"That's no concern of ours," said the long-eared bat. "Those who are not banded will never become Human. They will die in the dark, with all the others who haven't been chosen." Scirocco turned and looked Shade full in the eyes for the first time. "I'm sorry, but that is the truth."
Shade turned away, humiliated and angry. He'd come all this way, searching for an answer, and now he'd found it. But he was no part of it. Chosen. How did you get to be chosen? What had he done wrong? If Marina could be banded, why couldn't he? She wasn't so special. If she had one, he should have one. All his life he'd been on the fringes of things, the runt. And now this. He felt his face harden. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Marina watching him anxiously.
"You stay," he told her in a tight voice.
She shook her head, and the pain in her eyes made him melt. He turned to her. She'd waited so long, alone for most of it, hoping there was something special about her band. And now she'd found the answer, and a group of bats who, finally, didn't drive her away but wanted her to stay with them forever.
"You've got to," he said. "You've got to stay."
"But—"
"I'm going to find my colony. My father."
Her eyes flickered, and she scratched her claws unhappily against the wood. "It's not that far, right? You're probably almost there." She looked at him desperately. "You'll be all right, won't you?"
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She wanted him to say yes, he could tell. He nodded vigorously.
"Oh, sure, I know the rest of the way. I've got the map. You helped me a lot."
He looked at the small window high in the wall, and by the light he could tell the snow wasn't blowing anymore. He couldn't even hear the wind. There were still about three hours of the night left.
"I should get going."
She came close to him and wrapped her wings around him tightly. She was so warm.
"I'm sorry," she whispered in his ear. "You understand, don't you?"
He nodded, and coughed impatiently, driving away his tears.
"Good luck, Shade."
"You too," he said. He hurried to the crack in the roof and flung himself into the night without looking back.
Goth angled a nearly frozen wing and circled over the barren terrain. Ice matted his snout. But his eyes blazed. He peered intently at the ground.
"What is it?" Throbb asked.
Goth sniffed, then lifted a claw to knock the ice from his flared nostrils. He sniffed again, straining for every faint odor in the frozen air.
He smiled. Zotz had provided for him once again.
He jerked his head down at a Human cabin, half covered by snow, and nearly invisible against the mountain.
"Food," he said. "And lots of it."
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Wolf Ears
Never had Shade felt so lonely. He'd got so used to Marina's company that it seemed impossible she wasn't at his wing tip, or just ahead, scolding him to hurry up.
The whole world was a vast, aching echo—the mangy trees, the rocks, all hollow, all joyless.
Scirocco's words rang in his mind: You will die in the dark, with all the others who haven't been chosen. He had no place in the future. Nocturna's Promise was not for him; he would never live to walk into the light of day as a Human.
But Marina would. And Frieda. His father too. It was fine for them. Anger swept through him. Why hadn't Frieda told him? Did she really not know T , or was she just keeping it from him, because he didn't have one of those precious bands? And what about his father? Why wasn't he here to help, to explain things to him? Probably just hiding away with his band somewhere, waiting to become Human. Shade shook his head. And what would happen to him? And his mother, and all the other unhanded bats?
He didn't want to believe it.
He stared up at the stars, and watched as they flickered, as if they really were on the shimmering underside of Nocturna's giant wings. All the bat goddess had to do was close her wings and the whole night would disappear,
replaced by day. Open them again, and the stars would return.
What was she doing up there, Shade wondered, if she was even there at all? What did she have in mind for him, one runt of a bat, trying to find his own colony?
The stars weren't telling.
They were always silent. They had no song, none that he could pick up anyway. Maybe Zephyr could hear them, but Shade knew his hearing would never be that good.
Ahead, the mountain peaks soared. How could he ever fly high enough to get over them? He sniffed, looking to the east and west to gauge the time of night. An hour, maybe a little more. There was no way he'd make it over tonight. He wanted to lose himself in the whistle of wind against his ears.
For the first time he felt afraid in the night. He was seeing sound shadows, smudges of silvery movement at the edge of his echo vision. A clump of dead leaves whirled in the air, and became Goth, spreading his wings toward him. An owl's distant cry resolved itself into a ghoulish rendition of his own name: "Shade! Shade!"
He was suddenly struck by the vastness of the night, all the empty space yawning around him. Maybe there was something terrible about the darkness, and he'd just never noticed before now.
There was something behind him.
Hackles rising, he looked back just as something sailed over him, so low it brushed his wings. And there she was ahead of him, her bright fur shimmering in the starlight, like something from a dream.
"What're you doing?" he demanded.
"Hey, you don't sound too happy to see me!"
"You . . . you scared me!"
"I'm coming with you."
"But—why'd you change your mind?"
She circled back and drew alongside. "It just didn't feel right, staying there without you."
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"I'd have been fine on mine own/' he said, trying to look annoyed, and not having much success.
"Oh, I know," she said quickly. "But I said I'd find your colony with you, and it just feels like quitting if I don't see it through."
Shade didn't know what to say. He was so grateful to have her back. But it made him sad to think she was passing up this chance for happiness.
"Are you sure?" he said carefully.
