Shade wheeled, and dived into the trees, but he was too late.
"Shade? Is that you? Shade!"
Crouched in his hiding place, he could see Throbb, turning slowly, seeking him out with beams of sound. The Brightwing's head fell from his jaws and lolled to one side, so Shade could see the face. He almost cried out in relief. Not Marina. He had to find her. He released his grip, opened his wings, and flew.
"Shade!"
He'd stick below the tree line. Throbb's wings were too wide to follow him. Through the tight weave of foliage he flashed, flipping from side to side, almost over onto his back sometimes, to avoid getting impaled on a pointy twig, or dashing himself against a trunk.
Overhead, he could hear Throbb curse, then send sound piercing down through the leaves and branches, trying to get a fix on him. Wings pulled tight, Shade flew headlong, trying to keep track of Throbb's position. Silently, not grazing even a single leaf, he banked tightly, darting back the way he'd come. Then, twice more he made quick changes in direction, until he could no longer hear Throbb's crackling wingbeats above him.
He peered up through the leaves, and pieced together a
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bit of the sky. Where would she be? It was almost dawn, she couldn't stay out much longer. She'd go back to the roost.
Choking for breath, he burst from the cover of the trees and streaked toward the stone hollow. He sent out a quick spray of sound. No sign of Goth—he must still be out hunting. But he pulled back from the entrance at the last moment, circling. What if Throbb had beaten him back? What if he was waiting inside?
"Marina?" he called out quietly.
"In here," came her voice from the roost.
He was lucky. He shot through the tunnel and into the stone hollow. There she was, grooming her wings, and he was so grateful to see her, even though she looked up at him coldly, still angry.
"Marina, we've got to—" His flesh crawled.
Goth was perched silently at the back of the hollow, still gnawing on a bone. It seemed impossible to him that he'd felt safe with this bat, just hours ago. Now, the sight of him chewing made him sick to his stomach. Meat-eater. Bat-eater.
"Got to what?" Goth asked.
Shade forced himself to land, take a few deep breaths. He was covered with sweat and dust. "Oh, I was going to tell Marina she should come see this big icicle near the stream."
"I'm tired," Marina said with a yawn. "And I've seen icicles before, Shade."
"Not one this big." He stared at her, and she looked back at him strangely before giving a quick nod.
"All right, all right, show me this icicle. Then let's get some sleep."
"Okay. We won't be long," he told Goth.
"I'll come too."
Shade tried to keep his face from tightening. "Great." He'd tried to pick something that Goth wouldn't be
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interested in, and Shade knew he despised ice, thought it was some kind of personal insult. Goth must know.
Numb with dread, he led the way down the stone tunnel.
"It's over here/' said Shade outside. At least if he led them away from the roost, he'd have more time before Throbb found them. Time to maybe make an escape, lose Goth in the undergrowth. And sunrise not more than twenty minutes away.
"Do you hear that?" Goth asked.
"Yeah," said Marina. "Sounds like a horde of insects."
It was getting louder now, but it had a regularity that made Shade think it wasn't insects at all, but some kind of Human machine. Whatever it was, it was coming their way.
"There's Throbb," said Goth.
Shade looked. Throbb was beating his way toward them, fast. He'd be there in less than a minute.
"What is that?" Marina gasped.
Bearing down on Throbb was some kind of Human flying machine, wings a blur, lights blazing. Throbb started to bellow, but the machine flew over him, drowning out his voice. Shade stared in horror as it came straight for him, and reared overhead. Wind exploded around him.
A dart whistled through the air, grazing his tail, and slammed into a branch. A second dart plunged into Goth's chest. Roaring in anger, the giant bat spiraled down, thrashing as he tried to wrench it free.
"Let's go!" Shade shouted to Marina.
They veered away from the flying machine, hurtling back down into the forest. Shade flew low to the ground, even though he knew it was dangerous. Raccoons, wild dogs, even snakes, could leap up and snap at them. Owls waiting in branches could drop on them like forked lightning. But above the tree line, they'd be easy prey for the Humans, and their deadly darts.
