Sunwing (20 page)

Shade saw the swelling beneath the membrane, and knew that his forearm was badly sprained. Shade cursed himself. What a fool he was. He’d come up here expecting what? To save them all. And now he was without help, and they’d both die here. “Who are you?” said his father hoarsely. “I’ve met you … “

“No.”

“I know you.”

“No.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m your son.”

“Shade?” said his father.

It was his turn to be taken aback. “How’d you know?”

“We named you before you were born.”

And for just a second they cheated time and embraced, safe beneath the invisible shell Shade spun out for them.

“We’ll crawl,” Shade said. “Across to the wall, then up to the portal.”

But even as he spoke the words he knew the plan was doomed. He could hear Zotz’s breath moaning toward them and it lashed
against them with the fury of a gale. With two shrieking, clawed hands, the sound tore apart his veil of invisibility.

“Fly!” his father told him.

“Cling to me,” Shade said. “We’ll fly together!” He doubted he could ever take off with so much extra weight, but he would not leave his father.

A huge weight struck him in the chest, and he was slammed back against the stone, straddled by two powerful claws, one on each wing. Goth’s searing breath poured down upon him.

“I knew it was you,” said Goth. “You’ve stopped me from killing the sun, but I will still eat your beating heart!”

Crouched at the rim of the circular portal, Marina peered down into the winged maelstrom of the chamber.

Beside her were Caliban and General Cortez and a dozen of his rat guards who had made the difficult climb up the face of the pyramid. All the way up they’d heard screams wafting from the summit, but occasionally Marina had caught the outlines of small northern bats in her echo vision, hurtling through the sky.

“They’re getting away—some of them, anyway,” she’d said excitedly to Caliban.

She’d also heard a scattered hooting of owls, and wondered if some of them too had managed to fight their way through the hordes of cannibals to the outside world.

Now they were at the top, looking down, and what she saw terrified her. It was difficult to make anything out clearly, there was so much movement. But she caught the thrashing of cannibal wings, as well as those of northern bats. She saw a huge stone directly beneath them, and for a split second had thought she’d seen Shade on it, but then he was gone, just gone. But most
horrific of all was something
unseen.
It was pure sound, a kind of animated shriek that smashed its way around the chamber, slamming walls like a rabid animal in its death throes.

She didn’t want to go down there, but she had to make sure Shade wasn’t trapped.

Suddenly Ariel was beside her, panting, and so was Chinook.

“You got out!” Marina exclaimed. “Where’s Shade?”

Ariel’s face looked stricken. “I thought he’d gotten out with you…. “

Marina felt sick. “He must be in there.”

She looked back over the rim and saw Goth plunging toward the Stone, and directly below him, in the cannibal’s line of flight—Shade.

Shade writhed to free himself but it was no use. He was used up, as frail as a dried leaf. He saw Goth’s jagged teeth and clamped shut his eyes and tried to send himself somewhere very far away.

He felt Goth strike him hard in the chest, knocking all the air from him, and suddenly all his instincts kicked to life and he barked out sound to see by.

Goth was sprawled on top of him, his head against the Stone, and on his back were Marina and Ariel, Caliban and Chinook. They must’ve crashed against him with all their combined weight. Shade struggled free from under Goth’s body, but could hear a low, ominous gurgle from his throat. Not dead, never dead.

“Let’s go,” Marina shouted at him.

“Where’s my father!”

“Right here,” said his mother, staring at Cassiel in disbelief. He was barely conscious now, but Shade could see a flicker of amazed delight in his eyes.

“Ariel,” he breathed.

“We’ve got to fly him out,” said Shade.

“I can do it,” said Caliban. “Help him onto my back. Hurry.”

Goth shuddered, and Shade looked to see one of his wings jerk convulsively as he began to revive.

“Go!” Shade urged Caliban, and watched as the mastiff leaped from the Stone, wings churning, and lifted slowly into the air, carrying his father. Ariel was off beside them and Marina and Chinook too, and he leaped now, mouth opening, preparing to spin out a web of invisibility to take them into the sky.

Claws impaled his tail and dragged him back down.

It was too fast for him even to cry out. He tore free, feeling his tail rip nearly in half, and faced Goth. There was no fear left in him now, it was all used up, and all that was left was sheer determination to live. He barked sound into Goth’s face slapping him hard. Outrage exploded from Goth’s eyes and lungs, and he lunged, shearing a patch of fur from Shade’s shoulder.