She hesitated for onlv a second, then nodded. "The only reason they were nice to me was this thing on my forearm. It didn't have anything to do with me. They were just like those Graywings we met, remember? They liked you, and hated me because of the band. And these other bats weren't any different. Liked me, hated you because you didn't have a band. It's just a piece of metal, after all."
He looked at her, surprised. "You don't believe them, then?"
She sighed. "Part of me wants to—more than anything. It sounds so wonderful. And the way Scirocco started to change like that. . . . You think it was a trick?"
"I thought about it. Like a sound picture he was singing into all our heads. Or maybe it was everyone else in the loft singing it, just hoping for it so much . . . what do I know?"
"I kept thinking of something Zephyr told us. Remember, he said beware of metal on wings. Maybe this is what he meant—all these bats with bands. Because my heart tells me it can't be true. And . . . the idea of turning into a Human, I don't know if I like that."
"Me neither," said Shade enthusiastically. "Think of all the things we couldn't do. I'm pretty happy being a bat."
"I know. Anyway, the whole thing just doesn't seem fair. I didn't do anything to earn that band. I mean, why d I get a band and not someone else? Not you?"
"Exactly," he said. "I should have one of those things too."
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"Well, I don't know about that," she said, and then smiled mischievously. "I mean, you're not quite as fabulous as me, are you?"
He laughed. "No, I'm sure not," he said gratefully.
Marina looked thoughtful again. "Anyway, if what they say is true, I can always go back. After we've found your colony, and your father. But as far as I'm c
oncerned, you're the only bat who's liked me because of who I am. You didn't care one way or another about the band. That makes you the best friend I've ever had."
They slept that day huddled close, under the frozen roots of a lone pine on the mountainside.
The howling of wolves filled the air.
They were nearly at the summit, and it was slow going. The wind was against them, making every wingbeat an effort. Shade looked down and picked out a she-wolf and her mate, loping across the snow, going higher into the mountains.
"Must be a lair somewhere up here," he said grimly. His mother wouldn't be leading him into a wolves' lair, would she? He dragged up the sound map again and again, studying the images his mother had sung to him. But he was no wiser. "We'll just have to keep going."
A faint whistling made him look back over his wing and do a quick sonic sweep. The sound dissolved in the air, and he picked out nothing. It wasn't the first time tonight he'd heard the weird metallic whistle. Just the wind, he supposed, screaming through whippy branches.
His bones ached, the leather of his wings creaked with cold. He doggedly pounded the frigid air, up, down, up, down. The wind burned his ears, and his sound sight was dulled as a result, all his echo images blurred and sluggish. He knew they'd freeze to death if they didn't make it over the summit tonight. They had no food in their stomachs, not even a single snow flea. How sweet it
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would be to just wrap himself up in his wings and drift and drift, down, down, down . . .
"Wake up!" Marina shouted into his ear, and he came to his senses with a horrible jolt. He'd almost fallen asleep, and was keeling over to one side.
"Thanks/' he mumbled, righting himself.
"Don't do that to me," said Marina, clearly shaken. "Stay awake. Talk to me, sing, I don't care, just don't doze off."
Shade shook his head, forcing himself to take a deep breath of the icy air. It burned his lungs, but at least woke him up.
They skimmed over a jagged peak and the wind unleashed its full fury.
They were at the very top of the world.
Stretching out on either side was a range of ice-clad mountains. His eyes watered madly and he narrowed them to mere slits. For a moment the howling of wolves rose above the gale, and he saw not two but dozens, gathered before the entrance of a cave on one of the steep slopes. He looked at Marina.
"I'm not going down there!" she shouted.
"What else can we do?"
"It's suicide!"
"She sang me wolves!"
"Wolf ears," said Marina, and suddenly she was laughing.
She's gone crazy, Shade thought. She's finally cracked up with the cold and exhaustion. She was babbling and laughing at the same time, maybe imagining a giant white wolf in midair, bounding toward them. Maybe she was right, he'd believe just about anything now.
"Wolf ears" she shouted at him again, more insistently.
And he looked.
Off to one side were two mountain peaks thrusting into the sky, a deep valley carved out between them. It was just like the image in his mother's sound map, not an
animal at all, but a mountain pass, covered in snow and looking for all the world like the ears of a giant white wolf.
"There they are/'
Goth hunched his shoulders, riding the gale-force winds that swept over the mountaintops. Up ahead he could see Shade and Marina, angling for a valley between two icy peaks. He'd been following them for the past hour, steadily gaining on them up the slope.
He hung back, not wanting to be seen just yet. When he struck, there would be no mistakes. Despite the blood-freezing cold, he felt strong. Last night he'd feasted as he hadn't feasted since his days in the jungle. He glanced with satisfaction at the bands of glittering metal that festooned his forearms. They were smaller than his own band, easier to bend, and he'd ripped them from his prey, sometimes snapping wristbones to get them. His new hunting trophies.
Beside him, Throbb pounded along. The blister on his wing tip had spread, and looked angrier than before. Throbb said it burned with cold. Weakling. Goth was disgusted by him. But right now, his stomach was full, and Throbb did not seem so appetizing. Later, perhaps. He fastened his eyes and ears on Shade and Marina.
