The Rescue (Guardians of Ga'hoole) (17 page)

“Together we might make a pair and do some damage!” Otulissa shouted to Soren.

“Twilight needs help! Get a burning branch.” Eglantine flew up with a freshly ignited branch for Soren.

Otulissa had fearlessly flown ahead.
I’ve never flown with such big battle claws. Twilight should have these,
the thought raced through her head, but some instinct took over. She darted up and behind the huge owl, then plunged with the claws locked in the downward position and gave him a terrific blow. Metal Beak staggered mid-flight. He hadn’t seen it coming, and now Soren flew up in a flanking maneuver and shoved the slender, burning stripling branch under the mask. He shoved harder and a great piece of the mask lifted and fell to the ground.

Soren blinked. He felt his heart stop, his gizzard turn to stone.

“Kludd!” The name boiled up from Soren’s throat. His own brother now flew at him, his claws raised ready to rake out Soren’s eyes.

“Surprise, little brother!” Soren dodged. His gizzard felt suddenly as if it was falling right out of him. Going yeep! Was he going yeep?

“He means to kill you, Soren!” It was Gylfie crying out, which brought him back to his senses. He dove for the still-burning branch. There was a thicker one beside it. He picked up that one instead and then, like a volcano spewing live embers that blistered the air, Soren rose to do battle with his brother. Extending his talons, one foot with the battle claw, the other with the fiery branch, he advanced on Kludd, who lurched forward in a feinting maneuver and then dove. Soren felt the air stir beneath him. Two seconds before, Kludd’s battle claws would have raked his belly. Soren pivoted and flew straight up, an incredibly difficult maneuver but one that he executed perfectly. Kludd spun upward after him. But Soren could sense him before he saw him on his tail. Soren slowed his flight abruptly and plunged. Kludd overshot him, cursing all the while. Making a steeply banking turn to come back,
Kludd shouted down to Soren who was thirty feet or more below, “I’ll get you!”

This was the hardest part. Soren had to hover—hover and not bolt and not go yeep!
Let him come, let him come. Steady, steady. Now!
Soren roared up underneath Kludd, holding the burning branch straight up. The embers landed on what little bit was left of the metal mask.

There was a deep grunt, followed by a quaking, horrendous scream. Then Ruby, Soren, and Twilight backed off and watched in a kind of hypnotic horror as the metal that had covered half the owl’s face began to melt into a molten mass and spread across the entire face. Metal Beak’s wings started to fold.

He’s going yeep!
Soren thought breathlessly. But then he blinked with disbelief as the owl, finding some extraordinary reserve of energy, raised his wings, twisted his head around, and opened the melting beak. “Death to the Impure. Long live Tytos supreme! Death to Soren! Turnfeather of the Pure, the true owls! Death to Soren!” The entire night seemed to sizzle with the words and then the enraged owl simply flew off into the night. Four owls were dead on the ground, the rest followed their leader, the Pure One with his beak still glowing red.

Suddenly, it was quiet. A singed feather drifted lazily
on a small night breeze. Soren perched on a branch.
My own brother. My very own brother is Metal Beak, and he wants to kill me. Kill me.
The forest, the world around him, seemed to dissolve. Soren felt as if he were alone in some weird space that was neither earth nor sky.

“Soren,” Gylfie flew up and perched on the branch beside him. “Soren, you’re going to be all right. Soren, he’s crazy. It’s what your mum’s and da’s scrooms were warning you about.” Soren turned to the little Elf Owl. His eyes welled up with tears.

“But, Gylfie, there is still unfinished business on earth. He still lives. My parents’ scrooms must still be far from glaumora.”

“They’re a little closer, Soren. They must be. They must be so proud of you. Look at what you have done.”

