“What little secret?”
“The snakes! The snow leop —” But the words died on her beak.
What General Andricus had said came rushing back to me: The success of this division depends not simply on training, however, but on secrecy and surprise. I cannot emphasize that enough. Secrecy and surprise! My gizzard collapsed within me. Everything was for naught. All the training, all the inventions, the new ideas — for naught! Bylyric knew all our secret strategies. The Orphan Maker was going to win.
While Blix and the others tended to the wounded, I went around the battlefield and retrieved every single fire spike. I flew directly out over the Bitter Sea and dropped them into the churning waters, along with the two launchers that Loki and I used. They were too dangerous. I felt in my gizzard that they were the first step to total annihilation. As the churlish seas parted to welcome the last spike, I wondered if this was why the Others had vanished. Had they fallen in love with weapons and assured their own destruction?
I did not know. I am more of a scientist than a philosopher, and just then, my mind was clouded with thoughts of the invasion to come.
When I got back to Dark Fowl, I found Lil on an empty training field practicing with Miss Hot Point. She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t see me at first. When I churred at her, she dropped her lance and wheeled around, streaking toward me. We wrapped our wings around each other as we slowly alighted on the ground. I emitted the mellow, warbling trill, and Lil replied with a low, whinnying call. For the first time, we dared to sing the prelude of the courtship song.
Yes, we were ready to become wingfast and, within hours of my return, the bryll branch had been fetched, for that was the traditional perch for a couple getting wed. We asked to have the ceremony in General Andricus’ hollow at headquarters. There was a crack in the hollow that was normally plugged with ice and rock, but the general cleared it carefully so we could see the Light Bringer, the morning star.
I had fetched Octavia, Blix, and Loki, and Lil had found Thora and Orf. The only missing owls were Strix Struma and my brother, Ifghar. I found Strix Struma perched on the very top of a silver fir, taking in the view of the training field. Her attention was focused on my brother.
“There you are!” I said. “I’ve been looking all over. For Ifghar, too — I’m so excited!”
“Oh, Lyze!” she said. “I’m happy you’re back safe and sound. About Ifghar — that snake friend of his —”
“Not now! As a matter of fact I have to fly down there and fetch —”
“Lyze!” she interrupted firmly. “It’s about Ifghar and his training. We should split up your brother and that snake Gragg.”
I frowned at her. This was my wingfast day, and I didn’t want to be bothered with minor training problems.
“Fine!” I said. “Split them up. But now, please let me talk! I’m here to invite you to Lil and my wingfast ceremony!”
Strix Struma blinked. “That’s wonderful.” She gave Ifghar a nervous glance. I could tell that there was something disturbing her, but I didn’t have time to worry about it then. It was my wingfast day!
Lil and I took our places on the bryll branch. Thora had found some ice flowers and made a garland for Lil that draped down from the crown of her head to her lovely tawny shoulders. The tiniest issen blossoms and astrilla blume fell around her like a cascade of pale pink stars. Her talons were bare — neither of us wore battle claws. I realized it was the first time in forever that I’d seen her talons. She had cleaned them with balsam fronds, and they glistened pearly white.
Just before the final guest arrived, I heard a scuffle outside the hollow. After talking to Strix Struma, I’d been late, so I’d asked one of the general’s aides to fetch my brother. It became obvious that he wasn’t aware of the nature of the occasion. I could hear his voice rising in anger outside the hollow.
“Well, Sergeant Luka Strix Varia, I do not see why Cadet Gragg, who is training with the Glauxspeed Division as a second-degree Kielian copilot, cannot be included in this meeting with the general. We are both exactly the same rank as cadets and —”
“I have my orders, Cadet Ifghar Megascops,” said the sergeant.
“Your orders!” grumbled Ifghar.
Strix Struma’s voice broke in crisply. “None of that, Ifghar! And don’t hiss at me, Gragg! I’m your commanding officer.”
“Thank you, madame,” said the sergeant.
“Is Lil here already?” Struma asked.
