Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
‘We are the sons and daughters of the dark.
We are the children of the night.
We call upon the ghosts of the fallen:
Resurrect yourselves. Rise up, and live again.
Lead us, Dark Lords. Show us your power.
Support us with your strength, that we may carry out your will.
For we are your sons and daughters of the dark.
Your children of the night.’
The chant filled each branch of Cra Wyd. It resonated through the treetops, and chilled the heart of every creature scurrying and scuttling in the blackness below. It could not be called a song. The voices were uniformly raucous and harsh. The caws and rasps held no music. No melody. Just passionate belief. The monotone was hypnotic, and each repetition increased its power.
No, it could not be called a song. Songs were for daylight. Sung in joy. In celebration. This chant was meant for the night. Sung by black throats, through black beaks. Black eyes blazed to its dark message. Black feathers ruffled in guilty pleasure, as black deeds from a time long past were brought back to life in the hearts and minds of the black choir. Evil deeds, best forgotten, best left alone, to rot along with their perpetrators. But tonight they were no longer forgotten corpses, pale skeletons, dry and dusty feathers. Tonight they were alive.
Cra Wyd was too insubstantial to be considered a forest. It was a copse of maybe a hundred trees. A deciduous wood was rare in this pine–covered region. Its nakedness gave clear indication of the season, as if the wind whistling through its bare branches weren’t proof enough. March was coming in like a lion. Roaring and raving. Ripping at any presumptuous early shoots. Not yet, it said. Spring can wait a while. I hold sway for now.
And yet the trees had been partially clothed in the last few weeks. Nests adorned many of the bare boughs. Huge, untidy structures, made of twigs and debris. Here and there something silvery glinted in the pale sunshine: a discarded wrapping, ring pull or bottle cap. Treasure to be hoarded and admired. Loot from Man’s dustbins and rubbish tips. Precious amid the drab brown. And tempting, too, to greedy eyes of neighbours, and passers by. Something to be fought for. A rookery was always a place for fights. Squabbles were constant, noise was incessant. And Cra Wyd was the largest of its kind in the whole of Birddom.
The recovery of the corvidae had been slow. Hunted and persecuted. Forced to hide. For years there had been little time for breeding. Individual survival was the prime objective. But Time moves on. The hunters grew weary of vigilance against an enemy without power. Dedication wavered, then broke, and evil began slowly, inexorably, to grow once more. It was a gradual process. Rebuilding something that is broken takes time. Even now it was but a pinprick; the bite of a flea compared to its former might.
But all over Birddom, not just in this harsh corner of its northern-most climes, the corvidae were on the rise. Harsh lessons had been learnt, and the watchword was secrecy. All was covert. All hidden. Midnight meetings. A most unnatural hour for birds, save for owls. Darkness was a cloak which covered and concealed. As yet, Birddom was unaware of its peril.
*
‘I thought that we were going to see Tomar.’ Olivia voiced her protest in the face of her brother’s selfishness.
‘I get bored visiting him, if the truth be told,’ Merion replied.
The young female robin bridled at such a hurtful remark. ‘But we owe him our lives,’ she argued passionately, ‘as does every bird in Birddom.’
‘Then let them visit him!’ Merion snapped petulantly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sis. But you must know how I feel. I love that old owl as much as you do, but he tells the same stories over and over, and I know them by heart already.’
Olivia’s eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Those stories are our history. They define who we are. They are the tales of our father and our mother, never forget that.’
‘But they are the past, and that is where Tomar lives. I for one am more concerned about the future.’
Merion’s beak closed defiantly upon this pronouncement, and his sister realised the futility of further argument.
‘Well, I’m going anyway, though I don’t know what I shall say to Tomar. Shall I tell him that you are ill?’
‘Tell him what you like. No, wait. Don’t tell him that I’m ill, tell him that I’m busy.’
‘I would never be so cruel,’ Olivia said, sadly. ‘He is the leader of the Council of the Owls, the highest in the land. And I will always be grateful that he was never too busy for us!’
‘He might be the leader of the Council now. But for how much longer? His day is nearly done. He can barely flap his wings. He is fed and cared for like an invalid, and without this support he would have been dead two or three years ago. You know I speak the truth.’
Olivia’s wingtips drooped with weary resignation, but she tried once more to reach her brother. ‘Tomar is old, and his body may be failing. But his wisdom endures, and it is that wisdom that leads us still. On the right path and on the straight way.’
‘Is he still right? Others, equally wise, are openly expressing their doubts. The bargain with the insects, for instance. Oh, it was a necessity at the time of the Great Battle. We needed their help to defeat the corvidae, and a treaty, agreeing that no bird would in future take any insect for food, was Tomar’s only option. As Mother has told us often enough, we would not have won without their aid. But why do we need to adhere to it any longer?
