Sunwing (7 page)

He was through almost before he realized it, head above the water, choking in air. Marina splashed up beside him.

Even as they grimly clambered out onto the bank, he noticed the heat—a fierce, soaking heat that hung in the air like mist. Overhead were trees he’d never seen before, with strange, broad leaves, and luxuriant fronds. It was drizzling; warm, soft drops of water falling gently.

He’d barely had time to catch his breath when Marina stiffened. “Look,” she said.

In the stream, Shade saw a large shape darken the water before breaking the surface.

The owl had come too. Shade couldn’t decide if the owl looked less, or more, frightening wet. Certainly he looked skinnier, his usually voluminous feathers plastered against his body; but his head, with its matted plumage, looked ferociously gaunt, the eyes and beak even bigger and more vicious.

Frozen beside Marina, Shade watched as the owl lurched to the bank and wearily hauled himself out. Then his head swiveled, and he looked straight at them. They faced each other warily, no more than twenty wingbeats apart.

The young owl made a valiant attempt to flare his plumage, but only succeeded in shaking spray from his soggy wings. The piercing shriek that escaped his mouth was, however, more impressive.

Too exhausted to fly, Shade forced himself not to flinch.

The owl cocked his head, to the left, the right, laying it almost flat. It was a curious gesture, almost comical, but Shade knew the owl was just measuring the distance to them, preparing for a strike.

Instinctively, Shade and Marina bared their teeth and hissed, flaring their wings and tripling in size.

“Go back!” Shade yelled.

“I’m not afraid of you,” said the owl, but Shade could hear a tremor of uncertainty in his deep voice. The bird glanced down at the mouth of the stream, as if hoping more owls would be coming soon.

“He’s half feathers,” Shade said loudly to Marina.

“You’re right. There’s nothing to him.”

The owl rocked slowly from side to side.

The heat crawled through Shade’s fur like worms. Even on the hottest summer day he could remember, it had never been like this. He stole a glance up at the broad leaves, mossy vines draped from branches. It was hard to breathe.

“Stupid bats.” The owl looked at the water once more.

“No one’s coming to help you,” said Shade. “They’re too big to fit through.”

“You’re in league with them, aren’t you?” spat the owl. “The Humans. They came to help you back there. They helped you escape, and they killed those other owls.”

“They’re not dead,” said Shade. “They were still moving.” He couldn’t stop himself from feeling a pang of sympathy for the owl. Before his dream-dazed eyes, he’d seen the Humans snatch and steal his fellow creatures. This owl had been trapped in a forest, just like Shade, wanting to get out, not knowing what was happening to them.

“They’re doing it to us too,” he said, looking quickly at Marina, not knowing if this was the right strategy.

“Liars. You bats have always been lawbreakers. You started this war by killing birds at night. The city pigeons, then owls, then—”

“That wasn’t us,” said Shade desperately.

“They were bats.”

“No … well, yes, they were bats, but not northern bats. They
came from the jungle. The Humans brought them up from the jungle, and they escaped and—”

“So the Humans
are
in league with you!”

“No!” He looked despairingly at Marina. How could he explain this?

“There were two of these jungle bats,” said Marina. “And they ate birds. They ate beasts. And they ate bats. They nearly ate us, if that makes you feel any better. They were monsters.”

“And they’re dead now, anyway,” said Shade, with a brief surge of hope. “So this whole thing, the whole war, it’s a misunderstanding. We don’t want a war.”

But he could tell from the owl’s rigid face he was far from convinced. Just more bat lies, that’s what he was thinking.

The owl snorted. “This is stupid, talking to you. The enemy.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

“All bats are enemies. You kill birds.”

“But I just told you … look, I’ve never killed any birds.”

“Only because you can’t.”

Shade felt a stab of guilt. The owl was right. How often had he wished for the power to kill the owls? For so long, he’d harbored a hatred of them.

“Have you killed any bats?” Shade asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then you’re not my enemy, either.”

“So why are you here, if you’re not in league with the Humans?” the owl demanded.

“I told you. They’re trapping us too,” said Shade. “There’re thousands of us here, and yesterday, they came and took some of us away, just like they did to you back there.”

The owl seemed to consider this carefully. “Where do they take them?”

“I don’t know,” said Shade. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. How long have you been inside?”

“Several weeks. Just before winter set in hard. We were flying to our hibernation site and passed over this building. We heard owls, and went closer. There were openings in the wall, and it looked like it might be a barn, a good wintering site, so we went inside and found the forest. And once inside—”

“There was no way out.”

The owl nodded.

“What do they feed you?” Shade asked.

The owl’s great brows furrowed at the question. “Mice, mostly,” he said hesitantly.

“I bet they’re lousy, right? All taste the same?”

