“Otulissa,” Gylfie said slowly. “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”
“That this is the very place where Hoole was hatched?”
“These are the only trees we’ve seen since before the Ice Narrows.”
“Gylfie, you must be right! And, of course, it makes perfect sense that the Glauxian Brothers would have their retreat here…Why…why…Gylfie, they must have the original manuscripts. Oh! Oh, I can’t wait! Oh, my brain might burst in anticipation!”
I doubt it, Gylfie thought to herself.
It was considered summer in the Northern Kingdoms. So the forest was not sheathed in ice as it was when Hoole had hatched. But still there were patches of snow on the ground. The first pink streaks of dawn were just washing across the sky. The trees were the straightest trees Gylfie had ever seen. They were fir trees and their needles and bark looked inky black against the pale dawn. They appeared to grow so thickly that, at first, the two owls wondered how they would ever pass through them. But they realized as they descended that the trees were not as close together as they had thought. Shafts of light pierced the forest and everything seemed to sparkle and glisten. The droplets of water on the needles refracted the light, splitting it up into countless little beams. It felt as though they were flying through a jeweled web of light and dew.
“How will we ever find the retreat?” Otulissa asked.
“Beats me,” Gylfie replied.
“Well, you’re the navigator.”
“Flight navigator. The sky. The stars. Not land navigation.” Gylfie swiveled her head, looking for any sign that might indicate where the Glauxian Brothers might dwell. They flew on, lacing their way through the magical forest web. After nearly an hour, they came to a place where the trees thinned out and Gylfie spotted something ahead that intrigued her. “Let’s land in that next tree,” she whispered to Otulissa.
The two young owls perched on a slender branch. “Look over there,” Gylfie whispered. Otulissa blinked. Through the fir trees were the whitest birch trees either one of them had ever seen. The trees grew in a circle, a perfect circle. And then, if one peered really hard, as Gylfie was now doing, there was something else.
“That’s an owl,” Gylfie whispered to Otulissa.
“Where? I don’t see an owl.”
“Over there, a few inches in front of that trunk.” Gylfie pointed with one talon to indicate the tree she was looking at.
“I don’t see—” Otulissa started to say, but then interrupted herself. “Wait. Great Glaux, it’s a Snowy Owl.”
And there was not just one Snowy but a half dozen standing sentry, their white plumage with the occasional dark spots blending in perfectly with the white-barked trees behind them. Gylfie and Otulissa had arrived at the retreat of the Glauxian Brothers.
CHAPTER FIVE
Firth of Fangs
The name disturbs me,” Digger said, looking down at the narrow finger of water they were following.
“What name?” Soren asked.
“This place where we are—the Firth of Fangs. Fangs…well, you know—none of us has the fondest memories of them.”
“Oh, that bobcat,” Twilight replied dismissively. When the band of four had been on their long journey to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, they had a most unfortunate encounter with a fiendishly ravenous bobcat. Digger, Soren, and Gylfie had never seen such long and horrible fangs. Twilight, however, claimed to have seen many in his day. Having been orphaned almost immediately after hatching, Twilight had brought himself up, taught himself how to fly, and lived a lifetime full of awesome danger and adventure almost before he had even molted his first set of feathers.
“That bobcat, you say? I seem to remember, Twilight, that you didn’t exactly find it a soothing experience,” Soren spoke up now. Sometimes Soren found Twilight’s complete denial of fear more irritating than his boasting.
“Not soothing, exactly,” Twilight replied, “but I can’t think of the word right now.”
“Bracing, perhaps? Stimulating?” Digger said. “As in ‘gets your blood going, sends a refreshing quiver through the old gizzard’?”
“Exactly. That’s it!” Twilight replied, and Soren thought that Digger was sometimes just too nice.
“Well, let me tell you,” Digger continued. “There is scant difference between a bracing feeling and a terrifying one. Fangs more than six inches long scare the be-Glaux out of me. And I cannot help but think that this Firth of Fangs place must have been named that for a reason. I only hope that the trip to seek out Moss, this old warrior friend of Ezylryb’s, will be worth it.”
