“But why have you served him all these years?”
“I became a Glauxian Sister and I learned that to forgive one’s enemy is the highest Glauxian duty an owl can perform. And when I forgave, I truly began to heal.”
“But look now what has happened. Ifghar hasn’t changed.”
“That’s not the point. I have. I am healed. He is not.”
Gylfie peered hard at this remarkable owl. The gold she had painted on her feathers had been worn away by the flight. There were just a few glinting streaks left.
“Now fly off, little Elf Owl,” she said to Gylfie. “Remember the song I have given you. The words will power your flight as heartily as your primary feathers.”
Gylfie stood at the very tip of the branch and spread her wings. She began to sing softly the first words of the song and, indeed, it was as if new billows of air gathered beneath her wings. She was not even aware of having flapped them, but she was soon airborne.
The song seemed to swell in her breast and propel her onward, even through these katabatic winds. It wasn’t long before she saw a tendril of steam swirling up from the choppy waters. She flapped hard toward the ocean smee hole singing the song for the second time. But as she came to the end of the first verse she stopped singing. Dream? Believe in your dream? Now what does that mean? What is my dream?
Suddenly, all the words in the song took on a new and deeper meaning for Gylfie. When she had sung the song the first time she had felt that the song was one simply to help her get home, back to the great tree, back to the band, back to Soren. But now it seemed as if the song were challenging her in some way to do just the opposite. She felt herself rising on the thermal updraft from the smee hole. It was warm. It was comfortable. She could fly on the crown of this thermal for a long time, toward Hoolemere and home. But why was she hesitating? The words of the song seemed to dare her to break out of this thermal, to set her wings to the sea wind. Am I being dared to dream?
Gylfie began to feel an odd sensation in her gizzard that she had never experienced before, not a quiver of fear, but perhaps one of excitement. But I am not one to dream. It is Soren who dreams. Soren has starsight. What Soren dreams about often happens. There were tiny holes in the cloth of a dream that Soren could see through. But right now, Gylfie had the oddest sense that she, too, was seeing through a hole in a dream. It might even be the same hole in the same dream as Soren. How perfectly strange, she thought. Except it seemed to Gylfie as if they were both peering through it from opposite ends.
Soren, she whispered. Soren, be patient. There is still something I must do. She had to turn back. She had to get the Frost Beaks, because even though Gragg and Ifghar knew little, they knew enough to tip off the Pure Ones and that would be complete diasaster. Somehow, she had to convince the Frost Beaks, the Glauxspeed divisions, and the Kielian snakes—parliament or no parliament—to take part in the coming invasion. So the tiny Elf Owl broke loose from the downy warm comfort of the thermal and headed straight into a katabatic wind. She would fly to Dark Fowl Island, katabatic winds or not. For Soren, for the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, she would fly to hagsmire and back.
Somehow she found tunnels through the fierce winds and the ragged edges where the katabat was shredded and weak. Somehow the little owl kept going. And on the highest cliff of Dark Fowl, the skog Snorri caught sight of Gylfie and began a new song. It was a song about the rarest of flowers in the Northern Kingdoms, the Issenblomen, or the Ice Flowers.
At the edge of the avalanche
At the glacier’s icy rim
Grows the flower of the snowfields
Trembling in the wintry wind.
It dares to live on edges
Where naught else would ever grow.
So fragile, so unlikely
An owl slices through this blow.
She dares the katabats
Her gizzard madly quivers,
But for her dearest of friends
She vows she shall deliver.
Like the lily of the avalanche
The glacier’s icy rose
Like a flower of the wind
The bright fierceness in her glows.
The bravest are the small
The weakest are the strong
The most fearful find the courage
To battle what is wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Waiting for When
When do you think it will be?” Digger said.
“What will be?” asked Eglantine.
“The invasion, what else!” Twilight boomed.
“I think it might be soon,” Digger replied. “I think that was what the weather chaw was all about.”
“Yes,” said Otulissa. “I think you’re right, Digger. Ezylryb seemed quite delighted when he detected that storm band approaching.”
“How was Soren on the weather chaw, Otulissa?” Digger asked.
“Fine,” she replied. “But the real question is, will he fight? I mean, how far does this passive combat thing go?”
Soren had been perched outside on a branch just above the sky port and heard it all. In a flash, he was in the hollow.
“I’ll tell you how far it goes. It goes to the point of not teaching idiots like Skench and Spoorn to use firefighting, and that is all.” He wheeled about and lighted on the perch opposite Otulissa. “I shall fight, Otulissa. Make no mistake about that. By Glaux, I shall fight with all my heart, with all my brains, with all my gizzard.”
“All right!” Otulissa said in a somewhat subdued voice. “Just asking.”
Ever since Soren had announced himself as a gizzard resister, Digger had sensed a separation between Soren and the rest of the band and he didn’t like it. They had to be a cohesive unit. Even though they were often in separate chaws, in any battle there was always a coming together where they found mutual support and shared their strengths. Digger knew that they desperately needed to come together again in some way before the invasion. The only way he could think was perhaps not the most honorable. “Not to change the subject,” Digger said, with every intention of doing just that, “but did you know that there’s a parliament meeting going on as we speak?”
“To the roots!” Twilight and Otulissa both said at once.
“Yes, my thoughts exactly,” Digger replied.
“Me, too?” asked Eglantine.
“Of course,” Digger said.
Twilight looked at Soren as if to ask if he was coming as well. Soren blinked. “Of course!” He shook his head in dismay. Had his friends thought he had changed that much?
“And so you see, my distinguished members of the parliament”—Boron the Snowy monarch was speaking—“the enemy expects us to invade on the night of the coming eclipse, and they expect us through the entry of the Great Horns. It is the easiest approach, the way of the prevailing winds. In fact, in Bubo’s and Soren’s mission to cripple the Devil’s Triangles, they found this very region to be the most strongly fortified of all.”
Digger, Twilight, Eglantine, and Otulissa looked at Soren. So that had been his mission. Soren shrugged.
“Now,” Boron continued. “Ezylryb has just returned with his weather chaw and has some news to report.”
“Yes.”
The owls, pressing their ear slits to the roots, heard the gruff voice with its familiar twang of a Krakish accent.
“As has been implied by our esteemed monarch, what we have in our favor if we attack now is surprise. We are two days from the eclipse. They are expecting us on the northeastern front through the Great Horns. It was the young Spotted Owl, Otulissa, who, in her preliminary invasion plan, first came up with the notion of coming in on the back side, opposite from this front.” Otulissa puffed up a bit at the mention of her name. Ezylryb continued. “We have something else that will help us considerably—a storm system is moving our way. It is forming directly out of the northeastern portion of Hoolemere. So there will be sea winds in which all of us are accustomed to flying. They will not deter us. But these win
ds hovering on the brink of winter shall be plump with hailstones, a fair amount of electricity, and general slop that will not please the enemy.”
“But what about Skench and Spoorn and the remnant owls from St. Aggie’s that have joined us, Ezylryb?” Elvan, the elderly colliering ryb, asked. “It will be a problem for them.”
“We shall try and set up the kind of airtight vacuum often used in the Northern Kingdoms for transporting injured owls through the katabatic winds. I have been training some of the weather chaw in this, as well as a few other owls.”
“Did Soren agree to be a part of a system to protect Skench and Spoorn and the others?” Barran, the other Snowy monarch, asked in her soft voice.
“He did indeed, madam,” Ezylryb replied. “Soren is a much-misunderstood owl these days. Believe me, Soren will do whatever is required in this invasion.”
“So, are we to understand”—Sylvana, the lovely tracking ryb, spoke now—“that although our attempts to enlist forces from the Northern Kingdoms in our invasion have failed, we are still planning to go ahead?”
“Absolutely,” Boron and Barran answered at once. Then Barran continued. “We have the Chaw of Chaws, who have been trained in the use of ice weapons. And they, in turn, have trained others.”
