Silverwing

by Kenneth Oppel

  When he saw the metal grate at the side of the road. A drizzle of rainwater ran through one of the narrow slits. He measured it with his echo vision in a second. Maybe, just maybe . . .

  "Fold your wings!" he shouted.

  Without slowing, he dropped headfirst for the grate and at the last moment, pulled his wings tight and plunged beneath the earth.

  Deep inside the dripping shaft, Shade peered up at Goth, his jaws fastened around the metal grate, trying to lift it. Throbb sank his claws through one of the slits, and was pulling with all his might. Shade looked worriedly at Marina.

  "You think they can move it?" he whispered.

  Marina shook her head. "I don't know."

  A metal clunk answered the question. Shade jolted in alarm. Goth and Throbb had managed to lift the metal grate, just a fraction of an inch, for just a second, before it clanged back down.

  "Better find another way out/' Marina hissed.

  Shade didn't want to go deeper. He'd never liked being underground, all the weight of the earth hanging over his head. But what choice did they have? He fluttered warily down to the bottom of the shaft with Marina. A long tunnel stretched out in two directions.

  "I guess it doesn't really matter," said Marina, looking both ways. "There's got to be another shaft that'll lead back up. Right?"

  "Yeah, right," said Shade, trying to sound hopeful.

  The tunnel was wide enough for them to fly carefully, avoiding the oily sludge seeping along the bottom. It stank down here, of stagnant water, stale air, Human garbage.

  "The dart hit him," Shade muttered. "I saw it."

  "Maybe he ripped it out in time."

  "They have no right being alive."

  Up ahead was a glimmering in the roof of the tunnel.

  "I think that's it," said Marina hopefully. "There's another shaft."

  Shade flew toward the light, was about to veer up into the shaft and—

  Teeth. That's what he saw first. Just bared teeth swinging down toward him, snapping. He cried out and recoiled, flapping backward and nearly crashing into Marina.

  Two sinewy rats were dangling from the ceiling by their claws, their faces narrowed to fierce slits. There were others now too, swarming along the walls of the shaft, blocking their escape.

  "This way!" shouted Marina, flying farther down the tunnel.

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  'Trespassers!" the rats shouted after them. "We'll get you. You can't get out!"

  The rats started tapping their claws loudly on the stone walls, tap taptap tap taptaptap, the sound carrying down after Shade and Marina, and past them into the distance. Warning the others, Shade realized in panic.

  "There're more," Marina said suddenly. "Up ahead. I can hear them."

  Shade cast his sonic gaze down the long tunnel, and the silver image of a dozen rats came back to him, slick-backed creatures scuttling through the sludge, on the walls, on the ceiling. His wingbeats faltered. They'd be cut off if they kept going. But not far from where they were, a small pipe slanted down.

  "Here," he said impetuously.

  It was too narrow to fly: They could just squeeze through on all fours, one behind the other. Water gushed past his claws. And all the time, through the walls— tap taptaptap tap tap. How many rats were down here? All his instincts were against this, going farther underground. He could feel every inch deeper they went, just that much farther from the surface, from the sky.

  Behind them came the pounding of many clawed feet.

  "Hurry, hurry," he urged Marina over his shoulder.

  The pipe opened up ahead, and he scrambled through so quickly he tumbled out the end and plummeted into murky water.

  He came up, gasping in panic, thrashing his waterlogged wings. Beside him, Marina was scrabbling to keep her head up. They weren't far from the shore, and managed to paddle clumsily over to solid rock, sodden and shivering.

  They were in a broad circular tunnel, half filled with deep water, not the sluggish trickle of the higher tunnels, but fast moving. Shade watched it seep past, glinting darkly.

  "What now?" Marina said, looking anxiously back up the pipe. "They'll be coming soon/'

  For a brief moment Shade wished he were Goth. He wished he had huge jaws to bare, giant wings to spread and batter his enemies.

  "Come on," he said doggedly, hurrying down the side of the tunnel, clinging to the curved stone wall. Must be a tunnel leading up, must be a way out somewhere . . .

