Silverwing (17 page)

Shade felt faint, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Goth.

“You eat insects. They’re living creatures, they just happen to be smaller than you. And weaker. But that doesn’t stop you, does it? The real reason you don’t eat like us is simple. You
can’t.
You’re too small. Meat is where the power is. When I eat another bat, I take in the strength of that bat, I take that bat’s power and make it my own. And I grow. You’ve been starving yourselves on insects up here in the north. It’s you who’s unnatural. Not me.”

Shade’s head swirled with doubts. He’d heard so many stories now, from Frieda, from Zephyr, from Scirocco, and now from Goth. How was he supposed to know what was right and wrong? He was a runt, puny and powerless. But all bats were puny compared to these giants. How could they ever hope to beat the owls, beat the rats, win back the sun. He was powerless to even help his own colony, to keep Silverwings safe from Goth and Throbb.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said to Goth wearily.

Marina looked at him, startled. “Shade—”

“No, really, Marina, what if they’re right, and this is how it is. There’re bats and owls and rats and Humans, and the strongest wins, and it’s as simple as that. The only thing is power.”

“To you, maybe,” said Marina disdainfully. “I should’ve known. All this curiosity of yours about the bands, and beating the owls, and getting back into the sun—all you care about is being big and important.”

“You’re no different,” he shot back.

“What?”

“You wanted it just as much as me. You got your band, and you wanted to believe you were special too. That it meant something and you were better than all the other Brightwings. It’s the same thing.”

“At least I don’t want to be like these two,” she said with icy coldness. “I forgot. It’s what you want more than anything, isn’t it?”

Shade said nothing, but he caught Goth’s eye, and saw a smile flicker across his mouth.

“You could grow, Shade,” Goth said to him. He ripped a hunk of bird meat off the bone and held it out to him in his teeth. To Shade’s surprise, his mouth began to water. They hadn’t let him feed enough on insects, and food had been scarce the past few nights in the mountains. He was so hungry. What would it taste like? He wondered if it really would make him grow, so he could shrug off his runt’s body once and for all.

“What can a taste hurt?” said Goth. “The birds are no friends of yours. Try it, Shade.”

“No,” he said, glancing guiltily at Marina.

Goth laughed. “You’re afraid, aren’t you? Afraid you might like it!”

“No.”

Goth tossed the meat down his own throat and gave a mocking laugh.

When he’d stripped the bird clean, Goth spread one of his wings. “You’ll sleep under here,” he told Shade. “To make sure you don’t go anywhere. Throbb, take Marina.”

Shade’s nose wrinkled in revulsion as he crept under Goth’s wing, and it folded down over him, enclosing him in a fog of sweat and raw meat. He listened to Goth’s huge heart pounding
inside his chest, and fell asleep with dark thoughts gathering in his head like thunderclouds.

“I want to go to the jungle with you.”

Goth looked over at Shade, intrigued. They were flying side by side over the winding river. The water was running more quickly now, bubbling over rocks.

Ahead of them, Throbb shadowed Marina. She’d refused to fly next to Shade, hadn’t even said a word to him this evening as they’d set out. Throbb, he noticed, had developed a strange, limping flight; he kept his wounded wing folded up so it slapped halfheartedly at the air. He didn’t look healthy. His fur was greasy and matted, his eyes runny, and he shivered constantly now, even in flight.

“Why,” Goth asked him, “do you want to go to the jungle?”

“I want to be like you. I want to be with bats who are powerful and who worship Zotz.”

Goth laughed. “What about your beloved Nocturna?”

“She’s powerless, you’re right. I thought about it all through the day. The Promise is a lie. We’ll spend our lives afraid of everything.”

“And you’re willing to abandon your own colony?”

“They won’t be around much longer, will they? I know what you’re planning. You’re going to try to trick them into trusting you. Maybe it’ll work, maybe not. If it does, then you’ll eat them one by one through the winter as they sleep.” He said it calmly, without emotion. “And I know you’re planning on killing me before we get there.”

“You’re right.”

“I don’t care what you do with the others. Just take me back to the jungle with you.”

“You really don’t care if I eat your colony?” He seemed interested.

“They hate me. They blame me for getting the nursery roost burned down by the owls. And they never liked me even before that anyway. For a while I thought I could make it up to them, help them fight the owls. But they don’t want anything to do with me. Why should I care about them?”

“Even your mother?”

He shrugged, his face hard. “She never came to look for me when I got lost—she just kept going and gave me up for dead. She thought I was more trouble than I was worth.”

