The Siege

by Kathryn Lasky

  The night air felt wonderful as it struck Soren’s face. And, oh, to fly again! Within seconds, the squadron had their branches ignited.

  Except for Ruby and Otulissa, who with their flaming branches flew flanking positions in the Strix Struma Strikers, the Chaw of Chaws rose in the air. Martin flew beside Soren. Twilight flew point. Thick fog had pushed in, making their flaming branches less visible. The flames looked like dim smears of light in the sky.

  The enemy did not see them until it was too late. There was a shrill alarm hoot, but the Bonk Brigade was suddenly upon them. Sweeping widely with his branch, Soren knocked out two large Barn Owls. They tumbled toward the sea with feathers singed. They tried to climb out of the turbulent air that was kicked up by the crashing waves, but every time they came up, the Strix Struma Strikers would force them back down. Ezylryb was right. These owls could not fly low in these conditions. Soren scanned the night for his brother. He hoped that he would not have to encounter him again. “Port side, Soren!” someone cried out.

  An owl with a huge luminous face was flying directly toward him. A streak of blood coursed diagonally across her face. It was as if the moon had been slashed and was bleeding. Her battle claws were extended and gleamed through the fog. Soren’s branch had caught some seawater and had begun to fizzle miserably. There was no time to get back to a coal cache for a reignition. Great Glaux, he was virtually defenseless, for the Flame Squadron wore only the lightest of battle claws. They were nothing compared to what this owl was wearing.

  Martin, flying nearby, quickly assessed the situation. “Soren, we’ll lead her on a merry.” A “merry” was code for the low layers of turbulent air just above the water which the Guardians of Ga’Hoole could fly so easily, but wreaked sheer havoc on an untrained owl.

  And so it began. Soren and Martin swooped low, dodged a cresting wave, and scampered over another. The Barn Owl followed. She was better at this than they had expected. She was not as good as they were, but she was powerful, and she had been eating better than they had. She had more energy. Soren fleetingly wondered where Twilight was. But no, he had to fight this battle himself. Yet he could feel himself growing tired, and he could see that Martin was, too.

  Then Soren had an idea. He would try to back her into the cliff just beneath them. The wind was dead there except for some odd pockets where the air was sucked suddenly downward into whirlpools. He knew where the pockets were, but she didn’t. Perhaps he could dance her around and then back her right into one of these pockets. This was his last hope. Her battle claws were getting closer and closer each time she approached. Now she was coming in again full speed. He sheered off toward the cliffs and then dove. She followed. Somewhere he found a reserve of new strength. It flooded into his hollow bones. His gizzard tingled. Follow me, follow me, he thought.

  It was working! She was confused, he could tell. Martin, always quick to pick up on things, began pressing in on her tail feathers. But just as they had led her to the edge of a pocket, a shadow slid across the cliffs. The fog dissolved and the moonlight blazed off a hard shiny surface. It was Kludd. His metal-sheathed face was almost blinding as the moon hit it. Blades of light sliced the night. It was impossible to see. Owl eyes were made for darkness, not this hot, gleaming light. Martin seemed to spin out of control. Another owl was at Kludd’s side. Soren recognized him from the battle to rescue Ezylryb in the forest of Ambala. It was the one called Wortmore. But then, through the blinding light, something began to glow, a sinuous, glowing scroll of green.

  “Slynella!” Soren screeched.

  “Sssso pleased to be of help.” The forked tongue of two colors split the night, and suddenly Wortmore folded his wings and dropped into the sea. His dark eyes turned crimson as an infinitesimally small drop of poison ravaged his body.

  “Nyra, get out of here!” Kludd shrieked.

  And then everything was quiet. Martin and Soren settled on an outcropping to catch their breath. “Oh, my goodness,” Soren gasped. “Twice saved by poison!”

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Slynella.” Martin’s voice was quaking with relief. “How did you know to come?”

  “Hortensssse. One of her dreamssss, you know.”

  Soren blinked. “Her dreams?”

  “Yes, you know about Hortenssse and her dreamsss. She sssseees the truth sssssometimesss in her ssssleep. What she dreamsss often happensss.”

  And then Soren realized that what he dreamed had happened. The moon-faced owl in his dream that had appeared with Kludd was the same one that had appeared in his dream, first as a spider and then as the owl who spoke those frightening words, “A bit of your own medicine.” Had his and Hortense’s dreams somehow collided? Had they flown in their sleep into some shared dreamscape? Had their imaginations blended in this story of death and destruction?

  But now he sensed that something was still not right. This owl who flew with Kludd had killed. He just knew it. She had come with a streak of blood across her face.

  “It seems so quiet,” Soren said.

