Chapter 22: Operation R. J.

''Are you sure your colony was headed this way?'' Marina asked skeptically as we flew over the forest. The weather was getting much colder by now. And it was no doubt that winter was almost here. I felt glad that I was wearing my warm native American outfit instead of a simple leaf dress. Otherwise, I would have soon frozen to death in no time.

''Positive,'' Shade assured us with confidence, causing Marina to sigh.

''Then we're not out of trouble yet.''

I wondered what she meant by that, but then I looked up and set my eyes upon a majestically high mountain before us covered in snow. The view was incredible, but I didn't like the idea of flying over that. Especially since it seemed to be hundreds of miles up into the sky where it would be definitely a lot colder than in it was already down here.

''Shade are you sure that this is the right way?'' Marina asked as we took roost on a tree at the foot of the mountain, ''Because as far as I know, my colony doesn't migrate over any mountains.''

''Well, Maybe mine does.''

''And maybe we will fly up there and freeze our fur off.''

Shade sighed impatiently, ''Look, Goth and Throbb could wake up any second... I'll look in my sound-map. That should get us back on track.''

Marina nodded, still looking worried about this and fiddled with her band.

I also put my hand on my own wrist and for a moment I was surprised why it was uncovered. But then I remembered that Goth had torn the bandage off earlier while treating me to do much worse the next time he gets his teeth into my skin. I gulped not liking to think about this and pulled my arm closer to my chest. To make matters worse, my wrist also started to itch now, and it was hard to resist the urge to scratch.

Finally, Shade opened his eyes back up again. ''We definitely fly up that mountain,'' he explained, ''We go past the trees and then…uh...then we fly through a wolf's ears?''

''Uh what?''

''Are you out of your roost?!'' Marina tapped at her head with her claw. ''A wolf's not a landmark!''

''But it is what my mother sang to me.''

''It's pretty much useless,'' she snapped, ''It means nothing, except your mother wanted you to get killed.''

''H-hey that's not ...''

''Guys would you please, stop arguing. It doesn't help,'' I said and looked at them both, ''Let's focus more on our way to Hibernaculum. I mean we know we headed for mountains. So we just need to keep ongoing and hope Shade recognizes the right place. And think about it, should Goth and Throbb wake up and follow our trail they won't last long up there in the cold.''

''True, but neither will we,'' Marina said.

I got silent again and nodded, knowing she was right.

''Come on, guys we better go. Dawn is coming soon,'' Shade flew back up with me dangling under his feet and Marina following us right behind.

After a long and hard flight, the Silverwings crossed the icy mountains without any difficulties and landed on the power lines over a freeway that passed through the mountains for a short but well-needed rest.

Bathsheba thought this was the good moment to gloat over her triumph in front of Frieda.

''Well, here we are. Safely over the pass without incident, I might add,'' she said without even trying to hide that smugly grin on her face. ''As you can see my leadership is paying off.''

''The colony has voted. We must follow Bathsheba,'' Ariel said and Frieda, who roosted next to her, nodded in agreement. Mercury and Chinook, however, were not so happy about this. Chinook even shook his head, showing his disagreement. He would like it better if Frieda was still the chief elder of their colony but for now, it was Bathsheba, and he couldn't do anything about it.

''Trust me Marina all this stuff is on the sound-map. Those rocks...eh...these threes...''

''Yeah but no wolves. If that's even what we are looking for?'' She flew down to another tree and hung upside down from its branch, ''It still doesn't make sense. No bat would fly between a wolfs ears.'' Shade said nothing and just landed me on top of the branch before roosting next to Marina. ''Face it Shade, either your sound-map is wrong or you've- huh!'' Suddenly she gasped and I looked down wondering what was wrong.

At first, I saw nothing but then I noticed something big in the air before us. However, I couldn't figure out what it was. The image was just too blurry to make out a certain shape. And...wait! Did I just heard a wolf growling? Seconds later the image was gone, and I blinked a few times, wondering what just happened.

''Nice try Shade,'' Marina said with a chuckle, ''keep practicing that echo projection you may fool somebody yet.''

