Firewing (3 page)

With a forward thrust of his shoulders, he drove the stalk deep into the embers, saw the tip flare, and pulled back. At first he thought he’d lost the fire, but then saw a glint from the tip and a ghost of smoke curl up from it.

Got it!

Carefully he transferred the stalk to his rear claws. Wings churning, he took flight, climbing away from the ground, the Humans, and their fire, up towards the pine where he knew Luna was waiting. He took a quick backwards glance. If the Humans even noticed, they weren’t doing anything about it. They were still sitting there like mountainous blobs, staring at the fire and grunting their slow, low words to one another.

“You did it!” Luna cried out, swirling around him in amazement.

“Is it still lit?” he asked. It was awkward holding the fire stick, and he had to fly carefully, afraid his downstrokes might accidentally blow out the flame, or even knock the stalk right out of his claws.

“Yeah, it’s fine!” said Luna. “Griffin, I can’t believe you did it!”

“I did it,” he said, feeling her excitement fuel his own. “Yeah, I did it!”

“Fire!” she said. “You’ve got fire! Come on, let’s get it to the nest!”

They talked giddily as they flew, Luna swirling around him and underneath him to check on the flame and make sure it was still burning. She was giggling. Griffin was giggling. It was contagious, and almost impossible to stop. This was amazing! He wanted his father to see him, right now, bearing stolen fire from witless Humans. Sitting right there at the campfire, and they didn’t even know it was gone. And he’d done it.
Him.
He’d had this great idea, and he’d seen it through!

Through the forest they flew, back towards Tree Haven and the stone nest the others were building. Griffin ducked his head down to look, and was surprised at how quickly the flame was eating up the stalk, the intense bead of liquid light sliding towards his claws.

“Almost there,” said Luna, seeing his frown. “You’ll make it, Griff.”

He flapped harder, but saw the flame gutter with too much wind against it. He slowed down. Still the flame continued its hungry advance. He could feel its heat now, along his left flank, in his foot. His mind began to dance with worry. He couldn’t help it. He wished he hadn’t done this. He wanted to get rid of the stalk, but he couldn’t just drop it. What if it started a fire, and the fire spread and got out of control and burned down Tree Haven all over again? What a
stupid
idea this was.

“Luna,” he said, “it’s burning too fast!”

“No, we’re almost there, don’t worry, you’ll make it.” No, she was wrong. There was still a long way to go. He looked and couldn’t even see the tip of the stalk anymore, it had burned down so close to his body. Heat lashed his fur and claws. He remembered the scalding force of the Humans’ fire, imagined himself alight, spiralling to the ground in flames.

“Luna! I’m not gonna make it!”

“Wait, wait, I’ll check, hang on.”

Luna swooped below him again, and almost at the same moment Griffin felt a searing pain in his left claw. He cried out, and before he could check himself he let go of the fire stick.

“Look out!” he yelled but—

He heard her grunt of surprise, tilted sharply, and looked down.

Luna was on fire, her back dancing with flame. The stick had bounced off, leaving its burning tip embedded in her fur.

“Griffin!” she cried, flying round and round, flapping desperately but only fanning the flames.

“Land!” Griffin shouted to her, but she was panicking now, as the flames leapt nimbly towards her shoulders, licking out across her wings. Griffin whirled round her, slapping at the fire, but it was no good, Luna was moving too much, and the flames seemed to have burrowed deep into her fur. She was crying, a high, piercing wail.

“Land!” he shouted at her again in despair. “Land and I can put it out!”

Luna was tilting earthwards, though it didn’t seem of her own doing. She slewed through the air at a reckless angle, gathering speed, too much, and slammed into a mound of hardened mud and leaves. She didn’t move.

Griffin crashed down beside her, scrambled up, and started sweeping mud and earth onto her with his claws and wings, trying to smother the flames. Suddenly he was shoved back out of the way and there was his mother, Marina, and Luna’s mother, and a dozen other mothers, landing around the smoking newborn, throwing themselves on her to extinguish the fire. It took them only a few seconds, but still Luna didn’t move. Her fur, Griffin saw, was terribly burned, patches of inflamed skin showing through. Her wings were seared and melted in places.

