"Is this it?" Marina asked impatiently.
Shade conjured up his mother's sound map and tried to make a match. A tower, a high-peaked turret—it seemed to fit . . .
From inside came a huge resonant bonging sound, making Shade and Marina both flinch. BONG! Then another. BONG! And another. BONG! Then silence.
'The sound from the map," said Shade excitedly. "This must be the right place!"
They swung in toward the turret, and landed on some wooden slats nailed haphazardly across a gabled window. Hanging upside down, Shade frowned up at the turret, studying its sharp silhouette against the night sky.
"No," he said, "there's something missing." And then it came to him. "The metal cross. There's no cross on this tower. We've got the wrong one."
"Shade ..." said Marina softly. "Do you smell that?"
For the first time he noticed the thick unpleasant odor wafting out from the window. With a flash of plumage, a huge head thrust out from between the broken slats and closed its beak around his forearm. He stared in horror at the flashing eye, too shocked to feel any pain. The next thing he knew he was torn from his roost, and pulled through the window and into the turret.
Battered by wings, he was dragged roughly through the air. He saw and heard only glimpses of things: windows, wooden planks, the bodies of more birds, a kind he'd never seen before—all spinning as he was hauled down and down, his forearm pincered in the bird's beak.
"We've got two of them!" a bird's voice shouted. "Awake! Awake!"
Finally he was slammed against the floor and released, and then Marina came crashing down beside him with a groan. They were in some kind of pit, covered with sticky bird droppings. The stench was so overpowering he almost retched. The two birds who'd caught them now dragged a tar shingle over the opening, trapping them.
"Wake the captain!" came another voice from above.
SlLVERWING 83
"Pigeons," Marina breathed.
"You've seen them before?"
She nodded. "They run the city skies. They're everywhere."
"But . . . why weren't they asleep?"
She was shaking her head. "It's like they were waiting for us . . ."
"They can't do this. We weren't doing anything. The night's ours."
"Somehow, I don't think they care. We've hit a patrol roost. Lucky us."
The pit wasn't very big. Between the wooden planks underfoot ran whiskers of light, and Shade could hear a rhythmic ticking from below. He knew the light must be coming from that strange bright circle on the tower.
He fluttered up to the shingle, and pushed gently. It didn't budge. The pigeons were standing right on top of it, and he could see the points of their claws, pressing through. They'd never get out that way.
"What do they want with us?" he whispered, dropping back beside Marina.
Suddenly the shingle was jerked back and the heads of two pigeon guards plunged down and grabbed them. They were hauled from the pit and dropped onto the floor. He huddled close to Marina, hurriedly taking in the surroundings.
They were at the bottom of the turret. Wooden beams crisscrossed overhead like a giant web. And roosting on the beams were dozens and dozens of birds, growling indignantly, angrily cracking their wings.
"More light!" roared one of the guards.
Across the floor Shade saw two pigeons dragging at another tar shingle, and suddenly a shaft of blinding light surged up into the turret. He narrowed his eyes to slits, listening to the terrifying flurry of activity, listening for ways out.
Even if they could get airborne fast enough, they'd
have to weave their way through all those beams. And get past all the birds. Shade could hear pigeons barring the windows, wings flared, beaks snapping. They weren't as big as owls, but they were still many times larger than him, with huge chests and muscular wings—and those eyes, those weirdly sparkling eyes.
Overhead, every beam was lined with birds now, peering down at them malevolently. The whole turret throbbed with the sound of their low ominous growling— coorrrr, coorrrr, coorrrr —making Shade's ears twitch.
Then, on one low beam, the line of birds parted respectfully as a big pigeon strutted forward, chest thrown out, head held high. An angry raised scar ran from his face down the length of his throat.
"Make your report, Sergeant."
"Yes, Captain, sir!" said the pigeon next to Shade with a smart jerk of his head. "We caught these two bats just outside the turret!"
"Good work, Sergeant." The captain glowered down at Shade and Marina. "Are these the two you saw, Private?"