My eyes lit up hearing her say this. Did I just saw a real echo projection? How was this possible? I'm a human I shouldn't be able to that. Then again... didn't Zephyr said that I might be able to see echos as well after a bit of practice?! But I didn't remember doing something that would have helped me in this case so what's going on here?

Marina looked up at the horizon. ''Guys I think we should find a place to sleep. It's almost sunrise.

Shade swung himself back up on the branch and climbed around on the tree until he found what he was looking for. ''Here is a knothole. We can spend the day inside there.

Marina nodded and grabbed me by my hands to fly me over to the entrance then crawled inside, followed by me and Shade.

The next evening I woke up, hearing Shade crying out in alarm.

''Guys, you have to come out and see this. Something is wrong. Terribly wrong.''

''W-what are you talking about Shade?'' I asked drowsily and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Shade hopped over and grabbed my arm, pulling me up to my feet, ''You need to see this Its..its... I don't know just come!'' Grudgingly I followed him to the entrance.

''There do you see it?''

I rubbed my eyes again and peaked outside. It was like the whole world was transformed over the day. Yesterday the grass was all green with colorful leaves here and there in piles on the ground. But now everything looked like it was covered in a thick white blanket. And so bright.

Glowing in the moonlight the snow formed hills on the bases of the trees and cloaking the branches, so they look soft and fat. It was beautiful. But where was the problem Shade was talking about?

''Do you see it Vanessa?'' Shade asked me again.

I frowned and looked closer around but couldn't spot anything odd.

''See what Shade? There is nothing!''

''Of course there is,'' he said with annoyance, ''It's pretty much everywhere.''

I still didn't get what he meant and looked more around.

Woken up by our talking Marina soon joined us as well.

''Guys, do you have to be so loud?'' she yawned, ''The sun barely set and you two wake up the whole forest.''

''Marina something is wrong here! Look at all this...white stuff.''

''White Stuff? ... Moment!''

Shade anxiously looked around and pointed to the snow on the branch. ''It's everywhere,'' he continued and then frowned, clenching his fists, ''Oh, I'm sure the owls are behind this. They're trying to divert us from our course by changing the environment. But we will not let that pass. Come on, we...''

''Shade, what in Nocturna's name are you babbling about?''

''Wait, I think I got it,'' I said before he could even open his mouth. ''Shade the ''the white stuff'' you are talking about the whole time ... is called snow. And is has absolutely nothing to do with the owls.''

The Silverwing looked at me blankly. ''W-what?''

''Yeah, she is right. It's like rain but more ... compact. And totally harmless.''

Shade kept looking between me and Marina. ''So you are meaning to tell me that this stuff is normal and has nothing to ... gah!'' Carefully reaching forward to touch a pile of snow on the branch, Shade suddenly jumped back when a tiny snowflake landed on his nose tip, followed by thousands of others. Softly they fell from the sky and danced along towards the ground.

''Ok, this is definitely your first winter Shade,'' Marina chuckled.

Shade grumbled a bit in embarrassment.

''It's alright,'' I tried to reassure him while trying not to laugh, ''There is always a first time for everything.

''Have you ever seen snow before Vanessa?''

''Yes, but it's been a while. We don't get snow that often where I'm from,'' I explained.

''Speaking of,'' Marina said, ''You never told us where exactly you are from?''

''Oh, well, my home country is far away from here in the east. You'd need to cross the ocean to get there.''

They both looked at me in amazement. ''The ocean?''

''Lots of water. More than in a lake or the sea.''

''Wow!''

''If it's so far,'' Marina frowned thoughtfully, ''How did you manage to get here?''

''We humans have our ways to cross long distances in a short among of time and with less effort as possible.''

''Oh, you mean like those flying machines?''

I nodded. ''Yep, just like those. We call them planes by the way and one of those brought me up north.''

''I see,'' Shade said.

I smiled a bit then turned to Marina, hearing a soft growl coming from her stomach.

''Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm starving. I say we grab some bugs and then be on our way. It's a long flight up to the top of the mountains.

''Sure but what are we going to eat Marina? I don't see or hear any insects around.''