  But there was something coming, not an animal, but a thing, riding on the water. Around a bend in the tunnel came a raft, a large, ragged square of wood. On either side, Shade could see rats, swimming alongside, steering it. And riding on the deck were more rats, scanning the water.

  "There!" one of them shouted. "Faster!"

  Shade turned to face it. It was coming so quickly, and he was too tired to crawl or swim. With Marina at his side, he watched as the raft swiftly overtook them.

  High above the town, Goth circled, watching for Shade and Marina.

  "They can't stay down there forever," Throbb said.

  "When they surface, we'll see them."

  He was angry at himself for losing them. He looked at Throbb, considered biting him to make himself feel better. He hoped they would surface, and he'd be in the right place at the right time to spot them.

  At the edge of the town he made out vast piles of Human garbage. Even in the frozen air, his sensitive nostrils could pick out the pungent smell of rotting food. Garbage meant rats. Lots of them.

  "We'll feed over there," he told Throbb. "And wait them out."

  Romulus and Remus

  The raft glided through the watery maze of underground tunnels. On deck, Shade lay crouched on all fours, shivering beside Marina. There was a rat guard beside each of them, sharp teeth closed lightly around their wings, just in case they tried to break free and fly.

  "What're you staring at?" one of the guards growled at Shade.

  Shade glanced away. He'd been looking at the rats, struck by how physically similar they were to him. He'd never noticed. Of course, he'd never been this close to rats before. Naturally they were bigger. But if you imagined them with wings . . .

  "Bat spies," said the chief guard with loathing.

  "We're not spies," said Shade again wearily.

  "Tell it to the prince." And the guard laughed unpleasantly, reveling in some secret joke.

  Gliding down the waterways, they passed more and more rats on the shores, their eyes flashing in the darkness. Human garbage bobbed in the water. Shade longed to fly away. Beyond the end of the tunnel, he could make out teeming movement: rats, hundreds of them. Farther on was some kind of building. The water was shallower now, and Shade noticed that the rats on the sides of the raft were no longer swimming,

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  but scrabbling along the bottom on all fours.

  The tunnel opened out into a much bigger space. High stone walls ran with sludge leaking from dozens of grates. Rats stood hunched at every opening, peering down at them. It seemed every surface was covered with rats. On the ground they writhed in the muck.

  The raft ground ashore.

  "Move!" the guards barked at Shade and Marina, their jaws tightening on their wings.

  Shade walked with difficulty through the mud, the swarm of rats parting to let them pass. The smell of them made him wince, his stomach lurching in disgust. He stumbled. Bats weren't meant to walk on all fours. The crowd jeered. They ground their teeth hungrily, a horrible, bone scraping that set Shade's fur on edge. He looked at Marina, spattered in grime, dragging her claws out of the sucking mud.

  They were drawing closer to some kind of rat palace, constructed of garbage: squashed cartons and gnarled plastic and crinkled shiny paper. On a wide platform, high above the mud, slouched the biggest rat of all. His rolls of fat squished out from either side of his corpulent belly. And his teeth, when he showed them, were long and grooved and tarnished with old food.

  "They're
not kneeling," he said to the guards.

  "Kneel before the prince," the chief guard shouted, batting their heads down.

  "Do you know who I am?" the fat rat asked.

  "The prince?" Marina offered after a pause.

  "Guard," said the prince, and the rat beside Marina nipped the edge of her wing. She cried out.

  "I won't tolerate insolence in my court," said the prince. He turned to the chief guard. "How did they get inside?"

  "The far north grate, Prince Remus."

  "And why wasn't it guarded? Who was on duty?"

  "Croll, Your Highness."

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  "Have him dismissed at once."

  "He's disappeared, Your Highness."

  "I won't tolerate this. Guards must keep to their posts at all times. Do you hear? We've got to be on guard at all times!"

  He turned his nervous eyes back to Shade and Marina.

  "You're spies, aren't you?"

  "No," said Shade.

  "Sent to gather information for a surprise attack."

  Shade shook his head again.