Shade feinted and rolled, keeping Goth at bay with sound, but the cannibal was steadily driving him back toward the wall. Over Goth’s shoulder, Shade could see Caliban carrying his father through the portal to freedom—and then he saw something so amazing, he thought he must be hallucinating.

Six balls of flame dropped into the pure blackness of the temple like miniature suns. Even Goth surged around to look, startled by the sudden light. Then Shade saw they were the burning ends of flaming sticks, and that could only mean one thing.

Owls.

In a thunderclap of feathered wings, they exploded through the opening, and Shade saw Orestes in the forefront, his fierce eyes and beak flashing.

From the circular portal, long vines and creepers sprang over the rim, unfurling into the chamber; and running down the length of each, even as it unrolled, was a rat. He saw Cortez
among them as they leaped to the walls, the floor, the backs of surprised cannibal bats, sinking their teeth deep.

Goth reared to face him once more, but before he could even part his jaws to lunge, Orestes and another owl had him in their claws.

“We’ve got him, Silverwing,” said Orestes. “Fly now.”

Shade did not hesitate. He soared up and up, and burst through the circular portal, gasping, as if it were the surface of the ocean.

“Shade, Shade, over here!” Marina called. “The owls are coming to help us! From all over the jungle!”

Shade saw more and more owls plunging down into the portal to do battle with the cannibals, and felt overwhelmed with relief.

Then, high above him in the air, he heard a faint whistling. He looked up and saw it, searing his mind’s eye like a bolt of lightning.

Goth’s metal disc.

Plummeting straight for all of them.

He heard Marina screaming at him to fly, but he knew it was useless. An image ripped itself from his memory: the size of the blast created by those big discs, that towering column of fire. It would eat them all: the owls and rats still inside, everyone on the outside for hundreds of wingbeats.

Zotz would have his sacrifice after all, and it would be more than a hundred hearts—it would be thousands. He looked up into the black sky, searching for the sun.

Still eclipsed.

If the bomb fell while it was still dark, then Zotz would reign. “Get everyone out of the pyramid!” he yelled back at Marina “Tell them there’s Human fire coming. Tell them!”

“Shade, there’s no time!” Ariel cried. “Come with us!”

“I’ll make time!” he shouted.

He flew straight up toward the disc, and enmeshed it in sound, studying its shape, the angle at which it fell. He was so tired now, his wings leaden, his throat raw, and where would his strength come from? For the first time in his life, he spoke to her, and called her by name and said: “Nocturna, let me be able to do this.”

Falling, falling, it was shrieking now through the air, shrieking like Zotz’s own breath.

He couldn’t do it.

Can do it. Must do it.

An icicle was one thing; it was small, light, it was inert. This was hurtling metal, accelerated to a million wingbeats a second.

He took aim, launched a net of sound at the disc, and missed.

He closed his eyes, measured again with his echo vision, took a breath.

Please, he thought.

He opened his mouth, and sound exploded from him, raking his throat, as if something greater were speaking through him. It was like a thunderclap shattering the sky, this yell, and he watched it in his mind’s eye as it streaked toward the disc and grasped it like a fist.

Hold it there.

He swirled, drenched in sweat, singing sound with all his might, pushing against the disc to hold it up. How heavy it was!

He wished he could look down below, to see if Marina and the others were fleeing, to see if they were far enough away. He could only hope she’d done what he’d asked. He looked up into the sky, and still saw no sun. How long, how long would he have to wait? He was back in the northern forests, a newborn, huddled scared
against the side of a tree with Chinook, waiting for the sunrise. Come, come, why isn’t it coming?

He didn’t know how much longer he could cradle this disc with his voice. He tasted blood in his throat. “Let it fall!”

Far overhead the cannibal with the crooked spine was plunging toward the motionless disc. “You cannot stop Zotz. Let it fall!”

He faltered and heard the disc plunge a little lower, and had to work to slow it down. Then the cannibal bat dove onto it, locking his claws around the chain.

Shade’s mind nearly buckled with the added weight.

Blearily, he saw Chinook hurl himself against the cannibal bat, trying to beat him clear of the disc, striking out with wings and jaws. He saw the jungle bat sink his teeth into Chinook’s shoulder, heard his friend cry out in pain. But Chinook kept fighting, knocking, butting the cannibal, until his claws ripped free from the disc.

It dropped several feet, and Shade could barely slow it down. Hold it, hold it, just a little longer. Shade looked up and saw something shift in the great black sky,
heard
it shift.

The sun.

