Goth stabbed at the air with sound and caught Shade in his mind’s eye, there, pressing himself into a crevice in the ceiling, thinking himself hidden and safe to work more sound tricks. The Silverwing had his back to him, and Goth was upon him in three wingstrokes.
Before Shade even had time to turn his head, Goth sank his claws deep between his shoulder blades. He lunged, closing his jaws around Shade’s neck, biting so deeply that his teeth smashed painfully together. He chewed furiously, waiting for the pleasure of the taste of live bat, but it didn’t come. There was no taste whatsoever.
He took a second ripping bite, and then a third before realizing he was rending air instead of flesh, filling his jaws with nothing. He reared back in disgust and outrage, and saw the dissolving remnants of another sound illusion.
“Shade!” Goth roared, whirling in fury.
With his raw throat, Shade spun himself a ragged cloak of invisibility and landed near his father. Cassiel was dragging himself painfully across the Stone, toward its edge—unnoticed for the moment by the remaining guards. For just a split second, everything else in the chamber seemed blotted out as Shade gazed at his father for the first time in his life.
This was his father, this gaunt, broken creature. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see him so ravaged, but he was. After all the secondhand stories, all his imaginings, he’d built his father up to be an indomitable hero. And now to see him splayed on this stone, emaciated and helpless … Shade drew closer. His father’s smell was pungent, of days without food or sleep, days without grooming. But beneath that was a smell as familiar and comforting as any on the earth. He smelled like home.
Shade wanted to shut his eyes and ears and lie down beside him, fold himself into his fur.
Cassiel must have sensed something close by, for he jerked round, baring his teeth, hissing. Shade took a step back in alarm and then, for just a moment, he allowed his echo illusion to evaporate and gave his father a glimpse of himself. Not that he recognized him—how could he, he’d never set eyes on him. But he saw his father frown in confusion, and close his fierce jaws.
Then Shade cloaked himself again, but this time, he threw sound over his father too, so that they were invisible to all but each other. Overhead, Shade could hear Goth thrashing around, searching for him, calling out orders to his other guards. He knew they didn’t have much time. Already he could hear Zotz’s wind sluicing through the room, in search of him, ready to tear away this disguise. “You can’t fly?” Shade whispered. His father shook his head. “My wing.”
Shade saw the swelling beneath the membrane, and knew that his forearm was badly sprained. Shade cursed himself. What a fool he was. He’d come up here expecting what? To save them all. And now he was without help, and they’d both die here. “Who are you?” said his father hoarsely. “I’ve met you … “
“No.”
“I know you.”
“No.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I’m your son.”
“Shade?” said his father.
It was his turn to be taken aback. “How’d you know?”
“We named you before you were born.”
And for just a second they cheated time and embraced, safe beneath the invisible shell Shade spun out for them.
“We’ll crawl,” Shade said. “Across to the wall, then up to the portal.”
But even as he spoke the words he knew the plan was doomed. He could hear Zotz’s breath moaning toward them and it lashed against them with the fury of a gale. With two shrieking, clawed hands, the sound tore apart his veil of invisibility.
“Fly!” his father told him.
“Cling to me,” Shade said. “We’ll fly together!” He doubted he could ever take off with so much extra weight, but he would not leave his father.
A huge weight struck him in the chest, and he was slammed back against the stone, straddled by two powerful claws, one on each wing. Goth’s searing breath poured down upon him.
“I knew it was you,” said Goth. “You’ve stopped me from killing the sun, but I will still eat your beating heart!”
Crouched at the rim of the circular portal, Marina peered down into the winged maelstrom of the chamber.
Beside her were Caliban and General Cortez and a dozen of his rat guards who had made the difficult climb up the face of the pyramid. All the way up they’d heard screams wafting from the summit, but occasionally Marina had caught the outlines of small northern bats in her echo vision, hurtling through the sky.
“They’re getting away—some of them, anyway,” she’d said excitedly to Caliban.
She’d also heard a scattered hooting of owls, and wondered if some of them too had managed to fight their way through the hordes of cannibals to the outside world.