‘Enforcement causes great hardship and unrest, especially amongst the incomers. They do not understand the need of so unnatural an abstinence. And neither do I. Insects are prolific. The whole world seethes with them. They are on every leaf. Every rock. And yet we go hungry.’ Merion paused to stare at his sister, daring her to contradict him. When he received only silence as a reply, he went on. ‘Do we have their gratitude? Do we have their friendship? Don’t they still infest our nests? Still sting and bite us? Still live upon our bodies, gorging on our very blood? I think that this is a hard price to pay for a pledge made in a time of dire need.’
‘So you would go back on Tomar’s word? Make nought of all that he believed in, and fought for?’
‘For the sake of a juicy, wriggling caterpillar filling my belly, yes I would!’
Olivia looked shocked. ‘Then you are not the brother that I have known and loved all these years.’
Merion flinched, then flicked his beak skywards in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Times change. We all change with them. You go your way, sis, and I will go mine.’
‘My way is with Tomar, and with Portia, our mother!’ Olivia exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
‘And my way is with the future,’ was Merion’s cold reply.
‘Merion’s words have some justice,’ said Tomar, considering Olivia’s story with typical stoicism. ‘There have
been consequences in our pact with the insects that I could and perhaps should have foreseen. Their sheer weight of numbers now that they are unchecked has been felt on a wider stage than our own. Man has become angry and that is never to be desired, because his anger is unfocused and reactionary. And Birddom has begun to feel its force.
‘I never envisaged the impact that our deal with the insects could have upon his world. Man has no tolerance for infestation. He has an irrational fear of insects, wholly disproportionate to their size. And he reacts with unchecked violence. He seeks to protect himself with nets – vast structures raised in our flight-paths, as well as those of the insects. Many of our flock have died as a result, and that weighs heavily upon my heart. The spraying too is indiscriminate and lethal. Maybe Merion is right. I have unleashed a monster upon our people. Perhaps, in the name of good, I have in fact done great ill.’
‘No, Tomar. I will not stand by and let it be said that you chose wrong.’
Portia’s voice was strong and sure, and she stood wing-to-wing with her daughter, facing the old owl from a branch opposite his perch. Tomar smiled at the distant memory of another robin who had stood on that very same spot, and had argued just as vehemently in Tomar’s moments of self-doubt. The old owl flapped his great wings, as if to shake off his growing sense of despondency.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ he replied. ‘It was the only choice to be made. It was our one chance, and it gave us both victory and a lasting peace. But this is a different age. And Birddom’s enemy has changed. Whilst the corvidae no longer pose a threat, nor probably ever will again, we face peril from a different quarter, and one that may spell our extinction as certainly as the magpies, had they been victorious.’
‘Will the Council meet again soon?’ Olivia asked.
‘At dawn on the day following the next full moon,’ Tomar replied, and there was a note of trepidation in his voice.
‘Why does that worry you so?’
Portia’s question was perceptive, and Tomar thought for a while, trying to coalesce his vague misgivings into something tangible. But it was like trying to make a nest out of mist.
‘I don’t know, my dear. It’s just a feeling that is all. I can’t explain it. But it’s as if the Council is changing too. Moving forward in a direction that I am not sure that I can follow. Maybe I’m just too old. A relic of the past, as Merion says.’
‘The day that you are too old is the day that Birddom is lost!’ was Portia’s grave reply.
Tomar’s fears were fully justified. The Council of the Owls was changing. In the early years following the war with the magpies, and the arrival of the incomers, the Council had been a productive force for good, and had led Birddom in a prolonged period of peace and happiness. But, as Nature intends, the make-up of the Council had altered, as successive generations of owls had replaced fallen members. There was a much younger emphasis to the twelve now, with Tomar quite isolated in age and experience from the rest. He was still much revered, of course, and it was the care and support of those same Council members that kept him alive. But that reverence and love could not altogether mask a swell of dissatisfaction with the maintenance of the status quo in Birddom. Change is a natural process, and many of the owls desired change. Especially since Man’s anger had been provoked, and Birddom had become a dangerous place once more.
The next meeting would be a crucial one, for that same danger had been brought home to the Council of the Owls itself by the death of one of its members. Quake, a tawny owl of middle years, had flown into a newly-erected net near his home, and the injury to his wing had left him easy prey to a family of hungry foxes. Sorrow was widespread at the news of Quake’s passing, but Tomar felt it particularly keenly. Quake had been a staunch supporter, a traditionalist who had stood four-square with his Great Owl in the face of any opposition. His trust in Tomar had been complete, his loyalty undoubted. Now he was gone, and would be replaced. And therein lay Tomar’s vague unquiet. There was really only one candidate for the vacant perch on the Council.
Engar was the obvious choice. A fine specimen of a barn owl, he was similar in many ways to Cerival, Tomar’s mentor when he first joined the Council all those years ago. And Engar would bring a lot to the Council: fresh ideas, vociferously expressed, and a power that had seemed to be lacking of late. He would be a leader, not a follower.
