Darkwing Page 5

  “The eggs looked the same, regardless of the type of saurian they contained,” Nova countered. “So we needed to destroy them all. It was a matter of survival.”

  “It was extermination,” stated Icaron.

  “Call it what you will,” said Nova. “The beasts used to live in daily fear—”

  “Fear, yes,” Icaron interrupted, “but every creature fears its predators. That is the way of things. The Pact was something unnatural. The Pact was a deliberate decision to rid the earth of the saurians so the beasts might reign in their place!”

  Dusk had never seen his father so impassioned, and he looked anxiously at Nova, wondering how she could reply. He felt almost ill, for this kind of verbal battle was unknown to him. His father’s control was remarkable, the way his words never faltered, his voice never shook. But Nova too was commanding, Dusk had to admit.

  “The saurians’ time was over anyway,” she said. “The Pact simply sped up the inevitable. It was what needed to be done. There was no alternative.”

  “Of course there was,” Icaron scolded her. “And we chose that alternative.”

  “Tell them, then,” Nova urged him, with more than a hint of mockery in her voice. “Tell them of this noble choice.”

  Dusk was astonished by Nova’s insolence. Why did his father not silence her? Why did he not sink his teeth into her fur to reprimand her?

  Instead, Icaron turned his full attention to the four families assembled along the branches. His chest swelled as he took a deep breath.

  “For hundreds of years, the chiropters took part in the Pact. When I was younger, I too performed my duties hunting saurian eggs.”

  Dusk glanced at Sylph, stunned, scarcely aware of the excited chittering that swept through the colony, echoing his own surprise. He’d been led to believe the saurians had died out hundreds of years ago. But they weren’t creatures of ancient times at all, they had populated the world of his own father! And he had hunted them!

  “More and more,” Icaron was saying, “I felt misgivings about what I was doing. And I wasn’t alone. Sol and Barat felt the same—and so did your father, Nova.”

  “My father’s opinions are not my own,” she retorted.

  “There were twenty-six of us in total who decided we could no longer hunt and destroy saurian eggs,” Icaron continued. “So we rejected the Pact. It was not an easy thing to do. It didn’t mean just breaking with our colony. In some cases it meant breaking with our own parents and siblings and even children. It was very painful for all of us. We earned the contempt of the other beasts. We were deserters. Cowards. Our colony drove us out. We had to find a new home. We wanted somewhere remote, someplace where we could live harmoniously with other creatures, and raise our families in safety. We were extremely lucky to find this island. It has been the birthplace to practically all of you.”

  “All we did was ignore the problem,” Nova told the assembly. “We didn’t solve anything. We just left others to do the work. There were no saurians on this island, but there were many back on the mainland, feasting on our fellow chiropters while we enjoyed our splendid isolation. It was selfish.”

  Dusk looked worriedly back at his father, wondering how he would respond. Nova’s words were very persuasive, and he wanted his father to say something that would prove her wrong, and crush her defiance.

  “It was a simple matter of conscience,” Icaron said. “We chose to avoid the slaughter.”

  “It was the wrong choice!” Nova shouted.

  “Nova, silence!” said Sol, enraged.

  “Only the leader can silence me!” spat Nova. “If we had done our part in the Pact, we might have been completely free of the saurians by now. As it is, we may now have them on our beloved island.”

  Dusk moved closer to his mother, seeking her solid warmth. The world suddenly seemed a much larger and more frightening place than it had just hours ago.

  “You are fear-mongering, Nova,” said Icaron severely. He tipped back onto his legs, and his sails unfurled forcefully.

  “We should all heed this saurian as a warning,” Nova said, spreading her own sails as if in response to a challenge. “We can’t live in isolation any longer. Now is the time to take up our obligations to the Pact once more. If this was a she-saurian, there will be a nest. A nest means eggs. I suggest we send a group to the mainland to confer with other colonies.”

