Silverwing

by Kenneth Oppel

  His fur was beaded with sweat when he flew back outside to join Frieda.

  "Everyone's out," he panted.

  "Good," said Frieda, staring up at the owls. They were still high in the air, but directly overhead now, circling. One owl detached himself from the group, and began a slow descent. He was, Shade noticed, the only one who carried no fire in his claws.

  "Go now," Frieda told him, "and take cover in the forest with the others."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Talk to the owl."

  Shade hesitated. He wanted to stay. He wanted to help. One old bat against these flying giants . . .

  "Maybe I should—"

  "Go!" Frieda snapped, flaring her wings and baring surprisingly sharp teeth.

  Shade went, but not far, only to the nearest tree. He sank his claws into the bark and hung upside down, looking back at Frieda and the huge owl, now settling beside her on Tree Haven's peak.

  "Brutus," Frieda said with a respectful nod.

  "Frieda Silverwing," came the owl's reply, so deep it was like a roll of thunder.

  "You've brought soldiers and fire, Brutus. Why?"

  "You know why. We've come for the bat who saw the sun."

  Shade felt the owl's words shudder in his bones, and he held his breath, waiting for Frieda's reply. She looked so small beside the owl.

  "You cannot make war on us at night, Brutus. That is the law."

  Shade was aware of other Silverwings around him in the nearby trees, hanging behind leaves, hunched up on branches, pressing themselves into the bark. Hundreds of dark eyes, fearful and intent, watched Frieda and Brutus.

  "The law has already been broken," Brutus said. "We're here for justice. I ask you again, and it will be the last time. Give us the boy."

  Shade felt his insides liquify.

  "The boy is only a newborn, and he didn't know any better," Frieda said. "Surely you can overlook his foolishness this once."

  "The law makes no exceptions."

  "Let the owls take him!" It was Bathsheba, flying out from the forest and landing beside Frieda. "Brutus is right. The law has been broken and the boy must pay the price."

  Shade could sense the eyes of the other bats on him now, and he burned under their gaze, as if caught in the sun's glare. Did they want him to give himself up? he wondered, a sick gnawing in his stomach. Was that it?

  "You know I'm right, Frieda," Bathsheba continued. "One life pays for the law—and protects us all. Where is the boy?"

  Shade cast a hopeful net of sound and caught the telltale outline of his mother's upside-down face and shoulders. She turned toward him and their eyes met through a weave of branches of leaves. He'd never felt so alone.

  He looked back up at the owls. He knew what they would do if he didn't surrender. All the other bats thought he was a runt, a troublemaker, and now they would think he was a coward. It was his fault: What choice did he have? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, tensed, and prepared to take flight. Jaws clamped firmly around his rear legs, pulling him back, and he tumbled against Ariel's warm fur.

  "Don't you dare," she hissed fiercely.

  SlLVERWING 37

  He hadn't even heard her land.

  "They've got fire/' he said. "If I don't do it, they'll—"

  "They can take me instead."

  Shade shook his head in mute horror, and finally realized what danger they were in. The owls wanted a sacrifice, and the thought that it might be his mother ... it was too terrifying, the idea of losing her. Forever, just like his father. He lunged toward her, digging his claws into her.

  "Don't!" he whispered fiercely.

  "No!"

  It was Frieda's voice from the summit of Tree Haven, and both Shade and his mother turned to look. The elder's wings were spread wide in anger, and she was rising up on her rear claws, teeth bared not at Brutus, but at Bathsheba.

  "You forget yourself," she scolded the other bat. "Until I die, I am the chief elder, not you. I am the colony's voice, so hear it now. No one will take the boy, or anyone else." She turned to Brutus. "That is my final reply to you."

  The owl's huge eyes hooded. "Your choice is unwise." He beat his wings and lifted from Tree Haven, swiveled his neck and shrieked up to his fellow owls in a language Shade could not understand. Then as Brutus flew higher, he shouted back at Frieda: "You've made your reply; here is ours."

  With a terrible shriek, forty owls plunged toward Tree Haven, fire burning in their claws. Shade saw Frieda and Bathsheba fling themselves clear as the owls hurled their sticks at the tree, flames leaping as they struck bark. It can't burn, Shade thought desperately. It's been hit by lightning and it can't burn again. But it did. Sparks caught on the tree's blackened armor, along the branches, up the trunk.

  He had to stop it. Before his mother could hold him back, he flung himself into the air and plunged toward a

  growing patch of flame. He battered it with spread wings, again and again, until it sputtered out. He could do this, he could put out the fires and save Tree Haven. He looked around frantically, and launched himself at another fire. From the corner of his eye he saw his mother and dozens of other bats surge from their hiding places in the forest and soar toward their beloved roost. His heart leaped.

  "Put out the flames!" came the cry. "Stop the fire!"

  But the owls were waiting for them, and beat them back with their wings as effortlessly as if they were drops of rain. They didn't attack with their claws; their objective was only to keep the bats from the tree. Only a few made it through to fight the flames. Shade finished smothering another small fire, banked around the thick trunk and nearly hit an owl. He veered away just in time. The owl hadn't even noticed him. The giant bird was hovering, pumping his wings, looking for something.

