Firewing (16 page)

“Griffin, get it off me, will you?”

“Hang on. I’ll just bite it off.” He swung his upper body onto the branch and held tight with his thumb claws. He crawled towards the base of the tendril and put his jaws around it. The moment he started to bite, the tendril flinched against his teeth, and Griffin pulled back with a yelp.

“What? What’s going on?” Luna demanded beneath him. Griffin stared at the tendril. It was
growing,
slithering like a snake up Luna’s leg.

She giggled in alarm. “Um, Griff, it’s crawling up me!” She beat her wings hard, trying to pull free. Useless. With her free foot she slashed at the shoot, but it just tightened and twined itself even higher towards her hips.

“Okay,” Griffin said. “It’s okay. Just a slithering tendril kind of situation here. I’m going to … um … try again.”

He clenched his eyes shut and bit, the fleshy tendril writhing in his jaws like a living thing. His teeth went all the way through. There was a sharp hiss, like a shocked intake of breath. In revulsion
Griffin spat it out immediately. The severed shoot fell earthwards, withering off Luna’s ankle, dissolving into thin air.

“Fly clear!” he shouted.

“Can’t!”

Wildly he looked around and saw that a second shoot had sprung from the branch and coiled around Luna’s leg. He fearfully checked over his own body—he was clear—then stretched forward to bite off this new shoot. Suddenly, all along its length, wicked little thorns were pricking up.

“Griffin, there’s something coming!”

He jerked around, thinking,
Not some
one
, some
thing. His eyes swept the sky and picked out the silhouette, flapping towards them over the desert plain. It was still quite far away, but just from its size and the jagged cut of its wings, he knew it was not a Silverwing. Every second he stared, it was getting bigger. He didn’t know why the sight of it made his body turn liquidy with fear. The creature was alone, but aimed straight at the cactus, and there was something brutal about the bundled intensity of its hunched shoulders, the ferocious slash of its wings, which made Griffin think,
Coming for us.

“Come on, Griff,” shouted Luna, dangling helplessly, “get this thing off me!”

“Working on it!”

He turned back to the thorny shoot and found a bare patch. Even as he clamped down, from the corner of his eye he saw two new tendrils spring from the branch. Quick as he could, he severed the tendril in his mouth, but the others had already coiled themselves around Luna’s wings.

“Griffin!”

He cast a frenzied glance skywards and—The bat’s huge wings blocked out the stars as it plunged.

Griffin stared, transfixed with horror. Three-foot wingspan, a big-chested body, a long skull whose snout flared upwards into a spike. Its jaws, opening.

I know what that is.

Vampyrum Spectrum.

The cannibal bat made a quick circle of the cactus, studying the thorny weave of branches, plotting the best approach. Griffin let go with his thumb claws and hung by his feet, watching, wanting to fly. Maybe it was just terror. Maybe it was Luna, tangled and helpless beside him. But he could not fly.

The Vampyrum swung in, disappeared for a second beneath the branches—and then came straight up at them. Griffin heard screaming, and didn’t know if it was his own or not. He saw Luna flailing her wings. He saw the Vampyrum and its eyes locking onto him. What Griffin did next was pure instinct; he’d never fought another bat in his life. He pulled his wings tight across his chest and lashed out with both of them, putting his whole might behind the blow. He heard and felt the concussion through his entire body, waited for his wings to crumple, waited for the numbing final impact of hard body and jaws.

It didn’t happen.

He could scarcely believe his senses as he felt the Vampyrum being driven away from him. The cannibal bat staggered back through the air, hard against a branch. Thorns pierced its wings, and it roared. And even as it tried to wrench itself free, the cactus sent out quick tendrils around its legs and shoulders.

Griffin wasted not a second. With three brutal bites, he severed the last tendrils around Luna, and she lurched free. Shaking terribly, Griffin flipped himself off the branch and unfurled his wings, wincing at the sharp lightning bolt of pain through his bruised forearms.

“The map!” he cried in dismay. The Vampyrum was flailing directly in front of the oval hole that was to guide them on their voyage. Griffin didn’t dare go any closer. They’d just have to guess. Before he could stop her, though, Luna flew for the hole, passing a mere wingbeat from Goth’s snapping jaws. She took a quick look through, then veered up and away.

“Just like the owl game,” she panted.

“You get it?” he said, catching up.

“Not great, but it’ll have to do.”

They flew hard over the desert plain, wanting to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the thrashing monster impaled on the cactus.

“What could have been easier, Goth?”

Zotz’s laughter was a tremor, rumbling the cactus on which he was pierced.

“I led you to the newborn,” Zotz said. “I delayed him by melting the earth and destroying his trail.”