  “What happens on the mainland is not our concern,” said Icaron. “A crossing would be extremely dangerous. Have you forgotten?” He paused, and Dusk thought his eyes strayed to him and Sylph. “Nonetheless, to reassure us that we and all our children are safe, tomorrow I will organize an expedition to see if there is another saurian or a nest on the island.”

  “It is extremely unlikely,” Sol told the assembly.

  “That is a start at least,” said Nova. “But what of going to the mainland?”

  “No,” said Icaron. “There is no need.” Barat and Sol nodded their agreement.

  “And if we should find eggs here on the island,” Nova asked, “what will your course of action be?”

  “There will be no eggs. But if we were to find any, you know my answer. Saurian eggs are not to be harmed.”

  “Even in our own home, our own forest, you would allow these eggs to hatch?”

  “We are here because we made a vow to abstain from the destruction of the eggs,” Icaron said. “To destroy the eggs now would be a terrible hypocrisy. I will not tolerate it.”

  “That is not the decision of a leader.”

  Dusk’s eyes widened as his father reared back, chest thrown out, and pounded the air with his sails, battering Nova with a wind that made her fall back, cringing.

  “I have allowed you to speak your mind, Nova,” he shouted. “Do not make the mistake of thinking your words carry any authority! I will decide what is best for the colony and will continue to do so until the day I die.”

  Dusk stuck close to his father for the rest of the evening. He felt safer that way. Moving about their nest as they prepared for sleep, he shadowed Icaron so tightly that his father almost tripped over him. Icaron looked at him sharply, but the annoyance in his face quickly faded.

  “Everything’s all right, Dusk,” he said.

  “Are we really safe?” he asked.

  “Stop being feeble,” Sylph said, but he noticed she too was watching their father, waiting for reassurance. “Yes, we’re all very safe,” Icaron said. “This was the first saurian I’ve seen since leaving the mainland. I doubt we will ever see another.”

  Though his father no longer stood upon his leader’s perch, Dusk was aware of his power and authority as never before. While he felt protected within its aura, he was also a bit afraid, because he’d never seen Dad so angry and fierce. He hoped that temper would never be turned on him. He had a question, as insistent as an itch he couldn’t scratch, but he almost couldn’t work up the courage to ask.

  “Dad? I’m just wondering …” His voice faltered. His father settled down beside him. “Go on.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell us about the Pact?” Icaron looked briefly at Mistral and sighed. “So many reasons,” he said. “When we came to this island, we truly felt we’d found some kind of paradise. There were no saurians, and it seemed we might never see any again. Why did our children need to know about the old world, with all its dangers and sordid history? We wanted to keep our children safe here.”

  Mistral nodded. “The heads of the four families all vowed to keep it secret,” she said. “If we’d talked about the Pact, there always would’ve been a few fiery tempered chiropters who wanted to go back to the mainland and see the saurians, and maybe hunt them. But no one wants to see their own children harmed or killed. Even Nova, you’ll notice, has chosen to spend her life on the island. And until tonight, she kept her vow of silence.”

  “Why did Nova even come,” Dusk wanted to know, “if she thought the Pact was such a good thing?”

  “She wasn’t elder when we left the m
ainland,” Mistral explained. “It was her father, Proteus, who made the decision.”

  “And it cost him dearly,” Icaron said. “It destroyed his family. None of his sons would come with him.”

  “But Nova could’ve stayed behind too,” Sylph said. Icaron grunted. “Better for all of us if she had. But Proteus wanted her to come and she was obedient to his wishes.”

  Dusk found it hard to believe that Nova could ever have been obedient to anyone but herself.

  “It wasn’t simply a matter of obedience,” said Mistral. “Nova’s mate had just been killed by saurians while hunting eggs, and she was grief-stricken. She wanted to escape from the saurians forever, and the island was a haven.”

  “Her father was an excellent elder,” said Icaron, “and I admired him very much. But Proteus was the oldest of our group, and not strong, and he died after only two months on the island. Then Nova became elder.”

  “I always wondered how it happened!” Sylph said to Dusk. “No grubby sons hanging around, and she was the eldest daughter! It’s probably the only time there’s ever been a female elder.”

