Overlander

  The last who will die must decide where he stands. The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.

  "It's me," he realized. "I'm the last to die." It was clear. It was Gregor the rats wanted. He was the warrior. He was the threat. He was the one who had to decide where he stood. And it wasn't going to be here, watching people he loved die. He was the warrior, and the warrior saved people.

  Once he knew, it was easy. He judged the height, ran seven steps, and hurdled over the silver back of King Gorger.

  A howl rose up behind him as he flew down the road. From some rat screams that came after that, he guessed Luxa, Aurora, and Ripred had gone into action to cover him. But he was pretty sure that every able-bodied rat was chasing after him. Good. That way, with any luck, the others could escape. Except Henry and Ares -- he didn't care what happened to them.

  The flashlight in his hand dimmed to a faint glow, and he tossed it off to the side. It was slowing him down, anyway. But running in the dark was no good. He might trip, and he had to lead the rats as far away as possible from everybody. Then he remembered the light on his hat. He had meant to save it as a last resort. If there was ever a last resort, this was it. He flipped on the switch without breaking stride, and the powerful beam lit the road in front of him.

  But the road! He had forgotten how short the road was! No more than a hundred yards ahead of him loomed the canyon, the one of "immeasurable depth." He didn't stand a chance trying to run around the edge of it. The rats would have him in seconds.

  He didn't want to die that way. He didn't want to give the rats the satisfaction of eating him. He could hear them behind him, breathing and snapping their teeth. King Gorger snorted in fury.

  In one horrible moment the last piece of the prophecy became clear. so bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps, AS life may be death and death life again reaps.

  He had to leap, and by his death, the others would live. That was it. That was what Sandwich had been trying to say all along, and by now he believed Sandwich.

  He put on a final burst of speed, just like the coach taught him in track. He gave it everything he had. In the last few steps before the canyon he felt a sharp pain in the back of his leg, and then the ground gave way under his feet.

  CHAPTER 25

  Gregor soared out over the canyon, throwing his body as high into the air as he could get. He could feel warm blood running down his leg. One of the rats had gotten a claw into him just as he was taking off.

  "I'm falling," thought Gregor. "Just like when I came to the Underland." Only he was falling much faster now. There was no current supporting him from underneath, just the hideous void gaping below him. He had never really understood how he had landed safely the first time. Never had a moment of quiet and clarity to ask Vikus. Now he guessed he would never know.

  Maybe it was all part of the same dream and he would finally wake up in his own bed and he could go and find his mom and tell her all about it. But Gregor knew it wasn't a dream anymore. He was really falling. And when he hit the bottom, he would not wake up in bed.

  Something else was different from his first fall. By the sound of it, he had a lot more company.

  Gregor managed to twist himself around in the air. The light from his hard hat lit up an astonishing scene. The rats who had been chasing him, and it must have been about all of them, were falling after him in an avalanche of stone. The unstable ground at the edge of the canyon had given way, bringing the whole army down after him.

  With shock, Gregor saw a human was among the rats. Henry. He had been chasing Gregor, too. But that couldn't be right. They both couldn't end up dead. The prophecy only called for one more quester to die.

  A flash of wing gave Gregor his answer. Of course. It was Ares, the bat who was bonded to this traitor. Ares would save Henry, and the prophecy would be fulfilled. But the rest of the questers would be safe, too.

  Gregor had never seen Ares dive in earnest. He was heading for the ground at tremendous speed, dodging the rats that reached for him. Gregor began to doubt he would be able to pull out of it. "He overshot," thought Gregor as the bat rocketed past Henry.

  He could hear Henry's desperate plea: "Ares!"

  At that moment, Gregor slammed into something.

  "I'm dead," he thought, but he didn't feel dead because his nose hurt so badly and his mouth was full of fur. Then he had the sensation of rising and he knew he was on Ares's back. He looked down over the side of the bat's wing and saw the rats beginning to burst apart on the rocks below. Gregor had been almost at the bottom when Ares had caught him. The sight of the rats was unbearable, even if they had just been about to kill him. Just before Henry hit, Gregor buried his face in Ares's fur and covered his ears.

