Silverwing (18 page)

Even with his eyes squeezed shut, an angry glow seeped painfully around the edges, dimming his sound sight. With Marina beside him, he circled quickly, taking his bearings from the treetops. Then he flew headlong, back the way they’d come the night before. He wanted to get as far away from Goth and Throbb as he could before they woke from their drugged sleep.

He was in the sun. In the light of day. No bat had been here for millions of years.

He could feel the heat of it on his wings, the fur of his back, and even in the cold winter day, it still felt glorious. It felt like victory.

“Why didn’t they wake up?” Marina asked.

“I drugged them.”

He quickly told her about the leaf, and how he had to pretend to eat the bat. And then he went farther back, and told her about his plan. How he wanted to make Goth trust him, and then lead them west, away from Hibernaculum, in the hopes the cannibals
would freeze to death, or become so weak he and Marina could escape and outfly them.

“Oh, Shade,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I know. I wanted it to be convincing, that’s all.” He faltered. “You don’t hate me, do you?” Those looks she’d given him were hard to forget.

“Of course I don’t hate you! You’ve saved us!”

“Not yet.”

He had no stars to guide him. He hoped he could remember their route; last night, as he’d veered away from the river, he’d been trying to find landmarks that he could lodge in his memory.

“Will it hurt us?” she asked. “The sun.”

“Hasn’t turned us to dust yet.”

“But will it blind us?”

“I don’t think so. Those were just stories they told newborns. But it might be too much at first. Take it slowly. And never look right at it.”

Gradually as he flew, he’d been letting his eyelids loosen, rising up bit by bit. The urge to open them was far greater than he’d imagined. He wanted so urgently to see the light of day in all its glory.

He cracked his eyes open just a little more and—

He heard Marina’s gasp of wonder.

“You see it?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

It was the same world he’d beheld his whole life at night, but now, under the sun’s glow, it was transformed. Strangely, it was not as sharp and clear as he’d imagined. The sunlight seemed to haze things over, where his echo vision had always given him the cleanest of images. But there was a dazzling beauty to this new world. Everything seemed lit from all sides, the trees, the
bushes, the dead leaves, the snow, even the air. It had a depth and texture he’d never imagined. He’d never noticed the air before, how it absorbed the light. He could almost feel it with his eyes. Everything shone.

The world was beautiful, but painful. His eyes weren’t ready for any more. He left them open just a crack.

“Let’s go higher,” he said. He wanted to get away from those trees, high into the sky where there’d be fewer birds. For all he knew, a sharp-eyed crow was watching from below. They wouldn’t have much warning if one struck.

At night, his black wings and body made him blend in; now they made him an easy target. Marina was a little better off, with her bright, pale fur.

It was getting darker, big clouds scudding across the sun. And there was a wind too, with the unmistakable smell of lightning in it.

“Storm coming,” said Marina.

Asleep in the cave, Goth curled his wings against his body. His nose twitched. Something was wrong. He extended his wing, tapping it along the ground. He grunted and, with great effort, slowly raised his heavy eyelids. Shade was gone.

“Throbb,” he moaned, his throat clogged with sleep. He coughed, rousing himself. “Throbb!”

Throbb slept on, oblivious.

Furious, Goth staggered up and lunged across the cave, ramming Throbb with his snout, tipping his wings to peer beneath them.

“What?” cried Throbb in alarm.

“They’re gone!”

“It’s still day,” said Throbb, squinting out the cave opening. “They can’t be—”

“They’re gone!” Goth roared again. He sniffed the ground for their scents. “But not long ago. Get up.”

“Into the light?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s not safe.”

With a quick twist, Goth fastened his jaws around Throbb’s wing, letting his sharp teeth bounce up and down on the blisters. Throbb yowled.

“The winter’s not safe,” hissed Goth. “And if we don’t find that cave of theirs, we’ll freeze to death! And you’ll go first.”

“All right, yes,” whimpered Throbb.

They lurched to the cave opening, and launched themselves into the day.

The wind came up behind them like a demon, but Shade was glad. It meant there would be fewer birds out. And most important, they were being blasted farther and farther away from the cannibal bats. He could tell by the change in temperature and light that the sky was sealed tight with clouds. Already it was hard to steer, and Shade wondered how long they could fly before taking shelter. Below, the ground swept past with alarming speed and he felt barely in control of his wings.

“How’re you doing?” Marina shouted above the wind.

“Scared,” he said bluntly.

“Me too.”

“We should be back to the river soon.” If I haven’t made a mistake, he thought worriedly. He thought he’d picked out some familiar landmarks, but there were stretches of ground that
seemed totally new to him. But a few thousand wingbeats later, the stretch of trees was broken by the winding line of the river.

“There it is!” Shade shouted excitedly.

And there was an owl, rising from the trees directly in front of them.

“Lawbreakers!” shrieked the owl.

He was being blown straight toward it, they both were, and Shade knew they wouldn’t escape its claws. No time to veer off, no time to climb higher. And in that endless split second, he remembered the tiger moth he’d hunted so long ago at Tree Haven, how slow and helpless it seemed, but …

He didn’t even know if it would work.

But it was his only chance.

He closed his eyes and sang a sound picture at the owl. He drew a dozen different bats in the air around them, some soaring higher, some rolling to the side, others plunging to the ground.

He saw the owl hesitate. Where were the real bats? It was working! He’d thrown it off. But the owl shook its head and its horrible eyes looked straight at them, claws ready to grab and tear.

Shade tried once more. Crying out, he shot out an echo picture of Goth, three-foot wings spread, claws extended, jaws screeching open …

The owl caught the picture and bellowed in terror, plummeting back down to the trees, not even daring to look back.

“What’d you do?” Marina exclaimed.