  “But she never did find another mate,” said Mistral. “Maybe if she had, her hatred of the saurians wouldn’t have grown so fierce and vengeful.”

  “Over the years she’s talked a great deal about returning to the mainland and rejoining the Pact,” said Icaron, “but Barat and Sol and I never agreed with her. I think the quetzal today reignited all her old anger and fear, and so she broke her vow of secrecy. It was a vow meant to keep everyone safe. Sometimes ignorance is preferable to knowledge.”

  Dusk nodded. He wasn’t sure he quite understood, but he trusted his father and knew he must be right.

  “You really hunted eggs?” Icaron nodded. “We both did.”

  Dusk turned to his mother in amazement. “You too?”

  “Of course,” Mistral said.

  “This is so incredible,” Sylph said to Dusk, her eyes bright with excitement.

  “She was the better hunter,” Icaron admitted. “Stealthier, with a superior sense of—”

  Dusk saw his mother shoot Dad a warning glance.

  “—much better senses,” Icaron finished. “She was excellent at scouting out nests.”

  “So you saw saurians close up?” Sylph asked their mother.

  “Well, we tried to wait until the adults were far from the nests. But yes, sometimes we came very close to them.”

  Sylph nuzzled her mother’s shoulder admiringly. “I wish I’d hunted saurian eggs like you, sneaking up on—”

  “Don’t say such things,” Icaron snapped. “They’re offensive to me.”

  All the exhilaration flew from Sylph’s face and was replaced by astonishment and hurt.

  Mistral looked at Icaron. “She’s young and excited,” she told her mate quietly. “You’re too severe with her.”

  “She should know better, especially after what she’s just heard me say. I expect more from my own daughter. These are not things to boast about.”

  Sylph said nothing, and in her dark, hooded eyes, Dusk saw a simmering resentment. This was hardly the first time their father had spoken sharply to her. Some days it seemed that Sylph did nothing but irritate him. She was too loud. She shouted and argued and objected. Things were boring or stupid or unfair. Dusk pressed closer to his sister, hoping to comfort her, but she wouldn’t look at him. The dogged set to her face made him anxious.

  “But what’s wrong,” she began, “with protecting the colony from saurian nests?”

  “Sylph …” her mother said warningly.

  “I think if I found saurian eggs near us, I’d be like Nova and want to—”

  Icaron’s teeth clashed mere inches from her left shoulder. Sylph recoiled with a cry, and Dusk let out a loud, startled exhalation. Sylph scuttled behind their mother, whimpering. Dusk looked from his father to his mother, expecting her to rebuke Icaron, but she said nothing, just hung her head sadly.

  “Learn your place,” Icaron told Sylph. “And learn some sense as well.”

  No one spoke as the four of them settled down into their deep furrows in the bark. Sylph stuck close to her mother, refusing to go near Icaron or even glance in his direction. Dusk was happy enough to lie beside Dad. He didn’t like to see his father so angry, but Sylph had been exasperating—goading him almost. Dusk happily breathed in the familiar scents of the tree and the night, of his parents and sister around him.

  He scarcely knew which of his many questions to ask his parents next; he was so overwhelmed by their new identities.

  Slayers of saurians.

  Breakers of the Pact.

  “How did you cross to the island?” Dusk asked suddenly.

  “It wasn’t easy,” said Icaron. “We watched for a long time, and twice each day the water briefly drew back from the mainland and left a narrow path of sand to the island. The coast of the mainland is high, and we climbed to the tallest trees overlooking the water. We chose a day when the wind was behind us. We waited until the water had pulled back, and we launched ourselves towards the island. Some of us managed to glide across the whole way. Some landed on the sand and walked the rest of the way. Some landed on the water and drowned. Twenty of us made it across to start new lives.”

  Dusk shuddered, glad that he’d never had to make such a perilous journey. And yet he couldn’t help envying his parents their early adventures. He wondered if he would have any of his own.

  “Can Sylph and I come tomorrow on the expedition?” he asked.

  “Certainly not,” said his mother. “All newborns will stay behind.”