She smiled at him. ''Don't worry, there is still food. Come on, I'll show you.'' And with that she flew off from the roost and then landed on the ground near the roots of an elm. Shade followed her quickly and carried me along with him. At Marina's side he gently dropped me into the snow and landed as well.

The snow itself wasn't very deep. Or at least it wouldn't be for my original size. In my shrunken form however, the snow went up to my knees. And was very cold. Brrr. Why couldn't that doll in Marina's Island wear pants instead of a skirt? I tried my best to ignore the cold and moved over to my friend to see what they were looking at.

''See that?'' Marina asked and pointed down at some specks of dirt in the smooth snow. But when I looked closer, I noticed some of them moving or rather leaping around.

''Those are snow fleas,'' Marina explained, ''There are usually a lot of them during this time of the year.''

Both bats fluttered from tree to tree, snapping up fleas and other insects like beetles and ants, the cocoon of a moth and a sack of a praying mantis eggs hanging from a twig and poking out through the snow. I was glad to see them gathering enough food for themselves. But what was I supposed to eat? With all the snow it was hard to find any berries that I could eat. The ones I did find were either frozen or not edible.

''I hope I will find some food for me soon,'' I thought with concern, ''Otherwise I'll be forced to eat insect if I don't wish to starve.''

A few moments later my friends landed back by me on the snow, looking full and happy.

''You are amazing.'' Shade looked at Marina with admiration sparkling in his eyes.

She laughed. ''It's just your first winter. So you didn't know.''

''How did you learn all this stuff?''

The smile on Marina's face vanished, and she looked away. ''My parents taught me.''

Shade and I looked at each other and I could see that he was sorry for reminding her of the family she had lost.

''Uhm, your parents must be nice bats if they taught you so much,'' I said and regretted it at the same time because I feared I dug deeper into the wound. Fortunately, she didn't seem to mind and even smiled a bit again.

''Yeah, my mother was always very kind to me and others. My father, on the other hand, was more of a strict character,'' she said.

''I see.''

Marina sighed. ''He was also ... among the males who were supposed to chase me away after I got my band.''

I nodded and then glanced around, looking for something to change the topic with. Then a snowflake landed on my nose, causing me to sneeze. Marina chuckled softly, seeing this and jumped back into the air. ''Hey, let's see which one of us can catch the most snowflakes.''

''Alright!'' Shade grinned and followed after her with me grabbing his feet.

All three of us laughed and giggled as we flew between the dancing snowflakes.

Cold, hungry, and extremely pissed off, Goth and Throbb had woken up from their short nap and were now following the faint scent of Shade and his friends.
Unlike them, they did not appreciate the beauty of the falling snow. Goth rather cursed it in the name of the almighty Zotz.
Nevertheless, he would not give up. No matter how cold he felt he would keep on flying until he got those pathetic pipsqueaks in his grasps. And then he would rip out their hearts and eat them one by one.

Not much later the weather changed and our fun little game came to an end.
The initial soft snowfall quickly turned into a heavy storm. The wind howled in my ears, nearly throwing the hood off my head and I noticed how difficult it became for Shade and Marina to fly through the relentless blizzard.

''Okay ... this isn't fun anymore,'' Shade said. Marina nodded and then hissed like she was in pain or something.

''This band is stinging my arm,'' she said glaring at it, ''My colony was right., this thing is a curse.'' She looked back at us her face softens a little. ''Maybe we should turn back.''

''We can't give up now Marina,'' Shade grunted and tried his best to keep flying against this ruthless storm. I shook my head and tried to get some snow off my face that landed on me. I would have used one of my hands to wipe it off but then I'd probably lost my grip on Shades feet. Something I didn't want to risk in such weather. It was difficult enough for me to hang on to him with both of my hands.

''She is right. We need to stop. There is no way we can make it through the snowstorm.''

''Now, come on guys the next landmark is probably just a few wingbeats ahead.''

''But we won't be able to see it in this mess,'' Marina said.

''Shade, please have you forgotten what happened to us the last time we flew through a storm? This is ten times worse.''

