Goth’s head pushed farther through the gap, and it was all Shade and Chinook could do to keep the panel from sliding open even farther. If Goth got inside, it would all be over. It would be unimaginable.
A few other bats managed to beat back their terror at the sight of Goth’s teeth, and added their weight behind Shade’s and Chinook’s, pushing. Still, Goth held his own, his snout lashing from side to side, trying to wedge himself through. Just don’t let him get his shoulders in, Shade told himself. Once that happened, there’d be no holding him.
Goth’s head pushed hard, and now his eyes were inside. Shade looked into one wild black eye, not an inch from his own face, and winced as the scalding breath washed over him. He almost gagged. He knew Goth was going to get inside unless he did something fast.
He released his hold on the panel, darted forward, and sank his teeth deep into Goth’s cheek. Goth tore back his head with a roar of pain and rage, and the panel slammed against the spiked tip of his nose. Goth howled again and pulled back altogether.
The panel slammed shut.
“Keep holding,” Shade panted, disgustedly spitting out the taste of Goth. “I’ve got to lock it again.”
But already Goth was hurtling his weight against the panel, making it bulge inward with each blow.
“What was that?” one of the other bats stammered.
“A bat, from the jungle. His name’s Goth.”
“You know him?”
Shade just nodded. “He eats other bats. We need some fresh help.”
Reluctantly, five new bats came forward and braced themselves against the panel as Goth pounded on the outside, trying to lever it open once again.
Shade had no idea if he could close the lock—opening it was one thing, but he wondered if he could even reach the right pieces with his echoes, to force them back into place.
He threw sound into the lock, but had it crushed by Goth’s roaring on the other side. Eye to eye they peered at each other through the tiny hole in the thin metal panel. “I’m going to eat you alive, Shade,” said his hot, rank breath.
Shade didn’t have time to make another try with the lock. A deep machine whir enveloped them, and suddenly their whole container was tilting slowly backward. Shade tried to cling onto the panel, but it was no use. He was skittering down the floor, falling against the other bats, all elbows and claws and wings flaring to keep balance.
The panel. There was no one left to hold it.
Even as the container tilted higher, dumping the bats into a jostling heap, he watched the panel in dread. It jerked, opening a whisker, then slid all the way in a rush.
Goth plunged toward them, fangs bared, and in that split second, Shade had time to notice that there was a stud embedded in his ear too. And from his belly swung a metal disc, like his own, only much, much larger.
Shade kicked with his feet and caught Goth under the chin, knocking his jaws away for a second, just a second. All was confusion, a seething mass of limbs and wings. Goth was on top of him, on top of all of them, saliva spraying from his mouth. Shade saw his fangs sink into fur, and cried out in pain before realizing it was someone else’s.
Then the whole top of the container sprang open. There was a deafening roar of wind, and Shade was sucked up into the air, tumbling. He had no time to trim his wings, no time for anything. He caught only skewed glimpses of things. The vast insides of a flying machine. Huge doors parted like jaws. And beyond the doors, the night sky.
Around him were hundreds of other bats, hurtling toward the doors as they were sucked out of the flying machine. There was no fighting it, and Shade didn’t want to. He was free from Goth, free from the Human container. He hit open air.
Marina didn’t waste a second. She had no idea how long her stick would hold the flap open. Cold air whistled through into the artificial warmth of the forest. She swooped down.
“Hurry!” she cried. “We have to leave! We have to leave here. Now!”
With the setting sun, everyone was already awake and hunting, and bats wheeled in surprise at her voice. But she didn’t slow down to explain. She flew to the stretch of stream where the Silverwings liked to feed, and there she found Ariel and Frieda, looking anxiously toward her.
“Where’ve you been?” Ariel demanded immediately, and then, her voice suddenly husky with dread: “Where’s Shade?”
“They took him,” Marina gasped, roosting.
“Catch your breath,” Frieda said firmly.