“I don’t understand,” said Goth, burning with shame and fury. “I was upon him and he struck me, and—” “Could it be that he was stronger than you?” “Impossible,” said Goth. “A bat of his kind, a newborn …” “You are forgetting one important thing. You are dead. He is alive.”

Goth said nothing.

“Arrogance, Goth. You assume too much.” Shaking, Goth bit back his temper. That such a pathetic little creature could best him was more than he could bear. And the added humiliation of being impaled on thorns while Zotz rebuked him by wrapping him up in these tendrils!

“My failure is despicable,” said Goth evenly, “but I wonder, my Lord, that you did not ensnare the newborn in the same way as me.”

“Have you not understood me, Goth?” came Zotz’s sharp reply, so deep in his ear that he winced. “I cannot touch the living. I cannot harm them. I cannot kill them. That is your task—and a simple one I had thought.”

“I did not know I would be so weakened.”

“Know this, then. Without food, without water, the newborn’s strength decreases second by second. Yours grows. As you become acclimatized to my world, you will regain all your strength. But wait too long and the newborn will die, and his life will be lost.”

“I understand, Lord Zotz.”

The tendrils that entangled him suddenly fell away like dead twigs. The thorns melted from his wings, and Goth pushed away from the branch, flying clear.

“You’ve lost surprise now. He knows you will come again.”

“You will have his life forthwith,” Goth promised.

“And let this sharpen your resolve,” whispered the air around Goth’s face. “The newborn you seek is the child of Shade Silverwing. Now hurry.”

“I can’t believe the way you slugged that thing,” Luna said when they finally slowed down, confident the Vampyrum wasn’t in pursuit. “I thought you were a goner, Griff, but you just smashed it off. How’d you do that?”

“I don’t know.” He’d been wondering the same thing. He was a fraction the size of the cannibal bat. He should’ve been massacred. “Some kind of fluke, I guess.”

Luna was looking at him in amazement and a kind of grudging admiration. “Were you this strong back home?”

“No, I wasn’t,” Griffin said, astonished. He didn’t see how he could be strong right now, either. He felt lousy, hunger gnawing at his stomach, and he knew he would be trembling if all his limbs and muscles weren’t already busy with the labour of flight. Most of all he yearned for water, just a spray of it, cool and wet, down his sore throat.

“Well, down here, you’re strong,” Luna said with conviction. “Which is a good thing for us.”

“Yeah, I’m fabulous in the land of the dead,” Griffin mumbled
sarcastically. But for a moment he was pleased. The way Luna looked at him was like being illuminated by the full glow of the moon. He’d impressed her.
Strong
. Maybe if he was strong he could be braver. What he’d done to that Vampyrum was hardly brave, though. He was just plain petrified, and he’d lashed out in self-defence. Like anyone would have done. Any pleasure he felt at the idea of being strong was quickly evaporating. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the strongest, the one who had to do things.

“Thanks,” Luna said. “For not taking off on me.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised, remembering how much he’d wanted to.

“I don’t know if I could’ve done it,” Luna said, “hold my ground with that thing flying for me. What was it, anyway?”

“Vampyrum Spectrum. They’re cannibals from the southern jungles. I guess you don’t remember all those stories we used to tell.” She shook her head.

“We used to play games about them. You liked being one of the cannibals.”

“I did?” Luna asked, amazed, but she was smiling, too.

“Yeah. You got to chase everyone and pretend to eat them. You thought it was fun.”

“Well,” she said, “it couldn’t have been as much fun as this. First we get the evil cactus and—what’d you call it?—a slithering tendril kind of situation? Then, just when we thought it couldn’t get much more hilarious, the giant flesh-eating bat shows up!”

Griffin laughed so hard he got a cramp in his side. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been holding himself, one big knot of muscle and sinew and worry. He looked back over his shoulder.

“You think it’ll follow us?”

“No chance. He’s going to stay a million wingbeats away from you!”

Griffin smiled, wishing he could feel so sure.

“It’s weird,” he said, “the way it came for me. Looking straight at me. Never you. It was like it was hunting just for me. Like it knew where I was.”

“I think you’re being a little paranoid.”

“Paranoid? Let’s see. We’re in the land of the dead, the ground boils, a cactus starts wrapping you up like a cocoon, and a cannibal bat tries to eat me. Yep, I’d say I’m pretty paranoid!”

“How could it be looking for you?” Luna said. “That’s crazy.”

“My glow! Maybe he could tell I was alive!” He looked around warily, feeling like a giant firefly, blazing a trail for every predator in the Underworld. “What if he’s following me? We can’t stop again, Luna. We won’t be able to sleep anymore.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she reminded him.