Birds were starting to rise from their nests, and a dawn chorus cut into the icy morning air.
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"Where?" he asked Marina urgently. She was the expert.
To his alarm she landed on the ground.
"What're you doing?"
At the base of an elm was a thick bed of rain-matted leaves. Marina quickly nosed around in them, and then started burrowing with her claws and head, pushing her way deeper into the mulch. Shade understood, and instantly followed her lead. Working quickly, they soon hollowed out a deep nest. Scuttling back up to the opening, Marina dragged some leaves across, covering their tracks.
Inside it was damp and cold, and they huddled close together. Shade was so tired his whole body was shaking.
"What happened?" she asked him.
"I saw Throbb eating a bat."
"You're sure?"
He nodded, teeth chattering. "I think the Humans killed Goth. Those darts." He remembered the one that had narrowly missed him, and shivered.
"What about Throbb?"
He shook his head. "When that machine came, I lost sight of him." The image of the limp Brightwing in Throbb's jaws shimmered in his mind again, and he winced. "I hope they got him," he said vengefully.
"I had a feeling about them, you know," she said.
Shade said nothing.
"A couple of nights ago, I woke up in the roost, and Throbb was staring at me, and there was just something about his eyes, hungry. Like I was food."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"What would you've done?"
He sighed, ashamed. "Laughed. Said you were seeing things. I'm stupid."
Bats who fed on their own kind. They were monsters. No animal he'd ever heard of, not even the owls, did such a thing.
He felt a sudden rush of self-loathing. He'd trusted Goth, believed every word he'd said. Go to the jungle, raise an army, defeat the birds and the beasts once and for all. He'd thought they were going to be allies. He'd thought it was all part of the Promise.
"You wanted to be like them," Marina said.
He nodded miserably. Look at me! he shouted inwardly. Look at how small I am! Who wouldn't want power like that, the power to kill an owl? The power to stop them from burning your roost down, to help your colony and find your father . . .
"But why didn't they just eat us right away?" he asked.
"They needed us at first—to give them directions. After we showed them how to read stars, they didn't need us anymore."
"I thought it was you, Marina. When I first saw him eating that bat, I thought it was you."
"Must have caught a straggler," she said in a dull voice.
He shivered again, and they shuffled closer, enfolding each other in their wings.
"They wanted to kill all of us, the Humans, didn't they," Marina muttered darkly. "My colony was right all along. Humans are evil."
Shade clenched his teeth, not knowing what to say.
"That machine came straight at us," Marina went on. "They knew where we were."
"How?"
"The bands," she breathed. "It must be. They tell them where we are."
Shade's fur bristled. The idea of that machine coming back, those darts plunging into him.
"The bands don't mean anything, do they?" Marina said savagely. "All it does is mark me, so they can come kill us. No wonder my c
olony drove me off. They were right. I am cursed."
"Don't," Shade said hoarsely.
"And you were right too. The Humans aren't going
to help us. And as long as I'm with you, you're in danger too."
He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could drive all thoughts from his head. Everything had collapsed. He didn't know what he had left to believe in. He'd felt so sure when he'd left the echo chamber at Tree Haven. And now, what did he know? The bands meant nothing. What had his father risked his life for? What did Frieda know? Maybe there was no Promise at all. It was a story, a lie, and Bathsheba was right all along. There was only night and day and the law, and that's all there ever would be.
"We're going to find my colony," Shade said grimly. "And we're going to find the truth about the bands. About everything."
Goth fell, the dart deep in his side, limp wings knocking frozen leaves. He hit the ground in a heap. His vision swam, and it was an effort to lift his head. One last try Drunkenly twisting his neck, he clenched the base of the dart in his teeth and jerked back. The dart ripped clean and blood flowed from the wound. His flanks heaved for air. Some kind of poison in the dart, like those needles they used to stick in him. Fight it, fight it. He was so tired, so heavy.
