CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Besieged
The great old tree creaked in the winter gales that lashed the island. Bitter cold air niggled through the cracks and crevices. In Soren’s hollow, they hung the furry hide of a possum that Twilight had once killed to block the drafts. It did block the draft, but none of them could quite believe they had ever feasted on possum. There was no fresh meat left, only cured, dried meat that was bloodless and about as tasty to eat as tree bark. It was rumored that even the Ga’Hoole nuts were running low. Soren and his friends had all grown thinner. There was no doubt about it. Their feathers were less lustrous, their eyes somewhat dimmer. When the portions in the dining hollow had first started to dwindle, they would recall past meals they had eaten.
“Oh, remember the milkberry tart, the one Cook made with the maple syrup?” someone would say.
“I’d settle for just the maple syrup,” someone else would say. And so it would go. But now no one talked about such things. They were still hungry—hungrier than ever—but they had somehow grown used to the gnawing in their stomachs. To wish for a milkberry tart seemed frivolous. They now only wished to live and not starve to death.
And when the backbone of winter broke, as it would in a few weeks, when the ground began to thaw and the owls’ prey began to emerge from their burrows and holes, would they even be able to hunt? The enemy was out with their reinforcements of hireclaws, and they had encircled the great tree. They would be the first to pounce on the emerging prey. They were tightening the noose around the tree to cause starvation. If the Guardians could not fly over their usual hunting grounds, they would surely starve and the enemy would grow fat.
“What are you doing, Soren?” Twilight asked. “Hoping for a bug to eat?” Soren had been scratching in the dirt beneath the perches of their hollow. He had felt too weak to even loft himself to his usual perch, which was much better for holding conversations than staying on the floor. But no one talked much these days. He had begun by scratching idly with his talon. But a design seemed to emerge.
“What is that?” Gylfie said, coming over to look.
Soren blinked. “It’s us.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You see, here’s the tree and we are all in the tree, and here is the enemy, all around us. They can’t get in, because we don’t have any weak points in the tree, but we can’t get out. As Ezylryb said, this defensive strategy isn’t very mobile.”
“In other words, we’re stuck,” Twilight said. “So what else is new?”
“But what if we could get out?” Soren asked. Soren felt Digger stir beside him.
“Digger,” said Soren. “What if we could dig out? Could we burrow out with our forces and then deploy our troops to two points, and catch them between us?” Soren lifted his foot in the air and snapped his two front talons together in the same quick movement used to catch bats on the wing. Their gizzards all began to twitch with nervous excitement. Then Gylfie said the word, the name that made it all seem possible.
“Octavia!”
“A pincer movement! Of course, I think it might be possible,” the old snake who tended the nests of both Madame Plonk and Ezylryb spoke in her slow ponderous manner with the inflections of the Northern Kingdoms. Octavia, unlike the other snakes who all had rosy to pale pink scales, had a greenish-blue hue. She was a Kielian snake from Stormfast Island in the Bay of Kiel. Kielian snakes were known for their incredible musculature. They could actually dig holes.
It was Ezylryb who had seen how useful these snakes, who were not blind like the rosy-scaled nest-maid snakes, could be in battle. He had come up with the idea for a stealth force of Kielian snakes that could tunnel into enemy territory. This was during a period when the War of the Ice Claws was raging in the Northern Kingdoms. On one of her missions in the stealth force, Octavia was blinded and Ezylryb lost not only his mate, but one talon. Ezylryb and Octavia, both maimed by war, had withdrawn from the military life and sought refuge for many years on an island in the Bitter Sea where the Glauxian Brothers had a retreat. Now, however, it was war again.
“Would Ezylryb think this could work?” Soren asked tentatively.
“You’ll never know until you ask him. I could be of help in the tunneling, even though I’m not quite as fit as I used to be,” said Octavia.
“Well, there are all the digging units, the Burrowing Owls,” Digger said excitedly.