Now they were at the top, looking down, and what she saw terrified her. It was difficult to make anything out clearly, there was so much movement. But she caught the thrashing of cannibal wings, as well as those of northern bats. She saw a huge stone directly beneath them, and for a split second had thought she’d seen Shade on it, but then he was gone, just gone. But most horrific of all was something unseen. It was pure sound, a kind of animated shriek that smashed its way around the chamber, slamming walls like a rabid animal in its death throes.
She didn’t want to go down there, but she had to make sure Shade wasn’t trapped.
Suddenly Ariel was beside her, panting, and so was Chinook.
“You got out!” Marina exclaimed. “Where’s Shade?”
Ariel’s face looked stricken. “I thought he’d gotten out with you…. “
Marina felt sick. “He must be in there.”
She looked back over the rim and saw Goth plunging toward the Stone, and directly below him, in the cannibal’s line of flight—Shade.
Shade writhed to free himself but it was no use. He was used up, as frail as a dried leaf. He saw Goth’s jagged teeth and clamped shut his eyes and tried to send himself somewhere very far away.
He felt Goth strike him hard in the chest, knocking all the air from him, and suddenly all his instincts kicked to life and he barked out sound to see by.
Goth was sprawled on top of him, his head against the Stone, and on his back were Marina and Ariel, Caliban and Chinook. They must’ve crashed against him with all their combined weight. Shade struggled free from under Goth’s body, but could hear a low, ominous gurgle from his throat. Not dead, never dead.
“Let’s go,” Marina shouted at him.
“Where’s my father!”
“Right here,” said his mother, staring at Cassiel in disbelief. He was barely conscious now, but Shade could see a flicker of amazed delight in his eyes.
“Ariel,” he breathed.
“We’ve got to fly him out,” said Shade.
“I can do it,” said Caliban. “Help him onto my back. Hurry.”
Goth shuddered, and Shade looked to see one of his wings jerk convulsively as he began to revive.
“Go!” Shade urged Caliban, and watched as the mastiff leaped from the Stone, wings churning, and lifted slowly into the air, carrying his father. Ariel was off beside them and Marina and Chinook too, and he leaped now, mouth opening, preparing to spin out a web of invisibility to take them into the sky.
Claws impaled his tail and dragged him back down.
It was too fast for him even to cry out. He tore free, feeling his tail rip nearly in half, and faced Goth. There was no fear left in him now, it was all used up, and all that was left was sheer determination to live. He barked sound into Goth’s face slapping him hard. Outrage exploded from Goth’s eyes and lungs, and he lunged, shearing a patch of fur from Shade’s shoulder.
Shade feinted and rolled, keeping Goth at bay with sound, but the cannibal was steadily driving him back toward the wall. Over Goth’s shoulder, Shade could see Caliban carrying his father through the portal to freedom—and then he saw something so amazing, he thought he must be hallucinating.
Six balls of flame dropped into the
pure blackness of the temple like miniature suns. Even Goth surged around to look, startled by the sudden light. Then Shade saw they were the burning ends of flaming sticks, and that could only mean one thing.
Owls.
In a thunderclap of feathered wings, they exploded through the opening, and Shade saw Orestes in the forefront, his fierce eyes and beak flashing.
From the circular portal, long vines and creepers sprang over the rim, unfurling into the chamber; and running down the length of each, even as it unrolled, was a rat. He saw Cortez among them as they leaped to the walls, the floor, the backs of surprised cannibal bats, sinking their teeth deep.
Goth reared to face him once more, but before he could even part his jaws to lunge, Orestes and another owl had him in their claws.
“We’ve got him, Silverwing,” said Orestes. “Fly now.”
Shade did not hesitate. He soared up and up, and burst through the circular portal, gasping, as if it were the surface of the ocean.
“Shade, Shade, over here!” Marina called. “The owls are coming to help us! From all over the jungle!”
Shade saw more and more owls plunging down into the portal to do battle with the cannibals, and felt overwhelmed with relief.
