Sunwing

Aladdin Paperbacks

Chapter One: Dead of Winter

Wings trimmed tight, Shade sailed through the forest. The naked elms, maples, and oaks blazed in the moon's glow, their branches spiked with icicles. Beneath him, trees lay toppled like the skeletons of giant beasts. The groans of freezing wood filled the air, and in the distance Shade heard a mighty crack as yet another branch snapped and fell.

He shivered. Even though he'd been flying for hours, he was still cold, the wind chiseling through his sleek black fur into his bones. Wistfully, he thought of the other Silverwings, roosting snugly back at Hibernaculum. Even though their bodies would now be glistening with frost, they were warm in a deep winter's sleep that would take them through to spring. They hadn't wanted to come with him: It was too cold, too dangerous, they said. They didn't care enough to make the journey. Let them sleep, Shade thought, squinting against a sudden blast of wind. They had no curiosity, no sense of adventure.

He was going to find his father.

And it wasn't as if he was alone. Weaving through the forest alongside him were more than a dozen Silverwings. He could see Chinook, skimming over a heavy fir bough, knocking off snow. Up ahead was Shade's mother, Ariel, speaking softly with Frieda, the chief elder of their colony. There was another bat in the vanguard too, a male called Icarus, who was acting as guide. Shade hoped he knew where he was going. But after all he'd been through recently, he was happy to let someone else blaze the trail for a change.

"Cold?" he heard Marina ask beside him.

"Me?" Shade shook his head, trying not to let his teeth chatter. "You?"

She wrinkled her neat, pointy nose, as if the very idea was laughable. "No. But I'm pretty sure I saw you shiver."

"Not me," he said, and returned her suspicious look. "Anyway, you've got more fur. Look at all that fur!"

"Well, I am older than you," she pointed out.

Shade grunted. As if she ever let him forget!

"And Brightwings have better fur," she added matter-of-factly. "Just the way it is, Shade."

"Better fur!" he spluttered indignantly. "I've heard it all now! Just because it's thicker doesn't mean it's better."

"Sure is warm, though," Marina said with a grin.

Shade couldn't help grinning back. Of all the bats traveling with him, Marina was the only one who wasn't a Silverwing. Her fur was much thicker and brighter than his own, radiant in the moon's glow. Her wings were narrower, and she had elegant, shell-shaped ears. He'd met her last autumn, after getting lost on his first ever migration. She'd helped him catch up with his colony at Hibernaculum. She was an infuriating know-it-all but, he had to admit, she'd saved his life, once or twice.

A dollop of snow hit him on the back, and Shade looked up sharply to see Chinook swinging lower with a triumphant grin.

"Oh, sorry, Shade, did I get you?"

"You're hilarious, Chinook. Really." He shook the snow off before it melted. When they were newborns back at Tree Haven -- and it wasn't so long ago -- Chinook had treated him with about as much respect as a mulched-up leaf. After all, Chinook had been the most promising hunter and flyer, and Shade just the runt of the colony. But now, after all Shade's adventures, Chinook had decided he might be worth talking to.

"Chinook, that's no way to treat a hero," Marina said, her eyes flashing gleefully.

Shade sniffed. Hero? He sure didn't feel like a hero. Maybe the first night or two after he'd gotten back to Hibernaculum, and everyone listened to his stories. But after that, somehow, things went pretty much back to normal. He ate, drank, and slept like everyone else, and felt the same as he always had. Frankly, he'd expected better. What did he have to do to get some respect? He'd escaped from pigeons and rats, from owls and cannibal bats. He'd tunneled beneath the earth and soared through lightning storms. He'd flown in the blazing light of day!

And now he got snow dumped on his head.

Heroes did not get snow dumped on their heads.

With a grimace, he watched as Chinook swooped down beside Marina. Chinook liked her company, that was obvious. Over the past few nights he'd gone out of his way to fly beside her, and roost near her during the day. The amazing thing was, Marina didn't seem to mind. The snow was probably his way of impressing her, Shade fumed, and it seemed to have worked. Look at her, still smiling about it! Sometimes, watching from a distance, Shade would actually hear her laughing at something Chinook said -- a kind of tinkly laugh he'd never heard before. She sure didn't laugh like that with him. It drove him crazy. What could Chinook possible come up with that was so funny? He wasn't smart enough to be funny. Were they laughing at him?

"I've been thinking about those two cannibal bats," Chinook said. "Goth and Throbb."

"Uh-huh," said Shade.

"And I figure I could've fought them."

Shade's ears twitched indignantly. "No, Chinook. They would've eaten you." How many times did he have to go through this? Chinook just never quite believed he himself couldn't have beaten them in battle. "They were huge," Shade told him.

Chinook flared his nostrils carelessly. "How huge?"

"About this huge," said Shade wickedly, and he sang sound right into Chinook's ears and drew an echo picture in his head of Goth lunging, snout cracking open to show twin mountain ranges of dripping teeth, his three-foot wings slick with sweat, billowing...

The sound picture blazed in Chinook's mind only a fraction of a second, but was so sudden and so horrifying that he cried out and careened into a fir bough, dousing himself with snow.

"Was that really necessary?" Marina asked Shade.

"Oh, I think so."

"Nice trick," grumbled Chinook, shaking the snow from his shoulders.

"Still think you could fight them?" Shade asked.

"Well, we could've fought them back at Hibernaculum. There're thousands of us there."

"No," said Marina. "They would've waited until you were all asleep, and eaten you one by one through the whole winter. That was their plan. And they really would've gone straight for you, Chinook. Lots of flesh on those bones."

"Well, it's muscle," said Chinook proudly, "not fat," and then he frowned at the idea of being a meal. "I still think I could've -- "

"Well, they're dead, so you'll never know," Shade said impatiently.

"Throbb, anyway," said Marina. "We saw him turn to ash. But we only saw Goth get hit by the lightning."

"There's no way he could've lived through that," said Shade, and he was surprised at the urgency in his voice; he wanted so much for it to be true. He could clearly see Goth's body spinning down through the thunderhead, charred. He doubted he would ever forget the two cannibals, and they still haunted his dreams. Goth would pin him to the ground, and Shade could feel his weight crushing his chest, smell his rank breath. Then Goth would lower his head to Shade's and whisper things in his ear, terrible things that he never remembered upon waking at twilight. And for that, he was grateful.

"He's got to be dead," he muttered.

"Hope you're right, that's all I can say," said Marina. She looked at the scar Goth's jaws had left on her wrist. Shade too had been wounded, his wing slashed in two places. Though the rips had healed over, they still burned coldly as he flew. And he often caught himself glancing back over his wing, half-expecting to see Goth's monstrous...