“Yes, yes,” Octavia said slowly. But she seemed to hesitate as if there were something more she wanted to say.
“Should we go to Ezylryb now and ask him? Should we ask the parliament?” Digger asked.
“No!” Octavia spoke abruptly, then coiled up and swung her head. “Now listen carefully. Say nothing of this to anybody, not even Otulissa or Martin or any of your other Chaw of Chaw mates. I’m glad you found me in the corridor and asked me to your hollow. I think Ezylryb should come here as well to listen to this plan. I don’t know how to say this exactly, but there have been certain breeches in security. There have been information leaks. It is suspected that the parliament hollow is not completely secure.”
Soren and the three others tried not to gasp. They were the only ones who knew about the strange phenomenon that allowed the roots to transmit sound beneath the parliament chamber, or at least they thought they were. Had they been discovered? Had their listening post been discovered?
“Wait here,” Octavia said. “I’ll be back with Ezylryb soon. There’s not a minute to waste.” And the old Kielian snake slithered out of their hollow, her green scales glowing in the dim light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Coo-Coo-Coo-Roo
Ezylryb looked down at the scratchings Soren had made in the dirt. His bad eye seemed to grow squin-tier as he studied the small Xs that Soren had drawn, which stood for the Guardian troops.
“It’s going to take time, almost a month, I should think,” Ezylryb said.
“A month!” Digger gasped. “Sir, there are three units of Burrowing Owls. We could do it in less than a week.”
“Well, you see, that is the problem. This must remain absolutely top secret. The fewer owls who work on it, the better. This place is leakier than a rotted-out stump.” Octavia nodded in agreement. “I want only three owls working on it from the Burrowing units—you, Digger, Sylvana, and Muriel.”
“Not Dewlap?” Soren said.
“Not Dewlap.” There was an uncomfortable silence and then Octavia coughed slightly.
“Lyze,” she said. Only Octavia ever called Ezylryb Lyze, his old name from the Northern Kingdoms, and she rarely used the name in front of other owls. “If I may suggest something.”
“Of course, my dear.” Ezylryb’s usually gruff voice always softened when the old Kielian spoke to him.
“Why couldn’t Twilight, Soren, and Gylfie help out on this project? They aren’t Burrowing Owls, but why should they stand by idly? I am sure under the guidance of Digger, they could become adequate excavators. With their help, the work might go a little faster.”
“That is an excellent idea, Octavia.” He swiveled his head toward the other three owls. “Well, young’uns, what do you say? Think you can learn the ways of the Burrowers?”
“Yes, sir!” the three owls responded at once.
“Then I think you must begin immediately.”
It was hard work. It was dirty work. But even though they were not the robust owls they once had been because of the short food rations, the six owls found a new energy. The cause itself seemed to feed them, for they were digging their way to freedom. Octavia helped out as well. Despite her age and her girth, she proved particularly nimble at tunneling out some of the trickier turns.
Soren would have never guessed it, but Burrowing Owls were a talkative lot when they worked. They had songs they sang to set the rhythm for the digging, and they had loads of stories of the great legends of the Burrowing Owl world. There was one Burrowing Owl, a female known as Terra, who was renowned for having, in just one nig
ht, dug a burrow that tunneled straight through a mountain.
Sylvana herself could have been a legend, Soren thought. She was an exceptionally pretty owl, and Soren marveled at how featherless legs, which he used to think of as rather revolting, could suddenly seem so lovely to him. White and exceedingly thin but muscular, Sylvana’s legs flashed in the faint light of the tunnel like lightning crackling in the summer sky as she dug furiously. Sylvana had started to sing a digging song that had quickly become Soren’s favorite. The coo-coo call was the call of the Burrowing Owl, and their voices were lovely and almost dovelike as they all joined in song. Soren felt rather shrill by comparison whenever he tried to use the call that wove through the song, but Sylvana never criticized him. She encouraged everyone.
Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
Burrow, scrape,
Excavate
Through gravel, ice, hard-packed earth
Through sand, through muck, through mire.
We pit, we dig, we gouge,
and never do we tire.
Our legs are bare,
Our talons sharp,
We drill the earth and know the spots
Where rock crumbles into soil,
Where shale can shift and slide like oil.
Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
We shall burrow through and through.
When they returned to their hollow from their work, they would fall into an exhausted sleep. But the work was good. They were making progress. When Octavia could, she would sneak them extra food rations as Ezylryb had asked her to do. But she had to be careful so as not to arouse suspicion.
The plan was to excavate a tunnel that extended to an old fir tree that had been blown down in the winterlies. It was a rotten old tree and the stump was nearly hollow, which would provide them with an easy way out and into a flight zone that was well beyond the position of the enemy. Once the tunnel was completed, not only would the Strix Struma Strikers be able to get out, but the other tactical units would as well. These divisions would then encircle the enemy and begin a pincer movement. The besiegers would become the besieged.
Now, after only two weeks of hard work, they were almost there. Sylvana estimated that there were only another four days of work, five at the most.
“You should be proud,” she said at the end of their shift. “You especially, Soren, Twilight, and Gylfie. This did not come naturally to you.” Muriel and Digger nodded. “But you have learned to excavate as finely as any Burrowing Owl.”
At just that moment, Octavia slithered down the tunnel. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Sylvana, there is a problem.”
“What’s the problem?” Sylvana asked.
“Dewlap.”
“Dewlap?”
Soren felt a queasiness in his gizzard, and he looked at Digger.
“I’m not sure what it’s all about, Sylvana, but Ezylryb wants to see you at once in his hollow.”
“Well, I’ll be right there.”
“A special project? That sounds interesting. You know, Ezylryb, I never complain. But I just feel that I am being left out. I am not being given the respect a ryb deserves,” Dewlap said.
Ezylryb sighed. This is going to be tricky, he thought. How can I be sure she is the one responsible for the leaks? To call an owl a spy is a terrible thing. But we have to find out. There is no choice.
If Dewlap had been a spy, Ezylryb also wondered if it was entirely her fault. Could the Pure Ones have appealed to her sense of duty about the care and maintenance of the tree? Dewlap was a fanatic about the health of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. It was the great tree at all costs, even if those costs might be in the form of lives of the owls for whom the tree was home.
“My dear, you must understand that I am only trying to conserve your strength as I have with Strix Struma, Elvan, and other rybs during this siege. We are so much older than the young’uns and on short rations, we simply do not have the energy they have. But with this special project, I feel that you are the only one who could do it,” Ezylryb said.
This was proving more difficult than Ezylryb had anticipated, but he suddenly had the idea of the special project, and that was why he had sent for Sylvana. Now he only could hope that Sylvana would be the quick study he believed her to be, for there was really no time to explain.
“Ah, Sylvana, here you are. Now let me explain why I called you. You see, Dewlap feels that she could serve more and do much more than she is now doing in this siege. And for some time I have been turning over in my mind a project that I now think is perfect for Dewlap. It could, Glaux bless us, even get us out of this terrible siege situation.”
Sylvana blinked. What is he talking about? she wondered.
Ezylryb continued. “You see, I am imagining a tunnel that burrows out of the south root lines of the tree toward the point where the sea funnels in beneath the cliffs. I have done the geodetic studies of that region of the island, and I realize that if we could excavate a tunnel to that point, there is a natural earth vent there through which we could exit.”
Brilliant! Sylvana thought. Dewlap would be working on a tunnel in the opposite direction of their own tunnel. It would get Dewlap out of Sylvana’s feathers. Dewlap had always been jealous of Sylvana, perhaps because of her youth, perhaps her beauty, or perhaps her skills. Not only was Sylvana a remarkable excavator, but considering she was a Burrowing Owl (whose flight skills were usually considered inferior), Sylvana was a skillful and elegant flier. Her wing work was a thing of beauty.
