Silverwing (2 page)

They reached the summit and roosted at the tip of the highest tree, pressed close against the trunk for cover. The long valley curved before them, an unbroken canopy of trees except for
the one dusty Human road cutting through. He’d never seen anything on it, not a Human, not one of their noisy vehicles. They were a long way away from most things, his mother always said.

The dawn chorus was building now, rising up all around them.

“What d’you want to see the sun for anyway?”

“I just want to see it.”

“What for?”

“I’m curious. Aren’t you?”

A slight pause. “No.” Another pause. “What if it turns us to dust?”

“It doesn’t turn anything else to dust.”

He was enjoying this: Chinook was actually listening to him for a change; it was almost as if he needed reassurance.

“My mother told a story about a bat. All his wings and bones and teeth, just a pile of dust.”

“Just a story.”

But he felt a twist of fear in his stomach.

“Let’s go back,” said Chinook after a moment. “We can tell the others we saw it. We’ll keep it secret, okay?”

Shade considered this. Here was Chinook, asking him for something. It was certainly pleasant, this feeling of power.

“Go ahead,” said Shade. He would not leave. He wanted his victory without any compromise.

The sky was very bright in the east now, brighter than he’d ever seen it. He squinted with the faint whiskery pain behind his eyes. What if the stories were right? What if it did blind him?

“Not much longer,” he muttered.

Chinook shifted on the branch, wings rustling against the bark.

“Shhh,” Shade hissed at him. “Over there.” He tilted his chin.

An owl sat stone still in a nearby tree, half hidden behind a screen of leaves.

“Not afraid are you?” he whispered at Chinook. “A strong bat has nothing to be afraid of.”

Shade was afraid, but he didn’t think the owl had seen them. Even if it had, he knew it wasn’t allowed to attack them until the sun had risen. It was the law. He doubted Chinook knew this, though, since it wasn’t the kind of thing mothers told the newborns. The only reason he knew was he’d overheard his own mother talking with some of the colony elders when she thought he was asleep. It was about the only good thing about being a runt: When he was younger he’d been carried everywhere with her, even to special meetings for the adults. He’d picked up a lot of things that way.

A dreadful hooting noise emanated from the owl’s throat, making Shade’s fur lift. Then, with a flurry, the owl lit from the branch and flew away across the sky, its wings pumping silently.

Shade let out his breath.

“I—I can’t,” said Chinook, and he dropped from the branch, pounding his way fast toward Tree Haven. Shade watched him disappear into the foliage. He felt strangely disappointed, and didn’t know why.

He could go now too.

He’d won.

But it wasn’t enough. He wanted something more, and it surprised him. He genuinely wanted to see the sun. This thing that they were absolutely forbidden.

Across the valley a band of white light spread from the tree line. He was surprised how long this was all taking. Half the sky was already pale gray, and still no sun? What was it doing?

He blinked, turned away, and found himself staring straight
at a wall of dense feathers. He looked up into the huge hooded eyes of an owl, perched at the end of his branch. Without a sound Shade pressed himself deep against the bark, but he knew he’d been spotted. They were so quiet, an owl’s wings. They could sneak up on you. The owl’s eyes held on him, and then the massive horned head swiveled eerily to the bright horizon, checking for the sun. Shade let his echo vision creep across the owl, taking a good long look: the thick feathers cloaking ferocious strength, the wickedly hooked beak that could rip through flesh in a second. And he knew it didn’t even need its eyes to see him. Like him, all owls had echo vision too.

He stared, hating the owl. No bat could kill an owl. They were giants, five times as big, maybe more. He should have been more afraid. He was smaller, but he could go places it couldn’t, between tight gaps in branches; he could fold himself into a crevice in a tree’s trunk; he could make himself almost invisible against bark.

There was a sudden rush of air behind him and there was his mother, hovering.

“Fly!” she hissed. “Now!”

Her voice was so urgent and so angry he followed her instantly. Down the hill they plunged, hugging the tree line. He looked back over his wing and saw the owl, following at a distance, its gigantic wings swinging leisurely. The sun had not yet broken the horizon.

They flew over the creek and the owl was still there. Shade felt a sudden warmth on his wings, and looked. They shone brightly. The sun.

