Seven For A Secret

Clive Woodall

Description

Man and nature are at war with each other. Evil flaps its black wings once more, and casts dark shadows. But which is darker? Evil from without or from within? Beseiged on all sides, the ancient tawny owl, Tomar, battles to keep Birddom pure and whole. He still has friends to help him, though far fewer than before. Allies in an unequal fight between good and evil. But, sometimes, good cannot prevail and when all hope is gone, there is no other recourse but to turn to seven for a secret - a secret that could yet save them all.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Ziji Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780955405181
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Epilogue



Chapter One
‘We are the sons and daughters of the dark.
We are the children of the night.
We call upon the ghosts of the fallen:
Resurrect yourselves. Rise up, and live again.
Lead us, Dark Lords. Show us your power.
Support us with your strength, that we may carry out your will.
For we are your sons and daughters of the dark.
Your children of the night.’
The chant filled each branch of Cra Wyd. It resonated through the treetops, and chilled the heart of every creature scurrying and scuttling in the blackness below. It could not be called a song. The voices were uniformly raucous and harsh. The caws and rasps held no music. No melody. Just passionate belief. The monotone was hypnotic, and each repetition increased its power.
No, it could not be called a song. Songs were for daylight. Sung in joy. In celebration. This chant was meant for the night. Sung by black throats, through black beaks. Black eyes blazed to its dark message. Black feathers ruffled in guilty pleasure, as black deeds from a time long past were brought back to life in the hearts and minds of the black choir. Evil deeds, best forgotten, best left alone, to rot along with their perpetrators. But tonight they were no longer forgotten corpses, pale skeletons, dry and dusty feathers. Tonight they were alive.
Cra Wyd was too insubstantial to be considered a forest. It was a copse of maybe a hundred trees. A deciduous wood was rare in this pine–covered region. Its nakedness gave clear indication of the season, as if the wind whistling through its bare branches weren’t proof enough. March was coming in like a lion. Roaring and raving. Ripping at any presumptuous early shoots. Not yet, it said. Spring can wait a while. I hold sway for now.
And yet the trees had been partially clothed in the last few weeks. Nests adorned many of the bare boughs. Huge, untidy structures, made of twigs and debris. Here and there something silvery glinted in the pale sunshine: a discarded wrapping, ring pull or bottle cap. Treasure to be hoarded and admired. Loot from Man’s dustbins and rubbish tips. Precious amid the drab brown. And tempting, too, to greedy eyes of neighbours, and passers by. Something to be fought for. A rookery was always a place for fights. Squabbles were constant, noise was incessant. And Cra Wyd was the largest of its kind in the whole of Birddom.
The recovery of the corvidae had been slow. Hunted and persecuted. Forced to hide. For years there had been little time for breeding. Individual survival was the prime objective. But Time moves on. The hunters grew weary of vigilance against an enemy without power. Dedication wavered, then broke, and evil began slowly, inexorably, to grow once more. It was a gradual process. Rebuilding something that is broken takes time. Even now it was but a pinprick; the bite of a flea compared to its former might.
But all over Birddom, not just in this harsh corner of its northern-most climes, the corvidae were on the rise. Harsh lessons had been learnt, and the watchword was secrecy. All was covert. All hidden. Midnight meetings. A most unnatural hour for birds, save for owls. Darkness was a cloak which covered and concealed. As yet, Birddom was unaware of its peril.
*
‘I thought that we were going to see Tomar.’ Olivia voiced her protest in the face of her brother’s selfishness.
‘I get bored visiting him, if the truth be told,’ Merion replied.
The young female robin bridled at such a hurtful remark. ‘But we owe him our lives,’ she argued passionately, ‘as does every bird in Birddom.’
‘Then let them visit him!’ Merion snapped petulantly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sis. But you must know how I feel. I love that old owl as much as you do, but he tells the same stories over and over, and I know them by heart already.’
Olivia’s eyes sparkled with anger. ‘Those stories are our history. They define who we are. They are the tales of our father and our mother, never forget that.’
‘But they are the past, and that is where Tomar lives. I for one am more concerned about the future.’
Merion’s beak closed defiantly upon this pronouncement, and his sister realised the futility of further argument.
‘Well, I’m going anyway, though I don’t know what I shall say to Tomar. Shall I tell him that you are ill?’