“Yes,” the sergeant replied, a slight smile in his voice. “She’s inside.”
“It’s a veritable party,” sneered Gragg.
“It is a party, of sorts,” said Strix Struma. “It’s a wingfast ceremony.”
“A wingfast ceremony?” I could hear Ifghar gulp. “Whose?”
“Who do you think?” I heard the sergeant say. “Your brother and Lil.”
Ifghar looked numb as he entered the hollow. Except for one odd, almost stricken glance at Lil, his eyes were as hard as stones. But I didn’t let it distract me. This was our day, mine and Lil’s. The light of the morning star poured down through the crack in the hollow and wrapped us in its soft glow.
General Andricus Tyto Alba began to speak. “Cadets, officers of the Kielian League, blacksmiths — friends of Lyze and Lil, we gather here at twixt time under the Light Bringer to sanctify and bless the union of these two owls, Major General Lyze Megascops Trichopsis, commander of the Glauxspeed Division, and Battalion Commander Lillium Megascops Trichopsis.” He turned to me. “Under the wings of Glaux and the eyes of the stars, do you, Lyze, take Lillium …”
Your little secret is out.
The words of the treacherous Peregrine Falcon Glynnis haunted me in my waking hours as well as in my dreams. The slipgizzles at the Nacht Sted had robbed us of any chance at secrecy and surprise, and it was difficult for me to tell General Andricus the devastating news.
“To what extent did she betray our strategy, Lyze?” the general asked.
“We can’t be sure,” I answered.
“We have to assume the worst.” He paused, deep in thought. “Which means we need a new surprise, a new strategy.”
I looked at him blankly. Like what? I wanted to ask, but I resisted.
“Where are Moss and the snow leopards now?”
“They’ve moved to a new black site to complete their training.”
“Well, good! That’s a start. And how is their training going?”
“They’re a strong team.” I didn’t want to think of the snow leopard Patches, stabbed in the haunch by one of my fire spikes.
“Look, Lyze, we have to go with what we’ve got. A strong team now finishing their training in an undisclosed location.” He paused. “We’re scant moons from what is supposed to be the start of the invasion.”
“I know,” I said softly. I was sick with worry and, for the life of me, I couldn’t comprehend why the general seemed almost jovial.
“Furthermore, rumors are flying that Bylyric is beginning to move his troops into position.”
“I’ve heard,” I said.
“But there have been no sightings of Bylyric himself.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, you say. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” I said, but I struggled to understand why.
“I wager he’s still holed up somewhere in the Ice Talons.” The general’s black eyes glinted meaningfully at me.
“Sir, what exactly are you driving at?”
“Surprise, Major General Lyze Megascops! Surprise. We invade them! You and your Glauxspeed unit go straight for Bylyric! Take him out, and his whole army collapses.”
My beak dropped open.
“Don’t you see it, lad? This is the perfect situation. Now’s the time.” And as he explained, I began to see his peculiar logic.
As the nights grew warmer, the hard ice began to soften. We owls are creatures of the north. We love the cold and the sparkling clear skies of deep winter, when
the constellations burn their brightest. We even like the shrieking winds and the stinging sheets of snow, but winter is not the best time for combat. The same brightness of air that reveals the stars lays bare our troops. The long, never-ending nights we love in peace can cause an owl at war to lose track of time and fight beyond his natural endurance. No, spring and summer are the war months. The skies roil with thick, oily clouds perfect for camouflaged flights or what we called HALO, or High Altitude Low Opening operations.
Snowies and Great Grays are perfect for HALO ops. They blend in seamlessly with the cloud cover and can hover down and drop in Kielian snake ground troops or slipgizzles. This was how we planned to discover the whereabouts of Bylyric.
We doubled our training. The division was coming together, and Ifghar was doing much better. He had changed after we separated him from Gragg. As soon as we put them in different units, Ifghar seemed to develop a better attitude. He adapted to a new snake and made new friends in his unit. Some, I must admit, were more impressive than others. It disturbed me slightly that he was drawn to owls who seemed to me easily influenced. His companions didn’t quite have a sense of service to a greater goal. I was concerned, but I had a lot on my mind with the spring offensive a few short moons away.