  “Is it over?” Martin wondered aloud. Was the siege finally over?

  At that moment Gylfie and Twilight flew onto the ledges under the cliff.

  “Is it over?” Martin asked again.

  “We think so,” Twilight replied. “But the Strix Struma Strikers suffered some heavy losses.”

  “Losses?” Martin said weakly.

  “Not Ruby, not Otulissa?” Soren said.

  “Not Ruby or Otulissa.” Digger had just flown onto the ledge of the cliffs. “But Strix Struma has been killed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A New Constellation Rises

  Otulissa’s face was stony. Her white spots stood out like small hard pebbles.

  “Do you think she’s going to be all right, Soren?” Eglantine whispered. “You know how much she loved Strix Struma.”

  “I think so.” He really wasn’t sure, but he wanted to reassure his younger sister. He was worried. They were all worried about Otulissa. The young Spotted Owl had been flying beside her commander when Strix Struma was struck. It was talon-to-talon fighting, but within the first few blows, the enemy had ripped a tremendous gouge at the point where the primary feathers joined the body. Strix Struma’s wing was almost severed and completely useless, but still she flew. Otulissa counterattacked bravely and managed to land a slashing blow across the attacker’s face.

  “I tried to save her,” Otulissa told them when they visited her in her hollow. She kept repeating those words.

  Digger, Twilight, Soren, and Gylfie didn’t know what to say. Then Mrs. Plithiver slithered in. “Otulissa, my dear, she did not want to be saved. What kind of a life would she have had with one wing? Could she have continued to lead the navigation chaw? Could she have commanded her brave Strix Struma Strikers? She had led a full life. She was old. She was ready. She died fighting for a great cause. Try not to fret, dear.”

  As comforting as the words had sounded to the other owls, Soren knew they had done nothing to relieve Otulissa’s grief. And now as they gathered for the Final Ceremony, as the rites for a dead owl were called, he could see that Otulissa did not feel any better. Her utter stillness was unnerving. If he had not known better, he would have thought she had been carved in stone.

  Meanwhile, a mere ten or twelve feet away on the balcony in the Great Hollow, Dewlap sobbed convulsively. “I never thought. I never thought,” she kept sputtering. Now Otulissa moved. She swung her head around and puffed up in fury. “No, you never thought!” she hissed.

  Then Barran flew to the highest perch. “We come to pay tribute today to a great Spotted Owl, Strix Struma. Although she and I were different species, we were sisters bound in our love of freedom and the pure joy of the pursuit of the knowledge of the stars that cycle endlessly, season upon season, in our night skies. It was from dear Strix Struma, our navigation ryb, that I first learned about the “eyes of glaumora,” as we often call the stars. It is the hideous fury of war that has brought her end, t
hough one cannot call it an untimely death, for she had a long and a vigorous life.” Barran continued to speak most lovingly about her long friendship with the Spotted Owl, and then it was Ezylryb’s turn.

  “Her Majesty Barran spoke of the hideous fury of war that brought down our beloved soldier Strix Struma. She died with her claws on. You have heard Barran refer to Strix Struma as her sister, and I am glad she did this. For we have just been fighting a war that was instigated by the vile notion that declares that some breeds of owls are better than others, are more pure. Not one of us shall ever again say the word ‘pure’ or ‘purity’ without thinking of the bloodshed these words have caused.

  “We know that one breed or species of owl is not better or more pure than another. We are all of us sisters and brothers in owlkind. I mean to turn that word around and speak of the pureness of spirit of our dear friend, our fierce warrior Strix Struma, who died protecting those very values.

  “Last night an owl perished, but on this night, a new constellation rises. Fly out now, young’uns, and find her in the stars that she so loved.”

  The night was crisp and clear as the owls flew out of the great hollow. Soren remembered his first navigation class with Strix Struma when they had traced the Golden Talons. Otulissa flew off by herself. Ruby, with whom she had grown so close during their time together in the Strikers, began to follow her.

  “No, let her be, Ruby,” Soren said, gliding up to her and touching her wing tip with his own.

  “Come, young’uns!” Bubo suddenly appeared. “I hear there is a grand old forest fire blazing on the Broken Talon Point. Ezylryb says we should go have a look. Come along, Twilight, Digger, and the rest of you. We’ll let you all fly with the colliering chaw tonight. Might learn a thing or two, eh?” He winked at Twilight.

  They were halfway to the point when they caught sight of a young Spotted Owl. She was directly overhead.

  “It’s Otulissa!” Eglantine said.

  “What is she doing out here? I didn’t think she wanted to come,” Soren said, flipping his head backward and straight up. Above was a group of stars he had never seen before. