Silverwing (4 page)

“Did the Humans give bands to anyone else?”

“Not for a long time—so long I began to wonder if they meant anything at all. But two winters ago, yes, they came again, and banded some males.”

“My father,” said Shade instinctively.

“Ariel told you, did she?”

“No. She doesn’t talk about him much.”

Frieda nodded. “We used to tell all the newborns these stories, the ones you’ve just heard. That was years ago. But most of the elders thought we should stop. It was no use thinking about the Promise, they said, something that might never come. That’s how Bathsheba thinks. They didn’t want any more bloodshed. About fifteen years before you were born a rebellion sprung up, but the bats didn’t stand a chance against the owls. They fought anyway. We fought, I should say.”

“You did?” Shade said, gazing again at the scars on Frieda’s body.

“I was lucky to escape with my life. After that, the elders wanted to just stay in the night, and forget they’d ever had the freedom to fly in the day. Most bats think they’re right, and I can’t fault them for it. It makes sense. But for some bats, they
just can’t let go of that idea of the sun, of freedom. I’m like that. And your father was too.”

“Mom said he was killed by owls.”

“He flew off somewhere just a few nights before we started our journey back north. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, at least I never heard of it. Maybe he told one of the others. All I know was there was something he wanted to find out, about the bands, about the Humans, maybe. And he never did come back. There were a couple others before him who disappeared too.”

“Mom just said he was foolish for wanting to see the sun.”

“I know that she never agreed with his views. And she wants to protect you, Shade. She might not have told you the whole truth, but I suspect there’s a lot Cassiel never told her either. Try not to be angry with her.”

“We should fight them,” Shade said with a cold, sudden fury. How could the other Silverwings be so feeble? Letting the owls and the other birds and beasts tell them what to do for millions of years. What right did they have? “If all the bats would fight then we could—”

But Frieda was shaking her head. “No, not even your father thought that, Shade. He knew we couldn’t win in battle, that was obvious. He thought there was something else coming, something we needed.”

Shade looked away, ashamed at his outburst. He felt immensely tired, as if he’d lived through all the stories in the echo chamber.

“Why did you show me all this?” he asked. What was the point? he wondered. There was nothing he could do to change the past, bring his father back, or even change the future. He was a newborn runt in a Silverwing colony in the middle of nowhere.

Frieda smiled at him, and he didn’t find the deep wrinkles in her face so frightening anymore. “You’re not like the others. I see
something in you, a kind of brightness I don’t want to be smothered. You’re curious. You want to know about things. I’ve been watching you. You’re a good listener too: You’ll hear things no one else can. And this is far more important than your size, Shade.”

He flushed at the compliment, and only wished he could believe it. He had so many more questions he wanted to ask, but there was a fluttering of wings outside the echo chamber and Shade heard Mercury’s voice.

“Frieda,” the messenger said urgently. “The owls are coming. And they have fire.”

Shade circled anxiously over the peak of Tree Haven with Frieda and Mercury, watching the owls soar toward them. They flew high up in the sky, thirty-five, maybe forty in an arrowhead formation, and the eerie silence of their powerful wingbeats made Shade feel sick. Clutched in their claws were long thin sticks, the ends glittering like dangerous stars. Fire. Shade stared in horror. Only the owls had fire. Hundreds of years ago they’d stolen some from Humans and kept it burning in secret nests deep in the forest.

“Mercury,” Frieda said with amazing calm, “go spread the news through the forest, and tell everyone to take cover there. Tell them there’s to be no fighting. Shade, go back inside and make sure everyone is out of the roost.”

He swallowed hard.

“Do you understand?” Frieda asked him.

“Yes.”

“You know what might happen?”

He nodded fiercely and flew off, grateful to have something to do. He dove back inside Tree Haven, crying out the warning.

“Clear the roost! Clear the roost!”

He poured all his energy into his task, trying not to think of the fire in the owls’ claws. He started at the bottom and worked his way up, darting through every twist and turn of the branches to make sure he didn’t miss anyone. “Clear the roost! Everyone out!” And all this because of him—his fault. Lucky that most everyone was out hunting; the bats still inside were old and frail, and he had to nudge some of them awake, and help them toward the exits, explaining hurriedly.

His fur was beaded with sweat when he flew back outside to join Frieda.

“Everyone’s out,” he panted.

“Good,” said Frieda, staring up at the owls. They were still high in the air, but directly overhead now, circling. One owl detached himself from the group, and began a slow descent. He was, Shade noticed, the only one who carried no fire in his claws.

“Go now,” Frieda told him, “and take cover in the forest with the others.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Talk to the owl.”

Shade hesitated. He wanted to stay. He wanted to help. One old bat against these flying giants …

“Maybe I should—”

“Go!” Frieda snapped, flaring her wings and baring surprisingly sharp teeth.