Griffin couldn’t tear his eyes from her, and he realized he was moaning, a low, toneless cry that he couldn’t stop.

“She’s alive,” he heard one of the mothers say. “Let’s take her back to Tree Haven.”

Shade stirred restlessly, frowning as he woke. He opened one eye, then the other, and looked around at the thousands of Silverwing males hanging from the cave’s ridged walls and ceiling. Wrapped tightly in their wings, they were all still fast asleep. He held his breath, listening. He couldn’t tell if it was a sound or a vibration through the stone that had brought him out of sleep. Maybe it was just Chinook, snoring beside him. Or Cassiel, his father, muttering in his dreams.

Shade glanced at the long vertical gash that was the cave’s opening, and judged from the light it was still an hour or so till sunset. At midnight, he knew that Orion, the chief male elder, would be choosing five messengers to make the journey to Tree Haven. Shade wanted to be one of them.

He wanted to see his son.

Griffin
. The name was pretty much all Shade knew about him, and that he’d been born healthy in the spring. How could anyone be satisfied with just that? But this was the way it had been done for millions of years. Every spring the females roosted at Tree
Haven and gave birth, and the males spent the summer at Stone Hold, a hundred thousand wingbeats to the southeast. None of the males seemed to want to visit their mates and newborns; they were perfectly happy to be apart until the fall, knowing nothing except the news the messengers brought back periodically after the birthing season. But that was months ago now! How could they stand it? It was too bizarre. He was desperate to see Marina again—and to meet his son for the very first time.

Shade sighed. Well, he was awake now. For just a moment, he thought he felt the slightest of vibrations through his claws, as if something immensely powerful within the earth were stirring, testing its strength. Then the sensation was gone. Probably just the wind off the ocean, or the great ceaseless stirring of the sea itself—or his own nervousness about tonight.

He wanted to be outside. Dropping from his roost, he stretched his wings, streaked through the opening, and was instantly over the sea. The sun was still high enough above the horizon to set the water alight. Shade banked sharply and soared over the rocky coastline, notched by countless coves and inlets. The tides here were fierce and sudden, and the sea had carved the land into high, blunt cliffs. Stone Hold was deep within the tallest cliff of all, its craggy head crowned with moss-covered rocks, and a few hardy spruce trees bowed by the wind.

Far away, Shade could hear a pod of whales singing their strange song, somehow mournful and ecstatic all at once, resonating through the water and air, gusting landward. Shade skimmed over the dense forest, intent on hunting now. From the topmost branch of a pine, a raven stared suspiciously as he passed, but said nothing. Shade watched the powerful bird carefully. He’d quickly realized that being
allowed
to fly in sunlight was not the same as being welcome.

Though the owls had agreed to a peace treaty with the bats, Shade and the other Silverwings still felt wary in the day. Most avoided it, choosing to hunt and fly under the moon and stars, as they had done for millennia. Sometimes Shade wondered what the point had been, fighting to get the sun back. But he knew it wasn’t the daylight itself that was important: it was the freedom. The freedom to choose if you flew by night or day, and, most of all, the freedom from fear of owl attack.

Shade veered and caught a monarch butterfly. That was one good thing about flying in the sunlight—there were all sorts of new bugs to eat, ones that rarely came out at night.

“You’re up early,” said a voice behind him, and he glanced over his wing to see his father, Cassiel, pulling alongside.

“Did you feel the cave shake?” Shade asked. Cassiel shook his head. “You did?”

“I don’t know if it was real. I’m pretty sure I felt a little tremor.”

“Could be,” said his father. “Years ago there were a few earthquakes. Nothing very big, though.”

His father was trying to reassure him, but Shade remembered the low, controlled rhythm of the vibration, like a suggestion of greater things to come. He wondered if they’d felt it at Tree Haven.

“Do you think Orion will pick me?” he asked.

“All I know is he always chooses fast, reliable flyers.”

“Well, I’m not the fastest, sure, but I’m reliable.” His father looked at him with a grin.

“You don’t think I’m reliable?” Shade asked, hurt.

