“And have you thought of what such a unit might be called?”
I felt a calm creep through my gizzard, which had been fraught with tension. He’s with me, I thought. The general is with me. And a name came to me, I’m not sure from where. I took a step closer to him and spoke up in a strong voice. “The Glauxspeed unit, sir.”
His black eyes brightened. “And a fine name it is. Glauxspeed! What do you say to a division?”
Everyone gasped. General Andricus swiveled his head to fix each owl in the small assemblage with his fierce, dark gaze. “A division composed of several of these hyper-maneuverable units. Together, we would call them the Glauxspeed Division.”
“B-b-but, sir —” Captain Nillja began to sputter.
“He’s just a young’un!” a Barred Owl interrupted. “He doesn’t even graduate until, when?”
“Soffen issen,” I said softly. I was completely confused. Certainly, General Andricus was not suggesting that I command a division?
He must have read my mind, for he turned to me and said, “Listen to me, Lyze of Kiel.” I started, as did everyone else, for he did not address me as Cadet Lyze Megascops. This was an egregious departure from protocol. I was almost dizzy now with confusion. I felt all eyes settling upon me in anticipation of what General Andricus was about to say. “I am not suggesting that you lead this division at all. You don’t have the experience in the field — yet. But you have an idea. You picture all this in your mind’s eye, do you not, lad?”
“Yes, sir, I suppose I do.”
“You flew out and rescued Orf. A small unit of mixed species rescued the best blacksmith in the Northern Kingdoms.”
The general lofted himself onto a higher perch and paused until a hush enveloped the hollow. It was so quiet that as I watched a plummel fall from the cantankerous Barred Owl, I swore I could hear it touch the floor.
“You see, my friends,” the general continued in a gentler tone, “we’re at a critical juncture in the war. The war is changing and it’s coming closer to home. I have just been informed of three more attacks on peaceful communities.” He paused again. “I cannot make this clear enough.” His voice swelled. “We are losing! As of this moment, the Ice Talons League has gained more territory than they have lost to us. By soffen issen, our slipgizzles tell us the front will be here — here, at Dark Fowl Island! Bylyric is planning a massive invasion, and he and his forces will fly on west and south. Yes, it’s true. They’ve set their sights on the Southern Kingdoms. On Ga’Hoole!”
I felt a darkness fill my gizzard. It began to twist and twitch. The Elf Owl Captain Nillja staggered on her tiny feet.
“Ga’Hoole!” someone whispered.
General Andricus flipped his head. “The great tree itself. And we’re all that stands between them,” he said quietly. “Cadet Lyze has seen over the murky horizon, a horizon stained by the blood and smoke of old methods of combat. We need new, young flexible minds quick with imagination to invent new strategies if we are to have any chance. And that is exactly what Cadet Lyze, Cadet Loki, Cadet Lil, Cadet Blix, Cadet Moss, and the master’s apprentice Cadet Thora can offer. The success of this division depends not simply on training, however, but on secrecy and surprise. I cannot emphasize that enough. Secrecy and surprise! The Ice Talons must never know what’s coming if we’re to retain any advantage.”
“So you are elevating these young cadets to the rank of division and battery officers?” a Spotted Owl asked with more than a tinge of contempt.
“No. Not now, Major Fina Strix Occidentalis. But soon. For now they shall become instructors in this new form of fighting. We need to have this division ready by spring. We must be able to meet Bylyric’s invasion with hidden strength. Bylyric plans to be here, here where I perch.” His eyes bore into the Spotted Owl. Let that sink in, he seemed to be saying. Imagine a tyrant on this perch.
“Lyze,” he said, “tonight a new cadet arrives, a certain Cadet Strumajen Strix.”
“The daughter of Commander Strix Hurth who used to teach here?” someone asked.
“The very same.”
“But she was a terrible problem to her parents, disobedient, disinterested in her studies. Dis — dis —” the Spotted Owl began to sputter.
