Darkwing

  “What’s it matter now anyway?” Sylph said impatiently. “The saurians are gone. All that’s over. Isn’t it more important to have a safe home for the entire colony right now?”

  “If Dad had said he was sorry, everyone would think he really had made a mistake. They’d think he was weak. How could anyone respect him after that? How could he respect himself?”

  Sylph sniffed. “Yeah. He just thought of himself, as usual. His pride ruined it for the entire colony.”

  “Dad was willing to give up being leader!” Dusk reminded her angrily. “That’s not being proud, Sylph!”

  His sister fell silent.

  “We’ll find someplace else,” he told her, “someplace better.” But he was beginning to worry this new world didn’t have any room left for them. They weren’t the only creatures looking for a new home, either. Over the past few days he’d noticed many other groups of migrating beasts, their eyes fixed on some distant point that would finally offer them a hunting ground and safe haven.

  He looked up ahead at Dad, leading the way with Auster at his side. Dusk had noticed they’d been spending more time together lately, and at night were often engaged in quiet conversation. He’d tried to listen in, but they always managed to be out of earshot. He was jealous of all the attention his older brother was suddenly getting, but it also worried him. What were they talking about?

  Dusk carried on, gliding and climbing with the rest of his exhausted colony. They were headed north. Dad had said there was no point trying to reunite with their ancestral colony. They’d only be rejected once again. They needed to forge on, try to find a place far from any other chiropters, a place where they were unknown. “A place where we can escape the sins of our past,” Dusk had overheard Nova mutter bitterly.

  The long day wore on. When the forest changed, it happened so gradually it was some time before Dusk—or anyone else—realized they were suddenly the only creatures in the trees.

  At first it felt pleasantly familiar, just like being back on the island, but then Dusk began to find it eerie. The quiet was broken only by the occasional twitter of birdsong, the buzz of insects, and the rustle of leaves in the breeze.

  Dad called a halt, and the colony settled among the branches, some grooming, others seeking out water or food. Sylph went off to hunt. Dusk glided over to his father. He’d never been far from him since they’d left the island. Whenever he was out of sight for long, Dusk felt panicky. He wasn’t sure whether he was afraid something would happen to himself, or to his father.

  Every night when Dusk slept, he hoped that his father’s wound would be healed by morning. But it never was. On good mornings it looked the same, on bad ones, worse. Right now Icaron’s eyes looked swollen and red. His fur had a sharp odour that Dusk didn’t like. Over the past two days, his pace had slowed noticeably and he’d been calling for more frequent rest stops.

  Dusk knew better than to ask him if he was all right. His answer was always the same, and Dusk found the lie harder and harder to bear. Dad needed to rest more if he was to get better, and that seemed impossible right now.

  “This looks like a good place,” Dusk said hopefully. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t more crowded, but right now he didn’t really care. There were plenty of tall trees, and lots of bugs by the look and sound of it.

  A small, dark shape dashed out of sight in a nearby tree. Dusk heard a patter of footsteps, and what sounded like whispering. His fur tingled. He looked at his father and saw that he too was watching and listening.

  From the corner of his eye Dusk saw something move in another tree. He jerked his head round. It was swift on the branch, and gone almost before he could focus on it. He had the impression of something running not on four legs, but on two. A second later, the creature emerged from behind the trunk and hurried out along the branch in plain view.

  It was a beast, silver-furred, twice the size of a chiropter. Its hind legs were longer than its front ones, and though it did in fact move on all fours, it gave the unnerving impression of walking on its hind legs alone. The creature paused and sat back on its haunches, its hands together, fingers intertwined. A bushy tail swayed side to side. Dusk had never seen such large eyes on any beast: huge dark moons with brown irises and large pupils. Large white-tipped ears slanted out diagonally from its head.

  And suddenly all the trees around them were filled with more of these creatures, appearing as from nowhere, lining the branches and watching the chiropters. They did not seem at all aggressive, just curious, but Dusk could not help noticing that his colony was completely surrounded.