“Me, then. How am I supposed to sleep? I mean, where’s safe? And if I can’t rest, I’m going to get really tired and weak. And if I’m weak, how am I gonna—”

“Griff, it’s okay,” she said firmly. “You can rest. You can sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“What if things start moving or
growing
—”

“I’ll pay more attention next time. Promise. Hey, how come those tendrils never tangled
you
up?”

Griffin frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. This place is freaking me out, though.”

“We’ll be gone soon, no problem.”

“Okay, good. Thanks.” He forced a deep breath. He was so glad Luna was here. “You’re sure this is the right course?” he asked suddenly. The mud-cracked plains stretched to all horizons with no distinguishing features—nothing that triggered his memory of Frieda’s map.

“I think so,” Luna said.

“
Think
so?”

She winced suddenly, glancing at the angry scars on her wings. “I took as good a look as I could, with that thing flapping around,” she said sharply. “Didn’t notice you doing it.”

“Sorry.” After a moment he asked, “Is it bad, the pain?”

“Sure not getting any better.” Her face was pinched and her wing strokes, he noticed, were not as smooth or powerful as before.

Griffin said nothing more, ashamed. But it didn’t stop him worrying about their direction. He was angry at himself, too. Back at the cactus he should’ve taken his bearings before he slept; why hadn’t he just done it?

Wings creaking quietly through the eternal night, they flew on.

“It’s changing up ahead,” said Luna.

Griffin had noticed, too. Near the horizon, the monotonous plains ended in a ragged coastline. Beyond, stretched a great body of water, undulating gently, sparkling in the starlight. The simple sight of all that water somehow lifted his spirits, though he didn’t remember any water on Frieda’s map. The sea undulated and, farther out, rolled up into hills that folded over one another before melting away. It was all strange and strikingly beautiful. But—

“It’s not water,” Griffin said with a sinking heart.

A few hundred wingbeats on, he saw that it was in fact an ocean of pale sand, lapping and slapping, roiling in ferocious currents. The sand would suddenly pile up into mountains, hold for a few seconds, only to dissolve with a thunderous rumble. Griffin put some more altitude between himself and the sand. He saw how quickly it could rise up into a dizzying peak, and he didn’t want to be engulfed by it. All the heaving and rolling below was sending up turbulence, and he and Luna went bobbing along overhead, the air so thick it almost felt as if they were rowing
through water. Griffin tried not to look down; the pitching landscape only made him dizzy.

“This normal?” Luna asked.

“Nope.”

“Just making sure.”

Was this the right route? Griffin knew that if they were going astray, with every wingbeat it would be harder to find their way back. He checked over his shoulder for the Vampyrum, then, with Luna, laboured on through the sky. They crested a mountain range of sand that crashed towards them like a tidal wave, its sandy froth nearly washing over them. On the other side they found themselves over a more serene stretch. The change was abrupt, and welcome. Fighting the turbulence, trying to stay on course, had tired Griffin out. A thousand wingbeats distant, jutting up from the sand, was a low hill.

With a melting sense of relief, Griffin recognized it.

“Now that,” he said delighted, “was on Frieda’s map! We’re on the right course!” He beamed at Luna. “You did it!”

Etched against the night sky he saw the serrated shudder of bats’ wings, but could tell, even from this distance, there were no Vampyrum amongst them. The bats were scattered across the sky, approaching the hill in little knots.

“Must be other Pilgrims,” Luna said.

Griffin noticed that the bats all seemed to be heading for the far side of the hill, where they dipped down out of view.

“What’s so interesting over there?” Luna said.

“A cave,” Griffin muttered, as Frieda’s sound map flared before his mind’s eye. He remembered how he had been whipped past. “Luna, we’re not supposed to stop here.”

“Why not?” He wanted to stay high, but passing overhead he caught a
glimpse of the cave’s entrance. It was vast, like the mouth of an enormous beached sea creature, gasping its final breaths. All around it sand lapped gently, but did not spill inside. Tendrils of mysterious misty light seeped out. Half a dozen Graywings streaked past Griffin and Luna from above, wings beating impatiently for the cave.

“Hey, what’s down there?” Luna called after them.

“The way home!” one of the Graywings chattered excitedly. “Come on!”

“Hurry!” another bat shouted, looking back over her wing. “They say you can get your life back!” Luna turned to Griffin expectantly.

“Frieda didn’t say anything about this,” Griffin muttered. “The Tree’s the only way out.”

“Yeah, like the last tree was such a good time,” said Luna.

“That was a
cactus
, actually. Frieda said we shouldn’t stop….” But his eyes kept getting drawn back to the silky light undulating from the cave mouth.

“I want to go,” said Luna.

“No,” said Griffin firmly. “It’s not on the map.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re scared.”

“Correct.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” she said with a grin. “I’m already dead.”