But Marina was shaking her head urgently. “I’ve blocked the portal. Please, don’t ask me to explain now. We have to go.”
“What’s happened to Shade?” Ariel insisted. “They took him away with the others.”
There was a snap of wings, and Arcadia was dropping down toward them, her brow furrowed angrily. “What’s this all about? You’re causing a panic!”
When Marina’s breathing had calmed somewhat, she quickly told how she and Shade had gone down the stream, through the owl’s forest and into Goth’s. She told them about the room where the Humans put metal on the bats, and how they were loaded into cages and taken to a flying machine.
And with every beat of her heart, she was thinking of that portal, the stick, how long would it hold the flap open?
“We’ve got to hurry,” she said pleadingly. “The flying machine’s going south, and—”
“Why do you think any of this is cause for worry?” said Arcadia sternly.
Her question seemed so absurd, Marina was dumbstruck. “What is it that’s so different from banding?” Arcadia insisted. “We’ve welcomed the bands for years; this is no different.”
“No, I had a band. It was different. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe it’s all the same, but it wasn’t good what they were doing in there. I saw it.”
Lodged in her nostrils was still the smell of the room, the fear and pain, like some poisonous smog.
By this time, a huge crowd had gathered around them, anxious bats listening to Marina’s story. But Arcadia’s voice was powerful, and confident.
“Do you presume to know more than the Humans—than Nocturna herself! We are puny creatures. We must trust in the signs and await! How do we know the owls aren’t imprisoned here to keep the skies safe for our brothers and sisters on the outside? And this cannibal bat you speak of, perhaps he too is a prisoner for our benefit.”
Marina looked imploringly at Ariel and Frieda, and they were looking back at her, as if trying to find the truth in her face and eyes.
“We’re leaving,” said Frieda, “and any who want to come, come now!” She spread her wings and climbed through the branches, her voice welling out of her, crashing through the leaves of the forest. “All those who wish to leave this place, fly with us. We have reason to think the Humans are harming us. Come now if you will!”
Gratefully, Marina soared after her with Ariel. Arcadia followed them.
“Do not go with these bats!” she bellowed. “They are leading you astray. They are not chosen, but are here to bring fear and suspicion and tempt you away from Paradise. Stay here!”
And as Frieda cried her news across the treetops, only a very few bats came forward to fly with them, mostly the other Silverwings who’d originally set out with them from Hibernaculum.
“You see,” cried Arcadia smugly. “We put our faith in a greater power than yours.”
“I wish you well, then,” said Frieda.
The sound of heavy footfalls overhead made Marina quicken her wingstrokes. Two Humans were making their way carefully along the metal latticework of the glass roof—toward the portal.
“Quick!” she said. “They must know I’ve jammed it.”
With relief she saw that the stick still held, though shuddering with the strain. Acrid smoke curled out from the wall, and the whine of machinery was more labored.
“Hurry!” she called, waiting at the threshold and ushering the bats through.
The Humans, she could hear, were very close, and there was the sound of metal on metal,
things being lifted. Beside her, a panel slid open suddenly, and a Human hand pushed in and felt around. It touched the stick, closed its fingers around it, and started to pull.
Marina sank her teeth into the soft flesh, not without some satisfaction.
There was a yelp, and the hand drew back.
She watched as Frieda squeezed through, then Ariel, and now it was her turn, and the Human hand burst back through, this time clutching a wickedly pointed dart. Marina skipped clear, but the Human was waving it around wildly, blocking her way into the portal. She heard Ariel calling to her from the top of the shaft.
Marina held back, waiting, watching the dart stab blindly around. She saw her stick begin to slip, saw the flap drop. She lunged, the flap snapping down on her tail. She pulled, wincing as some of her skin was ripped off. But she was through. She opened her wings, claws skittering on metal as she clambered up the steep shaft. Perched above her was Ariel, waiting anxiously. Marina heaved herself over the top, darted down the tunnel after Ariel, and burst out into the star-filled sky.
