Sunwing (15 page)

“The owls, I know, are claiming that you started this war by killing pigeons in the city, and then other birds through the northern forests, but I know that you are not responsible for this. I have seen the jungle bats who created the carnage—and I know they are no friends of yours, or any bird or beast, for that matter. But I fear the owls are simply using them as an excuse for war—if not this, it would be something else. Their quarrel goes back to the Great Battle of the Birds and the Beasts. But as I said, if it comes to war, we will fight for you beneath and above the earth, on the land, and in the trees.”

A huge cheer went up from the elders, one of delight and huge relief, and Marina could no longer restrain herself.

“King Romulus,” she said, “do you remember me?”

She saw the rat look up at her, and she dropped from her roost and fluttered down to him. She could hear the whispers of surprise from the other elders, and knew she was breaking some kind of rule about distance between different creatures. But she had been closer to rats than this. She settled respectfully at a distance on the ground, and saw Romulus smile.

“Here is a face I remember well,” he said. “You escaped, then!”

“Thanks to you.”

“But where is your friend, the Silverwing?”

“Well, that’s a big story.”

“Tell it, please.”

So Marina shyly told him about what had happened to her and Shade once they’d escaped from the sewers. The rat’s face was pained when she finished with Shade being chained with Human metal and taken away by one of their flying machines.

“We have seen this building, I think,” said Romulus, “though we have not dared to enter it. And I fear it is not the only one of its kind.”

Marina looked up at Frieda and Ariel in horror. “There’re more of them?”

“It would make sense,” said Frieda, “if the Humans need a great many of us to carry their war to the south.”

“We’ve heard rumors from our cousins down there,” Romulus admitted, “though I never knew what to think of them before now. It is appalling. I will send messengers at once, to see if we can tunnel inside these buildings and undermine them. The Humans have never been very good at keeping us out if we want to get in.” He grinned. “The machinery they take so much pride in is, after all, only bits of metal and plastic for us to take apart.”

“We’re going south to find Shade,” said Marina. Romulus looked at her with what seemed like admiration.

“You are brave to attempt a rescue….” He trailed off, thinking. “I cannot go with you, but I can perhaps speed your journey.”

Marina looked at him hopefully, but wondered how rats could travel faster than winged creatures.

“Certainly nothing is faster than flight,” said Romulus, as if hearing her thoughts, “but you may find that the skies, as you go south, may not be as hospitable as these. And more importantly, you cannot travel through all the hours of the day and night. But my barge can, on the underground waterways.”

Marina remembered the maze of tunnels she and Shade had been ferried through on their way to the court of Prince Remus. “They go that far south?” she asked, amazed.

“Oh yes, our system is extensive, and I believe there is a branch … it’s been so long since it’s been used … but it would take you down, yes, I believe it would.”

“You’ve been a good friend to us,” said Marina. “Thank you.”

“The boat is at your disposal, when you’re ready.”

“You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” Marina asked Frieda. She couldn’t explain it, but the bat elder, though frail, made her feel immeasurably safer, as if she generated some kind of protective aura around them.

Frieda smiled sadly and spread her old wings. “Every bat is born with only so many wingbeats. I have too few left. And I am needed here now, I think.”

Marina looked away guiltily. She felt pulled in two different directions: to stay here at Bridge City and fight if need be, or go looking for Shade. She knew what her heart wanted her to do. Was it selfish? Would the others think she was a coward, just trying to avoid war? She didn’t care, she was going after him.

“You must go,” Frieda told her, as if reassuring her. She looked at Ariel. “It’s right that both of you go.”

Marina looked at Frieda and was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling she would never see her again.

“All right,” she said, glancing down at her claws. She felt the gossamer touch of Frieda’s wing on her head. “Make a safe journey, and bring him back, and Cassiel too.”

Marina forced a smile, said good-bye, and flew off after Ariel, holding on to herself tightly. She hated leaving almost as much as being left behind.

Down by the bridge’s great south pier, a rat messenger was waiting for them. “King Romulus is expecting you,” he said. “Follow me, please.”

These rats were certainly a lot more polite than the ones she and Shade had known. She supposed Romulus had whipped them all into shape when he became king. She didn’t like tunnels; they made her feel breathless, and cramped her wings uselessly against her sides. But the passage wasn’t long, and soon she could hear the sound of water.

Romulus was waiting for them on a large flat stone that jutted out into a swift underground stream. And tied up alongside the rock was his barge, a long and narrow craft exquisitely fashioned out of wood. Just by looking at it, Marina knew it must have been made by Humans. Not even rat artisans could have chiseled something so elaborately detailed. She wondered what purpose it might serve for Humans, though. Much of her life she’d spent on an island, watching Humans come and go in their ships. This wouldn’t even fit a Human child.