Shade looked down at me as well as he could and tried to protest again as a heavy gust of snow seized us, throwing us away.

''SHADE! VANESSA!'' Marina called out and quickly dashed after us. I shut my eyes and felt myself swirling around. Quickly I lost any sense of direction, could not tell what was up and what was down anymore. To make things worse, I lost my grip on Shade's feet and was now falling towards the ground like a big hailstone.

Eventually, my body hit the ground, and I immediately sunk into a huge pile of soft, cold snow. There I kept lying for a few seconds to catch my breath and to calm myself down from the shock before I climbed back to the surface. Brr, the snow felt ice cold and I once again cursed the doll back at Marinas island for not having any mittens on. I could have really used them right now. However, frozen fingers or not, I knew I couldn't stay there and continued to climb out of the snow.

When I was back up again I first noticed that the storm was as bad as before, making it quite difficult to see through it.
Where were Shade and Marina? ''GUYS?'' I tried calling out for them through the storm. ''SHADE...MARINA. WHERE ARE YOU?'' No answer.

I got up to my feet and took a few steps through the snow while holding one arm up to my face in order to shield my face from the wind and the snow.
Something hard caused me to trip, as my foot stepped against it and I sprawled right back into the snow. ''Uff!'' ''Just great. What was that? ''I thought and got back up on my knees, holding my left arm. Thanks my fall the wound started to hurt me again, but at least it wasn't bleeding.

Wondering what caused me to trip, I turned around to see what it was. At first, I thought it was a twig. But that didn't feel right. Also, there seemed to be something thin and wide hanging underneath it. A flag? No too small. But maybe a child's toy or something.

I gently ran my fingers over the strange twig and noticed a part that looked like a piece had broken off from it. Weird. For some reason that reminded me of something. But what?

''Hmm...'' I brushed off some snow to get a better look as I noticed the other end of the thing looking a bit tattered like it was forcefully ripped off from something. Also, there was something white sticking out of it. Not snow more like ... Bone! I felt like my heart stopped for a moment as I glanced down on what was lying before me. Fearing the worst I shoveled more snow out of the way, not caring about the cold and stared with horror at what was lying before me.

This was indeed no twig. It was a wing. A bat's wing. Dead and brutally ripped off from its owner. But what shocked me more was that I knew who it once belonged too: Abraham Greywing. The same old bat my friends and I encountered before our arrival in the city. The one who said Marina and I would only bring bad luck if we were to travel with them. Only because one of us had a band, and the other was a human. What on earth happened to him to lose his wing? And what about his colony?

A shiver went through my spine as the cold wind blew against my clothes. Like in trance, I slowly turned around, having a terrible feeling in my guts and immediately regretted it. Everywhere around where wings and other body parts of bats. Snagged on spiky branches and scattered over the snow. And they were all Greywings. Thousands of them. Males, females, adults and even young pups.

Not able to avoid my gaze on what I saw I didn't notice my friends landing behind me, calling my name.

''Vanessa! Oh thanks Nocturna, you are alright.'' Marina said with relief and hugged me tightly. ''I thought something had happened to you and Shade after the storm blew you two away.''

''Where is Shade?''

''He's here with me,'' Marina said, finally letting go of me, ''He managed to get himself back into the air before the wind could throw him onto a nearby tree ...ehm.. say, Vanessa is something wrong? You look so pale. What happened?''

I didn't give her an answer and just kept staring at the gruesome scene before us. ''I'm fine,'' I said hoarsely, ''But they aren't.'' I pointed ahead and Marina turned around confused and then gasped in terror at the gruesome sight before us.

''W-what...?''

''Owls,'' Shade said grimly as he landed between us ''Lots of them.''
Like hypnotized I averted my eyes from dead bodies and looked down to see hundreds of white and brown feathers spread all over the ground.
I gulped. Those Greywings. There were just on their way to their winter roost and the owls attacked them. Why? Because of that stupid proclamation from that stupid General.

To make it even worse, it didn't even look like the owls came to eat them. They just broke their necks, threw them against the trees or tore off their wings while they were still alive, leaving them to die in the snow.

