Silverwing (11 page)

“But couldn’t you see where—”

The albino bat shook his head regretfully. “Only that he’s far away.”

“Alive,” Shade muttered in amazement. Deep in his heart he’d always hoped it was true. His mother and Frieda were wrong. Cassiel had just disappeared, but where? He looked restlessly into the sky.

“So, good-bye,” Zephyr said. “And good luck.”

“Thank you,” Shade said. He lit from the spire, circling with Marina. “And thanks for fixing my wing too. And everything else.”

“Good-bye,” called Marina over her wing.

They flew high, eager to get clear of the rooftops, and the pigeons that roosted there. Marina suggested they split up the sky between them, to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Shade tried to calm his mind. His father, alive … Impossible as it was, he knew he had to concentrate. He forced all his senses together as one. He sniffed, he listened, he scanned the night for any sign of birds.

When they were far above the highest towers, and the whole glorious, gleaming city was spread before them, they leveled off. Shade found his guiding star and pointed his nose toward it.

“Did you see the underside of Zephyr’s wings?” he asked hesitantly.

“I was wondering if it was just a thing with the light,” Marina said eagerly.

“Me too.”

“But—”

“I don’t think it was, was it?” he asked.

There was a silence.

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” Marina asked.

Shade nodded. “His wings got dark underneath.”

“Yes,” she said. “They were black as night—and they were filled with stars.”

Goth looked down over the glittering lights. He’d been circling with Throbb for over an hour now, gradually spiraling out toward the city’s edges, searching for bats. They’d seen none. Did bats even exist this far north? It was a sickening thought. What if they didn’t? How would he find a guide? How would he get home?

He’d had a dream just before sunset. He was back in the jungle,
glorying in the heat, and suddenly, all around him were hundreds of bats, not his own kind, but small bats, the smallest he’d ever seen, flying joyful circles around him, chanting his name. What are they doing here, he wondered, but he was overcome with a feeling of triumph. Until the giant trees and vines and ferns of the jungle suddenly toppled over, and all around were walls, Human walls, and behind one of them stood the Man, smiling at him.

Goth shook his head. It was rare for him to dream, and he’d learned that it was always important, a way for Zotz to speak to him. What did it mean?

“Look!” Throbb hissed. “Down there.”

Goth peered down through the sky and smiled with relief.

Bats.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” Marina asked.

“Wingbeats.” Shade looked back over his wing, sweeping the sky with his eyes and echo vision. Nothing.

They’d finally reached the outskirts of the city, and Shade was exhausted. He couldn’t believe how lucky they’d been. Twice they’d seen a distant squad of pigeons patrolling rooftops, and once he’d spotted an owl sentry silhouetted against the rising moon. But they’d passed unnoticed. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling they were being followed. The moonlight made him nervous. It lit the silver in his fur, and Marina, at times, positively glowed.

At least they were far away from the ocean now. And he could smell trees and fields up ahead, hear their familiar outlines. He knew what to stay away from here, where he could eat, where he could hide.

“I still can’t believe my father’s alive,” he said. “Where though?”

“He disappeared around Hibernaculum, right? That’s where you start looking.”

“What if the owls have him?” Shade had heard terrible stories about owls using bats as slaves, to build nests, hollow out trees—and then eating them.

Marina shook her head. Shade knew even if they found him in time, it would be almost impossible to rescue him from an owl nest.

“Maybe he’s with the Humans,” Marina said hopefully.

Shade smiled. It was a comforting thought. But why wouldn’t his father have come to tell Ariel and the others—to tell
him.
He wouldn’t just desert them all, keep the secrets to himself?

The owl plunged from behind, silent wings spread, and it was only the pungent odor that made Shade whirl just in time. He cried out, and flipped to the side—fast enough to escape the claws, but not the wings. The blow sent him spinning down to the trees, stunned. He hit a branch, the impact softened by dried leaves, and sunk his claws into the wood so he wouldn’t slip off.

Enormous eyes bore down on him. He scrambled to get out of the way as the owl battered the branch with its wings. He saw Marina hurl herself against the bird’s back, and sink her claws and teeth into the dense feathers.

The owl shrieked in fury, swiveled its immense head, and stabbed at Marina with its hooked beak. She jerked clear, and the owl slapped her off with its wing.