“It was found, decades ago, on a Human junk heap,” Romulus explained, “and it’s surprisingly watertight. It’s served me well. It will take you safely south.”

“Thank you,” said Marina.

“I can’t spare many,” the rat continued, “but these few are
among my most trusted and able servants.” He introduced her to Ulysses, who would guide the ship south, and who knew the waterways of the world better than many fish. Two hulking soldier rats were to come with them too, as well as Harbinger, one of Romulus’s chief ambassadors.

“You’re going well beyond the limits of my kingdom … and I cannot guarantee how you will be received by my southern cousins. Our relations have been … difficult lately. But with Harbinger you will get the best treatment possible. Take care of them,” Romulus said, turning to his rat crew, “and treat them as if it were me you were carrying.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” came the reply.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Romulus in Marina’s ear. “You’ll be safe with them. I’ve made changes since my brother’s reign.”

“What happened to Remus?” she asked.

Romulus smiled faintly. “You imagine I finally overthrew him? No, he overthrew himself. He fled his own kingdom, certain that a plot was afoot to poison him. He left the kingdom in such a shambles that it was not difficult for me to come in and restore order. Good speed, now.”

With Ariel beside her, Marina stepped onto the boat. The rats cast off the line that had tethered it to the stone, and the boat leaped into the current.

Marina’s heart leaped too. On their way. It was a journey and she couldn’t help feeling a sense of jubilation at its beginning. To go south. To find Shade.

Inside Statue Haven, Shade hung numbly from his roost, sleepless, watching the first light of day seep up through the long tunnel of the statue’s arm.

He almost hadn’t wanted to return, so filled with shame and dread at having to tell Caliban what had happened. The mastiff had listened grimly and said only, “Your friend paid for your recklessness with his life.”

Shade didn’t have the energy to explain why he’d talked to the owl, what he’d hoped might come of it. It was impossible for him not to think back to Tree Haven, when he was just a newborn, and how he’d dared Chinook to break the laws of dawn and come see the sun with him. He’d done it to shut Chinook up, show him how brave he was—with disastrous consequences. He’d seen a sliver of the rising sun, but the owls had nearly caught him, and later in punishment, burned Tree Haven to the ground.

I told him not to come, he told himself. But he felt safe with me. It was agony, seeing Chinook’s face again in his mind, saying those words. All the jealous, unkind thoughts he’d had about
Chinook, and yet the other bat had trusted him. Chosen him over Caliban and the safety of Statue Haven.

His thoughts were interrupted by a clamor of excited voices from the entrance. He saw Caliban, instantly waking and lighting from his roost, and he assumed the worst. An attack. Bugs, owls, or, worst of all, the cannibal bats. But he couldn’t stop himself from following Caliban as he raced down the tunnel toward the entrance; it was better to know the trouble right away rather than worry guessing.

“Is it Ishmael?” he heard one guard saying.

“I don’t … who else could it be?”

They were peering at a Silverwing, collapsed at the mouth of the entrance, his flanks heaving for air, head hidden by one of his wings. He was little more than a skeleton, his skin and fur stretched painfully over protruding bones. Caliban sat down beside him, bending closer to the other bat’s face.

“Ishmael?” he whispered.

“Yes,” came the ragged voice. “It’s me.”

Shade had not heard Ishmael’s name spoken of, so he knew this must be one of the many bats who had disappeared before his arrival. Caliban looked at the guards in amazement, and then said to Shade, “Help me bring him inside.”

It was almost an hour before Ishmael had rallied enough to speak. They brought him a leaf drenched with dew so he could quench his parched throat.

“We thought you were dead,” said Caliban. “Ramiel said he saw two jungle bats carry you off.”

“They did,” Ishmael croaked. “They took me to their pyramid.” Brokenly, he described a huge stone structure buried deep in the jungle, rising in stages to a peak almost as high as the tallest trees. “Thousands of them roost there,” he said, and Shade felt a chill run beneath his fur.

Ishmael coughed, and took another sip from the leaf. “There are others,” he said, his voice an echoing whisper inside the giant statue. “More of us.”

“What do you mean?” Caliban asked sharply.

“The others who went missing, who got caught, lots of them are still there. Imprisoned in a stone mound deep inside the pyramid. Must be Humans buried there, because there are big bones, and bits of cut stone and metal.”

“Why did they imprison you?” asked Caliban.

The same question was in Shade’s head. Why didn’t the jungle bats just eat them right away? Like Goth and Throbb: They hunted, and ate immediately. With a sick heart he knew that something terrible was coming.

“They use us, first,” said Ishmael, his eyes blazing. Shade was suddenly aware he was shivering, his skin cold and moist. Stop, he almost shouted at Ishmael, no more. But he had to listen as the skeletal bat began his story.

