Chapter 18

"What?" said Ripred.

"Nike lost the water bags when she went to help the others. We used the remainder of this one on the acid burns," said Hamnet.

"No water. Just exactly how long do you think we'll last without that?" asked Ripred.

Hamnet shook his head. "Not long. It will take another couple of days before we will near fresh spring water. We will simply have to do our best."

"I have some water." Gregor pushed himself up to a sitting position and reached for his backpack. He pulled out the quart of glacier water. "It's not much, I know."

"It is a great deal, Gregor, if it keeps the pups from dying of thirst. They will be most vulnerable as they will dehydrate the fastest," said Hamnet, taking the bottle. "The rest of us will have to do without."

Gregor nodded. Of course the water should go to Boots and Hazard. He was okay, anyway. He'd chugged down a lot before they'd left in search of food. He could get by.

"Did you two find any food?" he asked hopefully.

"No, nothing wholesome," said Hamnet.

"Mange said the fruit we found was edible. He could smell it was okay," said Gregor.

"Oh, why don't I just pop back and grab us a bushel or two?" said Ripred in disgust.

"Well, at least we have your water," Hamnet said almost kindly. "That may make all the difference. It was good thinking, to pack it."

"Mareth put it in. He said pure water wouldn't be easy to find," said Gregor.

"Mareth?" said Hamnet. "Has he managed to stay alive all these years?"

"Yeah, he lost his leg, though. On the trip to get the Bane," said Gregor. He realized Mareth and Hamnet must be about the same age. "Were you guys friends?"

"Yes," said Hamnet. He turned the bottle of water over in his hands, but didn't elaborate.

It was on the tip of Gregor's tongue to ask why Hamnet had left Regalia, where he had family, where he had friends, to live out in this dangerous, lonely place. What was it he had said when Vikus had asked him what he could do here that he couldn't do in Regalia? "I do no harm. I do no more harm." Gregor hadn't paid much attention to that at the moment. But the words had been enough to send Vikus back to his bat without further discussion. What harm had Hamnet done? It was hard to imagine.

Hamnet rose and put the water with the medical supplies. "I know everyone is spent, but I believe we must keep moving if we are to reach water in time. Can you manage?" he asked Gregor.

"He can manage," hissed Ripred. "So can Lapblood. And I better not hear any complaints out of either of them."

Hamnet anointed Lapblood's eye with medicine. For Nike's leg he made a splint with strips of stone and fabric. But when he tried to give her a dose of pain medicine from a large green bottle, she refused. "I do not want to muddy my thoughts. Not in here." Hamnet tried to talk her into it, but she was adamant. "All right. We may need your head clear. But you will ride on Frill," he instructed the bat.

"I can fly," said Nike.

"You can fly, but you cannot land well. The foliage is getting too thick for easy access to the ground. Ride, Nike. And try to sleep," said Hamnet.

Gregor helped Hamnet position Nike lying flat on her back atop Frill. They had to secure her with strips of bandages so she wouldn't roll off.

"I'm sorry about all this," Gregor told her.

"But why?" said the bat cheerfully. "Now I get to take a lovely nap while the rest of you walk. I should be thanking you."

Somehow, her being such a great bat made Gregor feel even guiltier about her injury.

Hazard climbed up in front of her onto Frill's neck and curled up in the folds on the ruff to go back to sleep. When Gregor laid Boots on her stomach on Temp's back she didn't even stir. He hoped she would sleep for a good long time. With no food and precious little water, he didn't know how he'd handle her.

His boots had been ruined by the acid. As Gregor was looking down at his bare feet, his bandaged toes, and wondering how he'd walk, Hamnet peeled off his reptile-skin shoes. "Here, Gregor. You must wear these," he said.

"What will you wear?" asked Gregor.

"I will be fine. I spent many years without shoes before I came upon the idea of using shed skin. But you must take them now, or your bandages will not hold," said Hamnet.

"Thanks, Hamnet." Gregor gingerly pulled the shoes over his bandages. They were kind of like short socks really. Thin and clingy. But somehow they made him feel more protected.