  Looking for an entrance.

  There was fire in his claws. The owl found the knothole, too small for him to enter, but.. . With a jolt, Shade understood. The owl flew to the knothole and began pushing his fire stick through.

  A terrible anger took hold of Shade, filling his head with black. He hurled himself at the burning stick, seizing it in his claws and teeth and trying to wrench it away from the owl. But it was no use. The owl twitched one wing and knocked Shade against the trunk. He was aware of falling in darkness, then a surprisingly gentle thud, and it was only intense heat that brought him around.

  He opened his eyes and lurched back from the burning moss at the tree's base. He smacked the fire with singed wings, but it didn't die. The flames grew larger, hungrier, spitting sparks, which caught in his fur and burned his flesh.

  "Shade, stop!" It was his mother, pulling him back.

  "I've got to!"

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  "You can't put it out."

  Still he struggled, even as she dragged him away through the pall of smoke and up into the air. He knew she was right. Tree Haven was a pillar of fire. And from the knotholes—those entranceways he'd always thought were so secret and safe—shot sharp tongues of flame. Tree Haven was burning inside and out. Bark crackled, ancient wood gasped. There would be no stopping it.

  The owls were gone.

  His body aching, Shade joined the listless throng of bats in the treetops. He wished he were blind, so he didn't have to see their faces, the looks of shock and anger, or the way the mothers pulled their wings tighter around their children, as if he might somehow hurt them, just by looking at them.

  He stared, numb with disbelief and exhaustion, as the flames and thick smoke rose from their doomed home. All his fiery anger seeped out of him and was replaced by a slow, cold fury: This is what the owls did. They killed my father. And now they destroyed my home, our home.

  "You're lucky you didn't lose a wing," Ariel said beside him.

  He grunted, not caring.

  He noticed that the other bats were moving away from them, shuffling to other branches, fluttering silently to other trees. Hadn't they seen him fighting the fire? He'd done his best to stop it!

 
"Silverwings!" It was Frieda, flying above them. "We must strike out for Stone Hold. If we start now we can make half the distance before dawn and find temporary roosts along the way."

  "You have betrayed us, Frieda!" cried Bathsheba, rising into the air and circling angrily. "Look at the ruins of our home. Silverwings, do you still choose Frieda as your leader? The great leader who has let your home burn to the ground! Speak!"

  There were ragged mutterings of discontent through

  the crowd, though no voice was raised loud enough to stand out.

  "My power is only good as long as you give it to me/' Frieda told them. "But let me say this. We have suffered a terrible loss tonight. We have lost Tree Haven, our nursery roost for hundreds of years. But no one was killed; we have not lost a single member of our colony. So I say this to you. We can replace our roost, but Ariel could not have replaced her son. All you mothers, who among you would have offered her child in exchange for Tree Haven? Who?"

  A miserable silence hung over the assembled bats.

  "If I have made the wrong choice, tell me now. But as long as I am chief elder, I will never bargain a life, no matter how terrible the consequences. One life is more important than any roost. You have reason to be angry. Vent your anger at the owls who did this, not one of your own. Speak, anyone who thinks otherwise."

  Shade waited in agony as the silence stretched out.

  "We have a long journey before us," Frieda said. "To Stone Hold to join with the males—and then on to Hibernaculum."

  Slowly, but with grim determination, every bat of the Silverwing colony rose into the air, all the newborns and their mothers, the old and the young. Frieda took the lead with the other elders. She sang as she flew, a high piercing note to blaze their trail.

  Shade flew alongside his mother. Never had he known the colony to be so gloomily quiet. He'd spent so much time anticipating the moment they would leave for Hibernaculum. It had both frightened and excited him. But now, he felt deadened, just concentrated on pumping his wings. Flight was a joyless thing to him.

  He couldn't stop himself from looking back, until all he could see was the glow of the flames, and the smudge of the smoke's thicker darkness against the night.

  By dawn, long after the Silverwings had left, Tree

  Haven was still burning. The great branches snapped and exploded, until finally, the tree toppled, heaving its roots up out of the earth and stone, and laying open the cave beneath. And if any bat had been within a thousand wingbeats, he would have heard a million faint voices, streaming up from the echo chamber, their stories released at last, and lost forever in the sky.

  They found a deserted barn before sunrise. The rafters sagged, the roof and walls let in dusty shafts of daylight, and the smell of beasts and their droppings was still unpleasantly strong. But it seemed safe, and free of bird's nests. Hanging from the high rotting beams, exhausted, most of the bats plunged immediately into a deep sleep.

  Shade pressed close against his mother. His breastbone still ached from the long flight. And whenever he shut his eyes, he saw Tree Haven burning. Ariel shifted and looked at him.

  "It's not your fault/' she said softly.

  "No one's going to talk to me the rest of my life."

  "They'll get over it. They saw how brave you were. You tried to save the roost—which is more than most of the others. I'm very proud of you."

  Shade glowed silently with her praise.

  "Frieda took me to the echo chamber," he told her. It already seemed like such a long time ago.

  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.

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  "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 wing-beats 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.

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  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.