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PART 1: The Code
Chapter 1
Gregor’s back pressed into the cold stone floor as he stared up at the words on the ceiling His eyes and skin were still stinging froo Between the burning in his lungs and the rapid beating of his heart, it was hard to get a full breath To steady hirip on the hilt of his newly claimed sword
As soon as he had retrieved the sword from the museum, he had run to this roo -- was covered in prophecies about the Underland, this gloo world far beneath New York City, which had consuor’s life for the past year Bartholoalia, had carved the prophecies soo While alians, they also iant creatures who lived in the neighboring lands down here -- the bats, the cockroaches, the spiders, the or Several were about Gregor But they didn’t call him by his name In the prophecies, he was known as "the warrior"
Gregor hadn’t allowed anyone to enter the room with him He’d wanted to be completely alone when he first read this prophecy Everyone had taken such pains to keep its contents from him in the last fewawful And he had wanted to be able to react to the awfulness without anyone watching him Cry, if he needed to cry Scream, if he needed to scream But it turned out it didn’t really matter, because he’d barely reacted at all
"You’ve got to face this thing You’ve got to understand it," he told himself So he forced hiain
As he reread the words, it was as if he could actually hear a clock ticking along with the lines It was, after all, "The Prophecy of Time"
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick
The war has been declared,
Your ally been ensnared
It is now or it is never
Break the code or die forever
Ti out
To the warrior give my blade by his hand your fate is
Or the clicking, clicking, clicking
While a rat’s tongue ,
With its feet it does the tricking
For the raw and not the jaw
Makes the Code of Claw
Ti still
Since the princess is the key to unlock the treachery,
She cannot avoid the , scratching
When a secret plot is hatching,
In the na
WHAT SHE SAW, it is the flaw
Of the Code of Claw
Ti back
Turning back
When the monster’s blood is spilled,
When the warrior has been killed, you
if the gnawers find you napping, you will rot while they are naw
In the Code of Claw
The ticking stopped with the words Gregor closed his eyes as that one phrase hammered in his brain:
When the warrior has been killed
That was it, obviously The part that nobody had wanted to tell him
When the warrior has been killed
Not even Ripred -- and you had to figure that rat was used to breaking bad news to people after all those years of fighting in wars
When the warrior has been killed
Not even Luxa -- as only twelve, yet seemed much older because she was a queen and had lost her parents and all What was it that she had said to hio? "If you were to return hoainst you"
"Really, Luxa?" thought Gregor "You wouldn’t hold it against ive you in a million years"
When the warrior has been killed
In theory, sure, Gregor could still go hoet hisfroue, and have his bat, Ares, fly the in New York City Ares, his bond, who had saved his life nu since he had"Well, Ares, it’s been great I’ I’ to annihilation everyone who’s helped me down here, but I’ anyh, you know?"
Like that would ever happen
When the warrior has been killed
It simply didn’t feel real Any of it Maybe it was because he was so tired Gregor hadn’t slept in days Not since before he’d watched the rats murder hundreds of mice in a pit at the base of a volcano in the Firelands He’d fallen unconscious for a while from the poisonous fumes the volcano had emitted when it erupted Did that count as sleep? Maybe But it had been only a short tih deep ash in search of his friends Before he could even experience the joy of finding them, he’d learned that Thalia, the sweet little bat who had ht up in the ill-fated trip, had suffocated as she tried to escape the volcano Hazard, Luxa’s seven-year-old cousin who had planned on bonding with Thalia, had been so distraught they’d had to sedate him Later, when they had finally found soor had volunteered to keep watch while the others rested On the flight home, packed onto Ares’s back with Boots, Hazard, their cockroach friend, Teed mouse, Cartesian, he had been unable to sleep Noas numb
When the warrior has been killed
And unable to muster any real e without?" He should, of course, he should Only after all that had happened, he just didn’t have it in hiuess Maybe in a couple days If I last that long "