A quick, somewhat alarming hoot came from the owl’s throat, and Shade stiffened before realizing it was laughter.

“You should try the bugs they pump out for us,” said Shade. “I had one today, nearly gagged!”

“Does the water have a strange taste to you?” the owl wanted to know.

“Yeah, like metal,” Shade said.

“Yes, metal,” said the owl with another short chuckle.

“Well, see how much we have in common?” said Marina.

The owl stared at them, some of his wariness coming back. “I won’t be tricked by you.”

“We don’t have any tricks right now,” said Shade. “We’re as confused as you, believe me.”

The owl swiveled his head to look at the huge trees and lush plants. “What is this place?”

Shade shook his head, listening. He heard nothing but the
drip-drip
of water from the leaves, and the occasional chirrup of some strange insect. It was disturbingly quiet.

“Has to be something inside,” he said, “doesn’t there?”

“Maybe they’re waiting to fill it,” said Marina. “What kind of creature would fill a place like this?” the owl asked.

Fear tingled along Shade’s bones. There was something terribly familiar about this place. Had he seen it in one of his dreams, maybe? Or had somebody described it to him, drawing it in words.

A vine rustled.

There was something watching them. Shade knew it with utter certainty. He tilted his head and peered with sound into the shadows of a fleshy tree. A narrow, spiky leaf shuddered, dislodging a rivulet of water.

It wasn’t a leaf.

It was a nose, a high-flared nose that curved into a sharp, ridged point—and beneath the nose, a long, houndlike set of jaws that was splitting open to reveal twin rows of incisors. Shade saw the two huge, black, unblinking eyes; the high, pointed ears, the crest of bristly black fur between them.

He knew what it was.

In his mind, he said its name.

Goth.

He’d always known.

He’d seen Goth ablaze with lightning, spiraling lifelessly down through the clouds—and somehow never doubted he’d survive. All those times he’d argued with Marina and insisted Goth was dead, he secretly knew he was lying. His dreams had known the truth all along.

“What is that?” he heard the owl say, in a choked voice.

“It’s him,” was all Shade managed.

With a violent snap, Goth unfurled himself, three feet of wing punching leaves. He plunged like something jagged torn from the night sky, and in the few seconds before he was upon them, Shade’s mind blazed. Where were the metal bands that once festooned Goth’s forearms? And how was it that his wings looked so undamaged? They were taut and strong, completely unscarred. Had the Humans healed him somehow?

Shade flipped out of the way, but the stunned owl was not so quick. Goth knocked him over onto his back, pinning him with both rear claws. The owl beat at him with his wings, but Goth
withstood the blows, head darting, waiting for an opening to tear in with his teeth. “Let’s go!” Shade heard Marina hiss.

But he couldn’t rip his eyes away, transfixed by the fear in the owl’s face; the sheer, unbelieving terror. It was too awful. Goth reared, his long snout opening.

Shade soared in front of Goth and threw an echo picture in his face—a skeletal Human hurtling toward him, face hooded, eye slits ablaze.

Goth reared back with a cry, and lost his grip on the owl. “Fly now!” Shade screamed at the bird.

The owl needed no prompting: He was away in a feathery explosion of wings. Shade slammed air, veering over Goth’s head as his sound illusion evaporated. He saw Marina in the distance, disappearing into a thick screen of leaves, and hunched his shoulders, beating furiously to catch up.

Behind him, he could hear Goth’s roar of anger, but didn’t turn to look. He burst through the thicket, and Marina was waiting on the other side. Wordlessly they buried themselves deeper in the luxuriant fronds, and finally roosted behind giant leaves with curved edges, hiding themselves almost entirely. “More of them?” Marina whispered to him.

It was a horrifying thought—more creatures like Goth collected here, just as the owls and bats had been collected in the other forests. If the Humans had captured Goth and Throbb in their jungle, maybe they’d caught others, and brought them back. Right now, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see Throbb too, all his charred ashes reassembled. If they could heal Goth’s wings, what couldn’t they do? Shade peered up through the dense foliage, listening, but all he could hear were the sounds of the cannibal bat thrashing through leaves, getting closer.

“It’s about time they fed me some real food,” Goth roared. “I’m to feast on you, Shade! I’ve seen it in my dreams, and my dreams always come true! I dreamed my wings were healed, and they were. And I dreamed I tasted your beating heart! And I will!”

Shade’s legs trembled, and he tensed his exhausted muscles to still them. A drop of sweat snaked through his fur and into one eye. He tried to lie to himself, tell himself it was just another bad dream, but he knew this was real, and there’d be no easy escape by jerking himself out of sleep. He was horrifically awake.