Another lean soldier pigeon fluttered down to the beam and peered at them. There was a gash in his right shoulder, which was still oozing, and he seemed extremely nervous, his head flicking from side to side. His eyes burned.
"No," he said instantly, and then started laughing frantically. "These two? No. No, no, no. They're too small. The ones I saw were ..." The pigeon twitched violently, and he stopped laughing. Fear poured from his haunted eyes. "Huge, Captain, sir. They were huge, their wings spanned at least three feet ..."
"Enough," snapped the captain angrily, and after a few startled grunts, the other pigeon fell silent, his head ticking back and forth.
Shade felt sick. He looked helplessly at Marina. What were they talking about? Bats with three-foot wingspans . . .
"Where are the other bats?" the captain shouted down at them.
Shade didn't know how to reply. Which bats? Was he talking about Silverwings?
"I don't know what you mean—"
The pigeon guard pecked him sharply with his beak, and Shade cried out.
"What were you doing around our roost?"
"We're migrating," Marina said. "We're trying to find a landmark to help us on our way south. We thought this was the right tower but—"
"Who killed my two guards earlier tonight?"
Bats killing pigeons? Shade swallowed. They couldn't... but three-foot wingspans? It was a mistake. No bat was that big.
"We don't know."
"Where are they roosting?"
"We don't—"
"How many are there?"
Shade looked at Marina. He knew it was pointless to talk now; they weren't listening, and he felt afraid. Afraid of their sparkling beaks, the anger that seemed to be welling up inside the turret like a thunderhead.
A pigeon guard fluttered down to the captain.
"Sir, the ambassador has arrived."
"Excellent." He turned back to Shade and Marina. "I think you'll find the ambassador is less patient than me."
High in the turret, a dark shape loomed in one of the windows, and Shade saw the outline of a she-owl. Behind her, two other guard owls circled outside.
"Things just got much worse," he muttered to Marina.
He watched as the owl ambassador entered the pigeon roost slowly, almost disdainfully, her head swiveling slowly from side to side. Her nose twitched. A hush fell over the roost, and the captain flew up to greet her.
"Ambassador, welcome. Thank you for coming on such short—"
"You've caught the killers?" came the low terrifying voice.
"No, Ambassador, they're too small, but—"
"Where are they?"
The owl dropped to a perch close to the floor. Her flat eyes took in Shade and Marina. Shade trembled.
"They're spies," growled the she-owl.
"No!" Shade protested.
"They deny it!" cried the captain angrily, and the other birds cracked their wings in outrage, their growls deepening.
"Then why were you caught directly outside the pigeons' roost?" the ambassador asked.
"We were lost!"
"You know nothing of the bats who killed the two pigeons?"
"No," Shade insisted.
"They were probably gathering information for another attack," the owl told the captain. "I suggest you ready your soldiers."
"Yes, Ambassador."
"Have they told you the location of the ot
hers?"
"No."
"I see."
The owl turned her gaze back on Shade.
"Silverwing," said the owl thoughtfully. "Where are you from?"
Shade said nothing.
"Answer!" shouted the captain.
"The northern forests."
"Yes, I thought so. One of their bats broke the law and looked at the sun."
Muttered outrage swept through the turret.
"We burned their roost to the ground several nights ago. I suspect the same bats are responsible for this latest atrocity, Captain. Some pathetic act of revenge, perhaps."
"We will crush them!" said the captain.
"Not if there's more like the others I saw," muttered the soldier pigeon with the gash in his shoulder. And he laughed, a quick strangled laugh.
"That's enough, Private!" snapped the captain.
"I'm not going back out there to fight 'em, Captain .. . I'm not. . . they've got claws, sir, and teeth like—"
"Silence!"
"It's the gargoyles, that's what they is, them gargoyles on the cathedral come to life ... I know it . . ."
"Guards, take him away!" The captain turned apologetically to the owl. "Private Saunders has a tendency to exaggerate."
