Silverwing (5 page)

After a brief pause his mother said, “And what did you hear?”

“The old stories. The Great Battle of the Birds and the Beasts. I heard about the Promise too.”

“Not many bats pay attention to those stories nowadays.”

“My father did, though, didn’t he.”

“I suppose Frieda told you.” There was annoyance in her voice, and then she gave a small resigned sigh. “She has her reasons, I’m sure. But all I know is that wanting to see the sun gets bats killed. Maybe the stories are true, who knows. Maybe we once flew in the light of day and didn’t fear any creature. But now we live in the night, and we’ve lived in the night for millions of years, and is it really so bad? It’s certainly not worth dying for.”

“But it’s not right,” he said doggedly. “We shouldn’t be banished. We didn’t do anything. And what the owls do—”

“Shade, it’s the way things are.”

“But what about the Promise? My father thought it had something to do with the bands.”

“Well, Cassiel always had unusual ideas. And after he got
banded he became more convinced the Promise was about to come true. It was a sign, he thought.”

“What was he looking for when he got killed?”

“Wouldn’t tell me. He was very excited and said he had to go and check something. But he promised he’d be back in two nights. Maybe he was meeting with other bats. Maybe he was trying to find the Humans who banded him, I don’t know. After two nights the whole colony left Hibernaculum on the summer migration. I stayed behind another night, and then one more, just in case. And then I knew the owls must have taken him. So I left and caught up with the others.”

Shade didn’t say anything. For the first time he could see how terrible it must have been for her. Waiting alone for her mate. Having to give up and rejoin the colony, knowing she would never see him again.

“Frieda said there’re others who were banded.”

Ariel nodded. “And most of them disappeared too, before Cassiel. There’re not many left, a few of the males.”

“Maybe they know where he went that night.”

She gazed at him fiercely. “It doesn’t matter, Shade. Listen to me. I want you to live. When everyone said you would die, and you were too small, I didn’t give up. It’s a miracle you survived, it really is.”

She looked so tired suddenly that Shade pushed his face gently against her fur. He didn’t want her to worry. “Sorry,” he said.

“Are you scared about the journey south?”

He couldn’t remember ever telling her he was, but she seemed to know anyway.

“A little I guess.”

“You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time. And Frieda makes sure no one ever falls too far behind.”

“What if I do, though?”

“Do you want me to tell you about the route we’ll take?”

Shade nodded. It seemed like a good idea. Just in case.

“I can’t tell you all of it. It would take too long. But I can describe some of the landmarks. Close your eyes and concentrate.”

Ariel pressed her forehead against his and began to sing. A brilliant silvery landscape flared up from the darkness: a forest, a clearing, and a high oak rising up, spreading branches. It was Tree Haven.

“You can do it too!” Shade exclaimed, pulling back. “It’s just like the echo chamber!”

“I’ll teach you how to do it one day. Listen.”

She began again, and Shade, eyes clamped tight, watched as his beloved Tree Haven, looking as it did before the owls burned it, became smaller and smaller, fading in the distance, as if he was flying away from it.

Now the magical landscape was changing, dissolving like a thousand pinpricks of light, and suddenly re-forming. He was skimming high over treetops, and then he spotted the barn below, the barn where they were now roosting.

He soared past it, as if he were traveling a million wingbeats a second until, up ahead, he saw a huge Human tower, taller than any tree. What was it? As he hurtled closer, the top of this great tower flashed, and just as quickly blinked out.

He was about to ask his mother what this was, but he was already racing past the tower, and could see that it rose from a rocky clearing on the edge of the water. But this wasn’t like the stream where they drank. This black water spread out and out away from the land until it met the night sky in a flat, dreadful line.

“Mom, what is that place?”

“Shade, just listen.”

He veered away from the tower, following the bony ridge where the earth met the water, traveling so quickly he felt breathless, as if he really were pounding his wings to keep up.

Then, before him: an upside-down constellation of stars, bigger and denser than the stars themselves, spreading out in all directions.

Then: a metal cross, and the stars swirling around it, and a hollow clanging,
bong, bong, bong,
which made his ears twitch.

And now: one star in the sky, glowing more brightly than the others.

Now: the ears of a giant white wolf, and ice everywhere.

And: a broad torrent of water, crashing, roaring, sending up a spray.

