by Lisa Fiedler
A murmur of agreement rippled through the ranks.
“As you know, our search for the feral queen will require us to separate the moment we get beyond these walls . . . these walls, which all of you have worked so diligently to rebuild. Please know that although we will march separately to points east, west, north, and south, we are all united in the name of Atlantia.”
“Atlantia!” Garfield cried out, lifting his sword.
“Atlantia!” the rodents chimed.
“Because we march willingly into danger,” Hopper continued, “I wish to share with you something I learned from a very dear friend in a place called Brooklyn. It is a means of calling for help in dire circumstances.” He took a deep breath and executed the SOS whistle he’d used to summon Pilot.
The rodents echoed him, and the distinctive whistle exploded through the tunnels.
“If any of you run into trouble, just use that call, and your brothers- and sisters-in-arms will come swiftly to your aid.” He paused to look around at the city in its hopeful state of change and renewal. Stalls were popping up in the market square, and buildings that had been half burned and crumbling once again stood tall and sturdy.
“Before we set out,” said Hopper, “let us take a moment to remember all those who so recently suffered and died here in the name of justice and freedom. Remember their courage, remember their friendship, and know that when you march today, you do so in their worthy footsteps. The fight that they began is now ours to finish. Let us finish it today!”
A cheer rose up from the army. Newly forged weapons—some made of keys—clattered proudly and menacingly. Hopper could not help but smile.
Felina wouldn’t know what hit her.
“Chosen One?” Firren prompted, raising the banner.
Hopper gave a nod, but before he could open his mouth to command the army to march, the tunnels began to shake with a familiar, distant rumble. Then a light bloomed in the darkness and the noise followed. A subway train appeared from the shadows, rocketing past like something alive, screeching and throwing off sparks.
To Hopper, the majesty and power of the speeding vehicle boded well for their mission.
They were ready.
“We march!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HOPPER’S ELITE CORPS MARCHED through the gloom and the dust and the muck. They marched for what felt like miles, but not a single rodent grumbled or complained or quit. Hopper was grateful for their loyalty. He knew that the uplanders were fighting to express their gratitude for his acts of bravery on their behalf. As for Driggs and the soldiers and Firren and her rebel Rangers, he suspected these brave warriors were fighting for more personal reasons: a lost loved one, a home destroyed, a profound belief that evil should never be allowed to prevail.
Hopper was fighting for many things. He was fighting to honor the memory of Zucker, and Beverley, and his fallen cagemates who’d died beneath an angry broom. He was fighting because he’d been inspired by a selfless, wounded pigeon who’d put aside his own pain to save a friend, and he was fighting to save Pup and to show him that goodness would always be more important than power. He was fighting for the mother he barely knew and for the father he’d never meet, and for Firren’s parents, who had perished in a hunting ground long ago. He was fighting because Felina was cruel and self-serving and unbelievably arrogant to think she had the right to defy nature for her own entertainment.
Today Hopper, son of Dodger, Chosen One of the great Mūs tribe, pet-shop mouse who’d found his way to the subway tunnels quite by accident, would stand up and do battle for every last rodent who’d ever suffered at the paws of Titus and the wicked feral queen.
Now they had come to an area of the tunnels where Hopper had never been before. The air around Atlantia was fusty, but the atmosphere here was wet and clinging and dank in the extreme.
“We’re getting close,” he said, squinting at the map.
“This is certainly Felina’s kind of real estate,” muttered Firren. “If her lair isn’t here, she might want to think about relocating.”
Relocation. Rescued rodents. Ace.
Hopper’s heart began to hurt.
But the battalion trudged on, dirt caking onto their paws, mildew seeping into their fur. Firren’s blazing-white garment faded to gray before Hopper’s eyes as the dust and grime that permeated the air settled into the tunic’s fibers. Twice the Chosen One twitched mold spores off his whiskers.
“Look over there,” said Julius, pointing. “Is that a shoe?”