Blackness, then—
Dry leaves crackling, the ground vibrating, and a pair of gloved hands picked him up. He kept his eyes closed, but he was suddenly, totally awake. He concentrated on the hands, gauged the strength of the fingers, where the grip was weakest. He opened one eye just a slit, and saw the Man from the artificial jungle looking down at him, his face protected behind a plastic hood.
Goth closed his eye, took a long slow breath, and then struck.
He flared his wings, knocking the Man in the face, and making him stumble back with a long, slow moan of surprise. The Man's grip loosened, and Goth wrenched his
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body free, launching himself into the air. He plunged at the hood, sinking his claws into the fabric and ripping it up and off the Human's head.
The Man was reaching for something at his side, lifting it, trying to aim. Goth darted down, claws lowered, and raked him across the face. The Man dropped the object in his hands, and clutched the gash in his cheek.
"Zotz curse you!" Goth shrieked as he lifted himself up through a gap in the trees, high into the sky. In a nearby field he caught a glimpse of the flying machine, resting on the ground, and two more Humans running into the woods toward the Man.
"Shade!" he cried. "Marina! Throbb!"
"Here! I'm here!"
Flapping toward him was Throbb, and Goth was almost glad to see him.
"I thought they'd killed you!" cried Throbb.
"It was another sleeping potion. Keep flying, this way, we'll get away from them. Where are the other two?"
Throbb's eyes flickered guiltily.
"Throbb?"
"I don't know."
"Why didn't you kill Marina like I told you?"
"I thought I did . . ." Throbb faltered. "It was a Brightwing, all alone, and I killed it, and then I realized it wasn't her. And ..." He trailed off miserably.
"And what, Throbb?"
"And the runty one saw."
"You idiot," said Goth with quiet loathing. "No wonder he was acting so strangely. I thought they were trying to escape." He looked contemptuously at Throbb. "You let them get away."
"There were darts everywhere, I couldn't see—"
"Shut up."
"But we don't need them," said Throbb. "We can find our own way south now. We'll get back to the jungle faster without the little bats to slow us down."
"We needed the runt. For my plans."
Goth fell silent, furious. He should have done it himself. Killed Marina, made it look like an owl had struck her. Then he would've had Shade safely all to himself.
Now it was ruined. Shade knew they were bat-eaters. How could he possibly win back his trust? But he wouldn't turn back now. He wouldn't be defeated by these little bats. He'd made his promise with Zotz. And so help him, Zotz, he would not fail.
"We're going to follow them," he told Throbb. "We're going to find them."
Part Three
Winter
It snowed.
At first the flakes came down soft and slow, and Shade weaved his way around them, fascinated by their intricate patterns. He remembered the first time he'd been caught in the rain, and tried to fly between the drops until he was dizzy and exhausted, and very wet anyway. Now he looked up into the sky and was dazzled by the sight, as if the stars were gently falling.
"You can drink them," Marina said. "Watch."
He began catching the snowflakes in his mouth too, letting them melt on his tongue, drinking in midair. He laughed in delight, and the sound startled him. It was two nights since they'd left Goth and Throbb, and they'd flown steadily, keeping the same course, and not talking much. Tonight was warmer than the last, and there was a rising mist. For an hour or so he and Marina played in the snow, laughing and rolling through the silver sky. Trying to forget.
But a wind soon whipped up, driving the snow at a vicious angle so it stung his ears and wings. The stars had been completely blocked out long ago, and it was impossible for them to keep their course.
"We'd better land," Marina said. "We can't see where we're going."
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When, the next night, he poked his head out from their roost in a high birch, the whole world had been transformed. He was startled by how bright it was. Glowing in the moonlight, the snow blanketed the earth in gentle swells, forming hills around the bases of trees, and cloaking the branches so they looked soft and fat.