“They came, almost every day, and took one of us. Just one.” Shade could see it, the cannibal guards thrusting themselves inside, and all the other bats cowering toward the back, trying to hide behind the ones in front, trying to think themselves invisible. Take him, take her, take anyone but me! Did the sheer terror allow any room for bravery?

“They never came back,” Ishmael said. “We assumed they were eaten. But it was much worse than that. Three days ago, they came and took two of us. Hermes. And me. They dragged us past other stone mounds, and I could hear other creatures inside. Owls, I’m sure I heard owls, and rats too. They took us up to a chamber. It must’ve been near the top of the pyramid, because there was a portal in the ceiling, a round hole. I remember it, because I looked out and I could see stars, and I sent part of myself out that portal
to escape, so I wouldn’t have to think anymore. It didn’t matter. I saw what happened.”

Shade listened, as if gripped in the hold of a terrible dream, unable to thrash free.

“I remember there were two cannibals there, waiting for us. An old male, maybe some kind of elder, and another, much younger one, huge, with a black band on his forearm.”

And Shade knew who it was, even before Ishmael named him. Of course he had survived; Shade was beginning to think he was immortal. “Goth,” he whispered.

“Yes, King Goth, that’s what the old bat called him.” Ishmael laughed unsteadily. “The king of all those monsters.”

Shade wanted to ask about the metal disc: Was Goth still wearing it? Was his dead like Orestes’, or had he too ripped it from his flesh? But Ishmael was already continuing.

“There was a stone, and the guards slammed Hermes on it. And King Goth said,
I offer this to you, Zotz,
and he tore out Hermes’ heart. I saw it still beating, as he ate it.”

The silence in the room was suffocating. Shade closed his eyes, tried to flush the image from his mind. Zotz. He remembered Goth telling him about this god: The strong feed on the weak, and in eating them take their strength into themselves. Zotz was the only god, Goth had said.

“The guards were moving me toward the Stone, but something happened. Goth had Hermes’ heart in his mouth, and suddenly the chamber filled with noise. It was like nothing I’d ever heard; it …” Ishmael had to stop to catch his breath, his thin flanks heaving.

“Drink,” Caliban said softly.

Ishmael drank. “There was something in that chamber, some kind of presence that raced around like a tornado. It seemed to go
right into King Goth’s throat, and he began to talk in a voice not his own. The guards were terrified too, and they fell back and I pulled free. Before they could grab me, I found a gash in the stone floor and threw myself into it. There were other crevices, leading deeper, and I was thin enough by then to squeeze myself through like a bug. All I could hear was the noise above me, and I crawled until my claws were bloody.” He held them up for the others to see. Shade’s stomach clenched. There was virtually no talon left.

“I found a network of air shafts, too narrow for the cannibals, and waited, I don’t know how long, for my chance to fly. It took me three days to get back here. The cannibals were everywhere. I could hardly fly. I never expected to make it.”

And then, his story told, Ishmael crumpled, and the noise that came from his broken body was unlike any weeping Shade had ever heard, blunt and ugly, as if it were chiseled from his own bones.

As Shade watched, four or five others flew closer to Ishmael and enclosed him in their wings, until he was completely hidden from view, his sobs muffled by their bodies. After a few minutes, the group broke apart, and Ishmael seemed calmer.

“The others still in the dungeon,” said Caliban gently, “who are they?”

Shade could feel everyone tense in horrible anticipation as Ishmael raggedly began to recite names. He could barely listen, because he knew what he was hoping to hear. The list seemed agonizingly long, up to twenty-one now, these other names nothing but cruel sounds to him.

“… Lydia, Socrates, Monsoon … and Cassiel. He was there too.”

Shade remembered to breathe. He was aware of Caliban’s eyes on him, and couldn’t figure out the expression in his eyes: pity, maybe, mixed with something hard and determined.

“We leave tomorrow night,” Caliban said tersely. “We can’t risk staying any longer.”

It took a few moments for Shade to understand what he’d just heard. “What d’you mean? We’ve got to free them! Chinook’s there too, now!”

Ishmael turned his haunted eyes on him. “No. You can’t.”

“I’m going to get them!”

“We leave tomorrow,” said Caliban fiercely. “That is the plan, and we won’t break from it. This is our chance for life; the others have already lost theirs.”

“I’ll go alone, then,” said Shade, turning to Ishmael. “Just tell me the way.”

“It was three nights ago,” Ishmael said. “Cassiel might already be dead.”

“He’s my father!” he said pleadingly.

“And I left my brother,” Ishmael hissed, his eyes dancing with anger. “I didn’t even try to go back to get him out. I just left. I saved myself and left him to die. Do you know what that’s like? But there’s nothing I could’ve done. There’s nothing anyone can do. Are you listening to me? There’re thousands of them.”

“You escaped.”