Goth looked at Marina.

“And her?”

Shade snorted bitterly. “She still thinks the Humans are going to come save us. You’re right, it’s pathetic, wanting to be something we’re not. She just thinks I’m weak and greedy for power.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He looked Goth right in the eye. “I am greedy. I’ve spent my whole life as a runt, and I want to get bigger and stronger. I want you to show me how to hunt and fight.”

Goth looked across the horizon thoughtfully.

“I don’t trust you, Shade.”

“You have to.”

He snapped back, surprise in his eyes. “I don’t think so. I could kill you right now.”

“Then you’d freeze to death. You need me to get you to Hibernaculum. You think this is the worst winter gets? This is just the beginning. Look at Throbb. He’s got frostbite. In a couple of nights he probably won’t be able to fly. Then he’ll lose his wing. You’ll get it too if you don’t hurry. You don’t have enough fur to protect you. You need a warm place for the winter. Fast. And you need me to help convince the Silverwings you’re their friend.”

Goth didn’t look amused anymore.

“So that’s the deal,” Shade told him. “I take you to Hibernaculum, and you take me to the jungle.”

The cannibal bat was silent a moment. Then he nodded.

“You have a deal, little bat.”

Maybe he’d underestimated Shade.

From the corner of his eye, Goth watched the little bat in flight. There certainly wasn’t much to him now, but that could be changed … with meat he would grow.

Shade was right. He did need him. If they didn’t reach Hibernaculum soon, Throbb would certainly die. Not that Goth cared about that feeble, flying carcass. But even he was starting to feel an unpleasant numbness in his wing tips. He needed warmth.

And Shade might be more use to him alive than dead. Maybe he could help him convince the Silverwings to come down to the jungle. He’d make it worth Shade’s while. He could give him special privileges. And he’d certainly be a more useful companion than Throbb. He was sharp-witted, this runt. He might not be much of a fighter, yet, but there was intelligence, and hunger, in his eyes. He did want power, and Goth had to respect that.

Was he really willing to sacrifice his own kind, and Marina too? At first he’d been doubtful, but after a while, he began to believe Shade was telling the truth. The little runt was smart, after all.

He’d seen the truth.

“That’s it,” Shade said suddenly to Goth. “The last landmark.” He pointed with his wing tip toward a tall hill on the western horizon.

Goth looked. “You never said anything about a hill.”

“But I knew I’d remember when I saw it. I just forgot that part of my mother’s map. We leave the river and go over the big hill, and it shouldn’t be much farther than that. Don’t think so, anyway.”

He judged the distance in his head. He felt sick. Another night’s flight, maybe two, would bring them to that hill.

“Good,” said Goth. “This way!” he shouted to Throbb and Marina. “Shade’s decided to cooperate after all.”

Marina shot a look back at him over her wing. He met her eyes for only a moment, long enough to see the disgust in them. Then he had to look away.

“It’s getting brighter,” Goth said. “We’ll feed here and find a roost for the day. Stay in the clearing where we can see you.”

Shade fluttered cautiously down to the treetops. They hadn’t encountered any owls or other birds lately, but he still kept a sharp eye and ear out for them.

“What’re you doing?” Marina hissed, darting in front of him.

“What does it matter,” he said coldly.

He could see Goth circling low overhead, watching, and he knew how good his hearing was.

“You’re not really leading them to Hibernaculum.”

He said nothing.

“Tell me if you are, because I’ll make a break for it on my own.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“No?”

“They’ll catch you.”

“How could you do this? To your own colony? To me?”

He looked at her hard, wanting to speak more than anything. But he couldn’t. She flew away from him, to feed by herself.

His heart felt heavy as stone. He ate without even noticing, searching in the places Marina had taught him. He fluttered past a bush, looking for cocoons, and that’s when he saw the leaves. He stared at them for a long time. Something familiar about them. Yes, he recognized the shape, the dark-veined texture. But where …?

In the cathedral spire.

Zephyr had mulched that leaf up and drizzled it into his mouth. The leaf that had made him sleep.

Shade almost whimpered in gratitude.

He looked carefully up at Goth and Throbb. They had settled on a treetop to watch over him and Marina. Shade landed on the bush, still in plain view. He found a sac of cricket eggs and ate it hungrily. While chewing, he slowly reached over with one claw and tore a dark-veined leaf off its twig. Slowly he crumpled it deep under his wing, in a fold tight against his body.

He glanced up at the two cannibals. They didn’t seem to have noticed. Goth was preening himself, preparing for a hunt.

