“My question exactly. This is the most unpopulated place on Earth, especially lately.”
“Yes,” I replied. “The front has moved far from here.”
“I don’t go out much, you know,” she said. “Lots of my old friends have died. There are still a few families around with young’uns serving. Probably grandchildren if anything. We are not a young crowd up here.” She paused. “We’re not a crowd at all. That’s why I like it!” she added brightly.
Loki’s mum had been injured, and her mate killed in the Battle of Firthgot. For a time after, she served as a quartermaster in charge of weapons inventory and delivery systems to the field. She was especially interested in our ideas for midair reloads.
“I am so, so proud of you, lad!” she said, her voice breaking. “Oh, Loki! The major would have been so proud of you had he lived.”
The naked rockmunks were simply delicious, so succulent. They were called “naked” because they had no fur whatsoever. They didn’t need it, because they lived in the warm tunnels on the rim of the lava lake.
We stayed with Loki’s mum for a few days and I explored a variety of steam vents, smee holes, and layers of thermal air around the area. It was as if the landscape was constantly shrouded in sea smoke, except there was no sea around. The whole landscape was covered in rock that had melted eons ago and solidified.
As fascinated as I was by the Shag, I really wanted to get to the Nacht Sted, the coldest and most desolate place on Earth. There was a volcano with a lava lake there surrounded by several ice caves, and these caves fascinated me the most. This was the safe season to visit, according to Blix and Loki, because the volcano was quiet and not hurling lava bombs into the sky.
I was terribly excited as we approached the Nacht Sted. We flew over a long-dormant volcano, its crater like a charred crown rimmed in silver frost. I could feel an acute drop in temperature.
I wanted to know how ice could form so close to fire. Would this ice have special qualities that we could use in some way? I dreamed of an entire new arsenal of equipment that we might unleash on Bylyric.
The winds were ferocious, and the ice that fringed the cave entrances was scalloped by the constant onslaught from these gusts.
“Wind sculpting,” Blix explained. When I looked across the top of the craters, I could spy the northernmost reaches of the Bitter Sea, a cold, cold sea choked with ice.
“We want to show you something before you start your studies,” Blix said in a somewhat ominous voice.
“Are you sure, Blix?” Loki asked. There was a flash of apprehension in his yellow eyes.
I was immediately burning to see what Blix wanted to show me. Burning, that is, as much as one could burn in a place like this.
“It’s going to give you the creelies,” Loki warned. “I mean, you’re going to wilf. The first time I saw it, well, I wilfed so much that I was almost as small as Blix.”
“Just take me there!” I screeched in frustration, though it was hard to screech above the wind.
“All right, all right already!” Loki said, and spread his wings.
We entered an ice cave on the north side of the extinct volcano. The opening was not much more than a slot, and Loki had to tilt his immense wings at a sharp angle to pass through.
“This slot wasn’t always here,” Loki said.
“It opened up the summer before we went to the Academy,” Blix explained. “It was even smaller then. It was a really tight fit for Loki.”
Aha! I thought, remembering how bashed Loki’s wing tips had been when I first met him, and his lame excuse about molting.
“Follow me,” Blix said. “I know the way.”
We followed a long, winding tunnel, flying in some places and walking when the ceilings got too low. The slot began to enlarge eventually, and we came into a spacious cavern. The air was very still and we couldn’t even hear the wind howling outside. There was barely any light. I was so curious, I could almost feel my pupils enlarging.31 Then I saw it. Something white hanging from a spike of ice in the distance.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“A face,” Loki said, his voice trembling.
“A face of what?”
“Of an Other …”
My heart skipped a beat. This truly was the place where myth and legend collided.
“Look at his feathers,” Blix said as we inched closer.
“Feathers but no wings!” Loki whispered.
“I don’t think those are feathers,” I said.
“What are they?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, peering at the strange creature. “How did he get here?” I asked. “You said the slot just opened before you went to the Academy.”
