Chapter 3 – The Swamp
Author's Note :: Sorry it took so long to update. I was helping someone move, and well... The chapter is a tad bit long.
Eclipse was not sure where he was leading them.
He had only told them of the hunting grounds in a spontaneous determination to prove himself. And now, flying deeper into the forest than he had ever been, he was not sure if he would ever find a place like the one he had described. With Solstice at his wingtip, Innuo behind him, and the other bats trailing behind, he was sure they would figure it out and be angry with him. Especially Solstice, who seemed to be putting an awful lot of faith in him.
But, as if by some amazing stroke of luck, he found the perfect place. A swamp, practically solidly packed with mosquitoes, branches overhanging, a thick smell of rotting leaves and stagnant water hovering in the air.
"See?" Eclipse said. "Look at all the bu-"
But Innuo, Odia, Vinan, and Renco all shot past him furiously, eyes hungrily fixed on the bugs as echos bounced in every direction. "First one to five hundred wins!" shouted Odia. And the competition began.
Solstice giggled beside him. "I bet you could get to five hundred before any of them," she said, "Unless..." she was grinning and Eclipse eyed her as they descended. "Unless I get five hundred first!"
He laughed, tearing off after her towards the swamp, and, intentionally twacking her over the head with his wing, dove as he caught ten bugs in his open mouth. Practically choking on mosquitoes now, she darted in front of him, sending him into an ungraceful hult which ended in a plummet to the water.
"Hey!" He shouted as he pulled his waterlogged wings from the water, shaking off thick droplets of murky water onto her pristine black-and-silver coat. "Cheater."
More giggling, and they both dove in opposite directions to resume the competition. Eclipse had some trouble downing the bugs; it was not in his nature to feed on them, for his mother was a fruit bat and his father a meat-eater. (He refused to eat meat, though.) He preferred the sweet-tasting barries and sour-but-filling crab apples that grew here, but insects, he would have to live with. He was not particularly concerned with winning the competition; he only scooped up a hundred bugs before he simply swerved off towards a low-hanging branch as he watched the others dive through the walls upon walls of buzzing mosquitoes, laughing carelessly as they called out their scores: "Two hundred sixty-eight!" Called Vinan; "Three Hundred one!" Replied Renco, Fallowed by Innuo's "Whatever, you're all pathetic! Three hundred ninety-five!" Odia laughed scornfully; "Three hundred ninety-seven!"
Solstice scooted past him with a wink. "Four hundred twelve. Who's pathetic now?"
Eclipse laughed at the anguished response from the others; Renco shouted loudly, Innuo growled "No way!", Odia snorted then squealed "Eww, bug blood up the nose!" And Vinan seemed to have given up. He had never felt quite so at home among the Silverwings, but still, in his shyness and fear of them, he felt himself retreating inwards, his body tensing every time they streaked by after a bug, and decided to hang out in a nearby bush, where he could listen but not intrude.
In the bush he had fluttered to, he found a patch of ripe berries, and joyously ate, filling his belly with the sweetness of them, allowing the high sugar to fill him instead of those terrible-tasting bugs. He would have to tell Mother about the barries once he got back to their little tree hallow; Little Haven, Mother called it.
He heard scores being called out again, and glanced over his shoulder to see that everyone had landed on the overhanging branches, looking queasy as they tried to hold in all the mosquitoes they had eaten. He laughed at the stupidity of their contest; what's the point eating if it makes you sick and you throw it back up anyway?
"I got four hundred and ninty-two. Unless someone did better, let's just call it over," Innuo said, as Eclipse lifted his head from the barries to glance again at Solstace. She was surely the most promising newborn of them all; he would be surprised if she hadn't already made it to five hundred.
"I got four hundred ninety – one sec..." she snapped her jaws over a mosquito, "I got five hundred. So I guess it is over, eh Innuo?"
Eclipse laughed out loud at the mourn sounded by the others. "Seriously?" "You're such a cheater!"
She beamed. "I can't believe you all thought it was so hard. Anyway, we should be heading home soon."
There was a murmur of still-resentful agreement.
"Wait," Renco said suddenly, "Where is Vinan?"
Silence. They all glanced around the swamp, an uneasy stillness settling in. The frogs had stopped croaking. The chirp of crickets was absent. And, suddenly, not far away, a bird sounded an alarm call and scattered into the sky.
"Something must be coming -"
Solstice gasped suddenly, eyes snapping shut as she relied only on her ears to draw the picture of the shadows. Eclipse glanced where her ears had swivelled to, but, suddenly, the calm passed. Chaos had broken loose.
All the newborns squealed as a tree full of birds scattered, and Vinan, who had flown from the shadows, shot out an ear-piercing cry for help. And, the sound Solstice had been focusing on burst from the bushes after him; a lynx had fallowed the wandering Vinan back to the swamp.