Soren looked to a nearby branch on the same tree. All of his owls were safe, and there was Ezylryb perched on a lower branch with tears in his eyes as he looked at the young owls who had saved his life. But Soren was still seized by the terrible and overwhelming thoughts of Kludd. What Kludd had done to him and Eglantine, and what he, Soren, had done to Kludd. It was all simply too horrific to dwell on. So he turned his thoughts to something else—his best friend in the world, Gylfie. And she
had just said that perhaps the scrooms of his parents were a little closer to glaumora.
Maybe, maybe,
he thought.

Soren looked down at Gylfie. How did she always know the right thing to say at the right time? But what about her own parents? Did she ever wonder if they were alive or dead? If they were scrooms between earth and glaumora?

“Gylfie,” Soren said hesitantly. “Do you ever wonder about your parents?”

“Of course, Soren. But I think they’re dead.”

“But what if they aren’t?”

“What do you mean?”

Soren was silent for a minute. He couldn’t say what he really meant, for it was simply too selfish. If they were alive, it would mean that Gylfie would return to the Desert of Kuneer to live with them, and Soren didn’t know if he could stand to lose the little Elf Owl.

“Oh, nothing,” Soren answered and tried to make his voice sound light.

“Maybe someday we’ll go to Kuneer and see. There’s a spirit desert there, you know. If their scrooms are still around for unfinished business, that’s where they would be.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so,” Soren said quietly.

O
ctavia slithered out on a limb of the great tree and scanned the sky. The night had grown thin, the black threadbare like a worn garment through which the first dim streaks of the morning would soon begin to glimmer. She had sensed that Soren and his little band would do something after she had discovered them in the secret chamber. Although she had not been born blind, she had grown to possess those extraordinary instincts and sensations of the other blind snakes. And now as Octavia slithered farther out onto the branch, she did sense something flying toward the tree. She coiled up and swung her head about. Something from far away was coming! Something was stirring the air. The vibrations seemed to ripple across her scales. Then she heard the lookout cry. “Owls two points north of east! Great Glaux! It’s Ezylryb flying point! He’s back! He’s back!”

Tears began to stream from Octavia’s sightless eyes. “He’s coming back! He’s coming back!” she whispered.

The Great Ga’Hoole tree began to shake with the sound of cheering owls. From every hollow, owls flew out—Snowies and Spotted Owls, Horned Owls and Great Grays, Elf and Pygmy Owls—to perch on the thousands of branches and cheer the return of the best of the best of the chaws and the greatest ryb of the great tree—Ezylryb.

As night faded into day, as Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, Eglantine, and Digger nestled into the down of their hollow, the clear music of the harp’s strings began to slip through the branches of the great old tree. The voice of Madame Plonk so lovely, so eerily beautiful, as beautiful as the most distant stars, rose in the pale light. Soren heard the soft breathing of Eglantine beside him. He knew in a hollow high above theirs, Ezylryb was probably munching a caterpillar and perhaps, by the light of the fire in his grate, reading an old book. From the opening in their hollow, Soren could see the constellation of the Little Raccoon, its hind paw scratching the late autumn sky before it slipped off into another night in another world on another side of the earth. Madame Plonk’s voice shimmered through the tree. Then he heard the loveliest liquid sound pour from the harp. It seemed to wrap them all in its music. He, of course, didn’t know it but Octavia, old and fat as
she was, had just jumped three octaves for the first time in years. She was so happy that she felt like a slim young thing again. She could almost see the notes as they floated out into the last darkness of the old night to touch the dawn.

“Good light,” Soren said softly, and he said it seven times, for each of the owls he had led on their quest to mend a world that had been broken and to rescue a teacher who was loved.

“Good light,” he said again. They were, however, all sound asleep.

In a hollow high up on the northwest side of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, an old Whiskered Screech sat down at his writing table for the first time in months. He winced as he plucked a feather from his starboard wing. It always seemed that he grew his best quills on his starboard side for some reason. He then took out a new piece of his best writing parchment, dipped the quill into an inkwell, and began to write.

In a forest dark and tangled,

smoke and fiery sparks did spangle

the trees, the sky, the moon on high—

it seemed as if Glaux did sigh.

A Barn Owl with a metal face,

bellowed of his mighty race.