  The next thing he knew, they were on the ground. Luxa had his father strapped on Aurora. Temp bolted onto Ares behind him.

  A bloody Ripred stood with three other rats that must have joined him in the final moments. He gave Gregor a bitter smile. "Delightfully full of surprises."

  "What will you do, Ripred?" asked Gregor.

  "Run, boy. Run like the river. Fly you high, Gregor the Overlander!" said Ripred as he took off down the road.

  "Fly you high, Ripred! Fly you high!" shouted Gregor as Ares and Aurora sped over the rat's head.

  They flew out over the canyon. Somewhere beneath them lay the bodies of King Gorger, his army of rats, and Henry. The canyon ended, and the bats headed into a large tunnel that twisted and turned every which way.

  Now that he was safe, Gregor began to feel the fear of falling into that black void. His whole body began to shake. He pressed his face deep in Ares's neck, although it made his nose throb even more. He heard the bat whisper, "I did not know, Overlander. I swear to you I did not know."

  "I believe you," Gregor whispered back. If Ares had known about Henry's plot, Henry would be flying somewhere right now and Gregor would be ...

  The last words of the prophecy came back to him again.

  The last who will die must decide where he stands.

  The fate of the eight is contained in his hands, so bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps, as life may be death and death life again reaps.

  So, it was about Henry as well as Gregor. Henry had decided to stand with the rats. That had determined the fate of the other eight questers. He had not taken care where he'd leaped, had not looked at all because he was so caught up in helping the rats. Henry had died because of his decision. Even to the last moments he must have thought Ares would save him. But Ares had chosen to save Gregor.

  "Overlander, we have troubles," whispered Ares, interrupting his train of thought.

  "Why? What's wrong?" asked Gregor.

  "Aurora and I, we do not know which direction leads back to Regalia," said Ares.

  "You mean we're lost?" said Gregor. "I thought Luxa said you could get us home in the dark."

  "Yes, we can fly in the dark, but we must know which way to fly," said Ares. "This area is uncharted by fliers."

  "What does Luxa think we should do?" asked Gregor.

  There was a pause. Gregor assumed Ares was communicating with Aurora. Then Ares said, "Luxa cannot speak."

  "Luxa is probably in shock," thought Gregor. "After what Henry did to her."

  "To complicate matters, Aurora has a torn wing that must soon be mended if we are to continue," Ares added.

  Gregor suddenly realized he was in charge. "Okay, look for a safe place to land, all right?"

  The twisting tunnel soon opened out over a large river. The source was a magnificent waterfall that poured out of a stone arch and fell a hundred feet to the river below. Above the arch was a natural stone ledge, about ten feet deep. Ares and Aurora coasted over to it and landed. Their riders slid onto the stone.

  Gregor hurried over to Luxa, hoping to figure out some kind of game plan, but one look at her told him he was on his own. Her eyes were unfocused, and she trembled like a leaf. "Luxa? Luxa?" he asked. As Aurora had reported, she couldn't sa
y a word. Not sure what else to do, Gregor wrapped her in a blanket.

  He turned to Aurora next. Her left wing had a long rip that oozed blood. "I can try to sew that up," said Gregor, not relishing the idea. He could sew a little, buttons and small tears. The idea of taking a needle to her delicate wing worried him.

  "Tend to the others first," said Aurora. She fluttered over to Luxa and wrapped her good wing around the girl.

  Boots still slept on Temp's back, but her forehead was cooler. The medicine seemed to have quieted his dad down, too, but Gregor was still unnerved by how fragile he looked. Clearly the rats had half-starved him. He wondered what else they had done.

  Ares sat hunched over in a position of such extreme sorrow that Gregor decided it was best to leave him alone. Henry's deception had nearly destroyed the bat.

  No one seemed physically injured by their encounter with King Gorger's army except Aurora and himself. Gregor opened the first aid kit and fumbled around inside. If he was going to stitch up the bat, he'd better do it before he thought too much about it. He found a small pack of metal needles and chose one at random. Several spools of spinners' silk were in the kit as well. He started to ask Gox which kind he should use but stopped himself when he remembered the blue blood pouring out over her lifeless orange body. He picked out a thread that looked thin but strong.