“Of course I do. You saved my life. But Orion’s probably worried you might get
distracted
along the way. Discover some evil plan to destroy the world, or accidentally start a war. Something like that.”

Shade snorted, but he knew his father was right. Even after all his adventures, maybe even
because
of them, he noticed the Silverwing elders didn’t exactly
trust
him.

“They trust Chinook,” Shade said irritably.

“Well, he is very trustworthy,” his father agreed. It rankled Shade that Chinook had been one of the first messengers. He’d been to Tree Haven and seen his mate, and his own child. And he’d brought news back about a hundred other newborns as well, among them, Griffin.

“What did he look like?” Shade had demanded, moments after an exhausted Chinook lurched into Stone Hold.

“Looked fine. Healthy.”

Shade’s surge of relief and gratitude had quickly given way to intense curiosity. “What else?” he’d asked Chinook. “Come on, a few more details!”

“They all look kind of the same at that age, Shade. I mean, they’re all sort of red and floppy-skinned and they don’t have any fur yet and, well, to be honest, they’re pretty weird looking.”

Weird looking. And that was all Chinook had been able to tell him. But Shade wanted to know everything, and not a single night passed that his mind wasn’t filled with questions. Was Griffin growing well? Was he a good flyer and hunter? What did he look like—more like Marina or him? Did he have lots of friends, or was he a loner? Was he curious, talkative, daring? Or quiet and watchful?

“It’s ridiculous we have to wait so long,” Shade muttered as he and his father sailed through the twilight forest, snapping up darkling beetles and mosquitoes. “Anyone should be able to go to Tree Haven if he wants. Splitting up the colony makes no sense.”

“Only the mothers can feed the newborns,” Cassiel reminded him. “We wouldn’t be any use early on.”

“But later we would. We could help teach them to fly and hunt.”

“The females seem to be doing just fine on their own. It’s the way it’s always been, Shade.”

“I think it’s stupid,” he said firmly. “And I can’t believe no one else feels the same. Doesn’t anyone else miss their mates and newborns?”

“Well, I don’t think many males are in a hurry to leave Stone Hold,” his father said with a grin. “They know we’ve got it easy here. Apparently it’s very noisy in the nursery roost. Newborns are pretty demanding. A lot of crying, a lot of shouting, a lot of commotion.”

“A little commotion would be a nice change about now,” Shade said.

The truth was, he was bored at Stone Hold. He liked being with Chinook, and especially his father, but every night was virtually the same. They woke at sunset, took to the skies, and hunted. When they weren’t hunting, they were hanging around, telling stories. The stories he always enjoyed, but then there were the councils, the endless councils about migration preparations: who would lead, who would take up the rear; the quality of the mealworms this year, the rainfall reports and prevailing wind reports and … It made his skull go numb just thinking about it. He knew he shouldn’t complain—but he wanted to, anyway. Things were good right now. There was peace with the owls, food was plentiful and—there was just nothing to
do
. He was bored and he felt like he was getting boring himself.

He wanted to be back with Marina; he wanted to be with his new family.

“Do you think …” he began, and then stopped himself, embarrassed.

“What?” Cassiel asked.

He coughed. “Do you think I’ll make a good father?” The fact was, he still didn’t feel like a father at all. The very idea seemed ridiculous. Even though he could barely wait to meet his son, he was still worried that Griffin might think he was a fake. Shade certainly felt like a fake. A father? How could he possibly take care of a newborn when he still practically felt like a newborn himself? He simply could not imagine himself saying, with conviction, things like “You shouldn’t do that” or “That’s just the way things are” or “Do what your mother and I tell you.” There was no way Griffin would take him seriously.

He was worried he wouldn’t be vigilant enough or strong enough to rescue Griffin if anything should happen, worried that he wouldn’t be patient enough or firm enough—or
something
enough.

“You’ll be a great father,” Cassiel told him. “I think almost everyone worries about it, though.”

“You?” Shade asked, surprised.

“Especially me,” Cassiel replied. “I was hardly the most responsible father. I wasn’t even around when you were born.”

“Well, no fathers were.”

“I was a little more absent than most.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, I took risks I shouldn’t have, not when I had a newborn coming.” He flew in close to give Shade an affectionate nuzzle. “It’ll be fine.”