  “They’re tree runners,” his father told him, and then called out a greeting.

  From the branches, one of the spry creatures scampered eagerly towards Icaron. There followed the usual cordial sniffing.

  “I am Adapis,” the tree runner said. “Welcome to our home.”

  “Thank you. I’m Icaron, the leader of this colony.”

  The tree runner peered inquisitively at the wound on Dad’s shoulder, and seemed quite excited by it. “It’s become infected. But I can heal it. Will you allow me?” Before waiting for an answer he turned back to several other tree runners who’d edged closer. “Gather the ingredients! This needs tending to.”

  “You’re very kind,” Icaron said.

  Dusk didn’t know how this creature could possibly heal Dad’s wound. Wounds healed on their own, or didn’t. All you could do was keep them clean. What more could this tree runner do? But Dad seemed to have confidence in his claims.

  “Please tell your colony they’re welcome to hunt here,” Adapis said. “I think you’ll find we have plenty of insect prey.”

  Within minutes, the other tree runners had returned, bits of bark and leaf clutched in their hands. Sylph glided down beside Dusk.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  “They say they can heal Dad’s wound.”

  In amazement he watched as Adapis took a thin piece of bark in his two hands and shredded it. His five tapered fingers were marvellously nimble. Dusk had never seen any animal hold or tear something so easily. Adapis fed the bark into his mouth and chewed, while taking hold of a dried leaf and crumbling it into a small pile. He then spat the bark onto the leaf dust, and with his dextrous fingers, mixed it all together before scooping it back into his mouth for another quick chew. His preparations complete, Adapis stepped closer to Icaron and proceeded to spit the green paste onto his wound.

  “Do you think that’s really going to help?” Sylph whispered to Dusk in consternation.

  Dusk winced. The green slime drizzling from Adapis’s mouth looked a lot like the foul pus that was already scaled around Dad’s wound.

  “Don’t worry,” Adapis said, looking over. “The paste will defeat the infection, and help the gash to heal more quickly. You must trust us. We know a great deal about what plants can do.”

  “It soothes already,” said Icaron, closing his eyes and sighing.

  “At sunset we’ll clean the wound again and apply more.”

  “Thank you, Adapis,” Icaron said.

  “Most important, you need rest. You and your colony may stay here as long as you like.”

  After so many days of tamping down his fears, Dusk felt himself tremble with relief and gratitude.

  Dad quickly fell asleep. Normally he never slept during the day, and Dusk realized how tired and ill he must have been, forcing himself onward.

  “Let’s hunt,” Sylph said.

  Dusk was hungry, but he felt strangely nervous leaving Dad’s side. All his life he’d assumed his father’s watchful eyes were always upon him, making sure no harm came to him—or the colony. Now those eyes were closed, and he looked so vulnerable that Dusk felt he should watch over him. “He’ll be here when we get back,” Sylph said. “Come on.”

  Dusk told himself he was just being foolish, but left reluctantly.

  The hunting was excellent. If anything, the insects were even more numerous than on the island,
and it took little effort to catch them. It seemed the bugs here hadn’t had much experience with airborne predators.

  Certainly the tree runners didn’t seem to eat them, preferring the fruit and seeds that grew in the trees, and especially the grubs and roots they dug from the ground with their clever hands. They really did seem to have a great knowledge of all the plants in their forest, and Dusk saw them mixing things together and crushing them into a paste before eating them. He felt a little in awe of them. Imagine knowing all that; imagine being able to make things with your hands.

  He glanced over at Sylph. It was good to have her gliding at his side. He’d missed her.

  “Why’ve you been staying away so much?” he asked her as they climbed a trunk.

  “I don’t know.” She paused. “I was angry with Dad, for not letting us stay with Gyrokus. And then I just couldn’t stand it any more, seeing him so weak, and getting weaker. I didn’t want to watch. I was afraid he was going to die.”