  "How dare you!" bellowed the prince. "How dare you mock me!"

  The guard beside Shade ground his teeth threateningly.

  "You think because my kingdom lies in the shadow of a mountain, I'm cut off?" His chest heaved with anger. "You think I don't know what's going on upground? I know you've joined forces with the birds!"

  Shade looked at Marina in alarm. What was he talking about?

  "Yes, that's right," said the prince, catching their look. "You're surprised at how much I know. I have reports. I'm kept abreast of everything."

  He looked around at the assembled rats, as if daring them to disagree.

  "The king himself sends messengers to me!" His eyes snapped back to Shade and Marina. "And I know about the vicious attacks you and your bird allies have been making at night. You've killed rats, and our squirrel and mice cousins too."

  With a sickening jolt, Shade understood. He remembered the rats Goth had killed. How many, he couldn't say. And who knew how many more since they'd separated. The prince thought Goth and Throbb were birds . . .

  "Black owls, isn't it?" said Prince Remus, saliva flying from his mouth. He looked up as if he expected one of them to plunge from overhead. "The black owls are your allies. Speak!"

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  Shade didn't know what to say. The idea of bats allied with owls was crazy. It was impossible. But telling the truth was pointless. The prince would never believe him, and he didn't want to risk making him angrier than he already was.

  "Yes, Your Highness," said Shade. "The black owls have joined forces with a group of jungle bats."

  From the corner of his eye he saw Marina glance quickly at him, but wouldn't turn to meet her gaze.

  "Jungle bats?" Remus jerked forward. He looked to the rats assembled around him, then to his chief guard. "Why haven't I heard about these jungle bats? How am I supposed to run my kingdom when no one informs me?"

  "That's why we've come to you, Your Highness," Shade told him. He was inventing furiously, praying the words would keep flowing into his head. "We wanted to let you know exactly what was going on. These bats come from the jungle, and have betrayed the rest of us by siding with the owls against bats and rats alike."

  "Jungle bats ..." muttered Prince Remus to himself, as if he still couldn't understand how he hadn't heard about this. He looked at Shade suspiciously.

  "Who sent you?"

  Before he could form a reply, Marina spoke. "The great bat elders of the mountain colonies," she told him. "You're well known in our kingdoms. Everyone knows the name of Prince Remus."

  "Of course they do," the rat prince said haughtily. "Of course they know me. And fear me, yes, fear me and the might of my kingdom ..."

  He paused and stared hard at Shade, and his eyes glinted with an intelligence Shade hadn't seen before.

  "It's very good of you bats to warn me."

  Shade nodded, biding his time.

  "Very generous of you," the prince said softly.

  "We didn't want there to be any misunderstanding." Shade could feel a trickle of cold sweat slither through

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  his fur. "These jungle bats are traitors. Our colonies want to keep the peace with you."

  The prince still stared at him, as if trying to bore into his head. Shade didn't dare look away.

  "You're lying."

  "No, Your Highness—"

  "This is a trap, isn't it. You're planning a surprise attack. Look around you! Do you see the number of soldiers I have here? Do you think you're the only ones with powerful friends? I am known to the king! I can ask for his help! I can summon our beast allies. Wild dogs, raccoons. Even the wolves will come to the aid of Prince Remus! We can wipe you out!"

  "Your Highness, please—" It was spinning apart.

  "I want to know the position of your forces."

  "I don't know—"

  Shade's head was pushed down into the mud, brown ooze flooding up his nostrils. He struggled wildly, but the guard's grip held him until he thought his chest would burst. He came up gagging.

  "Who sent you?" demanded the prince.

  "I told you, the great elders of—"

  The prince shook his head. "Take them to the drain," he told the guards, "and drown them."

  "Fly!" Shade shouted at Marina, and spread his wings. But the rat guards fastened their jaws around his forearm, and he knew if he tried to lift off, his arm would be ripped from its socket. Another guard had Marina's wing tip in his mouth, ready to tear. Shade sank back down into the mud.

  "Take them away!" shouted the prince.

  "Bring them to me first!"