Shade went, but not far, only to the nearest tree. He sank his claws into the bark and hung upside down, looking back at Frieda and the huge owl, now settling beside her on Tree Haven’s peak.

“Brutus,” Frieda said with a respectful nod.

“Frieda Silverwing,” came the owl’s reply, so deep it was like a roll of thunder.

“You’ve brought soldiers and fire, Brutus. Why?”

“You know why. We’ve come for the bat who saw the sun.”

Shade felt the owl’s words shudder in his bones, and he held his breath, waiting for Frieda’s reply. She looked so small beside the owl.

“You cannot make war on us at night, Brutus. That is the law.”

Shade was aware of other Silverwings around him in the nearby trees, hanging behind leaves, hunched up on branches, pressing themselves into the bark. Hundreds of dark eyes, fearful and intent, watched Frieda and Brutus.

“The law has already been broken,” Brutus said. “We’re here for justice. I ask you again, and it will be the last time. Give us the boy.”

Shade felt his insides liquify.

“The boy is only a newborn, and he didn’t know any better,” Frieda said. “Surely you can overlook his foolishness this once.”

“The law makes no exceptions.”

“Let the owls take him!” It was Bathsheba, flying out from the forest and landing beside Frieda. “Brutus is right. The law has been broken and the boy must pay the price.”

Shade could sense the eyes of the other bats on him now, and he burned under their gaze, as if caught in the sun’s glare. Did they want him to give himself up? he wondered, a sick gnawing in his stomach. Was that it?

“You know I’m right, Frieda,” Bathsheba continued. “One life pays for the law—and protects us all. Where is the boy?”

Shade cast a hopeful net of sound and caught the telltale outline of his mother’s upside-down face and shoulders. She turned toward him and their eyes met through a weave of branches of leaves. He’d never felt so alone.

He looked back up at the owls. He knew what they would do
if he didn’t surrender. All the other bats thought he was a runt, a troublemaker, and now they would think he was a coward. It was his fault: What choice did he have? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, tensed, and prepared to take flight. Jaws clamped firmly around his rear legs, pulling him back, and he tumbled against Ariel’s warm fur.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed fiercely.

He hadn’t even heard her land.

“They’ve got fire,” he said. “If I don’t do it, they’ll—”

“They can take me instead.”

Shade shook his head in mute horror, and finally realized what danger they were in. The owls wanted a sacrifice, and the thought that it might be his mother … it was too terrifying, the idea of losing her. Forever, just like his father. He lunged toward her, digging his claws into her.

“Don’t!” he whispered fiercely.

“No!”

It was Frieda’s voice from the summit of Tree Haven, and both Shade and his mother turned to look. The elder’s wings were spread wide in anger, and she was rising up on her rear claws, teeth bared not at Brutus, but at Bathsheba.

“You forget yourself,” she scolded the other bat. “Until I die, I am the chief elder, not you. I am the colony’s voice, so hear it now. No one will take the boy, or anyone else.” She turned to Brutus. “That is my final reply to you.”

The owl’s huge eyes hooded. “Your choice is unwise.” He beat his wings and lifted from Tree Haven, swiveled his neck and shrieked up to his fellow owls in a language Shade could not understand. Then as Brutus flew higher, he shouted back at Frieda: “You’ve made your reply; here is ours.”

With a terrible shriek, forty owls plunged toward Tree Haven, fire burning in their claws. Shade saw Frieda and Bathsheba fling themselves clear as the owls hurled their sticks at the tree, flames leaping as they struck bark. It can’t burn, Shade thought desperately. It’s been hit by lightning and it can’t burn again. But it did. Sparks caught on the tree’s blackened armor, along the branches, up the trunk.

With a terrible shriek, forty owls plunged toward Tree Haven, fire burning in their claws.

He had to stop it. Before his mother could hold him back, he flung himself into the air and plunged toward a growing patch of flame. He battered it with spread wings, again and again, until it sputtered out. He could do this, he could put out the fires and save Tree Haven. He looked around frantically, and launched himself at another fire. From the corner of his eye he saw his mother and dozens of other bats surge from their hiding places in the forest and soar toward their beloved roost. His heart leaped.

“Put out the flames!” came the cry. “Stop the fire!”

But the owls were waiting for them, and beat them back with their wings as effortlessly as if they were drops of rain. They didn’t attack with their claws; their objective was only to keep the bats from the tree. Only a few made it through to fight the flames. Shade finished smothering another small fire, banked around the
thick trunk and nearly hit an owl. He veered away just in time. The owl hadn’t even noticed him. The giant bird was hovering, pumping his wings, looking for something.

Looking for an entrance.

There was fire in his claws. The owl found the knothole, too small for him to enter, but … With a jolt, Shade understood. The owl flew to the knothole and began pushing his fire stick through.