Then his mind went dark with silence. His eyes popped open and he gazed at his mother in wonder.

“Did you see it all?” she asked.

“I think so, but there were things I didn’t understand. What was that big tall tower and—”

“I’ll explain tomorrow night,” she said. “The best thing is just to remember the pictures and sounds I sang to you. They’re the most important landmarks on the journey. We should get some sleep. We’ll reach Stone Hold tomorrow. You’ll get to meet your brothers.”

Shade grunted. They’d think he was a runt, probably.

Pressed close against his mother, he wrapped his wings tight around his body, folded his tall ears under for extra warmth. It was colder here than in Tree Haven, and he shivered a few times before warming up. He heard his mother’s breathing become soft and slow, and still his mind was busily churning.

There was no point just feeling sorry for what had happened. That wouldn’t bring his father back or bring back Tree Haven
or stop the owls from hunting them. He would have to do something.

And in the calm floating moments before sleep finally took him, he understood what he must do. At Stone Hold he would meet the other banded bats who knew his father. He would talk to them, get them to tell him what they knew, what really happened to Cassiel. He would find out what the bands meant. Maybe it would mean going to the place where the other bats had disappeared. But he would learn the secret of the Promise. And then he would bring his colony the greatest gift of all.

He would bring them the sun.

There was fog as they set out the next night, blanketing the valleys, sifting through the treetops. A sharp wind whistled past Shade’s ears and he shivered, his fur beaded with mist.

But he felt strangely invigorated. By dawn he’d be at Stone Hold with the rest of the Silverwings—and the banded males who had known his father. And he had his plan: It was there when he awoke, something fine and solid, like a full stomach. He wouldn’t tell his mother, it would just make her worry, and she’d worried enough about him already. Frieda he might tell later, in secret. He knew she would help him.

This evening, before leaving the barn, she’d come to talk to him and his mother. Right in front of everyone. Shade had felt awkward and proud. Here he was, the runty bat Frieda had sacrificed Tree Haven for. He was important, in a way he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Everyone still seemed to be keeping their distance from him. But a few of the newborns said shy hellos to him, before being hurried away by their mothers. From them he got a few curt nods, better than nothing anyway. Maybe they
wouldn’t hate him forever. Only Bathsheba fixed him with a hard stare as they left the barn, a look that flooded his heart with anger and guilt.

He gazed down now at the strange, ghostly landscape. They were flying above the tree line, and through the splinters of mist, he saw new forests, meadows, streams. Human roads cut through the hills, and one of their noisy vehicles rushed along, shooting out beams of light. A harsh stinging smell rose behind it, and Shade sneezed. He’d seen some of their buildings earlier too, clustered together in clearings, smoke lifting from the roofs.

“Cold?” his mother asked him.

“I’m fine.” He wished she’d stop asking. He was determined to prove himself. Even though he was a runt, he’d show the whole colony he wasn’t a weakling. He wouldn’t ever fall behind and slow everyone down. In fact, he’d do better than that. He’d stay in the front ranks the whole journey, right up there with Frieda and the other elders. He could see Chinook up ahead now, beating his strong wings.

A brisk pungent smell, unlike anything he knew, hit Shade’s nostrils. Almost at the same moment, he heard a new sound: It had a deep throbbing rhythm, like some powerful animal, slowly exhaling, breathing in, exhaling again. He looked over at Ariel.

“I’ll show you,” she said.

She angled her wings and flew higher. Shade followed, and then gasped in wonder. Through the mist he could see the forest end in a ragged line, and give way to mottled darkness, stretching out forever. It was the edge of the world.

Instantly, he remembered his mother’s sound map.

“That’s all water?” he whispered.

“The ocean.”

“There’s sure a lot of it.”

“It’s not like the water in the stream. I took a drink from it once. It tastes salty.”

Closer to the land, the water heaved up in huge black and white paws, crashing against the rocks.

“We’re not flying over it, are we?”

“No.”

Shade was relieved. Just looking at it made him feel very small, and strangely alone. There were no trees, no branches, no rocks or earth. Nothing solid. What if you had to land suddenly? He couldn’t swim very well yet, and he certainly didn’t want to try down there. He’d heard stories that Humans could float on the water in things called boats. But why would Humans want to do that? What was out there in the sea that could be of any interest to them?