Lapblood still lay where Ripred had left her, as if she had lost the power to move. The ordeal with the plants had been physically exhausting, but Gregor knew that was not what was weighing her down.

"Hey, Lapblood, are you okay?" he asked. She wasn't okay, though. Mange had just died. All her pups might be dead, too. How could she be okay? "Because we've got to keep moving. We've got to find water."

Lapblood rolled onto her feet and got in line behind Frill without a word. Gregor remembered his state of shock after he'd thought Boots had been killed by the serpents. How Luxa had been unable to speak when Henry had betrayed her and died for it. He left Lapblood alone.

The path was gone now. It had progressively narrowed until it had disappeared altogether. Now it was a matter of trying to step between plants. At first, Gregor found it a little easier since he was wearing Hamnet's fitted shoes instead of his boots. Then the pain in his toes began to register. There was a slight tingling, then itching, then he felt like his toes were on fire. He knew any mention of his wounds would only trigger another round of abuse from Ripred, so he gritted his teeth and moved forward.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that there was no water available that made him so intensely aware of his thirst. The dryness inside his mouth. The skin cracking on his lips. Thirst had never been a problem before in the Underland. Fresh water had been available even in the Dead Land. And there was always plenty of cold, clean water to drink at home. Right out of the faucet.

They walked for four straight hours, although it felt like forty to Gregor, and then they only stopped because Boots and Hazard woke up. Hazard understood there was little water to be had, but Boots kept tugging on Gregor's shirt saying, "Thirsty! I'm thirsty, Gre-go!" As if he must not be understanding her because he wasn't getting her anything to drink.

She was so fretful and sweaty. Gregor stripped her down to just her underpants and sandals so she wouldn't perspire any more than was necessary.

When Hamnet finally held the bottle of glacier water to her lips, Boots gulped down about a third of the bottle before he could stop her. "Slowly, Boots, we must make this water last," he said, gently disengaging her from the bottle.

"More," said Boots, pointing to the water.

"You may have more in a little while," said Hamnet, and gave Hazard a drink.

Boots was confused. She pulled on Gregor. "Apple juice?"

"No apple juice, Boots. Try and go back to sleep, okay?" he said. Of course, she didn't. After a short rest, Hamnet had them moving again. Boots rode on Temp's back and kept up a steady stream of requests for a drink. After answering with patience for about the first three hundred times, Gregor finally snapped at her. "I don't have any, Boots! No juice! No water! Okay?" It was exactly the wrong thing to do. Boots burst into tears at a time when any loss of fluids was critical and wailed inconsolably for at least twenty minutes before Hamnet reluctantly gave her another few swallows of water. Finally, she fell back asleep, much to everyone's great relief.

Gregor's toes were raw, searing, swollen lumps at the end of his feet. Roots stabbed at them through the shoes. Salt from his sweat ate into the wounds.

And then there was Ripred's voice, taunting him from behind. "It didn't happen this time, did it, rager boy?"

Gregor knew what he meant but he didn't answer.

"'Oh, I don't want this gift, Ripred,'" the rat imitated him in a whiny voice. "You thought you could go anywhere and do anything and be safe. You thought you were invincible. Because you're a rager. Well, you're finding out now just how weak you really are."

"Cease, Ripred, the boy has enough to bear," Gregor heard Hamnet say.

"He needs to understand how close to death he came!" snapped Ripred.

"And so he does," said Hamnet firmly. "He knows he did not think well before he acted. Who among us has not been guilty of that? Certainly not you. Certainly not me."

Thankfully, Ripred stopped. But Gregor knew there was a certain amount of truth to what the rat had said. He had not thought he was invincible, but knowing he was a rager had made him less afraid to go into a dangerous situation. Sometimes he had trouble turning off his rager reaction. He had not known it could desert him in times of need. The knowledge shook his confidence and left him feeling defenseless.