Hopper whirled, honing his vision through the gloomy shadows until he spied what indeed appeared to be a lost and rotting piece of footwear—an old wing-tip loafer, creased and stained. It looked as though it had once been adorned with a tassel, but that decorative touch was long gone. Whatever became of the foot that had worn it would forever remain a mystery; the old shoe was now a bunker. A hideout.
And Hopper was certain that Pup was hunkered down inside it. He threw back his shoulders and started toward the shoe.
“Wait,” said Firren. “Maybe we should call out to him. We have no idea who or what he’s got in there with him. Weapons, other rodents . . .”
“No.” Hopper shook his head. “I’m going in.” Again he strode toward the shoe; there was a rustle behind him as every paw settled on a sword handle. Hopper tried to ignore the implications of that.
As he drew closer, he saw that the seam of the old loafer’s backstay had been split open to create a V-shaped entrance. Hopper crept toward it, peering inside.
“Pup?” he whispered, stepping inside. “Pup, it’s me.”
There was a shuffling sound from deep inside the toe of the shoe—a scuffing that sounded like a lot more paws than Hopper had been expecting.
“Pup . . . are you alone? Pup, please—”
Swiitttzzzzzzzsssshhhh.
Hopper’s face was suddenly entangled in clinging strands of silk, a gossamer mask that stuck to his fur and sealed his mouth and eyes shut. Sputtering, he clawed at the mess; it came away sticky and weightless in his paws.
“Looks like we have company, Hack.” A cruel chuckle rumbled from the depths of the shoe. “Hopper, meet Hacklemesh. Hack, this is my brother, Hopper. Mr. Chosen One himself.”
Again Hopper heard the scuttling sound. He fought against the gooey film that held his eyes closed. Then he felt something spiky and hairy reach for his face.
Spider legs!
He leaped backward, colliding with shoe leather.
“Oh, relax,” Pup sneered. “He’s not going to hurt you.”
Hopper held his breath as the spider—Hacklemesh, it would seem—began peeling away the silken strands and knots that covered the Chosen One’s face. It was an unpleasant pinching sensation that left him shuddering.
Finally the bulk of the web came away, and Hopper opened his eyes.
He immediately wished he hadn’t.
What he saw was his tiny brother dressed in rags. The black circle he’d drawn around his eye back in the Mūs village had been darkened; the eerie marking seemed to have bled into his fur to leave a permanent, bruiselike mark. The sweet smile Hopper remembered was now a steely smirk, showing Pup’s pointy little fangs.
“What have you done to yourself?” Hopper breathed. “Oh, Pup, what’s happened to you?”
“I’m making a name for myself,” the little mouse bragged. “I want to be taken seriously. If clobbering Felina is the only way for me to achieve that, then so be it. I’m tired of being everyone’s responsibility.”
Hopper let out a heavy sigh. “It wasn’t like that, Pup.”
“Wasn’t it?” Pup’s eyes flashed. “Do you know what Pinkie said when I told her I wanted to join her personal guard?”
Hopper didn’t, but he guessed it was probably something terribly insulting.
“She said they’d never be able to make a uniform tiny enough,” Pup informed him, snarling. But beneath the snarl Hopper heard the humiliation, the hurt.
“
That was very unkind of her,” Hopper agreed. “But, Pup, do you honestly think you can take on Felina by yourself?”
“Hacklemesh is with me. And as you’ve just seen, he can be very useful.”
“I suppose he could,” Hopper allowed. “In fact, shooting webs might be a very effective way to subdue a charging feral . . . assuming the ferals attack one at a time. The problem is, one good stomp of a feline paw would be equally effective in crushing your spider friend into the dirt.”
Pup seethed. “Why do you have to belittle me that way?”
“Technically, I was belittling Hacklemesh.”
This earned Hopper another squirt of spider silk, this time to the back of the head. “Well, I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s true. You’re small, Pup. And Hacklemesh is small. I’m small. But I have an army behind me, standing shoulder to shoulder . . . and that’s something big.” He pawed at the gossamer glop sticking behind his ears, losing patience. “Being stubborn and reckless is not the same as being brave, it’s just . . . well, it’s just stubborn and reckless, that’s all!”