“Well, Digger,” Eglantine, who had been flying in between Twilight and the Burrowing Owl, began to speak quietly, “technically a firth is a long narrow body of water, an indentation in the seacoast.”
“Good grief! If I didn’t know better I would have thought it was Otulissa speaking. No, Eglantine, it’s not the ‘firth’ part that bothers me. It’s definitely the ‘fang’ part.”
“But have you ever considered, Digger, that the firth might be called a fang because it is long and curved like a fang?” Eglantine flew closer to him as she posed the question.
“Oh, that’s a thought. Its shape…”
But before the Burrowing Owl could look to confirm this, Soren let loose with a gizzard-piercing shriek as only a Barn Owl can.
“What is it?” Digger said. But then they all saw where Soren was looking—straight down. Several late-summer ice floes that had broken off the winter pack ice bobbed peacefully in the waters of the firth. But from one ice floe, clearly visible in the moonlight, gushed a stream of blood. An immense white beast like none they had ever seen was tearing something apart. It tipped its head back. Its immense fangs were bright with blood, and in its claws it held the squirming body of a seal.
“Want to say hello to those fangs, Twilight?” Digger asked. “And with those claws it might provide a truly bracing experience!” The fangs were clearly longer than six inches.
Eglantine cried. “Look, I think that seal’s baby is crying on the next floe! We’ve got to help that poor thing!”
“Mammish! Mammish!” wailed the small gray seal.
“We’ve gotta help!” Eglantine cried again. Soren’s sister, Eglantine, the youngest and least experienced of all the owls, began a spiraling descent toward the floe where the baby seal wailed. The others followed. But by the time they arrived, she was already standing on the floe trying to calm the baby.
“It doesn’t speak Hoolian, and I can’t remember any Krakish,” Eglantine said rather desperately.
“Umm, umm…” Soren was grasping for the proper Krakish words. How he wished Otulissa were here. She was the only one who was fluent. The rest of them could manage only a few choppy phrases and random words. But Soren began. “Baby be all right! Baby be all right!” He looked around anxiously. The flow of blood from the seal’s mother had dyed the water around them red. Twilight was transfixed. “I think it’s a bear—a white bear.”
“A polar bear?” Digger asked.
“Yes, that’s it, I think,” Twilight said.
“Oh, Great Glaux,” Digger sighed. “Now we know why this place is called the Firth of Fangs. I’ve read that polar bears are the biggest carnivores on Earth.”
“And we are a floating meat market here,” Soren said tensely as the floe with the bear drifted closer and closer.
“They are swimmers, too—powerful swimmers,” Digger said with a tremor in his voice.
“But can they fly?” Twilight said. “I suggest we get out of here quickly.”
“But what about the baby?” Eglantine said in a pleading voice. The baby was now making quite a racket. “We can’t leave the baby.” Eglantine was crying almost as hard as the baby seal.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous bump and the owls and the seal skidded to the other edge of the ice floe. The polar bear’s floe had crashed into them. The bear stopped gorging for the moment and lifted its face. In the moonlight it was an awesome
sight. Its pure white muzzle was now stained with blood. It tipped its head back. “Arrrrraggggh!” It was a roar that shook the ice, the sea, not to mention the owls’ gizzards.
No translation needed, Soren thought. They had to get out of here. They had to save themselves. The baby seal was a lost cause. He raised his wings and began to flap them. The others did as well. All except for Eglantine, who staunchly stood her ground—or rather her ice—on her freezing-cold talons.
“Eglantine, fly up here this minute. That’s an order,” Soren shreed down at her.
“I’m not going to leave her, Soren. I’m not.”
“Eglantine, I am the commander of this mission. You have to do what I say.”
“I don’t care if you are the commander, Soren. I know what it’s like to be left behind and all alone. I’m staying.”
“Eglantine, we cannot endanger the entire mission for the sake of one baby seal.”
“I’m not going to leave her, Soren. I won’t. I don’t care if you are the boss.” Soren looked down at Eglantine as she stood firmly on the ice floe. She had grown stronger in every way since recovering from her shattering by the Pure Ones.