The chaw of chaws, did they cower

in what might be their final hour?

With their branches burning bright,

they tore into this evil night.

The flames danced across the mask—

a demon owl from Soren’s past!

Nine others flanked him,

dark eyes so grim,

claws gleaming in the air,

set to rip, to stab, to tear.

So in that dark and tangled night,

the chaw of chaws rose to fight,

with talons bloodied, feathers singed.

A battle won—a war begins!

Ezylryb sighed deeply and put down his quill as the glare of the morning seeped into his hollow.

SOREN: Barn Owl,
Tyto alba,
from the kingdom of the Forest of Tyto; snatched when he was three weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

His family:

KLUDD: Barn Owl,
Tyto alba,
older brother

EGLANTINE: Barn Owl,
Tyto alba,
younger sister

NOCTUS: Barn Owl,
Tyto alba,
father

MARELLA: Barn Owl,
Tyto alba,
mother

His family’s nest-maid:

MRS. PLITHIVER, blind snake

GYLFIE: Elf Owl,
Micrathene whitneyi,
from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; snatched when she was almost three
weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols; escaped from St. Ae-golius Academy for Orphaned Owls; Soren’s best friend

TWILIGHT: Great Gray Owl,
Strix nebulosa,
free flier, orphaned within hours of hatching

DIGGER: Burrowing Owl,
Speotyto cunicularius,
from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; lost in the desert after an attack in which his brother was killed and eaten by owls from St. Aegolius

BORON: Snowy Owl,
Nyctea scandiaca,
the King of Hoole

BARRAN: Snowy Owl,
Nyctea scandiaca,
the Queen of Hoole

STRIX STRUMA: Spotted Owl,
Strix occidentalis,
the dignified navigation ryb (teacher) at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

EZYLRYB: Whiskered Screech Owl,
Otus trichopsis,
the wise weather-interpretation and colliering ryb (teacher) at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree; Soren’s mentor

POOT: Boreal Owl,
Aegolius funereus,
Ezylryb’s assistant

MADAME PLONK: Snowy Owl,
Nyctea scandiaca,
the elegant singer of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

OCTAVIA: Blind nest-maid snake for Madame Plonk and Ezylryb

DEWLAP: Burrowing Owl,
Speotyto cunicularius,
the Ga’Hoolology ryb at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

BUBO: Great Horned Owl,
Bubo virginianus,
the blacksmith of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

TRADER MAGS: Magpie, a traveling merchant

OTULISSA: Spotted Owl,
Strix occidentalis,
a student of prestigious lineage at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

PRIMROSE: Pygmy Owl,
Glaucidium californicum,
rescued from a forest fire and brought to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree the night of Soren’s and his friends’ arrival

MARTIN: Northern Saw-whet Owl,
Aegolius acadicus,
rescued and brought to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree the same night as Primrose; in Ezylryb’s chaw with Soren

RUBY: Short-eared Owl,
Asio flammeus,
lost her family under mysterious circumstances and was brought to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree; in Ezylryb’s chaw with Soren

SILVER: Lesser Sooty Owl,
Tyto multipunctata,
brought to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree after being rescued in the Great Downing

NUT BEAM: Masked Owl,
Tyto novaehollandia,
brought to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree after being rescued in the Great Downing

THE ROGUE SMITH OF SILVERVEIL: Snowy Owl,
Nyctea scandiaca,
a blacksmith not attached to any kingdom in the owl world

K
ATHRYN
L
ASKY
lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband. She is the author of several books, which include the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Wolves of the Beyond, and Daughters of the Sea series.

Book One:
The Capture

Book Two:
The Journey

Book Three:
The Rescue

Book Four:
The Siege

Book Five:
The Shattering

Book Six:
The Burning

Book Seven:
The Hatchling

Book Eight:
The Outcast

Book Nine:
The First Collier

Book Ten:
The Coming of Hoole

Book Eleven:
To Be a King

Book Twelve:
The Golden Tree