As they flew back down to join the rest of the colony there was a sudden flash up ahead, and Shade immediately thought: lightning. But his mother nodded to a looming shadow on the horizon, hidden behind a band of fog.

“Recognize that?” she said.

The fog cleared, and Shade nodded excitedly. It was the strange high tower from his mother’s song, and he was amazed how well she’d described it. As if he’d been here before.

“What’s the light?”

“Don’t stare at the top,” she said. “It flashes every few seconds. It’s very bright.”

“I remember from your song. But what’s it for?”

“Frieda thinks Humans built it long ago to help their boats navigate. And that’s how we use it too.”

Shade closed his eyes and summoned up Ariel’s map. The tower, and then … a veering away, following a bony ridge of rock.

“We fly south along the coast, don’t we!” he said, understanding.

“That’s what the map means, right?”

“Good,” Ariel said. “We’ll always stay over land. It’s too dangerous over water. The winds are different.”

Frieda led them closer to the huge tower, so that Shade could make out its tapered stone sides, and then the bat elder banked sharply to the south, and the whole colony turned with her, riding the wind above the rocky coast.

The rain started suddenly. Not the gentle drops Shade knew from summer showers, but icy driving needles. They dazzled Shade’s echo vision, flaring in his mind’s eye like shooting stars. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

“Don’t let it throw you off,” Ariel told him. “Stick close to me. Feels like a storm coming.”

As if on cue, wind tore at his body. He tensed the small bundles of muscle along his wings, trying to keep them taut so he wouldn’t get blown off course. Still, the wind buffeted him from side to side, knocking him higher, batting him back down.

“Down to the trees! Down to the trees!” came Frieda’s cry, and it was echoed by the other bats. “We’ll wait out the storm! Down to the trees!”

The wind screamed around them, and Shade lurched.

“Cling to me, Shade,” his mother called out. “It’s too rough.”

“No!” he snapped. He could still see Chinook up ahead, looking at him over his wing. Shade would not, could not, sink his claws into his mother’s fur and cling to her while she flew for both of them. Like he was just a furless pup again. He was special, Frieda had said so. He would land on his own, like Chinook, like the other newborns.

“Shade!” his mother called to him again. “Come here!”

But he intentionally veered away from her, rocking crazily through the rain. He angled his wings to descend.

“I’m fine!” he shouted out.

A savage gust of wind knocked him over onto his back, and his wings buckled.

“Shade!”

“Mom, help!” The wind whipped the words from his mouth. He struggled to right himself, his sodden wings plastered uselessly against his body. Tumbling, he was swallowed up in a bank of fog, unable to see. He had no idea where he was, how high he was off the ground. For a split second the fog opened and he caught a glimpse of his mother and the other bats—so far away,
how had they gotten so far away?—and then the fog closed up and he was tumbling again.

Rallying what remained of his strength, he pounded the air and made one last lurching turn back toward the boat.

At last there was a lull and Shade unfurled his wings. He streamed out from a bank of fog and cried out in dismay.

He was over the ocean.

He wheeled, trying to catch sight of land. But it was lost in the rain and fog. Which way? The stars overhead were blotted out. Another treacherous gust of wind broadsided him, forcing him down. He arched his wings, trying to rise, but he was so exhausted he could barely beat them.

He saw the huge expanse of water below, churning white and black like a million hungry animal tongues. If he hit … Again he wrenched his shoulders up, trying to ride higher. But the wind would not let him.

A glimmer of light caught his eye. It twinkled out, came back. Just rain? No, it was coming from something on the water, roughly riding the waves—a boat, it must be a Human’s boat. Huge white sails billowed from tall masts.

He trimmed his wings and aimed himself at the boat. The wind shunted him wildly to one side and he soared clear past. Rallying what remained of his strength, he pounded the air and made one last lurching turn back toward the boat. If he missed again he’d be too low for another try.

The boat was dead ahead now, swinging wildly on the horizon. Closer, closer, wings tensed, he neared the tallest mast at breakneck speed, the wind at his tail. He pulled back, braking sharply, claws outstretched.

The sail was thicker than expected, and he almost lost his grip. He sank his claws deeper into the fabric. The sail snapped with the wind, nearly throwing him off.