And turned back to Shade. All he could see were those flat moonlike eyes—and then something big and dark struck the bird from the side, and clung. It was as if part of the night sky had torn loose and lashed down. The owl bellowed in agony. Shade saw powerful black wings, then claws, and a set of jaws opening and clamping down on the owl’s neck. There was a horrible cracking noise.

It was a bat.

It was as if part of the night sky had torn loose and lashed down.

The bat opened his jaws and the owl slumped lifeless, its wings tangled in the branches. He looked at Shade.

“Are you all right?”

Shade nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered, his throat dry. He felt extraordinarily small. This bat was at least four times his size. As if the stone gargoyles really had come to life. The similarity was unsettling. The face was more beast than bat, with a long snout, spattered with blood, large eyes, and a strange flared nose that spiked upward.

A second huge bat, wings spanning at least three feet across, circled overhead.

“My name’s Goth,” said the first bat. “And that,” he said, with a dismissive flick of his head, “is my companion, Throbb.”

“I’m Shade, and—” He broke off and looked around in alarm. “Marina!”

“I’m here,” she said, fluttering over and glancing warily at Goth and Throbb. “You okay, Shade?”

“They saved my life,” he said excitedly, turning to Goth. “You’re from the city, aren’t you? You’re the ones who killed the pigeons.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because they caught us,” Marina said, “and wanted to know who you were.”

“Did they attack you?” Shade asked.

The giant bat laughed. “Pigeons? No. We were hungry.” He leaned over the body of the owl and ripped a hunk of flesh from its chest.

Shade flinched in surprise.

“You’re not meat-eaters,” Goth said with interest, after swallowing the owl flesh in one gulp.

“No.”

“You’re welcome to try some.”

“No, thank you.” The smell was repulsive, heavy with blood, and Shade saw Marina take a few steps away from the owl’s body.

“Where we come from, many are meat-eaters,” Goth explained. “I’m sorry if it alarms you.”

“Where
do
you come from?” Marina asked.

“The jungle. If it weren’t for the Humans, we’d be there now. We escaped just last night. Look.” He pulled back his wing, and the thick black metal band around his forearm caught the moonlight. Shade sucked in his breath, and glanced up at Throbb, still flying above them. A band glinted darkly on his forearm too.

“Escaped?” Marina asked, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

“You’ve been their prisoner too, I see,” Goth remarked, nodding at her band.

“No. They didn’t imprison me. They gave me the band, and let me go, but—”

“They didn’t take you to the false jungle?”

Shade looked at Marina, who shook her head, dumbfounded.

As Goth ate, he told them about being captured by the Humans, and the month he spent in their jungle prison. Shade listened intently as the giant bat described how the Humans had flashed lights in his face, stuck him with darts.

“But why would the Humans do that?” Marina asked.

“I think they were studying us. They want our powers of flight, and our night vision. They band us to mark us as their prisoners.”

“No,” Marina said, so softly Shade almost didn’t hear.

He didn’t know what to think. Everything Goth said flew in the face of what he’d been told. That the band was a sign of the Promise, a link between bats and Humans, that the Humans would somehow help them. Could Frieda and Zephyr … and his father … could they all be wrong? He felt sick.

“They didn’t take me prisoner,” Marina said stubbornly.

Goth shrugged. “They’re not our friends, the Humans. And they will be punished,” he added darkly.

Three mournful hoots floated through the night air.

“What was that?” asked Goth, his crest bristling.

“More owls,” Shade told him. “They’re calling for their sentry. They’ll come if they don’t hear back from him. We should get moving. Which way are you going?”

“We don’t know. We want to go south to the jungle, but we’re not familiar with these stars of yours.”

“You come from a place with different stars?” Shade asked.

“That’s right. Brighter, and more numerous than these.”

Shade turned to Marina, incredulous. No one had ever told him about a jungle world, where the bats ate meat, and the sky contained a different set of stars. Did Frieda or Zephyr even know about such a place?

“Is it always so cold here?” Throbb asked with a shudder.

“Just in winter.”

“Winter,” said Throbb, as if pronouncing a new word.

Shade was surprised. Maybe where they came from, they didn’t have winter. He began to feel useful.

“We’re migrating,” he explained. “Every winter we go south to find a warmer place to hibernate.”

“Hibernate?” said Goth.

“A long sleep.”

“How long?”

“Months.” He was glad that someone shared his amazement at the idea of hibernation. “That’s all we do, sleep and sleep until it gets warmer.”

“Well, how unusual,” said Goth with a laugh. “Bats that sleep for months on end. What strange customs you have in the north.” He looked up at the sky. “But you can read these stars, can you?”