The landscape glittered fiercely. Even a second out of the roost he could feel the warmth being sucked through his fur.
"Have you felt cold like this before?" he asked, teeth chattering.
"Flying's the only way to warm up."
There were no smells. It was as if they were frozen too, or maybe it was just the inside of his nose that was frozen. When he wrinkled it up, his nostrils took a few seconds to sink back into place. And it was so quiet. No insect drone. No frog's croak or cricket's thrum. Panic seized him. Of course the cold would kill and drive away the insects. Where did they go anyway? Did they migrate too?
"What're we going to eat?"
"It's okay, there's still food."
She showed him. Flying low around the base of the elm, she said, "See that?"
He thought it was merely specks of dirt in the smooth snow, until he saw some move—leap, more like it.
"Snow fleas," Marina explained. There were lots of them, and he and Marina moved from tree to tree, snapping them up.
"They're not bad," Shade said. "Better than mosquitoes."
In an open field she showed him a sac of praying mantis eggs hanging from a twig, which poked up through the snow. And in the spindly branches of a maple, a moth cocoon, coated in silver frost. On a dead tree she showed him where the bark had been eaten away by engraver beetles and carpenter ants, and the insects were still there, you only had to scratch and dig down a bit.
It wasn't long before he had a full, warm stomach, and he felt much better.
"You're amazing/' he said with admiration.
She laughed. "It's just your first winter. You didn't know."
"How'd you learn all this stuff?"
She looked away. "My parents taught me."
He was sorry he'd reminded her.
"Your mother would've taught you too," she added. "It's no big deal."
"Well, thanks for showing me," he said.
"Sure."
He looked up into the sky and picked out their guiding star. It seemed brighter than ever, as did the others, cold, hard flares of light in the blackness. They flew on through the silver night.
He thought about his father more than ever now, and sometimes, when he didn't think he could fly another minute, he'd force himself into a hypnotic rhythm, where every beat of his wi
ngs was one beat closer to finding him: there, and there, and there. Before, it had given him comfort to think he might be with the Humans; now that was almost as horrible as imagining him with owls.
"What is that?" Marina said suddenly. In the distance he picked out dark shapes draped over the bright tree-tops. He drew closer and his throat tightened.
Bat wings. Wings no longer attached to bodies. They were snagged on spiky branches, littered across the white snow. He started to count and gave up when he hit sixty. He could tell by the fringes of fur they were Graywings.
"Owls," said Marina. "Must've been lots of them."
She pointed out their pellets in the snow. Shade couldn't bring himself to look closer. He knew what he would see there. He circled, staring as if hypnotized. They must have been migrating, and the owls had come and attacked, and who knows how many they killed. And then they'd eaten
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them right here, tearing off the wings first, because there wasn't enough meat on them. He'd seen Goth and Throbb do the same to birds.
"They probably didn't know anything," he said, choking out the words. "Nothing about the closed skies, and the owls just came along and . . . slaughtered them."
"I hate Goth and Throbb," Marina said savagely. "This is their fault too. If they hadn't killed those two lousy pigeons in the city, this wouldn't have happened."
He'd been afraid of this all along. But he'd lied to himself anyway, telling himself that all the bats would fly on ahead of the owl's command to close the skies. They'd escape, for the winter anyway, sleeping safe inside their roosts. But not these Graywings. And who knew how far the owl messengers had gone now.
Maybe even to his own colony.
He ground his jaws together. "I wish I were like Goth. I'd kill them all, I really would. I'd just kill them ..."
Marina flew in close, nudging against him gently.
"We should get out of here. They might come back."
"I want them to come back," he raged. "I want to get one, just one of them ..." And he was suddenly sobbing, and all his words flooded together. He held his breath, clenching his whole body until it stopped shaking. He took a ragged breath. He wished she hadn't seen him cry.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "For what?" And he saw that her eyes were bright with tears too. "But we really should go."
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