Tomar was not worried about being usurped as Great Owl. Not for a while anyway. But he was not sure about Engar, and he simply couldn’t put a feather on the reason why. There was something hidden, some essence of deception, but nothing that Tomar could grasp hold of. He would have to vote for Engar to join the Council. He could give no justification not to do so. But he didn’t altogether trust him. Still, maybe it would be better to have Engar on the inside, where he could keep an eye on him. And maybe the younger owl would prove Tomar’s doubts to be unjust. The old owl knew only that he would be happy with that outcome. But for now the unease persisted.
Engar was deep in thought, preening himself absent-mindedly under each wing, as he perched high in the oak. He sat facing inwards on one of a ring of trees made sacred in Birddom. Its lofty position dominated the countryside for miles around, and had made it the ideal initial site for the Council, when it had first met all those years ago. Engar’s knowledge of the history of the Council of the Owls was sketchy at best. He had no interest in the past. Other owls could waste their time learning and passing on the ancient tales. They were irrelevant to a modern owl. They were stories of a different time, a different reality. His gaze swept across the ring, imagining, as he did so, owls on every perch, vying for their moment in the spotlight. All so much empty rhetoric and self-importance. He despised them. Tomar most of all.
Engar could barely think of the old owl who clung on so determinedly to the leadership of the Council without anger welling up inside of him. Tomar represented honour and justice, tradition and goodness. Engar spat, as if trying to clear an irritating feather from the back of his throat. Tomar had to go! That is why he had come here. To look around his enemy’s domain. To view the lie of the land and prepare himself. Not out of respect or awe, but as a tactic. This would be a long war, and the first battles would be fought here. Battles of words and ideas. But first he had to be on the inside, chosen and accepted as one of them, but all the while working like slow poison. Killing from within, and causing the maximum amount of pain as it did so.
Merion was a bundle of nervous excitement as he sat waiting. So much so that he began to sing to himself to calm his nerves, chirruping away for several bars until he registered the tune and stopped himself. It was a song that Tomar had taught him, and he didn’t want to think about the old owl.
‘Better stop singing, then,’ the robin said out loud, to the surrounding leaves and branches. And it was true. What could he sing that he hadn’t learnt first-wing from the beak of the Great Owl? He owed Tomar everything. The owl had saved his life, and had devoted years of patience and understanding to Merion and his sister. But he was so old, and entrenched in the past. Engar had said that the future waits for no owl. Engar had a vision of a new Birddom, free of the strictures of tradition and law. A Birddom where one could do what one wanted to do, say what one wanted to say, eat...
Merion looked down guiltily at the glistening husk of the beetle on the branch between his feet. The black carapace and gossamer wings were all that remained of the insect. This was not the first time that the robin had betrayed his old friend. He had feasted on flesh for some months now. Engar had said that the law was meaningless and unenforceable. Who was to know, after all? And wasn’t it a law against Nature?
The Council had been plain wrong to have enforced such a law, and Tomar had had no right to have made the bargain on behalf of Birddom in the first place. He hadn’t even been Great Owl at the time, had he? Engar had said that birds should be free to eat whatever pleased them, not bound by antiquated rules handed down by an in
stitution past its usefulness. Well, he would make some changes, he had promised. When he joined the Council he would see that they tore up the rule book, and made new laws that were relevant to the lives of a modern bird. When Engar was Great Owl, things would be different, and a new order would prevail. As the robin sat waiting for an audience with his idol, the irony of Engar’s vision for the future was entirely lost to him.
*
The gathering was greater than ever before, and an air of expectancy hung over the rookery. Every branch was weighed down by black bodies, yet Cra Wyd was unnaturally silent. No squabbles broke out, even when more birds arrived to join the throng. Space was found, and they were accommodated. This was no time for petty rivalry or jealousy. It was too important a moment. And still the corvidae waited. For ‘he’ was coming. The stillness of the rookery was eerie and menacing. It was as if the whole place were holding its breath. Waiting.
And then, suddenly, he was among them, and crow and rook, magpie and jay gazed in awe and reverence. But not one dared draw nearer. He seemed almost surrounded by a force field of his own, a protective shield that repelled such intimacy.
The massed ranks of the corvidae simply sat and stared. And waited. The moment called for a fanfare of crowing and cawing, but instead he began to speak, quietly.
‘I have lived for a very long time. Lived to see our rise as a power in the land. A rise that gave us the chance to puff out our chest feathers with pride. A rise that shook the whole of Birddom, and made us great. A nation to be feared. But I lived to see our fall also. A fall made inevitable by the weakness of our leader. Slyekin didn’t want glory for the corvidae. He wanted it for himself. He cared nothing for your fathers, who fought to fulfil his mad schemes. He cared nothing for your fathers, who died honourably, protecting a flawed ideal. Slyekin thought that he was immortal. He was not. And now his bones rot in the ground, tainting the very soil that holds them, dishonouring those brethren who died for his sake.’
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