“Well, what about you joining me in this tunnel project, dear?” Dewlap asked and cocked her head toward Sylvana in that insufferable way she had. Sylvana blinked. What could she say? If she said she was too busy, Dewlap would want to know with what. If she just said no, she would merely sound disagreeable. She looked at Ezylryb. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
“Yes, of course.” Sylvana bowed her head slightly. “It would be an honor to serve with you in our battle against these tyrants.”
Dewlap seemed a bit flustered. Perhaps she had not expected capitulation so quickly from the young and beautiful ryb. “Yes, yes,” she twittered nervously, and she said once more what she had said in the infirmary when she had poked her head in and seen Otulissa, “Who would have ever thought it would all come to this? To war?”
What a strange thing to say, Sylvana thought. She blinked just as Soren had when Dewlap had said the same thing to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Last Battle
Through code, each of the main tactical units had been alerted only minutes before the tunnel was completed to report to a region deep within the roots of the tree. It was an odd place to meet. The usual area for mission briefings was in a space off the dining hollow. But now as the night began to fall, scores of owls squashed into a very small chamber that appeared to have been freshly excavated. A makeshift perch had been created for Ezylryb to address the troops. As his gaze swept over the owls, he could see confusion in their eyes.
“For the last several weeks a small unit of Burrowing Owls aided by three non-Burrowers has been engaged in a most secret mission. With an industry that can only be called extraordinary, considering the deprivations we have all endured, these owls have created a tunnel leading out of the great tree to a point beyond the enemy lines.”
There was a gasp of amazement from the gathered owls.
“Chart, please!” Ezylryb swiveled his head toward Octavia, who unfurled a hide chart on which he had marked the positions of the enemy troops in relation to the great tree.
“A small reconnaissance unit led by Octavia managed to slip out through a very small opening before the tunnel was entirely finished. They reported back to us that the majority of the enemy troops have gathered at a region directly opposite the termination of our tunnel. In other words, they are here.” He indicated with his mangled talons the south root lines of the tree. “The enemy seems to be regrouping there. This works in
our favor.”
Ezylryb then went on to explain the pincer movement that would be put into operation. There was complete silence. One could have heard a feather drop, but at the same time there was almost an electrical buzz as gizzards churned with excitement. All the owls would be called upon to rise into this darkness with their units. Twilight, Soren, and the rest of the Chaw of Chaws would be flying with the Flame Squadron. They would hold burning branches that had been ignited in the caches of buried coals. Barran’s Elite Talons and the Elvan Flying Screechers would fly with new NAST battle claws. Ruby and Otulissa would be flying with fire in the Strix Struma Strikers unit.
“We shall strike out in a classic pincer movement. We have the advantage of the wind at our backs. And the latest reports are that the wind has shifted even more in our favor. The majority of the enemy troops are trapped in an unworkable airspace. We all are trained in flying low just above the turbulent crashing waves of the Sea of Hoolemere. We shall try to draw them down for close sea flight, and many of them will drown.” Ezylryb could feel the growing confidence of the troops. “My trust in your abilities to fight this battle to the finish—to a victorious and glorious finish—does not waver, but grows by the second. We are few compared to these evil owls, but as I have said before, numbers are not everything. And never in the history of conflicts of owlkind has so much been owed to so few. And now I say, go forth. Go forth for our island, go forth for our tree, go forth for honor and all that we imagine when we think of the civilization wrought by our Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Once more I say, be ye owls of valor. Glaux Bless.”
The owls began to stream into the entrance to the tunnel. Within minutes they would be out for the first time in so long, out into the air, out in flight. The Flame Squadron, or Bonk Brigade, knew upon exiting exactly which coal caches they must go to. With so many blow-downs from the winter storms, finding branches to ignite would be easy.