Inch by inch, Shade crawled toward the mast and into a tight fold. Sheltered from the wind and rain, he wrapped his wings around his shaking body, and tried to calm the sickness in his stomach. And stop the voice in his head, which kept asking over and over: How are you going to get back? How are you ever going to find them now?

Shade woke with a start.

The boat’s violent pitching had given way to a gentle rocking. His whole body ached. Cautiously he pushed his head out from
the sail. The sky was still dark, the stars bright, and with huge relief he saw land—a small bay with a few wooden buildings on the rocky slopes.

The boat had brought him back to land!

Maybe his mother and the rest of the colony weren’t far away. He flew from the mast, circling, trying to get his bearings. He didn’t know if he’d passed this place earlier—they’d flown over a lot of small bays, but they were all veiled in fog, he didn’t remember what they looked like.

“Mom?” he cried out hopefully. “Mom?”

His voice echoed back to him from the steep slopes.

He flew inland, eager to get away from the water, and the overpowering briny smell, which he thought must be fish. He soared over the hill, above the tree line, hoping for landmarks. The Humans’ tower, maybe he would see that. Nothing but unfamiliar forest stretched out around him.

“Hello?” he called again, with mounting panic.

It was eerily quiet. Maybe if he went lower. He darted down, using his sound sight to steer between silver branches. A squirrel, storing nuts in the crotch of a tree. Silent nests, and sleeping birds, their feet locked around their perches. The whistle of the wind in the dead leaves. In the distance a grunting chorus of toads. But no sign of bats.

He landed on a branch, breathless. Think, he told himself. Think it out. The boat had taken him back to land. But where? Judging from the brightness of the sky, he guessed it was close to dawn. And the storm had hit around midnight. That meant he’d been on the boat for about six hours. How fast did a boat go? He didn’t know. What direction was it going? As if he’d had time to notice. Maybe north, maybe south.

He didn’t know much about star mapping. Enough to know
north and south. He could fly south, and try to catch up with the colony. But what if they’d changed course, gone inland, and he missed them altogether? Or what if the boat had already taken him farther south than the colony? Well, what about north then? Same problem.

This wasn’t helping.

Should he just wait here, hoping his mother would come looking for him? But maybe they’d already looked, and just given him up for dead. They’d seen him get blown over the ocean. Well, he could try to find his way back to Tree Haven and—but with a sickening jolt he remembered the burning ruins he’d left behind. Anyway, his mother had told him it was too cold to spend the winter there. He’d freeze to death.
You can’t just sit here. Find a way.
He was wasting time.

Wingbeats.

His ears flared. By the rhythm he could tell it wasn’t a bird’s, and definitely not an owl’s. It had to be a bat.

“Hey! Stop!” he cried out, launching himself in the direction of the wingbeats. He threw sound, thought he caught a bright flash of movement, then it disappeared in the foliage. He flew after it, senses straining.

“Come back!” he shouted angrily.

It was gone. He circled for another minute, and then, exhausted, hung from a branch among bright autumn leaves. It was too disappointing. Tears stung his eyes.

“What’re you doing here?”

Shade nearly jumped out of his fur. The voice came from the bright curled leaf next to him. He scrabbled away down the branch and peered at it warily, ready to fly. He could see that this talking leaf was much fatter, certainly, than the other leaves, and it actually seemed to be furry in places. He looked for the
stem and saw there were actually two, each with a set of five sharp claws.

“You’re a bat!” Shade exclaimed.

“You’re a genius—of course I’m a bat,” came the voice again. The bat shimmered and slowly unwrapped herself. Long wings unfurled, and gave a quick, invigorating shake. Then the wings folded back against bright luxurious fur. Shade could now see her upside-down head. She had a neat pointy nose and elegant shell-shaped ears stuck close to her head. She was young too, though not quite as young as him. Dark eyes met his.

“A Silverwing,” she said. “I thought so.”

Shade stared. He’d never seen a bat with fur that wasn’t the same color as his.

“I’m a Brightwing,” she said testily. “Not all bats are the same, you know. I guess you’re too little to know that.”

Shade bristled, but said nothing.

“I’m Marina.”

“Shade.”

“So, what
are
you doing here?” she asked again.

“We were heading south down the coast—”

“You and your colony.”

“Right, and we got caught in that big storm, and I was blown out to sea.”