Sylvanaryb broke in. “But how many ice swords, ice splinters, scimitars, and daggers do we have?”
“Not enough,” barked Ezylryb, “but we must go forward. It is now or never. What ice weapons we have cannot be kept sharp indefinitely in the Southern Kingdoms, and the storm system shall pass by. We cannot afford to wait.”
“Are you saying we must attack soon?” Sylvanaryb asked in a very quiet voice. The owls listening at the roots could barely hear her.
“I say we attack at First Black. I believe that is two hours from now,” Ezylryb replied.
“Now, Fenton,” Boron said. Fenton was a Barred Owl who was the steward of the parliament. “Please call in Audrey.”
“Audrey? Why Audrey?” Otulissa beaked the question, not letting a sound pass from her. But the other owls understood perfectly what she was saying. Audrey was a nestmaid snake who had worked for Otulissa’s family before the Spotted Owl had been orphaned. She had come with Otulissa to the great tree and had become a member of the weaver’s guild, one of the many guilds that nest-maid snakes could join. The young owls pressed their ear slits closer to the roots. All they heard from inside the parliament hollow were “oohs” and “aahs” as if the members were exclaiming over something. Which indeed they were.
“Exquisite work, Audrey,” Barran was saying. “Simply exquisite.” The young owls’ eyes swam with confusion as they tried to figure out what this exquisite work might be.
“Thank you, ma’am. Our pleasure to serve.”
“They look exactly like owls in their shape. You have really captured the form.”
“Well, thank goodness we had enough feathers,” Audrey said. “The molts from this past spring were quite good, and you know we store them away for extra bedding in the infirmary. Who knew we would be using them for making owlipoppen?”
Owlipoppen! The young owls were astounded. Owlipoppen were little owl dolls that parents often made from down and molted feathers for chicks to play with in the hollow. Suddenly, they realized what was being planned—a deception scheme!
“Operation Double Cross!” Boron exclaimed.
“Yes,” replied Bubo. “They’re already halfway across Hoolemere heading for the Great Horns. Percy, ably assisted by Nut Beam and Silver.”
Nut Beam and Silver! Soren almost gasped aloud, as did Otulissa. The same thought flashed through both their minds. Nut Beam and Silver—they’re hardly more than chicks. Otulissa and Soren had minded them on their first flight with the weather chaw. But that had been summers ago, and they had all grown older.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Beginning of Forever
and a Day
It would be an hour before First Black, but in that sliver of evening between the sun setting and the moon rising, a squadron of twelve owls had set out. These owls had been trained in special high-altitude flying and were extremely adept at negotiating winds of the high-altitude windstream, which behaved differently from the winds of the lower altitudes. In each of the owls’ talons, he or she carried four fluffy owlipoppen. The owls were flying so high they would not be seen by any spotter owls from the Pure Ones, but the owlipoppen, so artfully assembled by the nest-maids in the weaver’s guild, would drift softly, slowly into the lower airstreams and, indeed, be taken up by the prevailing winds and drop into the fortified region of the Great Horns. It was then hoped that more of the Pure Ones’ troops would be diverted to this front.
The first owlipoppen was spotted in the canyonlands just as the moon began to rise. An alarm was sounded. A platoon was diverted to a cliff midway between the Great Horns and the Beak of Glaux.
“They certainly are flying slow,” Stryker said to his sergeant. “Let’s wait a bit before we engage. Let’s see how the Devil’s Triangles work.”
A few minutes later, a Grass Owl came back with a report. “Lieutenant Stryker, no sign of the enemy rising from the ridge of the Great Horns. Not a one. They must be very confused. Not one owl spotted since coming into the fleck zone. And the weather is deteriorating.”
“Excellent! If they were coming, they would certainly decide to divert with this weather.”
“I’m not so sure,” Uglamore said as he flew up.
“Why’s that, sir?” Stryker snapped.
“These owls know how to fly with this wind. This storm is coming directly out of Hoolemere. It’s full of Hoolspyrrs and they know how to work them.”