“And now distinguished,” General Andricus said coldly, leveling those impossible dark eyes that looked like dead coals in his white face. “Yes, Major Fina Strix Occidentalis, she was not fit for entry into the Academy here. She had to go to the second-rate school — Gareth’s Keep, up by Little Hoole. But two evenings ago, we received a falcon messenger with the news that an earthquake in the region had destroyed the remaining walls of the fortress there, making Little Hoole vulnerable. Wave upon wave of Ice Talon units stormed the breach. Apparently, under the most unimaginably terrible conditions, this young owl, whom everyone had always thought was a huge disappointment …” The general lingered on the last word so that the sound of it seemed to sizzle through the chamber. “She drove them off. This cadet acquitted herself with unmatched courage and, when forced into a seemingly untenable position, managed to fend off a much larger enemy force. She will be invaluable to the formation of the Glauxspeed Division.” And then under his breath, perhaps so as not to offend the older owls who were gathered in this hollow, he muttered, “We need bold, new owls, with bold, new ideas.”
Glauxspeed Division! The words rang in my ears and rattled my gizzard. I was still dizzy from all the general had said.
I was not to be an officer, at least not yet. But I was to be an instructor — this seemed to me an even more daunting promotion. How did one transform oneself from student to teacher that quickly? By soffen issen, that was the deadline. For that was when the fight would arrive here — here at Dark Fowl Island.
The image of Lysa as a small, dark lump on the snow came back to me in all its horror. The soot on her tawny new feathers seemed to stain the whole world. The rumors about Bylyric abounded. Some said he was part hagsfield, that beneath the white plumage of a Snowy, there were the dark feathers of the ancient hag owls who had practiced nachtmagen in the time of the legends. If that was so, what good would my newfangled ideas and strategies do? My strategies were based on logic, developing a keen sense of the weather, advances in weapons, and most of all, faith in ordinary creatures being trained to do extraordinary things. And faith was not magic.
The idea of a small unit had been tested in a limited way when we rescued Orf. But “limited” was the key word here. There had been six of us. Now we were talking about an entire division made up of many smaller units, each very specialized in a new way, yet able to work together when needed.
Loki, Blix, Moss, Lil, and I — the five of us together must show the others.
If I had pictured a romantic reunion with Lil, I was to be disappointed. When I found her in the eastern barracks where the female cadets were billeted, she was in a small hollow with none other than the distinguished Cadet Strumajen Strix. They were in the thick of a conversation about battle strategy. Lil looked up at me with her bright, gleaming amber eyes and my gizzard twitched. “I was just telling Strix Struma — she likes to be called that — about the rescue of Orf, and our ideas.”
The Spotted Owl looked at me, nodded her head very respectfully, and said in a quiet voice, “Brilliant. Just brilliant! If I’d had a mid-flight reload during the attack on Gareth’s Keep … what I could have accomplished.”
“I understand that you did plenty as it was,” I replied. Strix Struma was much younger than I expected, younger than Lil or me. Obviously, she was some sort of child prodigy, and I liked her immediately. There was a keenness in her gaze, and I liked the set of her feathers.
“So how did it go with the general?” Lil added. “Moss caught me up on things and told me you were with him to discuss a new unit.”
“Well, yes … uh, the good news is the general really likes my ideas. And we have a name for it. There’s just one little problem. It’s not exactly a unit, Lil. It’s a division. The Glaux
speed Division.”
Soon, we were making a list.
“All right,” Strix Struma said. “In the Kielian League, a division is made up of three to five hundred owls. So we begin with that.”
“Owls,” I said rather vaguely. “That’s a bit limiting.”
“What do you mean, Lyze?” Lil asked. Strix Struma looked slightly confused as well.
“What about snakes?”
“Snakes?” they both uttered. Bewilderment clouded their eyes.
“Yes, Kielian snakes.” I began to explain my thoughts about snakes and how they were underutilized.
“I like it,” Strix Struma said slowly. “I like it a lot.”
“I love it!” Lil explained. “Ground troops would certainly give us an edge.”
“And that gives me an idea,” Strix Struma said. “Let’s think of other animals that could help us.”
