The bamboo bars were cut through in seconds. With a couple of quickcracks, two bars fell to create an opening big enough for a single gar to crawl through. One gar poked his head up through the opening to the outside and…
“Hey!” came a shout from above. “Get back in there!”
It was a klee guard. But the gar was ready for him. With incredible speed and the advantage of surprise, the gar grabbed the klee and pulled him down through the opening in the grid. The surprised guard plummeted down into the cell head first. He hit the stone floor hard.
Bobby winced.
The klee guard rolled over, moaning. The gars on the floor quickly jumped him and took his wooden club and lasso. Bobby looked back to the ceiling to see that the gars who had been on the top of the pyramid were gone. They had escaped. The rest climbed down quickly.
“Now what?” Kasha asked.
An alarm sounded. Outside the cell could be heard the sounds of confusion. Whistles were blown. Klees snarled angrily.
“Sounds like those two gars are getting busy,” Bobby said.
The gars in the cell gathered around the door as if they knew exactly what was going to happen next. A second later the door to the cell slammed open and a klee guard was thrown into the room, unconscious. The gars didn’t waste any time. They fled from their putrid prison, taking their first steps toward freedom.
“We’re outta here!” Bobby announced and ran for the door. Kasha was right behind him. They jumped out of the cell…
And into a riot. The same escape that the gars pulled off in Bobby’s cell was being duplicated throughout the animal pens. Bobby and Kasha saw cell doors being thrown open all around the courtyard. Gars streamed out, screaming like banshees to intimidate their klee captors. It wasn’t hard. The gars outnumbered the klees ten to one. Some brave klees tried to fight, but they were overwhelmed by the charging gars as they ran for the corral doors that would lead them to the zenzen pens and out of this prison.
“We should find Ranjin,” Bobby said. “Maybe this will convince him to become the viceroy again and-“
“No,” Kasha interrupted. “We’re past that. We’ve got to get to the forager operation center.”
“Why?” Bobby asked.
Before Kasha could answer, a squad of klees came charging into the courtyard with a huge net, trying to recapture some gars. Several gars were caught in the net, but they weren’t giving up without a fight. These were no longer docile animals. They had been waiting a long time for their chance at freedom and weren’t about to give it back easily. They tore at the netting, trying to get at the klees, who did their best to contain them. The klees desperately pulled on the net, but the gars refused to be controlled. They tore the netting away from the klees and turned it back on the cats, tying up the frightened cats and trapping them in their own net. With a cheer of victory, the gars ran for the corral doors.
“Follow me,” Kasha ordered and ran for the same doors. She kept to the walls to avoid the mayhem. Bobby was right behind her. When they ran through the doors into the zenzen corral, they were confronted with another form of chaos. Gars were stealing zenzens. They had thrown open the paddock and released all of the horselike animals into the corral. Frightened and confused animals barreled around wildly. Gars leaped for them. The lucky ones landed on a zenzen’s back and took control. The unlucky ones missed and got trampled by the terrified animals.
Again the klees were outnumbered. They came at the gars with their wooden clubs and with whips, but ended up getting jumped by several gars and beaten with their own weapons. The gars were on a rampage. Bobby wasn’t sure if they were motivated by the chance to escape, or by the desperate need for revenge. Probably both. It was a frightening madhouse. He and Kasha tried as best as they could to steer clear of the mayhem and get across the pen and out to Leeandra. But they were like salmon swimming upstream. Hundreds of gars were flooding in the opposite direction.
Bobby and Kasha faced different dangers. Bobby needed to avoid the klees who were trying to recapture gars, and Kasha had to keep away from the gars who wanted to hurt any klee they ran into. Kasha crept past an open zenzen stall. Bobby was following close, and just as he was about to pass the same pen, a frightened zenzen charged out, nearly hitting him. He had to dive back or get trampled. He wasn’t hurt, but when he looked up, Kasha was gone. She had kept going, not realizing Bobby wasn’t following.
“Swell,” Bobby grumbled under his breath. He ran for the gate to Leeandra, but got only a few feet when he was tackled from behind. He was slammed down to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. He scrambled around to look up at his attacker and saw that staring down on him, pinning his shoulders with his massive paws, was Durgen.
“Here’s one gar I’ll make sure won’t get away,” he snarled while lifting his paw into the air. His claws were out and ready for business. Durgen wound up, ready to slash, when a streaking blur appeared and knocked the klee off Bobby. Bobby scrambled away and jumped to his feet. He was sure he had been saved again by Kasha. But when he looked back, he saw that his savior wasn’t the klee Traveler. It was a gar. Two more gars jumped Durgen and tied him up with his own lasso. The first gar backed away from the trussed cat and looked at Bobby.
“Thank you,” the gar said.
Bobby didn’t know how to react. Why was this gar thanking him? He had saved Bobby’s life, not the other way around. The gar stood opposite Bobby, breathing hard. This seemed strangely familiar to Bobby. A second later he remembered why. This was the gar Bobby had been forced to fight for the amusement of the handlers. Bobby let him live. Now the gar had returned the favor.
“Go home,” Bobby said.
The gar clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Black Water.” He ran deeper into the zenzen corral. Bobby never saw him again.
Bobby left Durgen and ran toward the gate into Leeandra. The wooden doors had been torn down by the rampaging gars. Bobby ran into the city to see that the orderly world of the klees had been turned on its ear. Several huts in the trees were on fire. Gars were flooding down by the hundreds, screaming with joy. A few klees tried to contain them, but most had given up and kept to the trees and out of the way. There was no stopping this flight to freedom. Some gars pushed toward the zenzen corral, but most joined the flood toward the giant gates of Leeandra. There were so many gars, it looked to Bobby like the start of the New York City Marathon.
“What happened?” Bobby heard, and spun to see Kasha standing there. “I thought you were behind me.”
“I thought you ditched me,” Bobby shot back.
“C’mon,” Kasha ordered, and took off running, deeper into the city. Bobby followed, running hard to keep up. At first it was tough because of all the fleeing gars. But soon the crowd thinned and they were able to move quickly. Kasha led him to a tree where they jumped into an elevator and shot up.
“Where are we going?” Bobby asked.
“The forager operation center,” Kasha answered.
“Okay, why?”
“You want to stop Saint Dane?” Kasha asked. “Well, yeah.”
“This is where we’ll do it.”
Bobby didn’t question her again. He figured the answers would come soon enough. The elevator brought them up to a high point in the tree and dropped them off at another circular balcony.
“You’re the one who figured it out, Pendragon,” Kasha said. “I did?”
“You remembered that Saint Dane promised the council that two klees could deliver the poison to Black Water and be back within the afternoon. As far as I know, there’s only one way that’s possible.”
Kasha led him along the balcony until they came upon a tall, arched door.
“Right! You said it was a gig,” Bobby said. “What does that mean?”
Kasha said, “A gig is a tool the foragers use when we go to a remote part of the jungle. With a gig we have access to places it would be too dangerous to go on foot, or even to bring gars. It’s the only way I know of to get out and back quickly to a place as far away as Black Water.”
“Okay,” Bobby said. “What’s a gig?”
Kasha pushed open the large door and stepped back for Bobby to enter. Bobby peered into the huge, hollow tree to see a room that was five times as large as the Circle of Klee.