A slim crescent of it seared his face as it came back, blinding him.

“Fly!” he shouted out to Chinook.

The disc plunged. Shade beat his exhausted wings, hoping Marina had cleared the pyramid. Chinook was suddenly at his side, trying to nudge him along faster, but Shade’s wings were unbearably heavy. He gave a quick, impatient shake of his head, but Chinook didn’t fly on ahead as he’d wanted. He stayed alongside. Behind them—not far enough, not nearly—he could clearly
hear the disc whistling down, first above him, then below. Any second now.

He told himself not to look.

He heard the explosion at the same moment he felt its ferocious heat, and then it was like being swallowed up by the sun itself.

From the high ramparts of Bridge City, Frieda looked out across the twilight sky. Her eyesight had dimmed dramatically over the past several nights, but even she could make out the massive thunderhead of owls spanning the northern horizon.

A brisk wind rustled the fur of her face, and she felt immensely old and tired. Eight nights it had been since Marina and Ariel had left in search of Shade, and she couldn’t stop herself fearing the worst. Was it possible for Shade, clever as he was, gifted as he was, to survive the Human’s explosives? Or the jungle with all its monstrous predators? Had she been foolish to approve of Ariel and Marina’s search for him?

Questions, questions, she thought; all I do lately is ask myself questions.

She wondered too if she had been a good elder, and helped lead her colony well. In particular, her thoughts had turned to Shade, and she debated whether she was wrong to encourage in him the same passions she stoked within herself. To find the
secret of the bands, to fulfil Nocturna’s Promise. What was the sum of all this yearning?

Right now, as she saw the millions of owls darkening the sky, she had to fight off the grip of despair. Impossible to defeat them. Even with the huge army assembled at Bridge City, she feared they would be wiped from the earth.

“We must prepare our delegation,” said Achilles Graywing, landing beside her. “King Boreal’s troops will be overhead within hours.”

Frieda nodded stiffly. Even such a simple movement made her tired now. “Yes,” she said without much hope. “We must pray he is in a mood to talk.”

“I gave up on prayer long ago,” Achilles told her with a grim smile.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Frieda, “but whenever I look at that horizon, I make every appeal for help I can.”

Frieda looked down to see a messenger thrashing his way toward the bridge’s summit. She waited patiently as the bat circled and caught his breath: Surely there could be no more bad news left to hear. And yet her ancient heart raced within her.

“General Achilles, Frieda Silverwing,” the messenger panted, “bats have been sighted, coming in from the south. Silverwings, some of them. And … they’re flying with owls.”

Shade gratefully angled his aching wings, and began a slow descent toward Bridge City. Flying with his whole family was still a wonderful novelty to him: his mother and father close by on one side; Marina and Chinook on the other, all keeping pace together through the dusky air. Nearby he saw Caliban, and all
the other northern bats from the jungle, streaking around them, coming home.

In arrowhead formation before them flew a dozen owls from the northern forests—a sight Shade still hadn’t gotten used to, even after several days and nights of traveling together. Owls and bats within wingbeats. True, they kept mostly to themselves, roosting and hunting separately, and speaking little with the other group. But Shade sensed this was more from awkwardness than suspicion. He saw Orestes in the vanguard and smiled to himself. It was because of the owl prince that the other birds had agreed to form a convoy with them. And Shade was right about what good protection they would be. They’d made it out of the jungle safely and, able to fly day and night, they’d made good time heading home.

Alive: It still made Shade shake his head in amazement. He was alive.

After hearing the huge metal disc explode, and feeling the terrible heat engulf him, he remembered nothing until he groggily woke in the full blaze of day, splayed on the topmost branches of a tree. His whole body sang with pain. Patches of fur had been vaporized on his belly and back, and sections of his wing membrane had been badly seared. He felt as if he’d been pummeled by some giant beast. He was mangy and scarred, but he was alive. And so, miraculously, was Chinook.

And the sun was still shining.

Strange, for a bat to be so happy to see the sun. After millions of years fearing it, staying away from it, he’d tried to save it. Looking at it gratefully, he supposed he’d succeeded.

It wasn’t long before Marina and his mother had found him and Chinook, and helped them limp back to Statue Haven. A huge circle had been scorched from the jungle by the explosion,
and trees burned still. At the center of all this he could make out a smoldering pile of stone—the remnants of the pyramid. He wondered if Goth had been destroyed in the blast, and couldn’t quite make himself believe it.