“Polar bears,” I said. “But they sleep most of the winter so they’d only be available to serve during soffen issen at the earliest and then through ny schnee.”
Something flashed through my mind. The mangled talon of Hrenna, Moss’s mother. I turned to Lil and Strix Struma. “Moss’s mother! She leads a commando unit called the Flying Leopards.” It was so still, I could have heard a plummel drop. “Supposing,” I continued, “there were other ground troops linked with the Kielian snakes — a unit of snow leopards.”
“They’re pure muscle,” Strix Struma said. “There were several around Little Hoole. They can climb anything — sheer ice cliffs. Their paws are huge. I saw one once knock a polar bear senseless. And they can swim.”
We began scratching madly on a birch bark. Moss arrived and we worked through twixt time and on past noon, never taking a break. By First Lavender, we had a rough organization for the Glauxspeed. We had reworked the standard size of a division and its normal subunits. While standard military division sizes were anywhere from three hundred to five hundred owls, our division was a scant three hundred forty animals, composed of two regiments of one hundred owls of mixed species, fifty Kielian snakes, and twenty snow leopards. The division was further broken down into battalions composed of twenty owls, ten snakes, and ten snow leopards each.
Finally, there were the smallest units made up of twelve owls, five snakes, and five leopards each. The unit was what I had first envisioned — a combat group that was light, fast, and flexible, both in the air and on the ground.25 And could shatter the very gizzard of the Orphan Maker!
“All right now!” Dylan snapped at the snaggle26 of the dozen snakes that coiled before her. “I want to see those ESPs go to full extension. Cadet Jena, I wasn’t born yesterday. I might not be a striated violusian, but I’ve been diving with them for longer than you can remember. You can do twice what you’re doing now. You want to fly?”
“Yes, ma’am —”
Dylan reared up into a high, tight coil and hissed, showing a lot of fang.
“I mean, yes, Master Sergeant Dylan Lazuli!”
“Well, you ain’t getting off the ground at this rate. No owl will want to carry you. The more you spread your ESPs, the lighter you will become to help your owl get airborne.”27
I watched these exercises every evening at First Lavender, even when I wasn’t part of them. When the more advanced snake students were ready to embark on their first flight, Lil and I, along with Loki and a half-dozen other owls, became their vehicles. In the beginning, we owls were a bit nervous because the snakes were a new kind of weight. We had to learn how to balance ourselves and trim our wings to fit the burden. It was especially challenging when snakes went from a recumbent position to a full or half coil for strike. Their center of gravity shifted and could send us spinning. But once we learned how to cooperate, the rewards were bountiful. When the snakes expanded their ESPs, it could provide fantastic lift. In an odd way, it was similar to soaring, but there were no warm thermals involved.
“All right now, troops, we’ll make two passes with all cadet snakes in position number one. On the third pass, assume a half coil and a double-blade ax-head shape. Fourth pass, coil to full position, maintaining the double blade, and extend your scale plates. Owls, you’ll feel a slight lift. And remember, owls, the snakes are your copilots. If you need more lift, just say ‘full extension.’”
The progress the newly recruited snakes made was amazing. Their head transitions were smooth, they coiled up on the backs of the owls in flight, and they hardly ever wavered. We knew that snakes would be invaluable on the ground, but we hadn’t been sure how they would do in flight. But they were learning fast. On another part of the field, more advanced snakes were engaging in target practice. Owls flew above snakes, with dummies suspended from their talons. The snakes took aim and struck like lightning.
We were also making great advancements with midair reloads. Great Grays and Snowies worked particularly well as reloaders as they were the most deft in sidling up to the tiny owls that composed the Frost Beaks. But we were also now training Eagle Owls and Barn Owls as reloaders for larger weapons. Thora’s quivers were proving quite revolutionary, and we knew they would prove invaluable in combat. Then Loki came up with the brilliant idea of not just reloading with weapons but refueling with food in noncombat situations, such as reconnaissance missions. The small owls, like Elf, Pygmy, and Northern Saw-whets, who were most often used for reconnaissance, burned up their energy sources faster than larger owls. They got hungrier quicker and fatigue set in. But if a Snowy or Great Gray could carry prey, just a tiny snow mouse or a rockmunk, the smaller owls wouldn’t have to stop to hunt.