"No bat can be a match for birds," said the owl calmly. "I bring an order from the king of the Northern Realms," the owl announced. "Hear the king through me. The skies are now closed. This murder of birds by bats is an act of war, and we will respond in kind. The law is broken."
The owl turned her baleful eyes on Shade.
"You bats are no longer protected in the night. Any bat seen in the sky, night or day, is subject to death. We will not tolerate these actions. Our messengers have already been dispatched to all nests in the city, and will travel beyond as fast as our wingbeats."
"You can't do this!" Shade shouted in fury.
The nights, closed. That meant none of them were safe now. He thought of his mother and the rest of his colony. Were they far enough away, or would the owls' decree catch up with them? More than ever, he knew he had to reach them.
"It has already been done, little bat," said the owl. "And if you value your life, you will tell us where we can find the killers."
"We don't know anything."
The owl turned to the captain. "I must go make my report to the royal assembly. Torture these two until they talk, then send for me."
"Yes, Ambassador."
The owl flared her wings, and the pigeons cleared a path for her as she rose regally through the turret and disappeared into the night sky.
"Prepare the bats for amputation," the captain told his guards.
Shade felt all his joints turn loose and watery.
"What does that mean?" he asked Marina. "Amputation?"
"I don't know," she stammered, "I don't—"
"Peck!" came the low ominous chant from the birds. "Peck, peck, peck, peck."
Scriiiiiiiitttttcchhhhhh!
Shade's ears twitched in terror. A group of pigeons were dragging their beaks against the stone.
Scriiiiiiiitttttcchhhhhh! Scriiiiiiiitttttcchhhhhh!
Shade suddenly understood. They were sharpening their beaks.
"Your punishment will be the loss of your wings!" decreed the captain. "You can crawl back to your bat friends and tell them that the pigeons of this city will not forget this outrage. Take hold of them!"
"Take their wings!" cried the guard on the ground. "Pin them down!"
Pigeons dropped from their perches and began to crowd in. They were going to take away his wings, peck them off so he could never fly, never reach home. He felt powerless and naked in the bright light. The light.
"Follow me!" he hissed to Marina.
He sprang forward, leaping over the ring of pigeons and landing on the floor beyond them, very near the blinding shaft of light. He shut his eyes. Flaring his wings, he tripled his size in an instant, and bared his teeth with a bloodcurdling shriek. Three pigeons scattered in astonishment. Marina landed beside him. Shade felt for the rough surface of the tar shingle.
"Push!" he urged her. "Block the light!"
SlLVERWING 89
Together they sank their claws in and pushed. The shingle slid quickly across the floor.
"Take hold of them!" roared the captain. "Seize their wings!"
But the turret was plunged into total darkness. Shade knew now was their only chance. The pigeons were momentarily blind.
"Come on," he hissed to Marina.
Slowly he lifted off the ground, drumming his wings frantically. With his sound vision he scanned the turret: the silver webwork of beams, pigeons fluttering blind in panic, their wings etching ghostly shadows in his mind's eye. He spotted the nearest window: a beckoning rectangle of blackness. He plotted his course.
The pigeons fluttered in confusion, smacking into one another. Shade veered around one beam, then another, his wings jerking sharply from side to side. From behind, a pigeon knocked him in the side of the head, stunning him. He dropped to a wooden beam.
"Got one!" the pigeon cried.
"Shade!" he heard Marina cry beside him.
"Go!" he shouted. "I'm okay."
But he felt the bird's heavy wing press down on him hard, trying to pin him. Instinctively he sank his teeth into the feathers and hit flesh. The pigeon yelped and the wing snapped up.
Shade leaped from the beam, dropping several feet before his wings could lift him again. Where was Marina? He cast a panicked sonic glance around and saw her slender outline, making for the window above him. She flashed through and was out. A pigeon lunged to block his path, but Shade flipped sideways just in time, and soared through the window, back into the night.
Keeper of the Spire
Six pigeons burst after them from the turret windows.
Shade shot a look over his wing, saw the birds fanning out across the sky to hem them in.