  He cleaned off Aurora's wound as well as he could and applied an ointment she told him would numb the area* Then, with great trepidation, he began to sew up the rip. He would have liked to move quickly, but it was slow, careful work mending the wing. Aurora tried to sit motionless, but kept reacting to the pain involuntarily.

  "Sorry, I'm sorry," he kept saying.

  "No, I am fine," she would reply. But he could tell it hurt a lot.

  By the time he'd finished, he was dripping with sweat from concentrating so hard. But the wing was back in one piece. "Try that out," he said to Aurora, and she gingerly stretched her wing.

  "It is well sewn, Overlander," she said. "It should hold to Regalia."

  Gregor felt relieved and a little proud he had managed it.

  "Now you must address your own wounds," Aurora said. "I cannot fly, anyway, until the numbness leaves my wing."

  Gregor washed off his leg and put on some ointment from a red clay pot he remembered Solovet using for wounds. His nose was another matter. He wiped off the blood, but it was still swollen twice its normal size. It was broken, most certainly, but he didn't know what doctors did for a broken nose. You couldn't really put a cast on it. He left it alone, thinking he'd probably do more harm than good trying to fix it.

  Once he'd taken care of their injuries, Gregor had no clue what he should do next. He tried to assess their situation. They were lost. They had enough food for maybe one more meal. Luxa's torch had burned out, leaving only his hard hat for light. Boots was sick, his dad was incoherent, Luxa was in shock, Aurora was wounded, and Ares was in despair. That left him and Temp.

  "Temp?" said Gregor. "What do you think we should do next?"

  "I know not, Overlander," said Temp. "Hear you the rats, hear you?"

  "When they fell, you mean?" asked Gregor. "Yeah, that was awful."

  "No. Hear you the rats, hear you?" repeated Temp.

  "Now?" Gregor felt a cold sickness fill his stomach. "Where?" He crawled out to the edge of the ledge on his stomach and peered out.

  Rats were gathering, hundreds of them, on the banks beside the river. Several were sitting back on their haunches, their claws scraping at the chalky stone wall that flanked the waterfall. A couple tried to climb it and slid back to the ground. They began to scrape footholds in the surface. It would take time for them to scale the wall, but Gregor knew they would do it. They would find a way.

  He crawled back from the ledge and wrapped his arms tightly around his knees. What were the questers going to do? Well, they would have to fly. Aurora would just have to manage if the rats climbed the wall. But fly where? The light in his hard hat couldn't last forever. Then he'd be in pitch black with a bunch of invalids. Had they gone through this whole nightmare only to end up dying in the Dead Land?

  Maybe Vikus would send help. But how would he know where they were? And who knew how things were going in Regalia, anyway? Gregor and Henry had played out the last stanza of "The Prophecy of Gray." But did that mean the humans had won the war? He had no idea.

  Gregor squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his palms into them. He had never felt so desolate in his whole life. He tried to console himself with the idea that "The Prophecy of Gray" had said that eight of them would live. "Well, Ripred will probably manage, but if the seven of us sitting on this ledge are going to survive, we'll need a miracle," he thought.

  And that's when the miracle happened.

  "Gregor?" said a puzzled voice. He wasn't really sure he'd heard it. "Gregor, is that you?"

  Slowly, not willing to believe it, Gregor lifted his eyes toward the sound. His dad had weakly propped himself up onto one elbow. He was shaking from the exertion and his breath was shallow, but there was a look of recognition in his eyes. "Dad?" he said. "Dad?"

  "What are you doing here, son?" said his dad, and Gregor knew his mind was clear.

  He couldn't move. He should have run into his dad's arms, but he suddenly felt afraid of this stranger dressed in rat skins who was supposed to be his father. Was he really sane now? Or by the time Gregor crawled across the few feet of stone that separated them, would he again be mumbling about fish and abandoning Gregor to the darkness?

  "Ge-go!" piped a little voice. "Ge-go, me out!" said Boots. Gregor turned and saw her struggling to free herself from the webbing that secured her to Temp's back. He hurried over to her and ripped away the webs. It was easier than dealing with his dad.