Pup folded his arms across his petite chest. “Then let me be a part of your army!” he demanded. “Let me march alongside you, with a weapon.”
Hopper glanced away. “No.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re the size of a pistachio nut! Because Felina could devour you in a single gulp. Because you’re my little brother, and if anything ever happened to you, it would destroy me.
“Because I love you,” Hopper answered truthfully. “Because protecting you matters to me more than anything. It’s why I came back. To rescue you.”
“But I don’t want to be rescued!” Pup fumed. “I don’t want to be protected. I want to fight. I want to be like you and like Pinkie! And if I’m part of an army, it won’t matter how puny I am.”
“How puny you are on the outside,” Hopper amended. “But, Pup, there’s such a thing as being small on the inside. In your heart. This mission you’re about is selfish and singular. You’re angry, and the bigger the anger, the smaller the mouse.”
Pup lunged forward, his paws grasping the handle of Hopper’s newly forged sword. For one mad second Hopper feared Pup would impale him . . . but what he actually did was almost worse.
The tiny mouse used Hopper’s sword to stab himself in his own ear, cutting a jagged slice into it!
“Pup!” Hopper cried. “Have you lost your mind?”
Pup’s eyes were wild. Blood poured from the delicate flesh of his maimed ear, but he tried to mask the pain by laughing. “I take after my big brother and sister now,” he cackled. “See? I’ve got the circle and I’ve got the scar. Am I Chosen enough for you now, Hopper? Am I?”
Hopper flew at his brother, grabbing the sword before Pup could damage himself further. Then he turned frantically to the spider. “Stop the bleeding!” he commanded.
Hacklemesh obeyed; Hopper watched as glistening filaments of spider silk shot through the air to coat and cling to Pup’s injured flesh. The sticky-strong web instantly acted as a natural bandage to stem the flow of blood. And not a moment too soon.
Pup’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his face went deathly pale. Heart racing, tears flowing, Hopper reached for his brother, who was swaying on his feet. Gently he guided Pup downward until he was lying on the supple leather of the shoe’s lining.
“Take me with you,” Pup begged, his words as wispy as spider thread. “Please, let me fight.” The icy fury was gone from his voice; only his innocence remained. It nearly broke Hopper’s heart to hear it.
As he leaned over his little sibling, a tear spilled from Hopper’s eye, falling onto Pup’s face and blurring the dark circle, but not washing it away. “You wait here, brother,” Hopper whispered. “I will come for you. I promise.”
With that he pressed a kiss to Pup’s forehead and climbed out of the shoe.
“There, up ahead,” said Ranger Leetch. “That’s Felina’s lair.”
The company halted in a scuffling of paws and clanking of weapons. Hopper squinted through the dusty dimness but saw nothing resembling the feline metropolis he’d been expecting. No bustling township, no comfortable cat community alive with commerce. Perhaps he was missing something.
“Where?” he asked. “Where is the city? I don’t see a palace or a market square or anything.”
Firren consulted the map. Then she examined the ground and lifted her dainty snout into the air and sniffed. “This has to be it,” she said. “Not only is this the spot indicated on La Rocha’s map, but the paw prints and fur traces in the dirt confirm it.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not to mention the feline scent is unmistakable.”
This was true; Hopper’s nose convulsed at the powerful smell of cat permeating the dusty air. But he was still having a hard time believing that the feral queen lived here. He’d been expecting Felina’s sovereign territory to be sprawling and upscale, like a larger, more opulent, feline-friendly version of Atlantia. He’d imagined a grand, glitzy castle rising up in a cluster of turrets and towers. But what he saw was a decrepit collection of old cardboard boxes turned on their sides.
Could these tattered boxes actually be the feral cats’ living quarters? Hopper had had a bit of experience on the inside of a cardboard box, and to his mind there was nothing cozy or welcoming about it. And these boxes were far worse than the one he and Pinkie had broken out of. Some were bent or crushed at their corners, others were warped and water stained. Every one of them bore the swipelike gashes of cat claws marring their outer walls, and from what Hopper could see, the boxes boasted no interior furnishings beyond the occasional moldering blanket or torn, rotting pillow. More depressing accommodations he’d never seen.