‘Tell him what you like. No, wait. Don’t tell him that I’m ill, tell him that I’m busy.’
‘I would never be so cruel,’ Olivia said, sadly. ‘He is the leader of the Council of the Owls, the highest in the land. And I will always be grateful that he was never too busy for us!’
‘He might be the leader of the Council now. But for how much longer? His day is nearly done. He can barely flap his wings. He is fed and cared for like an invalid, and without this support he would have been dead two or three years ago. You know I speak the truth.’
Olivia’s wingtips drooped with weary resignation, but she tried once more to reach her brother. ‘Tomar is old, and his body may be failing. But his wisdom endures, and it is that wisdom that leads us still. On the right path and on the straight way.’
‘Is he still right? Others, equally wise, are openly expressing their doubts. The bargain with the insects, for instance. Oh, it was a necessity at the time of the Great Battle. We needed their help to defeat the corvidae, and a treaty, agreeing that no bird would in future take any insect for food, was Tomar’s only option. As Mother has told us often enough, we would not have won without their aid. But why do we need to adhere to it any longer?
‘Enforcement causes great hardship and unrest, especially amongst the incomers. They do not understand the need of so unnatural an abstinence. And neither do I. Insects are prolific. The whole world seethes with them. They are on every leaf. Every rock. And yet we go hungry.’ Merion paused to stare at his sister, daring her to contradict him. When he received only silence as a reply, he went on. ‘Do we have their gratitude? Do we have their friendship? Don’t they still infest our nests? Still sting and bite us? Still live upon our bodies, gorging on our very blood? I think that this is a hard price to pay for a pledge made in a time of dire need.’
‘So you would go back on Tomar’s word? Make nought of all that he believed in, and fought for?’
‘For the sake of a juicy, wriggling caterpillar filling my belly, yes I would!’
Olivia looked shocked. ‘Then you are not the brother that I have known and loved all these years.’
Merion flinched, then flicked his beak skywards in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Times change. We all change with them. You go your way, sis, and I will go mine.’
‘My way is with Tomar, and with Portia, our mother!’ Olivia exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
‘And my way is with the future,’ was Merion’s cold reply.
‘Merion’s words have some justice,’ said Tomar, considering Olivia’s story with typical stoicism. ‘There have been consequences in our pact with the insects that I could and perhaps should have foreseen. Their sheer weight of numbers now that they are unchecked has been felt on a wider stage than our own. Man has become angry and that is never 
to be desired, because his anger is unfocused and reactionary. And Birddom has begun to feel its force.
‘I never envisaged the impact that our deal with the insects could have upon his world. Man has no tolerance for infestation. He has an irrational fear of insects, wholly disproportionate to their size. And he reacts with unchecked violence. He seeks to protect himself with nets – vast structures raised in our flight-paths, as well as those of the insects. Many of our flock have died as a result, and that weighs heavily upon my heart. The spraying too is indiscriminate and lethal. Maybe Merion is right. I have unleashed a monster upon our people. Perhaps, in the name of good, I have in fact done great ill.’
‘No, Tomar. I will not stand by and let it be said that you chose wrong.’
Portia’s voice was strong and sure, and she stood wing-to-wing with her daughter, facing the old owl from a branch opposite his perch. Tomar smiled at the distant memory of another robin who had stood on that very same spot, and had argued just as vehemently in Tomar’s moments of self-doubt. The old owl flapped his great wings, as if to shake off his growing sense of despondency.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ he replied. ‘It was the only choice to be made. It was our one chance, and it gave us both victory and a lasting peace. But this is a different age. And Birddom’s enemy has changed. Whilst the corvidae no longer pose a threat, nor probably ever will again, we face peril from a different quarter, and one that may spell our extinction as certainly as the magpies, had they been victorious.’
‘Will the Council meet again soon?’ Olivia asked.
‘At dawn on the day following the next full moon,’ Tomar replied, and there was a note of trepidation in his voice.
‘Why does that worry you so?’
Portia’s question was perceptive, and Tomar thought for a while, trying to coalesce his vague misgivings into something tangible. But it was like trying to make a nest out of mist.
‘I don’t know, my dear. It’s just a feeling that is all. I can’t explain it. But it’s as if the Council is changing too. Moving forward in a direction that I am not sure that I can follow. Maybe I’m just too old. A relic