''They probably didn't know anything,'' Shade said choking at his words, ''Nothing about the closed sky and the owls just came along and ... slaughtered them.''

''I hate Goth and Throbb,'' growled Marina with tears sparkling in her eyes, ''This is their fault too. If they hadn't killed those stupid pigeons, this wouldn't have happened.''

I had a feeling something like this would happen, but I had hoped all bats would make it to their winter roosts before the owls closed the sky and that they would be safe. At least for the winter. But not these Greywings. Who knew how far the owl messengers had spread the word and how many bats already befall the same fate. What if it were the Silverwings?

As if thinking the same Shade grounded his jaws together and clenched his fists. ''I wish I were like Goth,'' he said, ''I'd kill them all. I really would. I'd just kill them...''

Marina walked over to him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder for comfort. ''We should get away from here. They might come back.''

''I want them to come back,'' he raged, ''I want to get one just one of them. I...'' he suddenly started sobbing and his words merged together. After a moment he managed to calm himself down and clenched his whole body until he stopped shaking. He took a ragged breath and looked away. ''I'm sorry.''

Marina shook her head. ''For what?'' she said wiping away her own tears, ''But we really should go now.''

Shade nodded sadly. ''Yeah.''

He got airborne and wordlessly flew over to me to grab my hands with his feet once again before following Marina back into the sky. I forced myself not to look back on the dead bats and felt tears of my own, forming in my eyes.

Meanwhile, the Silverwings had made their way through the mountains and were now roosting close to an airport.

''This field has always been off-limits,'' Mercury insisted, hanging across Bathsheba, Ariel, Chinook and Frieda, ''The human flying machines are too dangerous.''

''You are my scout!'' Bathsheba hissed angrily at him, ''How dare you question me?!''

''You were the one who said we should stay on the migration route.'' Ariel said frowning, earning a deadly glare from her leader.

''I'll deal with your insolence later. In the meantime, you will all follow me.'' And with that, she flew off from her roost and let the colony over the fence and into the dangerous airport.

Frieda let out a deep, doubtingly sigh before flying after the colony, followed by Ariel, Mercury and Chinook.

We kept flying for what felt like hours. The storm was still there and made it difficult for us to stay on course.

''Guys we can't keep this on. We need to roost and wait for the storm to end.'' Marina shouted over the howling wind.

''Alright, but where?''

Good question. With all the snow blowing around it was hard to find a cave or a tree to land on. But then I spotted something in the distance. A lone, little chalet, covered in snow At first, I thought it was just a mirage but when I looked closer as far as I could, I was sure it was real. ''Guys over there!'' I said loudly while pointing at the hut with my foot. Both bats flew over to the snowed roof and circled around the chimney.

''I don't know. You really think it's safe?'' Marina asked skeptically, ''What if there are humans inside?''

''There are no lights in the windows and no smoke coming from the chimney. It must be empty.'' I told her.

''We need to risk it. We will freeze to death if we stay in this cold any longer.'' With that Shade flew down into the chimney, closely followed by Marina until we came out of the dusty fireplace.

After landing on the ground we began brushing off the snow on our fur and clothes, shivering. ''Brr.'' Marina scooped off some snow from her wing as her band shimmered slightly as she did so. Suddenly there was a whisper coming from above. ''One of us,'' it said, ''one of us.''

I stiffed, feeling crept out a bit and moved closer to my friends. ''What's going on?'' I asked quietly.''

Shade shook his head and grabbed my arm. ''No idea, but I think we better leave.''

''Wait!'' Marina hissed.

The sound of wings rustling came from all around us now. And then another voice near the ceiling said: ''Yes, she's one of us.''

Then another in the far end of the room: ''You are right. She is one of us!''

Shade, Marina and I looked at each other in total confusion, before Shade grasped me by the hands and flew up with Marina to the top of a bookshelf.

''Who's there?'' Marina demanded to know over the growing voices, causing them to calm down a little. What happened next astonished us all together.

AN:

There we go another chapter of Promise of the Night. :)

Please read and review.