Then, high above him in the air, he heard a faint whistling. He looked up and saw it, searing his mind’s eye like a bolt of lightning.
Goth’s metal disc.
Plummeting straight for all of them.
He heard Marina screaming at him to fly, but he knew it was useless. An image ripped itself from his memory: the size of the blast created by those big discs, that towering column of fire. It would eat them all: the owls and rats still inside, everyone on the outside for hundreds of wingbeats.
Zotz would have his sacrifice after all, and it would be more than a hundred hearts—it would be thousands. He looked up into the black sky, searching for the sun.
Still eclipsed.
If the bomb fell while it was still dark, then Zotz would reign. “Get everyone out of the pyramid!” he yelled back at Marina “Tell them there’s Human fire coming. Tell them!”
“Shade, there’s no time!” Ariel cried. “Come with us!”
“I’ll make time!” he shouted.
He flew straight up toward the disc, and enmeshed it in sound, studying its shape, the angle at which it fell. He was so tired now, his wings leaden, his throat raw, and where would his strength come from? For the first time in his life, he spoke to her, and called her by name and said: “Nocturna, let me be able to do this.”
Falling, falling, it was shrieking now through the air, shrieking like Zotz’s own breath.
He couldn’t do it.
Can do it. Must do it.
An icicle was one thing; it was small, light, it was inert. This was hurtling metal, accelerated to a million wingbeats a second.
He took aim, launched a net of sound at the disc, and missed.
He closed his eyes, measured again with his echo vision, took a breath.
Please, he thought.
He opened his mouth, and sound exploded from him, raking his throat, as if something greater were speaking through him. It was like a thunderclap shattering the sky, this yell, and he watched it in his mind’s eye as it streaked toward the disc and grasped it like a fist.
Hold it there.
He swirled, drenched in sweat, singing sound with all his might, pushing against the disc to hold it up. How heavy it was!
He wished he could look down below, to see if Marina and the others were fleeing, to see if they were far enough away. He could only hope she’d done what he’d asked. He looked up into the sky, and still saw no sun. How long, how long would he have to wait? He was back in the northern forests, a newborn, huddled scared against the side of a tree with Chinook, waiting for the sunrise. Come, come, why isn’t it coming?
He didn’t know how much longer he could cradle this disc with his voice. He tasted blood in his throat. “Let it fall!”
Far overhead the cannibal with the crooked spine was plunging toward the motionless disc. “You cannot stop Zotz. Let it fall!”
He faltered and heard the disc plunge a little lower, and had to work to slow it down. Then the cannibal bat dove onto it, locking his claws around the chain.
Shade’s mind nearly buckled with the added weight.
Blearily, he saw Chinook hurl himself against the cannibal bat, trying to beat him clear of the disc, striking out with wings and jaws. He saw the jungle bat sink his teeth into Chinook’s shoulder, heard his friend cry out in pain. But Chinook kept fighting, knocking, butting the cannibal, until his claws ripped free from the disc.
It dropped several feet, and Shade could barely slow it down. Hold it, hold it, just a little longer. Shade looked up and saw something shift in the great black sky, heard it shift.
The sun.
A slim crescent of it seared his face as it came back, blinding him.
“Fly!” he shouted out to Chinook.
The disc plunged. Shade beat his exhausted wings, hoping Marina had cleared the pyramid. Chinook was suddenly at his side, trying to nudge him along faster, but Shade’s wings were unbearably heavy. He gave a quick, impatient shake of his head, but Chinook didn’t fly on ahead as he’d wanted. He stayed alongside. Behind them—not far enough, not nearly—he could clearly hear the disc whistling down, first above him, then below. Any second now.
He told himself not to look.
He heard the explosion at the same moment he felt its ferocious heat, and then it was like being swallowed up by the sun itself.
SUNWING
From the high ramparts of Bridge City, Frieda looked out across the twilight sky. Her eyesight had dimmed dramatically over the past several nights, but even she could make out the massive thunderhead of owls spanning the northern horizon.