“Into the trees!” Ariel cried over her wing. “Don’t look back!”

He looked.

A tiny sliver of the sun had cleared the horizon, spilling dazzling light into the valley. It was so powerful, so intense it sucked the breath right out of him, and he had to close his eyes tight.

The rank smell of the owl crashed over him as its claws whistled past his tail, nearly piercing his wings.

He locked onto his mother with his echo vision, and followed her as she plunged below the tree line. The rank smell of the owl crashed over him as its claws whistled past his tail, nearly piercing his wings.

He was down among the trees now, and all around him, the birds were rising and setting up a terrible shriek. Weaving crazily through the foliage, he pushed himself hard to keep up with his mother. At last, they burst out into the clearing. But so did the owl, who’d been following from above the trees. It dropped toward them like a hailstone. Shade and his mother rolled in opposite directions to avoid its claws, then came together again, streaking toward the mighty gnarled branches of Tree Haven, through the knothole and into the safe darkness inside.

Tree Haven was a vast, ancient oak, with furrowed bark, and thick, gnarled roots buckling from the ground. Hundreds of years ago it had been struck by lightning, killing the tree and petrifying the outside. The Silverwings had hollowed out the great trunk, and the many branches, and used it as a nursery colony ever since. Every spring the females returned to give birth and rear their young. It was perfect. There were only a handful of openings, well-hidden knotholes, through which the bats flew every dawn and dusk. No birds or beasts could work their way inside. The bats made their roosts on the mossy inner walls, in crevices and ledges and hollows, and inside the multitude of branches snaking from the trunk.

As Shade burst through the knothole with his mother, the bats roosting around the entrance looked over fearfully. Outside, the owl screamed again in fury as it battered the tree with its claws, once, twice, before flying off, hooting balefully. As he made a quick landing beside his mother, Shade heard the flurry of questions over his racing heart.

“What happened?” and “Why were you out so late?” and “Didn’t you hear the dawn chorus?” and “How did you escape the owl?”

Ariel ignored them and turned urgently to Shade.

“Are you hurt?”

“Don’t think so—”

She inspected his wings and tail anyway, roughly nosing his ribs and stomach to make sure nothing was broken, nothing cut. Then she folded her wings around him and held him tight for a long time. He realized she was trembling and when she pulled back, her eyes shone with anger.

“Why did you do that?”

Shade looked away. He was aware of the other bats nearby, felt the fur burn across his face. He spoke quietly. “Chinook was being … he was saying things about owls and how his father fought one, and I just wanted to do something—” He was about to say
brave,
but she cut him off.

“It was a childish thing, a dangerous thing.” She made no attempt to lower her voice. “You could’ve been killed, like that.” She flicked the tip of her wing so it made a sharp, final snap in the air. “And Chinook with you.”

“How’d you know about Chinook?”

“I ran into him while looking for you.”

“He told, then,” Shade scoffed.

“Lucky for you he did.” She stared at him. “It was foolishness like this that got your father killed.”

Shade couldn’t speak for a moment. “He wanted to see the sun?” he asked urgently.

She’d never told him this. All he knew about his father’s death was that, last spring, he was out one night, too far from the roost, too late, and an owl hunted him down in the dawn’s light and killed him. His father’s name was Cassiel.

Ariel nodded, suddenly weary. “Yes. He was always talking about it. Because he was curious—no, because he was headstrong, because he wouldn’t think.” All her anger surged back. “That’s not going to happen to you. I won’t lose both my mate and my son in one year. I won’t stand for it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He felt abruptly resentful.

“I didn’t want to give you ideas. You’ve got enough of those as it is.” She sighed, and her eyes lost their fierceness. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Why’d he want to see the sun?”

“Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

“Did you make my father promise?”

“Will you promise me?” she insisted.

“It’s not right,” said Shade, frowning. “I mean that the owls don’t let us see the sun. Do you think it’s fair, Mom?”

She gave an exasperated sigh, and closed her eyes for a moment. “It has nothing to do with fair or right or wrong. It’s just the way things …” she broke off in annoyance. “I’m not going to argue with you. You do as I say, it’s as simple as that. You don’t know the trouble you’ve caused, for all of us.”