  “But—” Sylph began to object loudly, but their mother gave a sharp grunt and Sylph fell silent.

  Dusk almost chuckled, amazed at his sister’s boldness. There was no keeping her down for long.

  “To sleep now,” said Icaron.

  Dusk dreamed he was examining the saurian, studying its massive, featherless wings. He touched the taut skin. It felt like his own.

  The creature stirred and turned towards him. Once more, Dusk saw himself reflected in its huge eye.

  The saurian breathed upon him and said, “I give you my wings.”

  Dusk opened his eyes from the dream, feeling alarmed and excited and guilty all at once. He’d felt such delight at the idea that he could fly. But dreams weren’t true, he knew that well enough. How many times had he dreamed he was flying, only to wake up crouched against the bark? He remembered his mother’s words: he should try to be like the other chiropters. But was he really even like them? He closed his eyes again, but sleep would not come.

  Judging by the silence shrouding the tree, the rest of the colony seemed to have little trouble sleeping, as if this were any other night and they hadn’t just heard their own momentous history for the first time.

  Quietly, so as not to disturb his family, he left the roost and crept a ways down the branch, around the nests of other sleeping chiropters. At the tip of the branch, near his family’s hunting perch, he crouched. The moon had not risen yet, and the clearing and forest beyond were hidden by a great veil of darkness. Down near the earth, sprawled dead amongst the low branches, was the winged saurian.

  A quetzal, his father had called it. It had spoken to him as it died.

  Here on the branch, he felt poised on the very edge of night. Before and below, it stretched out, endlessly deep. The darkness did not frighten him; it never had. He knew it scared many of the newborns, and adults too. They gladly retreated to their nests when night came. But for some reason, he never minded it when he woke up alone at night, with no company but the crickets and the stars.

  A firefly briefly sparked the darkness, and instinctively Dusk sent out a barrage of hunting clicks. In his mind’s eye, the firefly and its trajectory gleamed and then—

  His breath jerked out in surprise.

  Silvery light bloomed out from the firefly, like ripples spreading through a pool of water, revealing a constellation of other insects, and beyond them the we
ave of branches on the far side of the clearing. The light slowly faded and Dusk was left staring at the blackness.

  Like all chiropters, he’d always used his hunting clicks to target prey.

  But he’d never known they could bring light to the dark.

  Tentatively he sent forth another stream of clicks. His ears pricked high and swivelled to catch the returning echoes. Once more, within his head, the world appeared etched in silver. The thousands of flying insects appeared as streaks of light against the stillness of the great redwood trunks and branches. Did anyone know there were so many insects active at night: moths and beetles and mosquitoes, enough to feed an entire colony of chiropters!

  The world faded to black again and Dusk inhaled deeply. He could see in the dark!

  Why hadn’t anyone told him? Did Sylph already know, and was just keeping it to herself? He wouldn’t put it past her. Or maybe no one had realized. During the day, it would be hard to notice, since the world was already illuminated. And that was the only time they hunted and used their clicks.

  How far, he wondered, could he see? He angled his head down, in the direction of the redwood that held the dead saurian. It was a long way. He fired out hunting clicks.

  His echoes illuminated more airborne insects, but this time evaporated before they brought him back any image of the faraway tree. It seemed to be beyond his range. He wasn’t ready to give up, though. He took a breath, opened his mouth wider, and sang out an aria of stronger and longer hunting clicks.

  He didn’t even see the insects this time, only darkness. But just as he was about to give up, the distant lower branches of the redwood bloomed in his mind’s eye. And there, towards the trunk, he caught sight of the saurian’s head and sagging wing, lit by echo light.

  This was incredible! Not only could he see in the dark, but he could see things up close or far away—in a quick blossom of light, or a slow flare, depending on how he shaped his hunting clicks.

  He tried again, studying the saurian’s outline.

  “Dusk?”

  He startled at the sound of his sister’s voice beside him. After the brightness of his sonic images, she seemed dim in the starlight. “Hi,” he said. “Can’t sleep either?”