A brisk wind rustled the fur of her face, and she felt immensely old and tired. Eight nights it had been since Marina and Ariel had left in search of Shade, and she couldn’t stop herself fearing the worst. Was it possible for Shade, clever as he was, gifted as he was, to survive the Human’s explosives? Or the jungle with all its monstrous predators? Had she been foolish to approve of Ariel and Marina’s search for him?
Questions, questions, she thought; all I do lately is ask myself questions.
She wondered too if she had been a good elder, and helped lead her colony well. In particular, her thoughts had turned to Shade, and she debated whether she was wrong to encourage in him the same passions she stoked within herself. To find the secret of the bands, to fulfil Nocturna’s Promise. What was the sum of all this yearning?
Right now, as she saw the millions of owls darkening the sky, she had to fight off the grip of despair. Impossible to defeat them. Even with the huge army assembled at Bridge City, she feared they would be wiped from the earth.
“We must prepare our delegation,” said Achilles Graywing, landing beside her. “King Boreal’s troops will be overhead within hours.”
Frieda nodded stiffly. Even such a simple movement made her tired now. “Yes,” she said without much hope. “We must pray he is in a mood to talk.”
“I gave up on prayer long ago,” Achilles told her with a grim smile.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Frieda, “but whenever I look at that horizon, I make every appeal for help I can.”
Frieda looked down to see a messenger thrashing his way toward the bridge’s summit. She waited patiently as the bat circled and caught his breath: Surely there could be no more bad news left to hear. And yet her ancient heart raced within her.
“General Achilles, Frieda Silverwing,” the messenger panted, “bats have been sighted, coming in from the south. Silverwings, some of them. And … they’re flying with owls.”
Shade gratefully angled his aching wings, and began a slow descent toward Bridge City. Flying with his whole family was still a wonderful novelty to him: his mother and father close by on one side; Marina and Chinook on the other, all keeping pace toget
her through the dusky air. Nearby he saw Caliban, and all the other northern bats from the jungle, streaking around them, coming home.
In arrowhead formation before them flew a dozen owls from the northern forests—a sight Shade still hadn’t gotten used to, even after several days and nights of traveling together. Owls and bats within wingbeats. True, they kept mostly to themselves, roosting and hunting separately, and speaking little with the other group. But Shade sensed this was more from awkwardness than suspicion. He saw Orestes in the vanguard and smiled to himself. It was because of the owl prince that the other birds had agreed to form a convoy with them. And Shade was right about what good protection they would be. They’d made it out of the jungle safely and, able to fly day and night, they’d made good time heading home.
Alive: It still made Shade shake his head in amazement. He was alive.
After hearing the huge metal disc explode, and feeling the terrible heat engulf him, he remembered nothing until he groggily woke in the full blaze of day, splayed on the topmost branches of a tree. His whole body sang with pain. Patches of fur had been vaporized on his belly and back, and sections of his wing membrane had been badly seared. He felt as if he’d been pummeled by some giant beast. He was mangy and scarred, but he was alive. And so, miraculously, was Chinook.
And the sun was still shining.
Strange, for a bat to be so happy to see the sun. After millions of years fearing it, staying away from it, he’d tried to save it. Looking at it gratefully, he supposed he’d succeeded.
It wasn’t long before Marina and his mother had found him and Chinook, and helped them limp back to Statue Haven. A huge circle had been scorched from the jungle by the explosion, and trees burned still. At the center of all this he could make out a smoldering pile of stone—the remnants of the pyramid. He wondered if Goth had been destroyed in the blast, and couldn’t quite make himself believe it.
He was amazed at how many had survived. Marina had flown back inside the pyramid and warned the others. The owls had helped Cortez and most of his remaining rat soldiers escape by carrying them out on their backs. But there were so many losses too. Ishmael had not returned, though his brother had. And dozens more had died inside the pyramid: owls, rats, and bats. More lost lives to add to the thousands who’d already died when their discs had exploded over the Human city.