“There’s a crevasse at the very top. We hadn’t noticed it when we used to fly up here, because it’s iced over. This Other must have fallen through long, long ago.”
The Other was the most peculiar creature I had ever seen. No myth could have been stranger than the truth that confronted me. I poked gently at the body. It swayed slightly. It was definitely not clad in feathers. Its covering was made from some kind of woven material, like so many of the relics discovered in the ruins of Others in the Southern Kingdoms. A peculiar contraption was attached to his back, almost like a very large botkin a blacksmith might carry. Metal objects that looked like gizzard rippers hung from the creature’s sides. They roused my curiosity. I hovered in the air, examining them more closely, then swiveled my head toward Loki and Blix.
“I don’t like the idea of filching from the dead, but I think we must take some of these metal objects.”32
“But is it dead?” Loki asked.
“It’s dead all right,” I replied.
“We thought …” Blix seemed to hesitate. She began again. “We thought at first maybe it was a frozen scroom.”
“A scroom? A ghost? No!” I said. “Not at all. This is too … too real to be a scroom.”
“Scrooms are sort of real,” Blix muttered.
I had never seen a scroom, but I had heard enough about them. Scrooms were the restless souls of owls that roamed the Earth because they had unfinished business and could not yet leave for glaumora, the owl heaven. I pecked slightly at the creature again. It was dead.
On his head, it wore a strange thing that looked somewhat like the helmets favored by warrior owls of Ga’Hoole, but it wasn’t made of metal. Some of the same color fur that grew on his face also blushed out from beneath his helmet, only much thicker.
I thought about what Blix had just said — how scrooms were sort of real. I turned to look at the tiny owl. “Yes, scrooms are sort of real. I won’t deny that such things exist, but I feel they exist because of our memories. We have no memories of this creature, so it cannot be a scroom.”
I was not sure if what I said was true, but it felt true to me. I realize that this is a peculiar comment from an owl like myself, who purports to be a scientist and relies on data, testing, and experimentation.
I pecked at the creature again. “You can’t peck at a scroom,” I said. “It would simply dissolve.”
This Other wasn’t dissolving. Far from it. Indeed, I began to wonder if the reason it was so well-preserved had something to do with the frigid temperatures and dry air of the Nacht Sted.
For the next several hours, the three of us worked on picking loose the metal spikes and the loops that hung from his side. Loki and Blix agreed with me that it was important for Orf and Thora to take a careful look at these. We didn’t think they were weapons, but perhaps we could adapt them in some way for combat.
“Can you fly with that, Blix?” I said, looking at her as she took off from a ledge with a loop in her talons.
“It’s heavy, but if I can balance it just right, I think I can,” she said.
We were most interested in the spike. On further examination of the Other’s botkin, we discovered a quiverlike object into which the spike fit.
“Interesting,” Loki said as he shoved a spike into the qu
iver. I heard a tiny click as if something had engaged. Suddenly, there was a load crack and a flame shot from the quiver, the spike whizzing by Blix and missing her by a sliver. It stuck in the wall of ice, still burning.
“Holy Glaux!” she exclaimed, staggering in the air with the loop still clutched in her talons. “That wasn’t a quiver — it’s a launcher!”
“A fire launcher!” Loki said. “This is far more dangerous, far more powerful than fire claws, and it doesn’t damage our talons. This is the weapon of the future!”
I was still dazed by what we’d seen. My eyes fastened on that flame that was still burning in the ice wall. How had the spike been ignited in the first place? I recalled the click I had heard just before the loud crack. Had there been a little spark then? Was there some sort of fuel in the launcher? I remembered the sap in the pine that had caused the tree to explode the night Lysa died.
Before we left, I wanted to examine our weapon. Carefully, I laid out the spike and the quiver in which it fit. The click I had heard came from a tiny mechanism with interlocking teeth like bits on a small disk. I began to move the disk with my talon.
“Be careful!” Loki said.
“Don’t worry, it’s not loaded now. It won’t do anything.” I could see that the secret to its power was a spring that doubled the speed of the thrust. On further examination, I saw that the spike itself had notches interlocked with the launcher. It was a devilishly clever invention.