“We’re going south too,” Shade said, and then added impulsively, “Come with us. We’re trying to catch up with my colony. I’m sure Frieda could tell you how to get back to the jungle.”

Goth turned to him and smiled gratefully.

“That’s very generous of you.”

“I don’t like them,” Marina said. She and Shade were alone, hunting the riverbank for insects.

Shade caught a snout beetle and cracked the shell.

“Well, I feel a lot safer traveling with them.”

There was a strangled squeal from the forest floor, and they both saw Goth fly out of the trees with a rat thrashing in his jaws.

“They’re eating half the forest,” Marina said. “It doesn’t bother you they’re meat-eaters?”

“They’re from the jungle,” he said impatiently. “Everything’s different there. Probably why they’re so big,” he mumbled. It made sense, all that heavy meat. He wondered, if he were to … he grimaced, remembering the pungent smell of owl. “What does it matter what they eat? We eat insects, they eat other animals. You expect me to be sad about that owl? This is the second owl that’s wanted to eat me, and they were quite happy about it, and I’ve heard stories about how owls eat you, pulling out your insides while you’re still alive.”

“Well, just remember, it’s your two friends who got the skies closed down. And every time they kill something, a pigeon or an owl or a rat, the birds and beasts are going to want revenge. And that’s bad news for us, and any other bat out there.”

He knew she was right, and it made him angry. He thought of the rat Goth had just killed. He hoped Goth had been careful, picked a straggler.

“Look, the owls started it, not us. They can’t just close down the night skies.”

“I just don’t like them,” Marina said again. “I don’t trust them.”

“Remember what Zephyr said about meeting an unexpected ally?”

“You think that’s Goth?” She rustled her wings. “He also said that stuff about beware of metal under wings. Maybe that means Goth.”

“You’ve got metal under your wings too.”

“I’d thought of that already, believe me.”

“You don’t like what they said about the bands, do you?”

“Do you?” she demanded.

“No. But …”

“What?”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“They didn’t imprison me. They didn’t put me in a room and jab me with darts and study me. I just can’t believe Humans are as bad as they say.”

“Zephyr did say they wanted something from us …”

“But also that there was something they wanted to give us,” Marina insisted.

“I don’t know.” His head was beginning to ache.

“What about your elder, Frieda? What about Zephyr? And your own father? You think they were all wrong?”

“I don’t—I just don’t know!”

“So you’re saying my colony was right all along. Humans are our enemies—”

“I didn’t say that, Marina—”

“And here I thought maybe the band meant something.” She tapped it sharply against his head. “But all it means is I’m a prisoner. That’s it. No secret anymore. I guess I don’t need to come any farther, do I?”

An awkward silence fell between them.

“I want to go back,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“I want to go back.”

“To the island?”

“To the city. I want to find this fake jungle.”

“Are you crazy? What about the pigeons? The owls? It’s not safe. And even if you did find this place, how do you know …” he sighed. “How do you know they won’t hurt you.”

“How do you know your father’s not there?”

Shade felt his breath knocked out of him. He stared at Marina. It hadn’t even occurred to him. But no. He shook his head in relief. “Zephyr said he was far away. Remember?”

Marina sighed. “Let’s leave Goth and Throbb …”

“We need them,” he said bluntly. “We weren’t two hours out of the city when we got hit by that owl. You think we can make it on our own?”

Marina was silent.

“I want to know what it all means too.” He ignored her doubtful snort. “I really do. But let’s just catch up with my colony, and then we can talk to Frieda and the other banded bats and maybe we’ll get more answers.”

“You’re pretty impressed by these two, aren’t you?”

She’d caught him by surprise. “Well …”

“Big like you always wanted to be?” There was a taunting hook to her voice.

“Maybe,” he said, face burning. “So what?”

“I wish you hadn’t asked them to join us.”

“Listen,” he said. “We’re safe with them. And what if there is a war? What if that’s what Nocturna meant? And even my father said we had to wait for something before we’d be free. Maybe this is it.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Goth and Throbb. There’re others like them in the jungle, right? Maybe we can convince them to join us. Make a big army.” His heart whirred furiously with excitement. “You saw the way Goth killed the owl. It was easy for him. I mean just look at them, they’re natural warriors. If we had their help, we could fight them once and for all—all the pigeons and the owls and anyone else. Everyone who wanted to keep us banished. And I know we could beat them.”