"Can we outrun them?" he gasped.
"Don't think so," panted Marina.
'They've got to be half blind out here!"
"Plenty of light."
She was right. It wasn't like night in the forest. Light poured up from the city. They streamed over it, swinging wildly around towers, skimming rooftops, plunging down into deep canyons. His fear was shot through with exultation: He was back in the night, his own element. No bird could catch him. He was small, black as the sky, quick as a shooting star. Still the pigeons kept doggedly after them.
"Follow me," Marina said.
He spun down into the city after her. Past walls of light, moaning machinery, Human vehicles on the glittering roads.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere dark."
She dropped down into a narrow alley between two low buildings, and he plunged after her, piercing the deep shadows with his echo vision.
"Here!" she called out.
SlLVERWING 91
They rounded a corner and threw themselves against a sooty brick wall, clinging with their claws. For good measure, Shade spread his black wings over Marina's body, making them all but invisible in the darkness. They stopped breathing as the pigeons thrashed past over the alley, then circled.
"Where'd they go?" said one soldier.
"That way, I think."
"Go. We'll check here."
Two soldiers stayed behind and settled on the rooftop's edge, listening, their heads ticking from side to side. Shade watched them with his echo vision.
"It's too dark," said the first soldier. "I can't see a thing."
"We've lost them," said the second.
"Let's head back."
"The captain won't be happy."
"But what if those big ones come back ..."
"Forget what Saunders said. He's a liar. There're no bats like that."
"Then how'd they kill two of us? You saw that wound on Saunders's shoulder."
"Maybe they had weapons, how do I know?"
"He said they carried the bodies away in their claws."
T
he other pigeon had no reply to this.
"All right. Let's go back. Call the others. It'll be light in a few hours. We can send another team at dawn."
They lit from the rooftop and disappeared. When he could no longer hear them, Shade hungrily sucked in air. He felt like he hadn't taken a breath in hours.
Marina pushed away his wings. "Nearly suffocated me under there," she said indignantly.
"Yeah, well it worked," he shot back with a grin. He was so glad to be free of the turret. Glad both his wings were still attached to his body.
"You can thank me for that," she said. "They'd have caught us in the open."
"Hey, I was the one who killed the light and got us out of that stinking turret!''
"That was quick thinking/' she admitted.
"Sure was."
"And a lot of luck," she added. "We're lucky to be alive."
Shade shrugged. His whole body was buzzing. "They weren't so tough. They're not great fliers, are they? I mean, they're not as fast as us, and they're noisy for one thing, and they can't maneuver very well. What an escape!"
"They'll come back for us."
He sighed. She was so sensible. It started to rain gently, and he felt suddenly very tired.
"We've got to find the right tower," he said. But how would they ever find the right tower in this city of towers? All he wanted was to be out of the city, and on their way again.
"Let's find a safe day roost first. I don't want to be caught out by dawn, with every bird in the city hunting us."
Closed skies. The owl's words echoed in Shade's head. They'd never be safe now. All his life the night had been his, now it was taken away. And all because the pigeons said bats had killed two of them. Giant bats.
"What are gargoyles?" he asked Marina.
"I don't know. You thinking of what that pigeon said?"
"Maybe they just made it up." But he knew he wanted it to be true. He wanted there to be bats so big the pigeons feared them. Maybe they were big enough to fight owls too.
With Marina, he dropped from the wall, and skimmed the buildings.
"Maybe we could roost on a rooftop?" he suggested.
"No. Too many pigeons around. There's got to be a tree somewhere."
They rose higher for a better view, and darted out over
a large tree-lined square. In the center was a huge stone building. It didn't look like the others. More like the skeleton of a vast, ancient beast, crouched, its head bent into the earth. At the front, two rough stone towers rose up like pointy shoulder blades. Stretching back was a high-pitched roof, supported by riblike stone arches. Then, at the end of the building rose the highest tower of all, tapering like an animal's bony tail.
Silverwing Page 8