We knew we had a dangerous item in our talons, but we were determined to take it back to Dark Fowl and show Orf and Thora. We found a second launcher in the botkin and decided we would take two launchers, several spikes, and one metal loop. We would have to fly with the utmost care.
We vowed to come back to the ice cave in the Nacht Sted, but for now we knew we must leave. We had discovered more than we had ever expected, but I still wanted to learn more about the place where the winds were hatched, where the jealous sisters Snurla and Solskynn clashed in the dim mists.
“Imagine if Snurla and Solskynn had got hold of these spikes,” Loki mused. “There might not have been a myth after all. They would have killed each other instantly.”
“Exactly,” I said. But I felt my gizzard wrench. These might not have been weapons for the Others, but for us owls, they could be incredibly deadly. I was almost exultant at the thought that this could end the war once and for all. I began to imagine a life with Lil, a peaceful life. Wingfast! We could be wingfast and all because of these fire spikes!
We emerged from the ice tunnel into the harsh light of the Nacht Sted ice field glaring under a full-shine moon. The long shadows of the four-legged creatures slanted across the ice, and the wings of a Snowy threw great shadows against the silver disk of the moon.
“Good Glaux!” Blix cried. “Moss!”
This was Moss’s secret training ground. Of course! What could be more secret than this desolate place? Had General Andricus known this when he granted my request to visit? I doubted it. Moss had been charged with finding a secret place, not ordered to go to one already specified.
It was mesmerizing to watch the big cats stalk across the ice. Their walk was a silken motion, sinuous and silent. I couldn’t hear their paws touch the ground; they were as silent in their stride as owls are in flight. Beneath their marbled pelts lurked an unimaginable power. Their long tails swayed back and forth languorously, but I dreaded what the lash of their tails could do. Yes, these creatures were built to kill.
“Look, he’s found his big owls, too,” Loki whispered. “Two Great Grays and two Great Horneds and an Eagle Owl.” Moss hadn’t mentioned finding any owls in his coded messages. We had worried that his outpost was too remote, and we couldn’t recruit.
We were about to call out to Moss when Blix noticed something. “How bizarre!” she said. “One of the Great Horneds is missing half a beak.”
My parents’ words from an evening long, long ago came back to me: We left our mark, didn’t we, Sweet Gizz? Darned hootin’! Your da raked off half the Great Horned’s beak, and I snapped off not one, but two, of the other fellow’s talons.
The owls that had mutilated and nearly killed my mother were there in the moonlight, helping Moss train the snow leopards!
“Half Beak!” Moss cried out from the distance. “Guide them from the rear into the first defense configuration.”
“Wait!” I hissed at Blix. “Don’t say a word.” The Great Horned was a slipgizzle. Moss must have inadvertently recruited slipgizzles! I wilfed to half my normal size, and both Blix and Loki looked at me in alarm.
“Whatever is it?” Blix said in a tiny whisper. Her words fell as quiet as snowflakes.
“That’s the owl that attacked my mum!” My voice was trembling. “And that one flying just above the lead snow leopard’s head, that’s another one!” For indeed, the other owl was missing talons. “They’re slipgizzles working for the Ice Talons.”
“What?” Loki and Blix looked at me, stunned.
“Slipgizzles!” I repeated. “Think about it. It would be easy for an owl to slip in around here, pass themselves off as wounded hireclaws, not able to go into the field but ready to help in training. Moss was up against time. He didn’t have the luxury to check out every owl.”
“What are we going to do?” Blix asked.
I flapped my wings in agitation. “I’m not sure. They’re big, powerful owls, and all we have going for us is surprise.”
I saw Loki glance down at the launcher in his talons, and my gizzard twisted.
Suddenly, an idea came to me. Code! Moss was a master of all the Kielian League codes. He was especially good with the hardest of them all — the spoken code.