There was sudden silence, stretching out long enough to make Shade hopeful, and just as he was turning to Marina to whisper, their screen of leaves was swept back by a dark wing, and Goth swung toward them, upside down.

Before Shade could even move, the owl had dropped onto Goth’s back, driving them both down through the leaves. Shade lit with Marina as the owl and the cannibal bat fought on below them.

“No!” Shade cried out in dismay. “You can’t beat him!”

He knew the owl would lose; it was only a matter of seconds. But there was no helping him now. Shade flew into a small clearing and nearly smacked into a Human.

Robed in white, the hooded Human ignored him and Marina and moved into the heart of the thicket. In his hand was one of the long, netted sticks. Shade swirled to watch as the Human lifted the metal stick high in the air. There was a sharp crackle, and Goth slumped into the net. A second Human appeared from the far side of the thicket, poked the owl with his stick, and netted him as he dropped lifelessly.

He saw them put Goth into one cage, the owl into another. Then they paused, looking around the jungle.

They know we’re here, thought Shade.

He heard a faint hiss of air, and turned to see a section of the stone wall swinging open to admit a third Human. And already the wall was starting to close behind him.

“Marina,” he hissed, and led the way, pounding furiously toward the opening. The Human must have seen them, because it made a low, drawn-out moan of surprise, turning as they streaked past. The wall was almost sealed shut again, but Shade wasn’t stopping. He’d flown through fissures in waterfalls and he could do this. He flipped sideways, sucked in his belly, and trimmed his wings and made it through, Marina almost clawing his tail as she shot after him. With a sucking noise, the wall sealed itself behind them, and they were out of the fake jungle.

He’d been inside a few Human buildings, but mostly in the high recesses where the Humans never went: cathedral spires, a clock tower, the attic of an abandoned mountain cabin.

Now, they were in a blazingly bright passageway, with lights running overhead. The walls were white; so white, they’d be spotted in a minute. Instinctively, they flew to the corners of the wall and ceiling, trying to drag themselves into the tiny smudges of shadow there.

For a moment they rested, and Shade could feel Marina trembling against him. Then he realized it was he who was trembling. “He saved us, that owl.”

Marina nodded. “Never thought I’d ever get help from an owl. Why did he … why did you help him?”

“I don’t know. It just … seemed right.”

“Did the Humans kill him with those metal sticks?”

“I thought both of them were still moving, only kind of stunned.”

“Good thing for the owl the Humans came, or he’d be dead. What’s Goth doing here?”

“Must’ve caught him again, but the bands—”

“Gone, I know,” she said. “And his wings, did you see his wings?”

“No scars.”

Marina nodded miserably. “Maybe you’re right, Shade, maybe they’re just studying us for something. We’ve got to tell the others.”

Shade wanted to get farther away from the door: It probably wouldn’t be long before the Humans came back out, and they’d almost certainly be looking for them. Which way, though?

The passageway seemed to stretch on forever in both directions, doorways on both sides. Shade closed his eyes and quickly regained his sense of direction.

“Okay, maybe this passage runs behind all the forests: Goth’s, then the owls’, then ours. It’s how the Humans get inside.” Marina was nodding. “We follow it back to our own forest?”

“All these doors on the right open into them, right?” He looked at her, hoping for reassurance. “We wait for the Humans to open a door, and slip back in.”

“We could wait a long time. What about these?” she asked, nodding at the doorways on the left side of the passage.

Shade shrugged. “Maybe they go deeper into the building, or to other forests—or else outside,” he added hopefully.

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps, and a Human Female, her head unhooded, was approaching. Shade held his breath as she passed beneath them. The ceilings were high, but she had one of those sticks; she could easily reach up and poke them. Luckily she never looked up. “Follow that one,” Marina said.

Sticking high to the shadows, they followed the Female down the tunnel, keeping to a safe distance. After a minute, she came to a door in the left wall, tapped at it, and pulled it open.

A horrible tide of weeping washed out, mingled with shouts of pain and fear—and then was instantly erased as the door sealed itself with a hiss. The passageway buzzed quietly, but Shade’s ears still sang with those terrible cries.

They were the cries of bats.

“They’re in there,” Shade said, his mouth parched. Marina was shaking her head, eyes wide with panic. “I don’t want to go in there, Shade. It’s going to be something really, really bad.”

“That’s where they take us. We’ve got to,” he said hoarsely. He wasn’t thinking too clearly, his thoughts surging uselessly in all directions. “We’ve got to see what’s inside.”

More footsteps sounded along the passageway, and Shade could see three more Humans coming, two of them carrying cages. Goth and the owl. They stopped before the same door and poked at a cluster of metal buttons.

Shade looked at Marina, and she shook her head anxiously. “What if my father’s in there?” he whispered. He saw her look away, then give a quick, resigned nod.