“Hilarious, Luna, really funny.”

“Aren’t you just a bit curious?”

“Luna …”

“Come
on
, Griffin.” She was already flying down towards the cave without him.

He hesitated a moment, then went after her.

“We’re close,” Shade said.

He barely had to listen backwards through time to catch Griffin’s echo traces. Now they were crystalline, fresh, maybe not even a thousand wingbeats old. Shade allowed himself to feel hopeful, despite the lingering image of Goth he’d heard earlier. Maybe it wasn’t even Goth, he kept telling himself. Why couldn’t it have been another Vampyrum? Maybe even a kind of rogue echo thrown off from Murk? But he was just trying to make himself feel better. It was Goth. Shade knew it. Normally the idea of Goth being dead would have filled him with relief. Down here it was the opposite. He could only hope that Goth’s presence near his son was a complete coincidence, a crossing of paths separated by plenty of time. Shade beat his wings harder. Below him, the sea of sand heaved and sprayed.

“When you find your son,” Java said, “how will you get home?” Shade looked across the stone sky of the Underworld, hardly daring to believe his good fortune. During the flight, he’d been watching anxiously, hoping his circle of stars would emerge over the earth’s rim. And now, there it was. The exit. Within hours, if all went well, he’d be heading for it with Griffin. The climb up and out wouldn’t be easy, but he would help his son. They would make it out together, back inside Tree Haven, before the entrance was blocked.

“The same crack we both came through,” Shade told Java eagerly. “I know where it is, and it’ll take us right back—” He flinched. He’d forgotten himself. Stupidly talking about the Upper World and how to get there. Worriedly he glanced at Murk, hoping the Vampyrum hadn’t heard. Murk was looking directly at him.

“I already know,” said the Vampyrum. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen that glow around the living. And you don’t need to
worry: I won’t try to follow you back to the Upper World.” He looked at Yorick and Java and Nemo. “And if any of you were thinking the same, I can spare you the labour and disappointment. It can’t be done.”

“How do you know?” Shade asked.

“Because I myself tried it. Long ago. I found a crack in the heavens and crawled up. How long it took, I couldn’t say. It felt like forever, fighting a screaming wind and the pull of the Underworld. But I reached the surface. And out I flew.” Shade’s fur lifted in alarm. “But—”

“And then dissolved,” finished Murk. “In the world of the living I became nothing but an echo, a little wisp of vapour, and I could not fly clear of the crack’s pull. It was as if I had no solid body. The moment I saw the world—and I can tell you, all of it blazed with the same light that surrounds you, Silverwing—I imploded. I was sucked back into the fissure, and down and down into the Underworld’s sky. And only then did I once again have a form. Without life in them, these dead bodies are useless up there. Save yourselves the agony of seeing the Upper World, only for a moment, and then having it ripped away from you.”

Shade said nothing, thinking of the hissing crack near Stone Hold, imagining Murk scrabbling at its rim, desperately trying to return to the surface. It was a pathetic image, but most of all he felt relieved that dead Vampyrum were forbidden re-entry into the Upper World. He hoped Murk was telling the truth.

Shade turned to Java. It seemed unfair that after all their help, he was about to abandon them on this dismal journey. Across the Underworld to a Tree that might or might not exist.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” she told him. “We will be sorry to see you go. But go without any pity for us. We have the Tree.”

Shade nodded, and flew off for a moment to check Griffin’s trail again. Still right on course, and he was about to open his eyes, when a flare in his echo vision chilled his heart. It was Goth again, the image recent and clearly etched. And he was on the same course as Griffin.

Bright vapour veiled the cave mouth, making it impossible to see inside. Griffin shot out sound, but his echo vision was just a silvery smear.

“Let me talk you out of this,” he said to Luna, circling.

“Just a peek, Griff.” Something about those words made him even more uneasy.

“I’m having troubling thoughts,” he told her. “A worst-case scenario kind of thing. I mean, this is an easy one, Luna. Frieda told us we’re supposed to ignore this and fly past. And look at this thing. The cave could slam shut like a set of jaws. The entire hill could sink into the sand and take us with it. Trapped inside. Forever. That would not surprise me in a place like this. In fact, it would be pretty typical.”

“Please,” she said sweetly.

“You’re making me feel mean.”

“That’s good.”

“It’s hard to say no to a dead person.”

“You’d feel pretty cruel, wouldn’t you?
I’d
feel cruel.”

“Luna, I haven’t seen anyone come out.” She cocked her head, ears pricked. “I’m not hearing any crying or screaming. Maybe they’re just having a good time.”

As if to bolster her argument, Griffin heard from inside a kind of melodious thrum, some laughter, the rustle of excited voices.