And where in this nasty mess did Felina sleep? She called herself a queen, but her lair was dirty and dank, stinking of cat waste and crawling with fleas. There was nothing posh or pretty or prosperous about this village.
Felina’s lair was nothing like Atlantia. Felina’s lair was a dump.
“I guess this just goes to show you,” mused Firren, “you can take the cat out of the alley, but you can’t take the alley out of the cat.”
Hopper’s first thought was that he was glad it was his expert corps, and not one of the less experienced battalions, that had marched directly into this dangerous locale.
His second thought struck harder, bringing a tight, cold knot to his stomach.
“Does anyone else find it odd that there aren’t any cats about?” he whispered. “Where is everybody?”
Garfield stepped forward, peering ahead at the empty boxes, the deserted grounds. Not a single feral cat prowled the encampment. It was eerily silent. “That’s an excellent question, Chosen One.”
“Maybe they’re out scavenging,” guessed Polhemus.
“Perhaps they’ve moved on in search of more prey,” Driggs suggested.
“Or maybe,” croaked Hopper, his fur suddenly bristling, his whiskers quivering madly, “they smelled us coming and they’re at this very moment . . . surrounding us!”
He drew his sword just as several pairs of gleaming yellow eyes appeared in the darkness, blinking and glaring from the shadows, pressing toward them from all sides. The air was suddenly alive with the sound of hissing and spitting.
“Prepare to fight!” Hopper commanded.
The battalion drew their weapons as the ferals revealed themselves, slinking like smoke from the dark edges of the tunnel. Hopper could see the hunger on their faces, the hatred in their eyes. There was no grace in their movement, no shine to their coats.
Hopper’s key-turned-sword, sharp and gleaming, sliced the air in threatening arcs. Firren’s blade was, as ever, circling above her shoulder as her glittering eyes darted from one stalker to the next.
The cats pressed themselves toward the rodents, slowly, slowly. . . . Their paws slapped into the dry dirt, creating small, dusty explosions.
The enemy circle was closing in.
Hopper readied himself to st
rike.
“Charge!” shouted Polhemus.
The rodents sprang into action, and the tunnels erupted with the sound of their voices ringing out—war whoops, howls, primitive growls that resonated with the righteousness of their purpose. This was the brave, emboldened battle cry of a small species at last standing up to challenge their tormentors, to fight for justice, determined to take back the tunnels.
The ferals swatted and bit and stomped, but the rodent warriors were strong. Blistering screams of pain and surrender sizzled through the air as blades and rapiers found their targets again and again. Injured cats whimpered and meowed in defeat as they limped or hobbled or scurried away in retreat.
Hopper punched and kicked, and dodged bladelike claws and fangs. He took a swipe to his snout and tasted his own blood but kept fighting. Firren was all but a blur, her sword a silver flash as it whistled through the air, slicing off whiskers and shortening tails. The basketball rats moved as one, shooting rocks and throwing craggy-sharp stones with deadly accuracy.
Before long only two cats remained; they were the newest of the glaring—Hopper recognized them as the two that had skulked into the ruins of Atlantia and threatened the small mouse who’d judged Hopper so harshly and reminded him of his failure.
Hopper realized now as he backed away, panting and wheezing, from the bigger of the two cats that the small mouse had not shown up to fight today. Whether he’d met some tragic fate in the tunnels or was simply a coward, Hopper could not guess. But right now he did not care. He had more than enough loyal rodents beside him for this battle. And he was happy and relieved to note that while some bled and others clutched at broken bones and injured limbs, none lay lifeless on the dirt.
Even this small battalion had managed to hold its own against the vicious cats.
In fact, it seemed as if they had won.
Because the new cats who remained, despite their size, were outnumbered.
Hopper raised his blade. Firren coiled herself, ready to pounce. The soldiers and the basketball rats did not hesitate; they were already steaming forth in pursuit of these last two opponents like a speeding subway train.