“It was … they made a mistake; I had a chance to fly.” Ishmael shook his head. “It won’t happen again.”

“We take to the skies tomorrow, at sunset,” said Caliban. “It’s the only way. And may Nocturna look over us.”

Shade laughed, and it came out like a bark of pain. “Nocturna? You won’t get any help from her. If she even exists.”

Caliban and the others looked as if they’d been struck across the face.

“How can you say this?” Caliban asked, shocked.

“Where is she, then?” Shade demanded, feeling his anger swell
inside him. “How do you know it hasn’t all been a big mistake, a lie, and we’ve been idiots and clung on to it? Just like we were fools to believe in the secret of the bands, and the Humans helping us. Look what they’ve done to us! Where was she when we needed her?”

“You’ve survived,” Caliban reminded him, sweeping his wing around the statue, “we all have. But we’ve got to leave this place now. Look around you, Silverwing. Haven’t these bats suffered enough? You want them to go into the jungle with you, in the hopes you can save one or two others? No. You know what these cannibals can do. There’s no real hope of winning.”

“I don’t expect help,” said Shade defiantly.

“We won’t wait for you,” said Caliban. “I’m sorry, but if you go, you go alone.”

As the sun burst free of the horizon, Shade flew higher still, straight up from Statue Haven, in tight spirals. He wanted to go as high as he could, not just for safety, but so he could see into the distance. And maybe even
hear
into the distance.

It was madness to fly in the light of day, and he knew it. There were eagles, vultures, and maybe even Human flying machines. But he wanted to be alone, to try to clear his mind and decide what he must do. It had been a long time since he’d flown in the sun’s full glare. He didn’t count those days in the Human forest, under that dulled sun.

He could feel his black fur burning unpleasantly with its heat. But as he rose higher and higher, the air cooled. Higher still. When finally he looked down, he saw all the city spread below him, reassuringly distant. The statue, and high hills, and then, the darkness of the jungle as far as he could see.

To the east was water, a long coastline extending north in a slow curve. That would be their way home. Whatever was left of it. What should he do? How he wished for Frieda or Ariel, and especially Marina, who could help him make the decision.

It had been so simple before. To flee north with the others was the only thing to do. But now the cannibals had Chinook. And his father was still alive—at least he was three nights ago. The hook that had drawn him millions of wingbeats had just snared his heart afresh. How could he leave now? Without at least trying to rescue him?

It wasn’t so simple—there was a pull in another direction. If he went north with the others, he might be able to find the Human building, and warn them before more were taken south to their deaths. He might be able to save the lives of thousands—and Ariel and Frieda and Marina with them. He pointed his nose into the wind, feeling its cool caress on his hot face. Above him, banks of clouds scudded to the northeast, and his heart went with them—how easy it was for them to make the journey, their passage so safe, their arrival certain. And he wanted to fly right now. Fly north, fly home. Leave this hideous jungle behind.

But maybe Marina had already warned the others, and there was no need of his journey. For all he knew, maybe they’d escaped. But there was no way of knowing, unless …

He tilted to the north again. Sound was supposed to be his gift. Frieda said he was good at listening, that he would hear things others wouldn’t. And Zephyr, the albino bat, the Keeper of the Spire, had once told him that you could hear even the stars if your hearing was good enough. More than that, you could hear into the past and future, to sounds long ago, and ones that had yet to be made.

He doubted he could hear the whispers of the past or future,
or hear the distant stars, but could he send his voice over the millions of wingbeats to the north and hear a reply?

It was ridiculous, of course. He’d never heard of such a thing. But Zephyr’s ears were so good, maybe he could hear a cry for help. The albino bat had helped him once before; maybe he could help him now.

He aimed his voice at the northern horizon and cried out. He didn’t try to make his voice as loud as possible, but imagined projecting it on the air, as if the sound had wings and might carry itself. He imagined the city, and the cathedral and the spire where Zephyr made his home, and he imagined Zephyr’s white fur and whiter eyes, and his ears flaring to catch his voice.

He made his message as short as he could. He told Zephyr how he came to be in the south, and how he was separated from the rest of his colony. Had he heard anything about Ariel or Frieda or Marina? Were they safe? Should he fly back to them, or should he stay and try to save his father?

When the last words left his mouth, he felt foolish, a newborn crying for comfort. He was alone, high in the sky, in a foreign land, and he would have to help himself. That was the hard truth.

Still, part of him hoped. He opened his ears wide, heard only the whisper of the wind. He wondered if Caliban was right about Nocturna. Was she looking over them, was that why they had survived so long? But what about those who hadn’t? Was there a reason for that? None he could understand. It was just luck, maybe. All his childish dreams about bringing his colony the sun, fulfilling the Promise. He’d been so hopeful then, so certain of a good ending, and his place in it all.