“A little trick I learned from a tiger moth,” he said cockily. “I’ll teach it to you sometime.”

A faint metallic tinkle reached his ears, and then dissolved. His whole body tensed. He held his breath, hoping he’d imagined it, hoping for silence.

“Did you hear that?” Marina asked.

Shade’s heart pumped furiously. He craned his neck around, strained with his eyes, but saw only a black wrinkle in the distance, then nothing, then two wrinkles, gone again. But he heard, clearer now, the familiar metallic whistle, riding on the wind.

“How far are they?” Marina said.

“Can’t tell. But how’d they know which way we went?”

“They’re not stupid. In a wind like this, there’s only one way we
could
go.”

“Should’ve chewed up more leaves!” he raged. “Why didn’t I? It would’ve been so easy. There was a whole bush, I could’ve—”

“Shade,” Marina said. “Up there.”

Boiling up on the horizon was a towering thunderhead.

“We’ll lose them in that,” she said.

He broke through the cloud’s underbelly and was tossed around like a leaf. Inside, he was nearly deafened by his own echoes, bouncing back at him from all sides. It was like being inside a tiny cave. His sound sight was useless. It wasn’t much better than flying blind. He crashed on through the walls of the cloud, unable to see more than a few feet in front of his nose.

“Marina!” he called out, and his own voice echoed dully.

From out of the mist she streamed alongside him.

“I can’t see a thing,” she said.

“They won’t either,” said Shade. “Let’s try to break through the top. Then we can circle back, drop below the cloud, and find the river again.”

Together they spiraled clumsily higher through the inside of the thunderhead. They kept losing sight of each other in hills and valleys of black mist. It was getting darker inside, the air almost too thick to breathe.

“Does your fur feel funny?” Marina whispered.

Shade glanced at his chest. The hairs were tingling, standing up on end.

“What’s it mean?” he asked.

The air suddenly smelled different, metallic. The inside of the thunderhead was lit up with a flash of lightning, blinding them for a moment. A clap of thunder knocked the wind out of Shade’s chest.

“We’d better break through the top soon,” he wheezed, “or we’re going to get struck!”

They tilted their wings, flapped harder, and a pair of huge jaws thrust out of the wall of mist before them. Shade rolled to one side as Goth lunged, snapping, but missing them both. Goth banked sharply, spinning himself around for a second pass.

Shade streaked blind through the thunderhead, not knowing where he was going, or where Marina was now. Through a veil of cloud he saw a darkening shadow, growing larger, heading straight toward him. He dove but not fast enough. Throbb burst upon him, raking at his tail with his claws, and hauling him backward through the air.

Shade heard Throbb’s jaws snap open, ready to take a bite, and he slammed his wings straight up, braking, and flipping backward over the cannibal bat. As he rolled, he took a swipe at Throbb’s wounded wing, dragging his claws deep.

Throbb howled, and snapped his wing tight to his body, careening out of sight.

Shade hovered for a moment, trying to gather his wits. Go to the top, his instincts told him. That’s where we were headed. Marina would go there too.

All at once the air stung his nostrils, his fur stood on end, and he shut his eyes just in time. The lightning bolt shot past him, so close he could feel its tremendous heat; then thunder hard on its heels, blinding him in both ears.

He could barely see, barely hear, and he was flying with all the speed he could muster. All he knew was the difference between up and down. For a moment he thought he’d broken clear, but it was just a weird bubble within the thunderhead, like a magical cavern floating in the sky.

A horrible cry pierced the cloud.

“Marina!” he shouted in panic. He was sure it was her. “Marina! Where are you?”

Goth plunged down on him, snatching him up in one of his claws, and piercing his wing in two places. But the cry of pain died in his throat when he saw the glinting, bloody object between Goth’s teeth.

Marina’s band.

Enraged, he tried to claw at Goth’s eyes, but the cannibal bat held him away from his body, a harmless runt.

“Throbb,” he called out, “we’ve got our guide back.” He looked back at Shade. “Here’s the new deal. You take us to Hibernaculum right now, or I’ll rip your insides out.”

Goth suddenly reeled over onto his back, slammed by Marina’s bright body.

“Come on!” she yelled at Shade.

He twisted free of Goth’s grip and raced toward her. Her forearm was bleeding badly. But before they could dive into the sea of cloud, Throbb swung in from the side, blocking their escape. Shade pulled back with Marina, hovering wildly, as Goth and Throbb closed in from either side, wings wide open to catch them.

The air tingled again, Shade’s fur snapping up from his body. The metallic smell was almost overwhelming this time, and it seemed to be coming from Goth and Throbb. His eyes locked onto the metal bands that festooned their bodies. From the black cloud above, a whisker-thin filament of light jumped down and
lightly touched one of bands around Throbb’s forearm. The light flicked from side to side playfully.

Then Goth was falling, spinning lifelessly down, his wings burning.

“Get back!” he shouted to Marina, closing his eyes tightly.

The lightning struck in two forks, and Shade watched with his echo vision as Throbb was turned to ashes in a split second. Goth seemed to swell to twice his normal size as the fork hit him, all his fur leaping up from his body, his wings rigid at his sides, stretching, stretching. And the smell, the most terrible smell of burning fur and flesh.

Then Goth was falling, spinning lifelessly down, his wings burning. He was blown off to one side and swallowed up in the tumultuous darkness of the thunderhead.

“The lightning—it must have been the metal bands! It hit the bands first!”

“I saw it,” Marina panted. “Lucky Goth took mine.”

He looked at her bloodied forearm with concern.

“It’s okay, it’s not broken,” she said.

Together they glided slowly down through the clouds. Shade winced as air whistled painfully through the gashes Goth had left in his wings. They were free! They plunged through the bottom of the thunderhead and back into the open air.