  Her rear claws slipped on the bark, and Dusk realized she was shaking. He climbed alongside her and pressed his face against her cheek and shoulder. “It’s all right now,” he said. “They’re making him better.”

  Her voice was so quiet he barely heard it. “I want Mom back.”

  It was only four words, but they brought a whimper to Dusk’s throat too. He’d tried hard to lock away his thoughts of her, because they only caused him pain, an actual physical ache in his torso, reminding him he would never be near her again.

  “I hate them,” Sylph said savagely, “the felids. They took everything.”

  “We’ll find a new home,” Dusk said.

  “I don’t want another home,” she said, “I want our old one back.”

  “One day.”

  “I want things back the way they were.”

  “Me too.”

  He was used to her outspoken anger, but not her raw grief, and it stirred in him a fierce desire to make things right—and an equally fierce frustration at his own powerlessness.

  Sylph took a big breath and kept climbing, obviously not wanting to talk any more. Dusk followed, and realized that on the branch overhead, three tree runner newborns were watching them with wide-eyed curiosity. One of them called out a hello and introduced himself as Strider. Dusk was glad of the chance to talk to them. They were so kindly looking that his initial shyness had all but evaporated. “I wish I could glide,” Strider said.

  Dusk chuckled. “I wish I had hands like yours.”

  “Really?” said Strider, staring at his left hand as if he’d never seen it before.

  “You can hold things really well,” said Dusk. “It must be very useful.”

  “I suppose so. But you can sail through the air. That’s almost as good as flying.”

  Dusk looked quickly at Sylph to make sure she wasn’t going to blurt anything about how, actually, he could fly.

  “Can I see them, your wings?” Strider asked politely.

  “Sails,” Sylph corrected. “Haven’t you ever seen chiropters?”

  “Maybe once,” said Strider uncertainly. “But I don’t think they stayed very long.”

  Dusk obligingly spread his sails. With keen interest Strider studied the ridges of his arm and fingers on the undersides.

  “They’re like hands,” Strider said excitedly, “but just with really long fingers and skin across them.” He glanced from Sylph back to Dusk. “But how come yours are different from everyone else’s?”

  “Are you some kind of freak?” one of Strider’s companions asked.

  “Shut up, Knoll,” Strider told his friend.

  “I’m just different,” Dusk replied.

  “I’d rather have sails than hands,” Strider decided. Dusk smiled at the tree runner’s good-natured impetuosity, but he himself couldn’t imagine being anything other than what he was. He only wished he didn’t have to hide what his sails could really do.

  “Is it true you just eat bugs all the time?” asked the third newborn, speaking for the first time.

  “Pretty much—why?” said Sylph warily, as though anticipating an insult.

  “Doesn’t it get boring?”

  “There’s a lot of bugs out there, Loper,” Strider said, as though his friend were a bit simple-minded. “They probably eat hundreds of bugs every day.”

  “Thousands, actually,” said Sylph. Loper looked a bit queasy at this news.

  “We eat seeds and plants too,” Dusk added, not wanting to appear unworldly.

  “Have you ever tried this one?” Strider asked, holding up a slender green leaf, which he must have been concealing behind his back. The leaf was finely veined, with a slightly serrated edge. There was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” said Dusk. “No.”

  “You should try it,” said Knoll. “Pass it over, Strider.”

  Strider glanced around furtively and took a tiny nibble before passing it to Knoll, who did the same. Loper chuckled and chewed off a bit as well. “What is it?” Dusk asked suspiciously. Strider’s whisper was barely audible. “It’s tea.”

  “That grew all around our old forest,” said Sylph, a bit wistfully. “But did you ever try it?” Knoll asked. His eyes seemed a little bigger than before, and his toes were drumming on the bark. “It’s not something chiropters ever eat,” Dusk admitted. “What a shame, what a shame,” said Strider, talking quickly. “It’s really good.”

  “Our parents don’t like us eating it,” Loper admitted. “They say it makes us too irritated.”

  “Too agitated,” Strider corrected.