  "Drink? Bekfest?" said Boots as he pulled her free. Gregor smiled. If she wanted to eat, she must be better.

  "Cookie?" she said hopefully.

  "Okay, okay," he said. "But look, look who's here. It's Da-da," said Gregor, pointing to his father. If they went together, maybe Gregor would have the courage to face his dad.

  "Da-da?" said Boots curiously. She looked at him, and a big smile spread across her face. "Da-da!" she said. She wiggled out of Gregor's grasp and ran straight into his dad's arms, knocking him flat on his back.

  "Margaret?" said his dad, struggling to sit up. "Are you Margaret?"

  "No, I Boots!" said the little girl, tugging at his beard.

  Well, Boots's courage might only count when she could count, but her ability to love counted all the time. Watching her, Gregor felt his distrust beginning to melt away. He had fought rats and spiders and his own worst fears to reunite with his dad. What was he doing, sitting here like he'd bought a ticket to see the event?

  "Boots, huh?" said his dad. He broke into a very rusty laugh.

  The laughter swept through Gregor like waves of sunshine. It was him. It really was his dad!

  "Dad!" Gregor half-stumbled, half-ran to his dad and threw his arms around him.

  "Oh, Gregor," said his dad with tears pouring down his face. "How's my boy? How's my little guy?"

  Gregor just laughed as he felt his own tears starting.

  "What are you doing here? How did you get to the Underland?" asked his dad, suddenly sounding worried.

  "Same way as you, I guess," said Gregor, finding his voice. "Fell out of the laundry room with Boots. Then we came looking for you, and here you are." He patted his dad's arm to prove it was true. "Here you are."

  "Where exactly is here?" asked his dad, peering around in the darkness.

  Gregor snapped back to reality. "We're above a waterfall in the Dead Land. A bunch of rats are trying to scale the wall. A lot of us are hurt and we're totally lost," he said. Then he regretted it. Maybe he shouldn't have told his dad how bad it was. Maybe he couldn't handle it yet. But he saw his dad's eyes sharpen in concentration.

  "How far are the rats from us now?" he asked.

  Gregor slid over to the edge and lo
oked over. He was frightened to see the rats were halfway up the wall. "Maybe fifty feet," he said.

  "How about light?" asked his dad.

  "Only this," said Gregor, tapping his hat. "And I don't think the batteries will last much longer." In fact, the light seemed to be dimming as he spoke.

  "We've got to get back to Regalia," said his dad.

  "I know, but none of us knows where it is," said Gregor helplessly.

  "It's in the north of the Underland," said his dad.

  Gregor nodded, but he didn't see what good that information did them. It wasn't as if they had a sunset or the North Star or moss growing on the north side of trees to guide them. They were in a big, black space.

  His dad's eyes landed on Aurora's wing. "That bat, how did you sew her up?"

  "A needle and thread," said Gregor, wondering if his dad's mind was beginning to wander again.

  "Metal needle?" asked his dad. "Do you still have it?"

  "Yeah, here," said Gregor, pulling out the pack of needles.

  His dad took a needle and pulled a small stone out of his pocket. He began to rub the stone along the needle in short, quick strokes. "Get some kind of bowl. Dump out that medicine if you have to," said his dad. "And fill it with water."

  Gregor quickly followed his instructions, still unsure. "So, what are we doing?"

  "This rock -- it's a lodestone, magnetic iron ore. There was a pile of them back in my pit. I kept one in my pocket just in case," said his dad.

  "Just in case what?" asked Gregor.

  "Just in case I ever escaped. I had some pieces of metal back there, too, but nothing the right size. This needle is perfect," said his dad.

  "Perfect for what?" asked Gregor.

  "If I rub the needle with the lodestone, I'll magnetize it. Basically I'll turn it into a compass needle. If we can get it to float on the water without breaking the surface tension ..." His dad gently slid the needle into the water. It floated. Then, to Gregor's amazement, the needle turned forty-five degrees to the right and held steady. "It will point north."

  "It's pointing north? Just like a compass?" asked Gregor in astonishment.

  "Well, it's probably off a few degrees, but it's close enough," said his dad.