He was amazed at how many had survived. Marina had flown back inside the pyramid and warned the others. The owls had helped Cortez and most of his remaining rat soldiers escape by carrying them out on their backs. But there were so many losses too. Ishmael had not returned, though his brother had. And dozens more had died inside the pyramid: owls, rats, and bats. More lost lives to add to the thousands who’d already died when their discs had exploded over the Human city.

Shade glanced over at Chinook. He’d lost both his parents, but at least he wasn’t an orphan anymore, not really. Three nights ago, Shade had secretly asked his mother and father if Chinook could join their family, and they had instantly agreed. And so had Chinook when they’d asked him.

“Hey, Shade, we’re brothers now!” Chinook had said, digging his thumb playfully into Shade’s ribs.

Shade winced, shifting away. “I tried to stop them, Chinook, honestly, but my parents had their hearts set on it.” Chinook didn’t know it was all Shade’s idea, and Shade wasn’t about to tell him. With a sigh, he knew he’d be getting a lot more snow dumped on his head now. Still, he didn’t regret it. Not yet, anyway.

Now, as they neared Bridge City, he turned to his father. Already, it seemed impossible that Shade had ever been without him. And he realized that in some ways he hadn’t, not really. Even in his absence Cassiel had been such a presence in his daily thoughts, it was as if his father must, one day, materialize to answer all his son’s questions, to explain himself.

Over the journey, Shade had heard all about Cassiel’s terrible
adventure. Last spring, he’d been one of the first to find the Human building and the forest inside, and he’d spent months there as it slowly filled with other bats. At first he’d been hopeful, but then the Humans started experimenting with them, trying to perfect their metal discs, and Cassiel had known many bats who’d had their wings burned off—or worse.

“You have no idea how badly I wanted to escape, to get back to you, warn you all,” he told Shade and Ariel. “But I couldn’t. The stream never occurred to me,” he added, looking admiringly at his son. “And then, once they took me in the flying machine to the jungle, I almost lost hope of ever getting back. It was all we could do to survive night by night. I never thought of rescue, and certainly not by my own son.”

“He’s even crazier than you,” Ariel said with a smile.

“Certainly braver,” Cassiel said, and Shade burned with pleasure at this compliment. But he quickly looked over at Marina.

“I did a lot of stupid things,” he said, shaking his head. “If it weren’t for Marina and you too, Mom, I’d have died in the jungle probably. All of us.”

“You have a way of dragging me into things,” said Marina wryly. “I’ll give you that.”

“You’re like me,” Cassiel told his son. “Both of us greedy for knowledge. I wanted to take the sun back for all of us. I wanted to know the secret of the bands.”

“There was no secret,” said Shade bitterly. “We were all wrong about the Humans helping us, Nocturna’s Promise.” For a moment his happiness at finally being reunited with his family paled, and he remembered that their journey north was hardly a triumphant homecoming. It was a preparation for war. He’d heard all about King Boreal raising his armies to fight at Bridge City.

“I mean, we saved the sun,” said Shade indignantly. “You’d think the owls would be grateful for that, but somehow, I doubt they’ll be impressed.” He felt weary. “Now we’ve just got another fight ahead of us.”

“They might help us,” Marina reminded him, nodding at Orestes and the other owls.

Shade nodded. It was the one hope he harbored too. But at the same time, he worried that once they all reached Bridge City safely, everything good they’d shared in the jungle would somehow be forgotten: The whole convoy north would simply be a matter of convenience, and they’d go back to their own warring sides. Orestes too.

Soon he would find out.

As Shade neared the glittering peaks of Bridge City, he saw a small group of bats flickering toward them as they made their descent.

“It’s Achilles Graywing,” Marina said.

Shade watched as the famous general drew warily closer and then called out, “Are you flying with these owls of your own free will?”

Shade knew the general must think they were all prisoners of the owls, perhaps held hostage in exchange for safe passage over Bridge City.

“Yes,” Cassiel called back loudly, “we’re with them freely. They are friends.”

Shade could hear mutters of amazement pass among the other bats.

“This is hard to imagine,” said Achilles Graywing, “when our northern horizon is blackened by an owl army, less than an hour away.”

“Is my father among them?” Orestes called out impulsively.

Achilles looked at the owl warily. “Your father?”

“King Boreal.”

“It is King Boreal who leads them,” the general replied coolly.

“Then I must speak to him at once,” Orestes said.

“Our delegation has already departed to do so,” Achilles replied.

Orestes circled back to Shade. “Let’s hurry, then,” he said.