A terrible anger took hold of Shade, filling his head with black. He hurled himself at the burning stick, seizing it in his claws and teeth and trying to wrench it away from the owl. But it was no use. The owl twitched one wing and knocked Shade against the trunk. He was aware of falling in darkness, then a surprisingly gentle thud, and it was only intense heat that brought him around.

He opened his eyes and lurched back from the burning moss at the tree’s base. He smacked the fire with singed wings, but it didn’t die. The flames grew larger, hungrier, spitting sparks, which caught in his fur and burned his flesh.

“Shade, stop!” It was his mother, pulling him back.

“I’ve got to!”

“You can’t put it out.”

Still he struggled, even as she dragged him away through the pall of smoke and up into the air. He knew she was right. Tree Haven was a pillar of fire. And from the knotholes—those entranceways he’d always thought were so secret and safe—shot sharp tongues of flame. Tree Haven was burning inside and out. Bark crackled, ancient wood gasped. There would be no stopping it.

The owls were gone.

His body aching, Shade joined the listless throng of bats in the treetops. He wished he were blind, so he didn’t have to see their faces, the looks of shock and anger, or the way the mothers
pulled their wings tighter around their children, as if he might somehow hurt them, just by looking at them.

He stared, numb with disbelief and exhaustion, as the flames and thick smoke rose from their doomed home. All his fiery anger seeped out of him and was replaced by a slow, cold fury: This is what the owls did. They killed my father. And now they destroyed my home, our home.

“You’re lucky you didn’t lose a wing,” Ariel said beside him.

He grunted, not caring.

He noticed that the other bats were moving away from them, shuffling to other branches, fluttering silently to other trees. Hadn’t they seen him fighting the fire? He’d done his best to stop it!

“Silverwings!” It was Frieda, flying above them. “We must strike out for Stone Hold. If we start now we can make half the distance before dawn and find temporary roosts along the way.”

“You have betrayed us, Frieda!” cried Bathsheba, rising into the air and circling angrily. “Look at the ruins of our home. Silverwings, do you still choose Frieda as your leader? The great leader who has let your home burn to the ground! Speak!”

There were ragged mutterings of discontent through the crowd, though no voice was raised loud enough to stand out.

“My power is only good as long as you give it to me,” Frieda told them. “But let me say this. We have suffered a terrible loss tonight. We have lost Tree Haven, our nursery roost for hundreds of years. But no one was killed; we have not lost a single member of our colony. So I say this to you. We can replace our roost, but Ariel could not have replaced her son. All you mothers, who among you would have offered her child in exchange for Tree Haven? Who?”

A miserable silence hung over the assembled bats.

“If I have made the wrong choice, tell me now. But as long as I
am chief elder, I will never bargain a life, no matter how terrible the consequences. One life is more important than any roost. You have reason to be angry. Vent your anger at the owls who did this, not one of your own. Speak, anyone who thinks otherwise.”

Shade waited in agony as the silence stretched out.

“We have a long journey before us,” Frieda said. “To Stone Hold to join with the males—and then on to Hibernaculum.”

Slowly, but with grim determination, every bat of the Silverwing colony rose into the air, all the newborns and their mothers, the old and the young. Frieda took the lead with the other elders. She sang as she flew, a high piercing note to blaze their trail.

Shade flew alongside his mother. Never had he known the colony to be so gloomily quiet. He’d spent so much time anticipating the moment they would leave for Hibernaculum. It had both frightened and excited him. But now, he felt deadened, just concentrated on pumping his wings. Flight was a joyless thing to him.

He couldn’t stop himself from looking back, until all he could see was the glow of the flames, and the smudge of the smoke’s thicker darkness against the night.

By dawn, long after the Silverwings had left, Tree Haven was still burning. The great branches snapped and exploded, until finally, the tree toppled, heaving its roots up out of the earth and stone, and laying open the cave beneath. And if any bat had been within a thousand wingbeats, he would have heard a million faint voices, streaming up from the echo chamber, their stories released at last, and lost forever in the sky.

They found a deserted barn before sunrise. The rafters sagged, the roof and walls let in dusty shafts of daylight, and the smell of beasts and their droppings was still unpleasantly strong. But it seemed
safe, and free of bird’s nests. Hanging from the high rotting beams, exhausted, most of the bats plunged immediately into a deep sleep.

Shade pressed close against his mother. His breastbone still ached from the long flight. And whenever he shut his eyes, he saw Tree Haven burning. Ariel shifted and looked at him.

“It’s not your fault,” she said softly.

“No one’s going to talk to me the rest of my life.”

“They’ll get over it. They saw how brave you were. You tried to save the roost—which is more than most of the others. I’m very proud of you.”

Shade glowed silently with her praise.

“Frieda took me to the echo chamber,” he told her. It already seemed like such a long time ago.