“Racdrops. They would never be so insane to attack on a night like this—full shine moon—have you ever seen it brighter? It’s a wolf moon, and bad weather coming in, too.”
“Sir!” A Barn Owl had just flown into the garrison.
“What’s that you have in your talons, Flintgrease?”
“It’s an owlipoppen!” There was a collective gasp.
Uglamore barked. “I knew they’d try something like this! I just knew it! Alert the High Tyto and Her Pureness at once.”
“Nonsense!” Stryker bristled. He didn’t care for Uglamore, who, he felt, was always trying to impress the High Tyto. Stryker had been offended that they had both been promoted at the same time, although as a lieutenant major he outranked Uglamore. “It’s a bluff. That’s all. They are trying to distract us. Don’t you understand? They dropped these over the The Great Horns hoping to lure us there. But they’ll enter through the Beak of Glaux. Almost as easy as the Great Horns. Mind you, that is where they will land now—the Beak of Glaux. These owlipoppen were to make us think they were coming through the Great Horns.”
“How can you be sure?” Uglamore pressed.
“I just am.”
“I think you should order a deployment of troops to the other side of the canyon,” Uglamore said. “We don’t have flecks over there. We should set up a fleck zone there immediately.”
“Only the High Tyto or Her Pureness can do that,” Stryker replied.
“Well, go ask them!” Uglamore shrieked now.
“They are sleeping. I shall not disturb them. It is practically the evening of the hatching of their first chick. I shall not wake them. They are reserving their strength for the real battle.”
“This could be the real battle. It could be the invasion!” Uglamore shouted.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the canyon of St. Aggie’s, a lone Sooty Owl flew a patrol. He was absorbed in a half-muttered, half silent conversation with himself on his bad luck of being born a Sooty Barn Owl and not a Tyto Alba Barn Owl. “It ain’t fair. I mean, look at me. Am I that different from a Barn Owl? So I don’t have that flashy white face. Big deal! Hey, it could be worse. I could be a Lesser Sooty. Now there’s really a lowly sort of owl. They smell funny, too. If they had more Lesser Sooties in this outfit, I wouldn’t be flying watch on this misera
ble piece of the canyon. But no. Got a frinking awful job? Bring in old Dustytuft.” Dustytuft—he hated the name.
Once he had had a real name, none of this Dustytuft business. What had been his real name? It was something almost noble, he recalled. Something like Phillip or Edgar. Had it been Edgar?
So absorbed in his thoughts was Dustytuft, who had possibly been Edgar, that he failed to notice the first pile of brush. What’s that…? but he had not even completed the thought before a dreadful coldness began to creep through his gizzard. “Someone,” he whispered to himself “has been flying brush in here.” Now Dustytuft began linking one thought to the next. “Those are ignition piles. Who flies the best with fire? The Guardians of Ga’Hoole!” And it was just then that he saw the first ranks of the enemy owls cresting the menacing spires of rock that scratched the sky like a thousand red needles in the night. This is it. The invasion. It’s coming. Right to me. I’m going yeep. I’m going yeep. I don’t want to die. I don’t care if I’m a Sooty Owl forever, if I can just live. Oh, Glaux! I don’t want to die. I’m going yeep under a wolf moon. Yes, on a bright night like this, if the Guardians don’t kill me, the wolves will eat me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Tunnel in the Smoke
Like ribbons in the night, the lightning streaked behind the first rank of owls as the weather followed them in. The wolf moon—full, and bright enough for wolves to hunt by—was gnawed by ragged clouds. The colliers flew in that first rank, carrying the coals to ignite the fires. Soren and Martin dropped the fiery embers on the first set of brush that had been brought to the canyon in a covert operation a few nights before. Although once again the Guardians did not have the number of soldiers to compare with those of the Pure Ones, this time they had three invaluable advantages: surprise, weather, and exquisite planning. Already three covert operations had weakened or would weaken the enemy. The Devil’s Triangles had been rendered powerless. The deception of the owlipoppen had distracted the garrison troops. Finally, the brush piles that would be used to ignite their combat branches had been put in place.