It was hard to concentrate, but Gregor tried to think back to the times he'd transformed and the times he hadn't. He'd been careful not to get into any fights in the Overland so it hadn't been an issue. When Ripred had knocked him to the ground in the tunnel, he hadn't experienced the rager sensation. But that had happened so fast, and Gregor had stopped feeling threatened as soon as Ripred had revealed who he was. When the infected bat had fallen into the arena, the situation had been dangerous, but there had been no one to fight except the fleas. Then there had been the moment with the frogs. He had known Boots was in peril. The threat had had time to register. But later, the plants had attacked so quickly....Was that the answer? Could he only become a rager if he had time to recognize a threat? No, no, because he had turned into a rager for the first time with just wax balls filled with red dye flying at him. Those weren't dangerous at all.

"There's no pattern." This was the last clear thought Gregor had for a long while. What happened next was a haze of hours, maybe days, filled with pain, fear, and disorientation. Walking. Lying face pressed to leaves, unrelenting pain in his feet, Hamnet rubbing oil on his bleeding lips, bandaging his toes. Boots crying, whimpering, then finally making no sound at all, just lying limp on Temp's back, with no way to help her. Intense thirst, dreams of water, of frosty white glaciers he could never reach. Walking...walking again...tongue swollen, head aching, heart racing, stomach sick. Collapsed on the vines looking at his sister limp on Temp's back. Boots...asleep...unconscious... dead? Not dead, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her cracked lips, shiny with oil, tinged a faint blue. Then Ripred's voice, hoarse and weak. "I smell clean water...."

He must have gotten up somehow. Followed Ripred and Lapblood into the jungle on the burning hunks of meat that were his feet. He could hear the water....Not the quiet, teasing gurgle of the jungle streams that had tormented them for days...but a rushing, splashing sound. The rats were running now, Gregor hobbling behind them. He could see the water, bursting out of a rock, cascading into a pool, a sandy beach...water...but then...

Ripred gave a cry of alarm. "Get back! Get back!"

Gregor could see Ripred and Lapblood floundering as if the ground was melting under them. Robotlike, he kept coming forward, although he could hear Ripred's voice, trying to stop him, force him backward. His own feet were too heavy to lift and he realized he was up to his ankles in something. Looking down, he watched himself sink to his knees before a wave of adrenaline brought his brain back to life.

"Quicksand!" he said, and tried desperately to backtrack out of the stuff. It was impossible. He was in too deep.

"Stop struggling!" Ripred ordered. "You'll only sink faster!"

"Float!" Gregor cried. "Try and float!" He remembered that quicksand was like water. If he could get on his back he could float until help came. But it was too late. He was up to his thighs and had no way to pull himself free.

"Hamnet!" Ripred called. "Hamnet, get in here!"

Ripred was doing okay. He had managed to splay out all four legs and was precariously keeping on the surface. But Lapblood had panicked. Her thrashing paws were digging her rapidly into the quicksand.

Gregor leaned way out and caught hold of a vine. He lifted himself up about six inches before the vine snapped and the force of the weight sunk him up to his waist in the quicksand. "Nike!" he screamed. "Nike!"

There was a rustling in the vines to his right. Help had come! But the black, shiny eyes poking through the greenery were unfamiliar. At first he thought they were rats. No, the faces were smaller, more delicately boned. Mice. They must be mice.

"Help!" cried Gregor. "Help us!" The mice didn't move.

Someone fell from high in the vines, spinning, flipping, landing neatly in the small space between two of the mice. And Gregor did recognize the newcomer. Her clothes were rags, her pale skin marred with bruises and cuts. A long, curved scar ran from her left temple to the tip of her chin. But she still wore that thin band of gold around her head. And those violet eyes...well, he would know them anywhere.

"Luxa!" Despite his desperate condition he felt joy spreading through him. She was alive! He smiled and felt fresh blood run out of his cracked lips. "Luxa!" He reached out his hand so she could save him.

But Luxa didn't reach back. She didn't flatten herself on the bank and stretch out her arm. She didn't even throw him a vine.