  The terrible shrieking voice issued from one of the many grates high in the wall. A dreadful silence fell over the mob in the palace courtyard, and Shade could tell they were all afraid of that voice. And that made him afraid too. He looked at the prince, and even he seemed taken aback.

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  "I want to see them, Remus!" came the voice again.

  Shade tried to get a fix on it, and high up in the wall, he caught a blur of silvery movement from behind a set of metal bars. What was up there? What kind of animal made a noise like that?

  He couldn't decide which was worse—being drowned, or being taken to the owner of that unearthly voice.

  "Take them," Prince Remus snapped at the guards, and then smiled grimly. "Let him do what he will. And then bring them back to me. If they're still alive."

  The rat guards led them up a series of steeply sloping tunnels. Hollowed out by rats rather than Humans, they were muddy and lumpy, globs of filth dropping from the ceiling. Shade peered down the innumerable side passages, trying desperately to think of an escape plan. He was exhausted already by the long climb, his breath ragged, limbs aching. There was no way they could outrun the rats, not in this muck.

  "Here!" the chief guard said, stopping them beside a large stone.

  Several of the rats put their shoulders to the stone and pushed. Slowly it slid across the mud, revealing a low opening in the oozing wall. Shade did not want to look inside. Even the guards seemed ill at ease, their whiskers twitching, casting worried glances at the chief.

  "Take them in," the chief instructed two of the rats.

  "I want them alone!" the shrill, unearthlv voice cried from the darkness.

  The chief guard nodded, relieved, and the rats began prodding Shade and Marina toward the entrance. Shade tried to dig his claws in, but the mud offered no support, and he merely slid on his belly through the opening, Marina right behind.

  "Roll back the stone!" the voice instructed.

  As the stone was quickly being pushed back into place, Shade fearfully cast his sonic eye around the chamber. At

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  one end he could see the grate that overlooked the rat palace. And sprawled to one side was the owner of the voice. It was a rat, large and hunched, not as fat
as Prince Remus, but imposing nonetheless. Shade was almost relieved. He didn't know quite what he'd imagined, but it was certainly worse than this.

  "I've waited a long time for an opportunity like this," said the rat hungrily, shifting himself onto his feet and sniffing forward a little.

  Shade stiffened, drawing closer to Marina. He could feel his heart pounding, his muscles tightening, and he knew there was still some fight left in him.

  "Very clever what you did down there," the rat said. "I thought you were going to get away with it. Playing on the prince's paranoia, and flattering him at the same time. Very nicely done. I'm amazed he caught on, really."

  Shade said nothing, watching the rat, ready to fight if he should suddenly lunge. He didn't sound like the other rats. He sounded . . . that was it. . . almost like a bat.

  "His kingdom's in ruins," the rat went on. "He has almost no idea what's going on upground, because his messengers are unreliable, and his guards are forever deserting him to go to better kingdoms. The king despises him and tells him nothing. He lives in constant fear of attack. From birds, from bats. He's even afraid of me. And I'm his brother. My name's Romulus."

  If he was the prince's brother, thought Shade, what was he doing sealed behind a stone like some sort of monster.

  "I can see you're confused," Romulus said. "You see, the rumor is, I'm insane." He giggled heartily. "I'm not fit to rule. I'm a freak. That's what Remus tells everyone. So I'm kept up here, out of sight, out of the way. I'm the oldest, and by rights I should be prince. And the only way Remus could get power was by imprisoning me, and spreading stories about me."

  The rat took another few steps closer, and Shade instinctively lowered his head, bared his teeth, and hissed.

  Romulus jerked back in alarm. "I don't want to eat you!" he whispered indignantly. "Is that what you thought?"

  "It did occur to us/' Marina muttered.

  "Why did you bring us here?" Shade demanded. He didn't know what to make of this strange rat. He glanced at the stone barrier, knowing that on the other side the guards were waiting to take them to the drain—if they came out alive.

  "Don't worry about them," Romulus told him. "They can't hear a thing. And they don't dare disturb me." He paused. "I know you're not spies."