They hunted side by side for a while in contented silence, and then Shade sighted a tiger moth and went spinning off on his own in pursuit. The moth was wily, dipping and veering through the weave of the forest, spraying out a barrage of echo mirages. But Shade, after long experience, was focused with both sight and sound, and wasn’t going to be thrown off. He came in fast
with his tail flared, ready to scoop up the moth. Moths always tended to drop straight down, and Shade’s trajectory took this into account, but this moth didn’t just drop—it plummeted, heavy as a hailstone.

Shade did a backward somersault and twisted around in time to see the moth hit the earth and disappear. This was not tiger moth behaviour. With his echo vision he probed the rocky ground and saw there was actually a hole there. Moths, as far as he knew, did not make burrows. Carefully, he made a pass, shooting down sound. The hole was deep, and no echoes returned, nor was there any sign of the moth. Directly overhead, he noticed a powerful downward current.

Shade settled on the ground and warily advanced towards the hole, which seemed to have been split from the rock itself. He wondered if it had been opened by the tremor he’d felt earlier. The hole was noisily sucking in air. Dust and shards of stone drizzled over its rim. With his rear claws locked firmly in the earth, Shade stretched his head over the opening, feeling the current pull ominously at his fur. The tunnel slanted steeply into blackness. Maybe it led down towards the coastal caves, but he heard no slap of water, or shushing of wind. Far, far away he picked up the faint but frenzied flutter of the moth’s wings, fighting the current, until it dissolved to nothingness. Wherever this hole went, it was very deep.

His ears pricked. A sound, like the faintest exhalation, rose from the depths, and a ripple of horror swept Shade’s flesh. Perhaps it was just a whisper his own ears had superimposed over the silence. With all his concentration he listened, and heard once again the same sigh, like the slow measured breath of some living creature that wanted to speak. That wanted to come up. “Who’s there?” Shade shouted.

His voice echoed down the hole, rapidly dwindling:
Who’s there? Who’s there who’s there there there….

Then silence, as after a sharp intake of breath—the silence of something listening for you in the dark. Shade instantly regretted calling out. Cold sweat prickled his neck and shoulders. He couldn’t move. He was waiting to hear the breathing resume.

He blinked, dizzy with the sudden overwhelming certainty that this tunnel plunged to the earth’s very centre, to some terrible place that was not entirely unfamiliar to him. For in his mind’s eye, though his ears detected no sound, he caught a pale flash of images he had seen before: a feathered serpent, a jaguar, a pair of unblinking eyes with no pupils. And he knew their origin: Cama Zotz, god of the Underworld. “Yes,” a voice whispered.

Shade jerked back in terror, but not quickly enough, for at that moment, the earth around the tunnel mouth collapsed, and Shade’s upper body pitched down into the hole, his rear claws straining to keep their grip. The current plucked at him fiercely as he scrabbled with his thumbs to push back and out. One of his rear claws tore free of the earth, and he was about to fall, to fall down into that terrible hole—and suddenly he was hauled back and his father was with him, seizing him with wings and teeth and claws.

They scuttled clear and took flight, panting and shaken. Roosting on a nearby cedar, heart still pumping painfully, Shade told his father what had happened.

Cassiel looked grimly at the hole. “We should go back to Stone Hold and tell the elders. We’ll need help to properly block off that tunnel. Don’t want anyone getting sucked down.” “Or anything coming out,” Shade said.

His father looked at him. “You’re sure you heard someone?”

“I think so.” He sighed. “There was something down there, and not just one thing, it felt like … a world.” He did not want to imagine the kind of creatures that populated it, or what they might be capable of.

Shade stared up through the branches into a sky heavy with stars. By their position he could tell it was almost midnight. Orion would be making his decision soon. More than ever now, he wanted to travel to Tree Haven. He wanted to see Marina, and his son. He wanted to make sure that everything was all right. That the ominous tremor he’d felt earlier hadn’t cracked the earth near them.

As he flew with his father back towards Stone Hold, he’d already made up his mind. Even if Orion didn’t choose him as a messenger, he was leaving for Tree Haven before sunrise.