To build a division with creatures ranging from owls to snakes and — we hoped — snow leopards was not easy. One of the first things that I insisted on after I located Dylan, Hoke, and Gilda was that snakes be given official ranks as members of the Kielian League. The first started as master sergeants.
Then we began the snake recruitment process in earnest. It might seem counterintuitive, but I purposely looked for the laziest snakes I could find, the snakes who were distracted in the honing pits, or the excavators who were bored with knocking their heads against rock barracks. I sensed that these snakes were intelligent but had never been truly challenged.
My theory was simple but it worked! The nest-maids who were completely stupefied from slurping up vermin in owl hollows flocked to our recruitment stations. We instilled in them a sense of pride.
Those first few weeks passed so fast. General Andricus might have appointed Moss, Lil, Loki, Blix, and me instructors, but we were learning as much as we were teaching. The second week, Moss was dispatched to fly to the far north where the snow leopards lived on the ice cliffs above the H’rathghar glacier. In addition to recruiting snow leopards, he was also charged with recruiting more large and powerful owls — Eagle Owls, Northern Hawk Owls if possible, Great Horneds, and Great Grays.
Almost nightly, Peregrine Falcons flew in with postings from the front. We would watch them land and race immediately to General Andricus’ headquarters. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with an ice scimitar. A weird silence fell over the entire island each time a messenger landed. The only sound heard was the rasp of the Kielian snakes in the honing pits.
Bad news seeped out in bits and pieces from command headquarters. The front was moving closer. A colonel had been wounded, a celebrated general killed, and worst of all, another peaceful community razed and hundreds of owlets left orphaned or dead. Every day, new troops mustered on the flight parade grounds of Dark Fowl to go to the front and support the tactical squadrons engaged in combat. My mother had been called back to her unit and resumed her position as a commando with the Ice Daggers. Word had come in to me that a broody had been installed for my brother, Ifghar, who was proving to be a talonful.
In the third week of training, an especially fast peregrine, Glynnis, flew in at a truly amazing speed as I perched at the top of a silver fir tree where I had been observing midflight reload exercises. I feared the worst when I saw how fast sh
e was flying. What was it? Had disaster wiped out an entire brigade? It was as if the sky, the very clouds, parted for her.
When I realized that she was flying directly to the crown of the silver fir where I perched, my first thought was that something had happened to Mum. I began to wilf.
“It’s good news!” Glynnis announced. “At least, I think it is. I can’t read code.”
“What?”
“News from Moss,” she replied, handing me a white bark with a message written in Hollow Code:
It read: “Have recruited six snows.” I knew at once he was speaking of snow leopards. This was extraordinary news. It was all coming together. For the first time, I had real hopes of our being ready by the spring offensive.
We needed more snakes — as many as possible, and especially the really large ones. Gilda had told me there were some very large fellows at the eastern end of Stormfast. I had wanted to go check in on my little brother, Ifghar, and I thought I could scout for a few large snakes at the same time. So I went. Little did I dream that what I found on that scouting trip would have such an immense impact on the rest of my life.
Dear reader, might you guess of whom I write? Her blue-green scales are glittering now as she makes her way into my hollow while I write these words. She is bringing me my dawn constitutional — a cup of milkberry tea laced with a dram of bingle juice. I must go back and cross out the words “blue-green.” She would be furious at my lack of precision in calling her blue-green, or Glaux forbid, bluish or greenish. How well I remember her first words to me….
She was large. She was lazy. Her parents had given up on her, but she had a prodigious intelligence. And she would become my best friend throughout the many long years that were to follow.
I had been flying over a slot in the cliffs where the sea broke in when I spotted a large — forgive me once more — bluish-green snake. She was reclining on a rock, hardly stirring. Indeed, I overheard her ask a blind nest-made snake to fetch her a minnow the next time it dove into the sea. The nerve! I thought. Why doesn’t she get it herself?