“You’re going to help us?” Shade asked.

“Of course,” replied the owl, “with all my heart. Wasn’t it obvious?”

“Father, I’d be grateful if you’d let me speak,” Orestes told King Boreal.

High above Bridge City, the leaders of the bat and owl kingdoms circled warily around one another. Shade felt distinctly out of place among Halo Freetail, Achilles Graywing, and the other bat elders. And he felt particularly uneasy flying so close to the massive King Boreal with his magnificent silver head and the lightning-streaked plumage he shared with his son. Shade knew that this was to be the last talk before the battle began, and he watched Orestes anxiously as he addressed his fierce father.

“Are you on good terms with your father?” he’d asked hopefully as they’d sped to the aerial meeting place.

“Not particularly,” Orestes had said.

And in fact, their meeting was far from what Shade would have expected, a stiff nod between father and son. But maybe, Shade thought, that was just because of the situation. This was not the time for emotional reunions.

King Boreal looked irritated at his son’s request to speak. “Has this any bearing on the matter at hand?” he said in a bone-rattling thunder.

“Yes.”

“Be brief.”

“We cannot go to war with the bats,” said Orestes nervously, looking around at the other owls as they tried to suppress their contemptuous laughter.

“I think your son needs more tutoring in such matters,” muttered one of the owl ambassadors.

King Boreal turned his baleful eyes on the speaker, and needed to do no more in rebuke.

“Why do you say this?” he asked his son sternly.

“Shade Silverwing saved my life,” Orestes began falteringly. “Not once but twice. Last fall when we closed the night skies to the bats, we thought they’d been murdering birds. But these northern bats weren’t the murderers. They were jungle bats from the south.”

“We have already heard these lies,” snapped King Boreal.

“I have seen them myself,” insisted Orestes. “And I would have been killed if it weren’t for Shade. He risked his own life to do it, even though we’ve declared war on him and his fellow bats.”

“An unusual act of bravery, perhaps,” said King Boreal coolly, fixing his moonlike eyes on Shade, “but irrelevant. What does this have to do with the larger issue at hand?”

“The Humans have been taking owls and bats south to help them wage war,” Orestes pressed on, and waited for a moment for the surprised exclamations of his elders to die down. “I can explain more later, but this is what I wanted to say. The south is home to thousands of cannibals, and they took owls prisoner there, and if it weren’t for Shade, we would have been eaten alive by these monsters. Because of him, we escaped and returned home.”

“Again, I ask you, why should this make us change our course of action?”

“Because we don’t want war,” Shade blurted impetuously, and received a glare from Halo Freetail.

King Boreal laughed scornfully. “You have waged war on us before,” he said. “Fifteen years ago, as I recall. But you’re not old enough to remember such things, young Silverwing.”

“We waged war, yes, but in rebellion,” Achilles told King Boreal. “We wanted the sun back. We wanted to be free of your tyranny, the risk of death should we see so much as a splinter of sunrise!”

“But you have lost the sun, all of you,” thundered King Boreal, “for your treachery at the Great Battle of the Birds and the Beasts.”

“Because we didn’t take sides!” Achilles said hotly.

“No, because you switched sides,” King Boreal retorted.

“You are mistaken, King Boreal,” Achilles said. “As you have been for millions of years.”

“It is tragic that you can believe your own lies,” said the owl king.

“What does it matter?” Shade blurted out angrily. “Silence,” Halo Freetail hissed at him. “Your place is not to speak here.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Orestes said.

“Because he knows nothing,” said King Boreal, “like you.”

“Let him speak,” said Achilles calmly. “One of our greatest elders, Frieda Silverwing, has had much confidence in this young bat.”

“It happened so long ago,” said Shade haltingly, more nervous now that everyone was listening to him in hostile silence. “It’s over, even if we can’t agree on what the truth is.”

“The truth is
everything,”
said King Boreal.

“I thought so too,” said Shade. “I thought the sun was stolen from us, and I wanted to get it back, and I thought the Humans would help us somehow. I thought we would beat the owls in war,
I really did.” He faltered, wondering if he should’ve said that. But it was too late to stop now. He just had to go on before what he wanted to say slipped away from him. “I thought that was the truth, but it wasn’t. The Humans didn’t help us fight a war with you. They didn’t bring us back the sun. They just wanted to use us, all of us, owls and bats. That’s how I met Orestes, in one of their indoor forests. Maybe he wanted to kill me; I guess I wanted to kill him too. But there was something else in there that wanted to kill both of us.”