"Any time you wish. And when we get back, maybe you will meet a flier of your own to bond with," said Luxa. "Would you like that?" Hazard nodded. "Let us go home, then."
They took only a few minutes to drink from the pool and wash their wounds. There was nothing with which to bandage the cuts from the mandibles. Everything had been destroyed. But at least the lilac goo the ants had doused the field with did not seem harmful to them. It didn't burn like the acid from the yellow pods, and it rinsed off easily in water. No, it seemed it was only destructive to plants.
A trio of mice appeared and dropped a few dozen plums at Luxa's feet as they were about to go. "Thank you," she said. "I will never forget your kindness to myself and Aurora. Know while I have breath, you will always have a friend in the Underland." She removed the band of gold from her head and laid it on the stone before them. "If ever you have need of my help, present my crown to one of our scouts, and I will do whatever is within my power to come to your aid." Then Luxa laid her hand on each of their heads, and they squeaked out good-byes to her in high-pitched English.
Neither Nike nor Aurora was in very good shape, but both insisted they could make the journey home. Luxa took Hazard with her on Aurora, and Gregor, Boots, and Temp climbed upon Nike's back.
Gregor couldn't wait to get back. What if the cure was there, in Neveeve's lab, but it was still a secret? Then his mom, Ares, his friends...if they were still alive, every second was precious.
The bats lifted high over the vines and sped toward Regalia. Gregor thought of the agonizingly slow progress they had made on foot and shook his head. He guessed it hadn't been realistic to fly in. The rats would have been too heavy to haul very far, let alone Frill, but still. How much time could they have saved? He could have been to Regalia and back ten times.
"What did you do up here, Nike, while you were waiting for us to catch up with you?" asked Gregor.
"I went in circles. Both in the air and in my head, as I was trying to break the prophecy," said Nike.
"It's broken now, though, don't you think? That we're right about the humans starting it?" asked Gregor.
"As Ripred says, I must hope we are. But Gregor, when the rest of the warmbloods learn the plague was the humans' fault, it will be very ill indeed," said Nike.
"What will they say?" said Gregor.
"Most humans and their allies will be ashamed. Their enemies will say it only confirms what they suspected all along. That humans lie and will do anything to get what they want," said Nike. "The awful thing, is...no one will truly be surprised."
Although he hadn't been born in the Underland, Gregor felt a natural kinship to the humans down here. He was still mad at them for putting him and Ares on trial when they hadn't killed the Bane, but he had chalked that up to being a misunderstanding. When Nerissa had explained the truth, the humans — at least the majority of them — had listened. Gregor's view of the rats was very different. He had always thought of them as essentially the bad guys, with a few exceptions like Twitchtip and maybe Ripred. The idea that the humans could be as bad as the rats, or even worse, threw him for a loop. But was he truly surprised? He remembered the council's attempt to deny the rats the flea powder. No. He couldn't say he was.
Boots and Temp chatted back and forth in Cockroach while Gregor mulled the whole thing over, trying to make sense of it. After a while, he realized they were coming in for a landing. Shining his light down on the ground, he saw the piles of skeletons stretched out around the Arch of Tantalus.
"We're stopping here?" he asked Nike.
"Do not worry. It will only be for a brief time. But Aurora and I must rest," said Nike.
"Oh, sure, of course," said Gregor. He was impatient to get back, but they needed to give the bats a break, especially since they were both hurt.
They had no water, but plenty of plums. The seven of them gathered in a tight circle and ate. Four kids, two bats, and a cockroach. Gregor thought they must look like an easy meal, and kept a close eye on the jungle.
Luxa was so lost in thought, she did not even seem aware of their surroundings. She held an uneaten plum in her hand while she stared fixedly at the skeleton of some large rodent.
"Luxa? You going to eat that thing?" asked Gregor.
She snapped back to reality. "Why? Do you want it?"
"No, you should eat it. But we can't stay here very long," said Gregor.
Luxa nodded and took a bite of the plum, but her face was troubled. "I have been thinking of what Ripred said. About the value of such a destructive weapon. He was right. Having the plague at our command would give the humans total control over all the warmbloods."
"So you think I'm right? You think Neveeve started the plague?" said Gregor.
"It still seems impossible to believe. But there is one way we will know for sure," said Luxa.
"What's that?" said Gregor.
"If during your absence she has come up with a cure, then you will be right. For the cradle and the cure will be one, and no other cure will exist now that the starshade is gone. There will be no argument left," said Luxa.
Aurora said the bats were ready to fly, so they all mounted up. Nike suggested that Gregor sleep on the way back. He lay down with Boots, who soon drifted off, but he could not sleep. In the quiet dark tunnels, the battle was beginning to come back to him. He could remember more of it than the time he'd fought the squids, now almost a complete blank. This time, he could call up very specific images of his sword as it severed the life of ant after ant. Who were the ants, anyway? Not just animals, not just a natural force. Ripred had talked about them as intelligent creatures that had formed a clever battle plan. Did they all have names? Did they have parents and children and friends? Who exactly had he killed?
He could not sort out his feelings. At the time, he had only thought of protecting the starshade. His own life had been at risk as well — look at what had happened to Hamnet and Frill. But on the battlefield, Gregor had not been fighting for his own life as much as he'd been fighting to save what he'd believed to be the cure. Sometimes you had to fight....Even Hamnet had agreed to that...and he must have thought today was one of those times. Gregor had done what he had to do....But still...he felt horrible when he envisioned the twisted bodies of the ants in the field. And even though Gregor had raged, they had not succeeded in saving the starshade. Hamnet had fought, too, when backed against the wall, but Gregor knew he hadn't wanted to. That he didn't really think it was a solution to anything. Maybe if they had all taken that approach, they could have still deciphered the prophecy, and there wouldn't be all those corpses waiting to be covered by vines. But what would the peaceful alternative have been? It had been too late to think of one when the ants were marching in on them. A solution would have needed to have been thought up a while ago. And so many parties — the humans, the rats, the ants — everyone would have had to agree that it was for the best.
All of this was complicated by the fact that if Gregor was correct about Dr. Neveeve, the loss of everyone's life today was utterly pointless. Because the thing they'd all gone to battle over — the starshade — had never been the cure at all.
The more he thought, the more his mind reeled in confusion. We were right to fight. It was wrong to fight. We had to fight. It was pointless to fight. He simply did not know where he stood, and it made him feel crazy. No wonder Hamnet had run off to the jungle. After several hours of tormenting himself with the events of the day, flickers of light began to appear in the distance. Regalia was just ahead. A squad of four Underlanders on bats materialized to block their way. Then they saw Luxa.
"Queen Luxa!" burst out one guard in disbelief. "You live!"