Solstace, Innuo, Odia, and Renco dove into the trees, out of sight as they all seemed to give up on their friend. Vinan was flapping upward, but sheer terror and shaking was inhabiting him from flying strait up.
Eclipse stayed still. He was not about to plunge himself into a deadly situation for a bat he didn't even like. Sure, it was selfish, it would not make anyone proud, and the Silverwings would probably give him the "Nocturna would want you to" lecture if they knew what he was thinking, but he didn't care, really. He would fly home to his mother that morning, tell her about the swamp and the barries and the lynx, he would explain himself about not helping, and he would go on with his life. Besides, attacking or distracting the lynx only complicated the situation further.
Suddenly, Vinan twitched violently and plunged right for the lynx's swatting range. The beast wasted no time in clawing him angerly, sharp claws ripping through the newborn's body like he was a piece of bark that had fallen from the tree. An unexpected turn of events, Eclipse thought, he had been fully expecting the little bat to flap he way up to the trees with his cowering friends. How terrible.
"Eclipse!" Solstice hollered suddenly; she had gallantly doven towards the the scene, trying to distract the beast who was about to eat her friend. "Help!"
Allowing Vinan to sink into the murky water below, the lynx had turned his attention to Solstice, swatting and roaring at the bat who hovered just out of reach. Eclipse rolled his eyes; now, he supposed, he had to help.
Swooping down with his fur bristled, he bared his fangs and screeched at the beast, causing to to turn and face him, not wasting any time turning his attention on the creature who had screamed in his ear. "That's enough, Beast, if you aren't going to eat us than get lost and waste your time killing prey."
The lynx roared out and unintelligeable response, and Eclipse rolled his eyes again. This was certainly more effort than he had been willing to exert.
Still, he turned sharply, aiming his needle-sharp teeth at the lynx's tail. This was dangerous, he told himself, and he really should not be so stupid as to try it, but he plunged his fangs into the flesh, drawing blood as he beat his wings against the animal's rump.
Roaring, the lynx turned, and with a twitch seemed to have been bitten by a mosquito, which seemed to annoy him more than Eclipse's bite. As the mosquitoes scented the blood and dove in to bite, the lynx took off into the shadows.
Pleased, Eclipse watched it run.
"Eclipse!" shouted Solstice, "Vinan's still under water! He'll drown!"
Eclipse looked up with a snort. "He's probably dead already."
"Just try, please! He'd do it for us!"
"Doubt that. But I'll try I guess." He hated how irresistible she was.
Folding his wings to his body, he took the plunge into the water. Murk rose from all directions, obscuring his vision, and water filled his ears and nose. He had no useful senses, and he squinted as he shook his head at himself. How stupid can one bat be? But then, a leave suddenly touched his fur, and he whirled, eyes opening in surprise. That was it. He would feel his way to Vinan.
Swimming until he reached the bottom, the skimmed his outstreched wings against the swamp's muddy floor. He still thought the whole thing was rather stupid, but he kept going, trying not to inhale the water as he moved. It was becoming hard to focus as his chest tightened, and he wanted to serface more than anything. Too long, too long...
His wings scaped something furry.
Grabbing at the fur, he reafed upward, splashing desperately as his whole being screamed for air and land and freedom from his wet, mucky prison. He suddenly inhaled a great gulp of water, caughed, inhaled more, and, with intence realif, found the surface and used the last of his energy to swim to the muddy edge, still half-submerged as he dragged Vinan's body out of the mud.
Solctace landed beside him. "Our mothers are on their way. I'm so sorry I made you do that."
Eclipse gasped for air again, and water spewed from his lungs in heaving caughs. "He's dead."
"I know. Look."
He glanced at the blood that was matting onto all three of their coats, coming from three narrow gashes on Vinan's belly. "He didn't drown, though. He was dead before he hit the water."
The shadow of their mothers swooping in from overhead blocked out the moon for a moment, and as Alinla's familiar smell drifted into his nostrils, Eclipse quivered. At last he could go home.
He clung to his mother as soon as she landed, and she flapped to the overhanging branches as she worked furiously to clean him, asking no questions, just grooming as she looked at the other mothers who had also grabbed their young and perched.
"Who did this to him, Solstace?" asked the bat who was odviously Luna. "A beast or a bird?"
"Beast. It was a big lynx, Momma. Eclipse tryed to save him, but he... I'm so sorry, we couldn't..." she was crying now, and Eclipce burried his head in his wings as tears rand down his own cheeks.
Vinan's mother was still on the ground, wailing as she hugged him in her wings. "WHAT WHERE YOU DOING HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?"
"Hunting," Solstace said through her tears.
"WHO -" she breathed for a moment as she realised that the young bat had not been responsible for her baby's death. "Who's brillient idea was that?
"Mine," Said Eclipse. "I lead them here."
Vinan's mother glanced furiously at them. "Get control over your boy, Alinla," she said, "He's nothing but a curse to our colony."