The door hissed open. Shade dropped down from the ceiling with Marina and landed on the back of the Human bringing up the rear. He clung delicately to the loose folds of the white robe, claws just pricking the fabric, afraid of poking through. Above him, between the Human’s shoulder blades, he saw Marina holding on tight. He could feel the Human’s energy conducted through the swing of the robe. The Human hesitated for a split second. He feels it, Shade worried, the extra weight—but then the Human hurried after his companions.

Inside the doorway, they dropped off instantly, soaring straight for the high ceiling. A mournful tide of cries rose up with them. Only when he’d reached the very top did Shade turn and look down.

He squinted. The room hurt his eyes, brighter even than the passageway. It had a smell too, a horrible smell of sweating, panicking bodies, of mouths stale with fear.

Running the length of the room were two raised troughs, as thick as great fallen trees. They looked to Shade like they were made of metal and, straining with his echo vision, he saw that the tops were covered by some sort of glass, pricked with tiny holes.

All along the length of each metal trough, Humans hunched over the glass. Their hands were shoved through numerous openings on either side of the troughs. They seemed to be handling things.

Bats.

Shade caught his first glimpse of the familiar shapes beneath the glass, spread out in a long, single line, but each separated by little dividing walls. The space was enough for the bat to lie flat, wings spread. Shade frowned. Without moving, the bats seemed to be gliding along the inside of the trough, stopping wherever Humans were stationed outside.

In went the hands, and Shade couldn’t see what the Humans were doing to the bats, because the hands blocked his view.

But he could hear their voices, shrill in the humid air.

“Please!”

“No! No … “

“Why are you doing this?”

And worst of all, he could hear them calling out names, calling out to each other across the room, trying to find out where they were, what was happening to them.

The Humans worked in silence, cold and efficient. He saw Males and Females, their hair tied back, doing this work, and he remembered when he’d seen Humans in the cathedral, in the city, standing and praying. They were silent then too, but he’d thought differently of them. He’d been in awe of their size and strength. Now he was terrified of them.

“I can’t see,” he whispered to Marina.

“Don’t.”

But he couldn’t stop himself. He had to find out what they were doing. He dropped down, hugging the wall for cover, watching the Humans. They were all so intent on their ghastly work, they never looked up. They wouldn’t notice him.

“Shade!” Marina was following him, clutching at him with her claws. “Come back up. We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to tell the others.”

He shook her loose and continued to drop down in quick, tight curves.

Set out beside the Humans were small, high platforms covered with metal instruments, which glinted harshly in the light. Some were sharp, the sight of them making a stab of pain in Shade’s stomach. The Humans picked up their instruments, and pushed their gloved hands through a pair of round portals in the side of the trough. Shade heard the bats cry out.

Not since the owls burned down Tree Haven had he been so angry. Fury roared in his ears, and for a moment he couldn’t see. Closer he flew, his eyes filled with tears of rage. This was not the Promise.

“Shade!”

He heard Marina’s shout, and almost at the same instant, a horrible jolt went through him. He tilted crazily, all his limbs
numb. He saw bits of things as he fell. The point of a metal stick, a Human face, the mesh of a net closing around him.

He was in a metal trough.

Like living things, a pair of fat, gloved hands surged toward him and took hold of him deftly, flipping him over onto his back and pinning him. The hands were cold, and had a pungent smell. From the other side of the trough, a second pair of gloves ballooned around him. Metal glinted sharply. Before he could even cry out in alarm, a blade sliced across his stomach, shaving off a neat patch of his fur. He stared at his pinkish flesh. Like a newborn, furless and weak.

The hands pulled back, and with a whirring noise the floor of the trough moved. Through the glass top, he watched the two Humans slide away, and then two more Humans were sliding toward him.

His heart was a gallop of fear. The floor stopped. He leaped to his feet and clawed desperately at the glass. He didn’t even leave scratches. With some difficulty he turned and faced the little walls that hemmed him in on either side. He slammed against them, and pain hammered through his shoulder. The barrier didn’t even shift. “Marina!” he called out. “Marina!”

There was no answer. He hoped she’d escaped, and maybe was still hovering near the ceiling, watching helplessly.

Gloved fingers closed around him, and he cried out in alarm. A second hand plunged toward him, and this one clutched a long, wickedly sharp dart, longer than a pine needle, long enough to pierce him through. Again he was pushed over onto his back.

Even as he struggled he knew how futile it was: These hands that contained him could crush his bones if they wanted to; he could feel their blunt strength in every finger. He cried out as he saw the needle coming. Its tip bit into the bare patch on his stomach, but went no further. With relief, Shade watched it withdraw. The hands released him.