Our plan was a simple one. Blix was to do the speaking while Loki and I sequestered ourselves behind a large, ice-sheathed boulder.
We held our breath as Blix flew out.
“Blix!” Moss cried out.
“Verschtucken mitgon vouykinn schnitzkin bynnghis yonkus!” cried Blix. The spoken code is Krakish, but with double-meaning words. What Blix said in Krakish was “Hello, rockmunks are among us. My friends, the two Horneds.” But it meant: “Beware, slipgizzles are among us. The enemies, the two Horneds.”
From our vantage point, we could see that Moss was about to wilf, but he fought it hard. The two Great Grays were looking stunned, as well the Eagle Owl. They obviously understood the coded language, but the two Great Horned Owls did not, nor did the snow leopards. Except for this first small slip, Moss was doing a fantastic job of concealing his shock. The Snowy, my friend from earliest childhood, stayed as cool as any battle veteran.
In the spoken code, Blix told Moss where we were hiding. We could not hear the entire conversation for the wind was up again, drowning out many of the words. But it appeared that Moss called a halt to training for the night, though dawn — or the virtual dawn — was still some hours away, and then set up a guard rotation for the night.
“It’s all right,” Loki whispered to me. “We outnumber them.”
“They’re twice our size! And they could call in other owls, other enemy troops. There could be other Ice Talon owls holed up all over this place. Remember that peregrine your mum mentioned flying around? We could be outnumbered.”
From our sequestered perch, we could see that every creature, both owls and snow leopards, were extremely nervous that evening and ready for anything but sleep. Blix pretended to sleep in a small notch in some rocks. As dawn neared, I spied Half Beak rouse himself, swivel his head about slowly as if checking that his companions were asleep, and loft into flight. He flew straight out toward the Bitter Sea, quite far out, and when he returned, he wasn’t alone.
At least eight owls and a peregrine stormed out of the darkness. The snow leopards leaped into the air, their huge paws striking the night. A Hawk Owl plunged down in a kill spiral for Blix, but went kerplonken when it saw a snow leopard take to the air in a huge jump. The leopard missed its target, but the owl crashed into the ground and broke its neck.
>
The night turned into a maelstrom of violence. Feathers and blood swirled in the mounting wind gusts.
“Lyze!” cried Loki. “The launcher!” He was loading up a spike.
There was a strange spitting sound as it whizzed across the field. An owl plummeted to the ground, a burning spike in its breast. Loki let out a warrior’s whoop and immediately began to reload. A Hawk Owl was brought down by one of our Great Grays, but an enemy Eagle Owl was coming in fast on Moss, and Moss was already showing a streak of blood on his coverts. His blood or the enemy’s? I didn’t have time to think. I raised my launcher, and a spike sliced the night. The next thing I knew, the Eagle Owl, the largest of all owls, plunged through the sky and fell dead to the ground, a spike thrusting from his chest. I reloaded and shot again, another spike slicing through the air. A scream tore the night, so piercing and unearthly I thought the moon would crack and the stars would fall from the sky. I couldn’t see who I’d hit.
In only a matter of seconds, the skirmish was over. It had only lasted as long as the silver flash of a moonbeam darting through a cloud. I suppose you could say we’d won, but it didn’t feel like a victory. Moss, Blix, Loki, and I swept over the battlefield to see the fallen. One of our Great Grays was dead, and a snow leopard named Patches was severely wounded. A spike was hanging from her haunch and burning off her fur, the spike I had misfired. It was the snow leopard who’d screamed in that terrible, haunting way.
Moss swooped down, yanked the flaming spike from the leopard, and hurled it into a snowbank.
Blix had done training as a field medic, and she and Loki tried to stanch the bleeding.
I made my way over to the peregrine, who was still alive but not for long.
“Glynnis!” I whispered, shocked. “I — I thought you were on our side.”
She was gasping for breath. Blood gurgled from her beak. “You thought wrong, dearie!”
Never had a term of endearment sounded so nasty, the word a vicious sting in the night. “Your little secret is out,” she gasped.