By this time the bear had ceased to eat. He seemed to be looking back and forth between Soren, who flew in circles above the two ice floes, and Eglantine, who stood next to the baby seal. He dipped one enormous paw into the sea and commenced to wash his muzzle, then brushed off some seal hair that had fallen on his chest. Soren, Twilight, and Digger heard him mumble something, or perhaps it was more like a rumble. They looked down in horror as they saw Eglantine stepping closer to the edge of the ice floe. The bear had slipped off his piece of ice and had placed his huge paw on the edge of the floe where Eglantine stood. “Get back, Eglantine! Get back!”
“Fly, you fool!” Twilight screamed.
“Eglantine, have you gone yoicks?” Digger shouted.
“Shut up, the lot of you!” she screamed. Then she tipped her head back and nosed her beak closer to the muzzle of the polar bear.
At this point Soren went yeep. Never in his life had he gone yeep, but how could he lose his only sister after all he had gone through to save her? He had saved her from the Pure Ones twice already. “But that is a polar bear, for Glaux’s sake!” he cried, and recovered his wing power a foot from the ice floe. So he did not crash but set down gently some distance from his sister and out of the reach of the bear.
Eglantine turned to Soren and in a patronizing voice said, “He says he doesn’t eat babies.”
“Oh, so all of a sudden you speak Krakish, do you?” Soren challenged his sister and took a small step forward.
“Few words speak sister…me speak little bit Hoole.” The polar bear raised his other huge paw, which had been underwater and, with the longest, deadliest claws Soren had ever seen, tried to indicate the “little bit” of Hoole he spoke by holding together his pinky claw with his first claw. It was a gizzard-freezing sight. Meanwhile, Eglantine pressed on, and Soren listened to one of the oddest conversations he had ever heard.
“Phawish prak nraggg grash m’whocki,” said the polar bear.
“You don’t say?” said Eglantine.
Does she really understand all this or is she just pretending? I bet she’s pretending, Soren thought. “What’s he saying, Eglantine?”
“Uh, it’s something about lemmings and…”
“And mice and all things owl eats,” rumbled the polar bear.
“Huh?” said Soren. He blinked in amazement. Eglantine had understood some of this.
“Ja! Ja! Ja!” The polar bear was nodding his head and saying yes in Krakish. To do this he dropped his jaws wide open. His mouth was as big as a tree hollow. Four owls could have easily fit in it. “I no tell owl what to eat. Rodents disgusting, snake never. You no tell polar bear what to eat. Mishnacht?”
“Mishnacht means ‘understand,’ Soren,” Eglantine said primly. “You do understand, don’t you?” she said in a tone that was really beginning to annoy Soren. Eglantine then turned to the polar bear. “Yes, we mishnacht.”
“Gunda, gunda!” the bear replied.
Before Eglantine could translate Soren said, “That means ‘good, good.’”
“And I eat no babies.”
“No babies, right,” Soren said.
“No owls, either?” Digger asked. He was hovering above the bear at a safe distance.
“Nachsun! Blahhh!” He made a throw-up sound in the back of his huge throat. “Owls no blubber. Feathers disgusting!”
“Yes, quite,” Digger replied and flew off.
The bear focused now on Soren. Suddenly, the ice floe tipped at a precarious angle. Soren and Eglantine began a precipitous slide toward the polar bear. Eglantine smacked right against his muzzle still stained with the seal’s blood despite having been washed in the seawater.
“Eglantine! Fly!” Soren screeched. She did, as did Soren.
“A millimeter! I swear you missed those jaws by a millimeter.” Digger was gasping.
Meanwhile, the polar bear, still resting his elbows on the ice floe, scratched his head and looked up. “Hvrash g’mear mclach? Where you go? I say I no eat owls. You good owls. I see dat owl wear claws of Lyze. Lyze of Kiel. You know Lyze of Kiel?”
“Do you know Lyze of Kiel?” Soren replied in astonishment. Ezylryb! Soren thought. He knows Ezylryb!
“I know the Lyze of Kiel? What question is dat? Grachunn naghish prahnorr gundamyrr Lyze effen Kiel er-raggh frisen gunda yo macht leferzundt.”