There is really never any quiet time on Dark Fowl Island. Toward the end of the night, troops began to fly in from the forward operating bases, and the din is unbelievable. For myself, when the evening training sessions finished, there were always strategy sessions and weapons reviews.
One evening, just as the last real darkness began to shred before the dawn, I was making my way over to visit Cronin, the quartermaster. Thora and I had planned to meet there to look over weapons that might need refitting before spring. I paused for a moment by a grog tree where a certain old Snowy, a very popular fellow known as the “blink skog of Dark Fowl,” was telling an old story about the myschgrad serpent, a legendary snake who lived at the bottom of the sea. It was said that when the serpent twitched, the earth convulsed, and fire sprang from the depths of the sea. I only meant to stay for a minute — I had no need of tales of twitching serpents, not when I knew Bylyric and his troops would soon be bearing down upon us. But there was something so mesmerizing about the way the blind skog told this tale, and I had been hoping that Ifghar would show up.
I hardly ever had time to talk to him these days, and sometimes I wondered if he was avoiding me. Our exchanges on the training field were almost perfunctory. I knew he was deeply proud of the special battle claws I had Orf make for him when he first arrived, but he had never thanked me for them.
When Ifghar didn’t appear, I lofted myself into the air. My business at the quartermaster’s hollow didn’t take long, and once Thora and I finished reviewing the various flails, billy hooks, and hot blades, I proposed we go by the grog tree again to see if we could catch Ifghar. On the way, we heard a scuffle that appeared to be coming from a stand of birch trees.
“Someone’s crying or — or mewling,” Thora said.
I heard it, too, and voices as well. We made a tight banking turn and headed for the stand of trees, alighting very quietly in the top of the tallest birch. I wilfed when I recognized the taunting voice of my brother, my baby brother! He had his talon crunched down on the port wing of a small Sooty Owl called Cadet Gabi Tyto-Ten.
“Forgot your claws, Gabi?” Ifghar sneered. “And why ya got that Sooty face? Not a true Barn Owl?”
“Got a hagsfiend for a mum?” asked a Spotted Owl.
The other cadets laughed, but the worst laugh of all came from Gragg, who curled up on Gabi’s other wing and raised up his cudgel-shaped head to slam it down with a sickening crunch. Thora let loose with loud screeches and swooped down on the bullies.
I took a mighty swipe at Gragg’s sensitive mid region and immediately his head snapped back into its normal shape. “Didn’t know I knew that trick,33 did you, you half-wit?” I yelled.
Thora ripped off Ifghar’s battle claws.
“You can’t do that. Those are mine!” Ifghar howled.
“Oh, yes, she can!” I thundered at him. Cadet Gabi Tyto-Ten had a broken rachis, the central shaft in one of her primaries, and she was bleeding from a torn calamus.34 The wound was not irreparable, but Cadet Gabi wouldn’t be flight ready for some time. This was beyond rhotgort, a small rule infraction. This was actually vroknenplonk — an offense that could get all of them de-commed.
The bullies wilfed down to half their size. Gragg’s once-fat head was now the size of a bingle berry.
I fixed my gaze on each one of them for several seconds, but saved most of my fury for Ifghar. “This is not the matter of a rhotgort,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, sure —” Ifghar began to talk nervously. “I mean, take away my battle claws for a while. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Shut up, Ifghar,” I roared. “This is not a matter of a rhotgort because you have injured a cadet. Cadet Gabi Tyto-Ten will not be able to fly. You have committed the gravest of offenses. For shame, Ifghar. For shame on all of you!” I was trembling with anger.
“It was just a joke, for Glaux’s sake,” Ifghar protested. There was a desperate note in his voice that made him sound as if he were fighting for breath. It had no effect on me.
“It wasn’t a joke!” I stormed. “You are all of you bullies and you have committed a treasonous act. This is a matter for vroknenplonk.”