“But why, we got away, we—”

But he didn’t finish because Mercury, the messenger for the colony elders, was making a slow spiral down the trunk toward them.

“You’re both all right?” he asked as he settled gracefully beside them.

“Yes.”

“The elders are anxious to speak with you. Are you strong enough to go to the upper roost, or shall I ask them to come see you here?”

“No, I can go. Stay here,” Ariel told Shade.

“They asked you to bring your son.”

Shade shared a quick look with his mother. He’d been in trouble before, plenty of times. But this was the first time he’d been summoned before the elders. Mercury launched himself back into the air and Shade followed after Ariel, back up the trunk. He sensed the gaze of a hundred bats as he ascended, and felt acutely self-conscious, but pleasantly flushed. Usually nobody even gave him a second glance. Now he was important enough to be called before the elders. He let his eyes boldly pass over the curious faces of the roosting onlookers. And there was Chinook beside his mother, but he looked away before Shade could shoot him a smirk of triumph.

“You’ve got nothing to grin about,” Ariel snapped. “Hurry up.”

They’d passed countless passageways and were nearing the upper reaches of the tree now, and Shade felt a queasy twisting in his stomach. He had never been this high. The central trunk came to a blunt end, but Mercury led them into a branch that veered straight upward, kinking and curving as it reached into the sky.

At the branch’s peak hung the four colony elders, quietly speaking among themselves as Shade and his mother found roosts beneath them. Mercury fluttered to Frieda and whispered in her ear before retreating to a small crevice in the shadows of the chamber, ready if called upon.

Aurora, Bathsheba, Lucretia, and Frieda: Shade knew the names of the elders, but he had never spoken to them. He saw them only from a distance, and they filled him with a kind of awe. They were all old bats, well beyond childbearing, and it was strange for Shade to see females in the roost without newborns nearby. Frieda was the oldest of the four and to Shade the most mysterious. Her actual age wasn’t known, but no one could remember a time when she hadn’t been chief elder of the
Silverwing colony. Her wings were creased, but still supple and strong, and her claws were gnarled like the roots of an old tree, but wickedly sharp. According to Shade’s mother, Frieda was still a fierce hunter. The fur around her face was shot through with more gray than silver or black now, and there were a few mangy patches on her body, which were probably just signs of age, but Shade liked to think at least some of them were old battle scars.

The most mysterious thing about Frieda was the small metal band around her left forearm. No other bat in the colony had one. Shade asked his mother about it frequently, but she just shook her head, and told him she didn’t know where it came from or how Frieda got it. The other newborns were just as hopeless. There were a few halfhearted suggestions, but—and this was always infuriating to Shade—no one seemed very curious or interested: Frieda had a band, and as far as they were concerned, that was that.

“You made a close escape by the sounds of it,” Frieda said to them now. “But why were you out so late, Ariel? What happened?”

“I was looking for Shade.”

“Was he lost?” This was Bathsheba, and her harsh voice put Shade on edge.

“No,” said Ariel. “He made a foolish dare with Chinook. They were waiting for the sun to rise.”

“Where is Chinook?” asked Frieda.

“He’s safe. He had the sense to return to Tree Haven before sunrise.”

Shade frowned, and had to clamp down on his mouth to keep quiet. The
sense?
Chinook got scared, he flew off like a frightened moth!

“Yet your son stayed,” said Frieda, staring so intently at Shade that he had to look at his feet.

Tree Haven was a vast, ancient oak, with furrowed bark, and thick, gnarled roots buckling from the ground.

“Yes, and I found him just in time. An owl was waiting in the tree, ready to take him.”

“But the sun rose before you reached Tree Haven,” said Bathsheba pointedly.

“Yes,” Ariel replied sadly.

There was a brief, terrible silence in the elders’ roost. And when Bathsheba next spoke, Shade could not believe what he heard.

“Then you should have left your son for the owl.”

“I know,” Ariel said.

Shade looked at her in horror.

“It is the law,” Bathsheba persisted.

“I know the law.”

“Then why did you break it?”

Shade saw the anger flare again in his mother’s eyes. “I did what any mother would have done.”