“It sounds like he’s gargling with rocks,” Twilight said.
All four owls were now hovering slightly closer to the polar bear’s head.
“Are you following any of this, Eglantine?” Soren asked.
“Not exactly. But frisen gunda means ‘good friend.’”
“Ja, ja,” the bear was saying. “Good friend is Lyze. Me commander of ice troops during War of Ice Claws.”
“Ice troops?” Twilight said with sudden interest.
“Ja. We keep ice floes guarded. Lyze and Glauxspeed unit rearm and refuel on our floes. And old Moss’s unit—the Frost Beaks, too.”
“Moss! You know Moss?” Soren cried.
This set off another gush of Krakish, by which the owls understood that this immense white bear streaked with blood did indeed know Moss, and had no interest in devouring them.
The owls lighted down on the floe. “Are you are saying,” Soren stepped up close to the bear, “that you will lead us to where Moss lives in the Bay of Fangs?”
“Ja.”
Those teeth, those fangs, they are as long as I am tall! Soren tried not to tremble as he spoke. “That would be most kind of you.”
“Ja, I try to be kind.” He looked around and wiped his muzzle again. “Eating seal not mean. Eat just to live. You eat rat, mouse, lemmings just to live. I must eat to live, too. Right?”
“Yes, exactly,” said Digger stepping forward. “Tell us now, what is your name?”
“Svallborg. But you can call me Svall.”
“Good, or rather, gunda. And I am Digger and this is Soren and his sister, Eglantine, and Twilight here. We will follow your lead from the air.”
“Gunda! Gunda. Framisch longha,” Svallborg said, and then in one long graceful movement shoved himself from the ice floe. The owls rose in the air to follow Svall. He was a beautiful sight. The owls had never imagined that such an enormous animal could move with such grace. Paddling with his front paws and barely making a splash, Svall moved through the water at an amazing speed.
Eglantine could not help but look back at the baby seal. She saw it slip off the ice floe and swim toward a swirl of water where small silver fish were schooling. Hmmm…, thought Eglantine, maybe she’s a little older than I figured. Just then the seal dived and seconds later came up with a fish flopping in her mouth.
What will Moss be like? Soren wondered as they flew above the great bear. Ezylryb had said that the claws would be his passport, his safe-conduct permit. But there was a bu
rden that came with the claws as well. What would these owls of the Northern Kingdoms expect from him? What was he supposed to be? Would they think him worthy of the claws? Would they think he was some sort of imposter? And worst of all, he was coming here to ask these owls who had lived in peace for years to join in another battle. What would they think of him and of the cause for which he had been sent?
It was not exactly fear that Soren was experiencing, but with each stroke of his wings in this vast, frozen, and desolate land he began to feel smaller and smaller and less and less worthy. He looked down at his talons, which were armed in the battle claws of Ezylryb. They glimmered dark and mocking in the light of the moon. They were no heavier than his regular battle claws, but they had seen more action in one owl’s life than twenty ordinary owl lifetimes. They carried the burden of history and the weight of a true hero—Ezylryb. It seemed absurd to Soren that he was wearing these claws. With each stroke, each wing beat, they seemed heavier and heavier. But he must go on; not only go on, he must lead. There was no turning back and yet going forward seemed so very, very hard.
Agony! Sheer agony, Soren thought.
CHAPTER SIX
The Retreat of the Glauxian Brothers
Otulissa was experiencing a different kind of agony from that which Soren felt. No one had ever mentioned to her that the Glauxian Brothers were bound in a vow of silence.
Silence! Who ever heard of such a stupid thing? How can one have an intellectual conversation if one takes a vow of silence? This was the one-sided conversation that thundered incessantly in Otulissa’s brain. She and Gylfie could speak only in the small hollow they shared together. There was no talking at meals. In the library, all requests for books were made in writing. Even the nest-maid snakes, generally very chatty by nature, were silent. Otulissa was completely frinked. Oh, yes, there were certain times when one could speak—discussions could be held in study hollows, which were off the library. But some of the most stimulating and intellectual discussion that Otulissa had ever had were in the dining hollow of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree over a nice, plump roasted vole. And here, that was impossible.
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