The young owls gasped.
Three nights later the Vroknen, the high military court, found Ifghar, Gragg, and their two owl friends guilty of treason. They were given dishonorable discharges, except for Ifghar, who was spared because his mother and father had both served so long and illustriously as officers of the Kielian League. He was permitted to plead guilty to the lesser crime of conduct unbecoming to a cadet. Ifghar was put in the brig for the remainder of his training and would only be allowed to serve in noncombat situations. His battle claws, as the custom decreed, were melted down.
“We’ll use the metal for a pellet pot,” Thora sneered. Owls in the brig were not permitted to go outside to yarp pellets. When the call of nature came, they were reduced to yarping in a pot.
A few weeks after Ifghar’s trial, General Andricus sent me away with Loki to deliver a message to one of his lieutenants. Normally, he would have used a messenger falcon, but he understood I needed to get away from the Academy. Ifghar’s behavior had left me badly shaken.
The mission took us over one of the Kielian League’s refugee camps. Hundreds of owls had been left hollow-less or orphaned in recent moons. Often their parents were off fighting and their caregivers — their broodies or elderly aunts and uncles — had lost their lives. The attack that Moss and I had endured on Stormfast had been unusual at the time, but the Ice Talon League had begun attacking peaceful communities as a regular war tactic. This particular refugee camp was at the southern edge of the H’rathghar glacier.
We are prone to think of glaciers as endless expanses of featureless ice. But as the glaciers approach lower altitudes, small forests can spring up along their edges. This settlement camp, called Lav Issen, which means “low ice” in Krakish, was full of young owls. As we flew over the camp, we saw that all the available hollows were crammed, and owls were even huddling in old, rotten stumps. A small contingent of Kielian snakes was working its way through the camp, pulverizing the centers of stumps to create makeshift nests, and another group of owls and snakes were dragging in rotten logs to be used as well.
No sooner had we alighted than I caught sight of the soft purple hues of a striated violusian.
“Gilda!” I exclaimed. She had just slammed her head into a tree stump, and she blinked when she heard her name.
“Lyze! Dear Lyze! And Loki!” She coiled up, tears glittered in her violet eyes. “Oh, my goodness! You’re here!”
She slithered over to me and began to loop herself loosely around my shoulders.
“You aren’t out flying with … with …” I momentarily forgot the name of the S
nowy she copiloted for.
“Jonor,” she said. “He died. He took a fizgig to the skull in a skirmish off the Firth.”
My gizzard seized. “How did you survive?”
“I fell into the ocean, and remember, we can swim.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Waiting for my next assignment. I didn’t want to just coil up and do nothing. They need all the help they can get in these camps. Look around you at all these orphans. This is the price we pay! The price of war!”
She paused. “You know, dear lad, I was never the best nest-maid snake. I wasn’t particularly good at keeping hollow, but I do rather enjoy smashing things up.” She whacked the rotten stump and peered into the cavity she had formed. “This is a nice cozy space — big enough for at least four Pygmies and a couple of Elf Owls. I left a bit of an overhang so the blacksmiths can make a metal piece to serve as a roof.”
“Very nice, Gilda,” Loki said.
We hadn’t flown far when Loki cried out.
“Mum!”
“Loki!”
I couldn’t believe it. There was Wynnifryd, tending a fire with three voles roasting on it.
“Mum, what are you doing here?” Loki and Wynnifryd wrapped their huge wings around each other, their faces radiating pure joy.
“What am I doing here, son? My bit. My bit.”
“But your wing?”
“I can fly — a tad cattywampus, but I got here,” she churred.
“B-b-but — what are you doing here?”
“What does it look like? I’m taking care of these young’uns and introducing them to the delights of cooked food.” When we perched on the log, I hadn’t noticed half a dozen little owlets upwind of her. She turned to them now.
“All right, little ones. Want to sing the song I taught you?”
“Yes, Wynnie!” they cried.
She took up the forked twig with which she had been turning the voles.