Shade flew from the bush and continued feeding.

Goth brought a bat back to the cave and tore into it hungrily. His stomach churning, Shade saw that it was a Brightwing. Marina stared hard at the two cannibals, eyes blazing.

“Be grateful I found this straggler,” Goth told her, “or it might be you getting eaten right now.”

Shade took a slow, deep breath. “I’d like some.”

Goth and Throbb looked over at him.

“Oh, ho!” crowed Goth. “The little one has developed an appetite for meat after all.”

“There’s not enough for him tonight,” said Throbb. “Let him catch his own meat.”

“Don’t be so ungenerous, Throbb,” said Goth. “We have a convert of Zotz in our midst.”

From the corner of his eye Shade caught Marina staring at him in disbelief.

“Go ahead, have your fill,” said Goth.

Shade slowly stepped toward the carcass, willing himself not to lose courage at the last moment. He turned his back to Goth and Throbb as he bent over the half-devoured bat. He didn’t want them to see his face.

Over the last few minutes he’d been chewing the leaf, so slowly nobody had noticed. He’d been extremely careful. He hadn’t swallowed so much as a single drop. He held it in one pouch of his mouth, ground up and mixed with his saliva into a clear potion.

Now, leaning over the body of the bat, he pretended to eat, dipping his teeth down. But he didn’t eat, he simply let the leaf’s liquid dribble silently over the carcass. A bit here, a bit there. He was lucky the liquid had no smell, and not much of a taste either—nothing to alert the two cannibals to its presence.

“He’s hardly eating at all!” whined Throbb, lurching closer to see what Shade was doing.

Quickly Shade closed his mouth.

“Eat!” growled Goth, batting him with an outstretched wing. “You said you wanted to eat. So eat!”

Shade still had a bit of the potion in his mouth. There was no getting around it now. He had to eat some of the bat. His stomach lurched as he bent down and took a delicate bite, letting the last of the liquid flow out of his mouth at the same moment.

The taste of the meat brought water to his eyes. He tried not to touch it with his tongue, or let it remain too long in his mouth. He swallowed, almost choking, revolted and horribly ashamed. He felt as if he’d done something unspeakably evil. He couldn’t stop the tears from streaming over his nose and fur.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Goth. “You’ll soon get so that you can hardly wait to kill again.”

Throbb roughly shoved Shade out of the way and began feeding on the carcass. Shade crawled slowly back toward Marina, but she moved away from him, just staring at him with a look of utter hatred.

“Traitor,” she said, and turned her back on him. “I wish I’d never met you.”

Sunlight burned outside the cave.

Tentatively, Shade shifted his body, just a little to see if Goth would notice. The cannibal’s heavy breathing continued undisturbed. Slowly, Shade eased his shoulders out from beneath Goth’s wing. Then his chest, and his own wings, pulled in as tight as he could manage. He was halfway out when Goth twitched. His broad wing contracted, dragging Shade in closer toward his rank, damp body.

Shade forced himself to go limp, waiting fearfully for a few moments. But Goth did not wake. He ground his teeth together in his sleep, a string of saliva dripping from his open mouth. Shade looked away in disgust and began to slide his body
forward again. Almost there, almost there, just his tail and hind legs to get clear.

One of his wings knocked against Goth’s forearm, jangling two of the metal bands against one another. It produced a clear chiming.

“Shade,” Goth said.

Shade froze in horror, then slowly turned his head. One of Goth’s eyes was wide open, staring straight at him. But he wasn’t moving. His eye was dead, unfocused.

He’s still asleep, thought Shade.

They continued to stare at each other, Shade motionless, waiting to see what would happen next.

“Go to sleep,” Shade said softly.

And as if on cue, Goth’s eye dropped shut and his breathing returned to normal.

With a slow forward pull of his shoulders, Shade wriggled clear of Goth’s wing. He crept forward to where Throbb was sleeping his drugged sleep, his ugly head drooped awkwardly to one side. Carefully he lifted a flap of his right wing and poked Marina’s head gently with his nose.

“Shhhhh,” he said softly when she stirred and opened her eyes. “Not a sound.”

She stared at him with the same cold loathing as last night, and he suddenly worried she might say something, make a sudden noise that would undo all he’d worked for.

“Trust me,” was all he could say, in a whisper.

He helped her clear of Throbb’s wing and they both crawled silently toward the cave opening. They squinted out into the light of day.

“Close your eyes,” he told her.

They closed their eyes, opened their wings, and flew.

They closed their eyes, opened their wings, and flew.