The savage impact of cold air punched all the breath out of him. Tumbling, tumbling, head over tail, Shade saw clouds, though he didn’t know whether he was falling away from them, or toward them. He was falling so quickly, he was afraid to unfurl his wings in case the wind tore them off. He could barely breathe, the wind shrieking air away from his nose. He was suffocating. In the sky, and no air to breathe.
How could he be falling toward the clouds? His stomach lurched and he retched. His vision puckered and flared. Stars overhead, that was right, wasn’t it? Yes. Stars overhead. Good. Clouds below? Not good. You didn’t fall toward clouds.
He was thinking like a newborn, a few days old, trying to puzzle things out. Slowly it occurred to him that he might be higher than the clouds.
And then the world made sense again.
He’d never been so high. No wonder he was cold, no wonder he could barely breathe. Was there even air up so high? He was still tumbling, but gradually he edged out just a bit of wing to stabilize himself.
There were stars overhead, and a hunk of moon, and he could see other bats speckled through the night sky, falling like him. He was plunging straight down now, and he realized that the metal disc chained to his body was making his fall dangerously fast. In the container, where he’d mostly been on all fours, he hadn’t realized how heavy it was. Now it was like ballast. Below him was a white sea of cloud.
Gradually he unfurled more wing. The wind caught under them, and his spine took the hit as his arms were snapped up like whips. He slowed so quickly, he felt as if he were being sucked back up into the sky.
Still the clouds were racing toward him, and he couldn’t stop himself from closing his eyes and holding his breath when he smacked into them. There was a definite impact as he broke the surface, then turbulence, and he was buffeted as he plummeted, punching through the bottom of one cloud bank only, seconds later, to go plunging into another.
It drenched him. His fur was coated with frost, and he was shaking violently. Inside the clouds he could see nothing. Where was Chinook? Where was Goth?
It was suddenly getting warmer.
Within seconds his wings were thawed, and then bone-dry.
Whumph, through another blanket of cloud, whumph again, and then the heat really took hold of him, the same, soaking heat he’d felt in Goth’s artificial jungle.
Alarmed, he peered back up into the sky. Through the gaps in the clouds he saw stars, and tried to mark out familiar constellations. The stars didn’t join up, they were all in the wrong places. His stomach felt queasy again.
The metal stud in his ear began to sing.
He jerked in surprise. It was drawing a crude sound map in his head—a simple arrangement of lines and dots. A city, maybe. A night city. And then the shape of a single building began to glow brighter than the rest. A big block of a building, not very interesting to look at, with several narrow buildings radiating from it like spokes.
Wagging his head, he tried to dislodge the image, but it persisted, flaring in his mind’s eye over and over again. Whumph!
He cleared a final layer of cloud, and a dense constellation of lights flared before him. He was still very high, and the city spread to all horizons, bigger even than the last city he’d seen up north. As he swung closer, he saw that the buildings didn’t look so high, nor were their auras as bright.
The city below him, and the one blazing in his head, seemed to mesh one atop the other. And he saw the blocky building, off toward one of the horizons.
Go there.
The command shunted its way rudely into his head, and he caught himself angling his wings, setting course. He stopped.
Why should I?
But it was like hearing a voice telling you something over and over again; after a while, you just did it. Go to the building. But why, why? Go there. He couldn’t clear it from his head; it would drive him mad if he didn’t go there.
The Humans obviously wanted him to go there for some reason, and that was reason enough to disobey.
But what if his father was there?
Go there.
He was tired, and the weight of the metal disc was wearing him down. He had to roost somewhere, why not on this building? You’re an idiot, he told himself.
But, still, he tilted his wings and began a slow descent toward the building. Around him now, he could see the other bats, all converging on the same place. Their studs must be singing an identical image in their heads. Go there.