A blast of wind surged beneath him, whirling through his metal bands and sending a brief but piercing whistle across the mountaintops.
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Rat
Shade heard the eerie whistle in a lull of the wind's roar
He turned and saw them, hanging in the sky like an image torn from a nightmare. For some reason he felt almost no surprise. He'd thought about this moment so much played it out over and over in his head, that it seemed merely inevitable. But that noise . . . what was that terrible whistling noise?
"Marina," he croaked, "they're here."
"What?" She whipped her head around, staring "No they should be dead ..." S '
A vicious crosswind buffeted them both to one side and they turned their attention back to the wolf ears
We can maybe lose them on the other side," he said
rough " tnm y ° Ur WlngS " ' WCre y ° U - This is goin § to be Shade swallowed. The twin mountain peaks heaved on the horizon. He had a sudden flash of his mother's sound map—he could understand how he'd first thought the mountain was a wolf, lunging toward him. It looked just like that now, as he was pitched forward
His wings were stiff with frost. Shunted to the side again, he adjusted his course, aiming for the narrow pass But he was coming in too close to the left peak, and the wind wouldn't let him bank.
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"Shade!" he heard Marina cry out to his right—as if from a great distance.
He saw icy rock hurtling toward him. He was going to crash. He tried to pull up, braking so sharply with his wings, he thought they'd snap like frozen twigs. Everything seemed very slow, the incoming rocks, the wind in his ears. It occurred to him to suck in his belly, draw up his legs and claws. He felt nothing but a distant disappointment that his life was going to end so soon.
He skimmed a hard patch of snow, felt its sharp coldness, and with the gentlest bounce was airborne again, wings beating furiously. He was clear. He veered diagonally back into the sky toward Marina.
"You are so lucky!" he heard her shout above the wind.
They streamed through the wolf ears, and the mountain face dropped away dizzyingly, scooping down to pure darkness. Shade felt his stomach plunge. What was down there? It was too far for him to see with his sound sight. For all he knew the world had ended right here and now.
"It's the only way to go," Marina said.
Shade glanced back over his shoulder and saw Goth and Throbb, riding the wind through the wolf ears, gaining. With their powerful wings, they'd overtake them in a few minutes.
"All right," said Shade grimly.
He stopped flapping and folded his wings in tight. Marina followed his lead. He waited for himself to slow down, the wind carrying him for a few moments before he began to sag. He let his body tilt forward, nose leading, and plunged, down into the starless abyss like a hailstone. His stomach leaped into his throat. He'd always loved flying, the excitement of a steep dive, but this was altogether different. This was faster than he'd ever flown, maybe faster than any bat ever had.
He could barely breathe, the air smashing against his nostrils. The wind stabbed at his eyes like ice pellets, and he shut them tight. Even his mind's eye was nothing but
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pure blackness, sometimes blossoming into bright star bursts from the wind's howl in his ears. He was still too far from the ground to pick up anything. For the first time in his life he felt blind, and terribly vulnerable. He had no idea where Marina was, no idea if the world even existed anymore. At any moment he felt that his whole shaking body might come apart at the seams. For now he just hoped that Goth and Throbb had lost sight of them and were still circling the mountain peaks.
With every seco
nd he could feel the air getting warmer, the ice on his wings pearling into droplets, streaming behind him. And then, a glimmer.
The topmost branches of a tree . . .
Then dozens of treetops, spreading out into a forest...
A hill.
Fields on all sides.
He almost cried with relief. The whole world was coming back, painting itself in silver in his head. Carefully, he unfurled just the tips of his wings, and angled them into the wind, starting to slow himself. Then, gradually, he extended more and more, bringing himself gracefully out of his free fall. He opened his eyes and looked out over the rolling landscape. Up ahead were Human lights, but nowhere near as many as the city.
"Marina!" he called out.
"Over here!" Her bright fur stood out against the night.
"Did we lose them?" He gazed back up into the sky, the mountain a vast shadow blotting out the stars.
From high above came a faint whistling noise, quickly building to an ear-splitting shriek.
"No ..." he muttered in disbelief.
The giant bats plummeted from the heavens, wings fanned out to break their fall. And that noise, that horrible shrieking noise!
"Come on!" Marina shouted at him.
He felt like he was flapping through water, his wings slow and heavy. Marina jerked her head toward the lights.
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"If we can make it, we can find somewhere to hide."
There were no high towers here, just rows of low Human buildings, a few machines rolling noisily in between. Behind them came the ghoulish whistling noise. He thought he could smell them, their hot foul breath.
They banked sharply over a broad road, strung with wires and lights, and flanked by bright buildings. Shade looked back and could see Goth's eyes flash in the glare. Throbb was swerving off to one side—he was going to come around, cut them off.
"Down!" Shade shouted to Marina.
He dived toward the street.
"Where are we going?" Marina demanded.
He was too breathless to answer but she stuck by him as they streaked straight down. He had no idea what he was doing. He swerved around a bundle of wires, veered past a skinny metal box filled with circular flashing lights. A machine rolled past, spitting up noise and fumes. The ground was coming up fast and he prepared to pull up sharply, maybe swerve in between two buildings—