  “Hard to get to sleep,” Knoll added, his eyes skittering all over the place. “But it’s pretty fun while it lasts.”

  All three tree runner newborns were now bobbing up and down on the branch, as though unable to keep their bodies still.

  “Try some,” said Strider, jiggling the leaf in front of Dusk. Dusk hesitated, remembering the incident with the mushroom. He didn’t want any more scarifying visions.

  “I’ll have some,” said Sylph. She leaned forward and snapped up some of the leaf. The tree runners all looked at one another, open-mouthed with surprise.

  “That was a lot!” said Knoll.

  “You probably shouldn’t have taken that much,” said Strider. Sylph shrugged. “What am I going to do, start flying?” Strider and his friends chortled giddily. Dusk looked at his sister in concern. She was flapping her sails hard.

  “Maybe I’ll just lift right off!” she said. She turned to Dusk. “Maybe all I needed was some tea leaves!”

  She was certainly flapping quickly, and Dusk wondered if this was still a joke, or whether she truly was trying to fly. For a moment he wanted her to soar off the branch, so she could join him in the air. But her efforts now were no more successful than her early ones, and he felt a stab of sadness. The tree runner newborns, however, thought this was all uproarious, and were bouncing up and down on the branch, urging her on.

  Before long, though, his sister seemed to tire of flapping and contented herself with pacing frantically along the branch. The tree runners were springing up and down, seeing who could go the highest.

  “Try some tea, Dusk,” Sylph said to him. “It really perks you up.”

  “No thanks,” he said.

  Sylph looked all around as if something had just occurred to her. “How come it’s so quiet around here?” she asked the tree runners. “It’s just you living here. Everywhere else it was so crowded.”

  “Lots of creatures pass through,” said Knoll, “but no one stays long.”

  He sprang up, caught the branch overhead with his nimble fingers, and swung back and forth before letting go.

  Dusk noticed that Strider looked like he had a secret, but one that he was eager to share. The tree runner lowered his voice, though he was still talking rather loudly. “There’s a monster in the forest,” he said. “That’s just a story,” said Loper, blinking. “No, I’ve seen it.”

  “You never told me that!?
?? Knoll said. “When?”

  “Well, I heard it. Once, at night,” Strider insisted quickly. Dusk looked at Sylph, whose ears lifted in amusement. He wondered if the tree runners were normally this talkative, or if it was just the tea loosening their tongues.

  “What kind of monster was it?” Sylph wanted to know, restlessly furling and unfurling her sails.

  “Big,” Strider replied confidently. “It sounded very big. It scares most creatures away, but it never bothers us.”

  “It didn’t scare us away,” Sylph said.

  “Well, it doesn’t live that close to us,” said Strider, sounding more uncertain now. “No one’s ever really seen it. Anyway, that’s why not that many creatures live around here. They got scared off. But we know it’s safe.”

  Dusk wondered if Strider knew what he was talking about, and decided not. Probably he was just reciting some story the adults told their newborns to keep them from wandering off. Surely if there were a real monster in the vicinity, the tree runners wouldn’t have such a large and contented colony here.

  “And if you aren’t scared, maybe you can live here too,” said Strider before taking a running leap at the next tree and bounding away with his friends. “I like chiropters!”

  Dusk was touched by his innocent sincerity. The tree runners’ home really did seem like an ideal place, and he couldn’t help wondering if this might become their home as well.

  When Carnassial made his first kill on the mainland, he offered it to Panthera. He stepped back and watched her expectantly. She sniffed the carcass, pawed it briefly, and then without any hesitation expertly tore through the fur and skin, shearing the bloody meat from the ribs. Carnassial’s tail twitched in surprise.

  “This is not the first time you’ve eaten meat,” he said to her. She licked clean the fur around her mouth.

  “No. After you left, I hunted several times.”

  “And you were never caught?” he said in astonishment.

  Panthera purred in amusement. “I was more careful than you. I went farther afield. I didn’t want to be expelled.”

  “You wanted to remain in Patriofelis’s prowl?”