The betrayal Shade had felt only seconds ago was washed away in a swell of pride and love for his mother. Bathsheba began an angry reply to this, but with a gentle
whoosh,
Frieda spread her wings wide and the other bat fell silent.

“We know what you suffered in the spring, Ariel. And how bravely you’ve dealt with the loss of Cassiel. And you’re right. What you did was only natural. But the law is not natural; it is cruel.”

Bathsheba chittered impatiently. “Everyone was saddened by the death of Cassiel. But Ariel isn’t the only one to lose a mate. Many of us have. You say the law is cruel, Frieda, but it can help us too. The law keeps us safe at night, not by day. If we are obedient, we can at least avoid some of these needless deaths.” She directed her hard eyes at Ariel again. “Your actions were selfish, and you’ve put the whole roost in danger.”

Frieda sighed. “This, I’m afraid, may very well be true.”

“Terrible as it is,” Bathsheba continued coldly, “if you’d left your son, the owls would have taken him, and this would be over. Now they will feel cheated; they will want justice.”

Ariel nodded. “Yes, I know this is my fault.”

“No,” Shade blurted before he could stop himself. He hated the resignation in his mother’s voice, hated the way Bathsheba glowered down at her. How dare she talk to his mother like this! Every set of eyes was on him now, and he felt all the thoughts in his head whirl uselessly. “I mean, it’s my fault,” he hurried on. “I’m the—it was me who wanted to see the sun, I talked Chinook into it, but really the sun hardly came up at all, so I don’t see why the owls were so upset. I’m sorry I’ve caused this trouble, and I don’t know much about the law, but I think it’s cruel and unfair, just like Frieda said.”

In the following silence Shade wished, for the first time in his life, that he could be even smaller than he was, so small he would just blink out altogether.

“You’ve obviously coddled your boy,” Bathsheba said frostily to Ariel, “and made him headstrong and insolent. Didn’t you tell him how dangerous the sun was?”

“It didn’t turn me to dust,” Shade mumbled. He couldn’t believe he’d done it again, the words just sliding out.

“What?” Bathsheba said.

“Or blind me,” Shade muttered. “The sun. Those were just stories.”

“That’s enough, Shade,” his mother said sharply. “I plan to punish him,” she told Bathsheba.

Bathsheba snorted, unimpressed. “Little good that will do if the owls demand compensation.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” said Frieda sternly. “The boy
only did what many of you would have liked to—or maybe you’ve forgotten that. He is young and foolish, yes, but don’t be so quick to judge him. Thank you, Ariel. Shade. Rest well.”

Frieda turned her piercing gaze on him once again, and Shade felt strangely illuminated by it. He looked back into the old bat’s dark eyes for only a moment (which was as much as he could endure) before humbly bowing his head and muttering his good-byes.

By the time Shade and his mother left the elders’ roost, most of the colony was already asleep, hanging from their roosts, the newborns pressed close against their mothers, enfolded in their wings.

“Wash up,” his mother told him when they’d settled back at their roost.

Shade started licking the dust and grit from his wings. The owl already seemed like such a long time ago, but he conjured up the silent pounding of its wings, the quick whistle of its flashing claws.

“We made a pretty great escape, didn’t we?” he said.

“Thrilling,” said his mother tersely.

“I really did see the sun, you know.”

She nodded curtly.

“Aren’t you interested?”

“No.”

“Are you still angry with me?”

“No. But I don’t want you to be like your father.”

“Not much chance of that,” Shade grimaced. “He was a big bat, right?”

“Yes. He was a big bat. But you might be too, one day.”

“Might.” It wasn’t very satisfying. He looked up from his licking. “Mom, a bat can’t kill an owl, can he?”

“No,” she said. “No bat can.”

“Right,” said Shade sadly. “They’re too big. There’s no way any bat could do it.”

“Forget what Chinook said.”

“Yeah,” said Shade.

“Here, you’ve got a big dirty patch.” She came closer and began pulling her claws gently through the fur of his back.

“I can do it,” said Shade, but only halfheartedly. He relaxed his aching shoulders as his mother combed through his fur again and again. A wonderful floating feeling lulled him, and he felt safe and warm and happy, and wished he could always be like this. But as he closed his eyes, the image of the rising sun, that dazzling sliver of light, still burned on the back of his eyelids.