Despite the heat, he shuddered, breaking out in a sudden sweat. It was just like the way the Humans had lured them to their artificial forest, with that melodious bat song. And he’d been pulled in faster than anyone—hadn’t even thought about what he was doing. And look what happened. This was just another trap.
He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t go.
But what if it really was some part of the Promise, some kind of test, what if his father was there, waiting for him, hoping he would pass it? “Don’t go!”
He heard the voice, and it took a moment before he realized it was him shouting. “Don’t go there!” he wailed into the wind, again and again. But none of the other bats listened. They seemed locked on to their sonic targets, heedless of all else. A Brightwing passed by quite close, and Shade yelled at him to stop, actually struck his wing to get his attention, but the other bat looked at him as he might an unappetizing insect, and sailed past, eyes glazed. “Don’t listen to it!”
They were grazing low over the city, almost at the building now. Shade held back, circling, fighting against the weight of the metal disc. The first bats neared the roof of the building. Shade watched as they braked, rings flaring, and came in to land.
They touched down.
Flames blossomed from their discs, delicate licks of fire that in less than a second became an eruption of smoke and sound. More bats were landing now, all across the vast roof, and as their discs knocked hard on stone, they too exploded, gouging craters from the building.
“Stop!” Shade’s screams raked hotly at his lungs. “Don’t land. Stay away!”
It was futile. In the confusion, Shade watched more and more bats land like dazed things, adding to the geysers of flame and flying stone and metal. It was as if they were hypnotized by the song in their ears, unable to wrench themselves free of its pull. Horrible Human sirens rent the air.
Shade tried to fly higher, to get clear of the spiraling debris. Black smoke stung his eyes, tarred his fur. His wings were lead, threatening to buckle.
So this was the secret of the bands. This was what the Humans did to them. His eyes blazed with the reflected flames. He had nothing inside of him. He was going to die. The thought came with no panic, just a numbing certainty. He could not stay aloft forever.
Soon he would have to land.
JUNGLE
A large Silverwing dove past Shade, careening headlong for the seething flames. “Chinook!” he shouted. “Don’t!”
Chi
nook glanced back at Shade, confusion furrowed in his face, and faltered for only a moment before continuing on his course. With the last of his strength, Shade caught up to him just as they were entering the plumes of smoke. He sank his teeth deep into Chinook’s tail.
“Hey!” Chinook flipped around sharply, eyes narrowed. “What’re you doing?”
“Stopping you!”
“But I’ve got to—”
“You’ll explode! Look down there! We land, and we explode. We’re carrying fire.”
For the first time, Chinook seemed to notice the flames, the thunder of explosions. A section of the building’s wall sheared away and avalanched to the ground. Shade looked around the sky; he could see no other bats. They had all flung themselves onto the building, to their deaths.
“Come on, let’s get away from here.”
“Yeah,” said Chinook, dazed. “We’ll land somewhere else.”
“No,” said Shade in frustration. “We can’t. If that metal disc hits anything hard, it explodes.”
“We have to land sometime,” said the other bat. But how? What could they land on that wouldn’t trigger the explosive? Something soft, so soft. Water? A bed of leaves, would that be soft enough? He didn’t want to even risk it. Guiltily, he wished Marina were here. She’d have ideas too, or at least tell him which one of his was the least stupid. There wasn’t much time. Weighted down by the metal disc, he had to struggle just to keep from losing height.
“We’ve got to get them off,” he said.
“How?”
“Bite them off.” He was thinking furiously. “Okay, Chinook, I’m going to come underneath you and bite it off, all right. You’ll have to carry my weight for a bit.”
Chinook looked down at the ground doubtfully. “I’ll fall too fast.”
“Find a thermal and try to circle over it,” Shade said. Shouldn’t be too hard to find one, he thought, it was so hot here. He felt his wings billow warmly and locked on. “Here, right here. Feel it? Just don’t lose it; it’ll help keep us up. I’m going to fly underneath and grab hold now. Ready?”
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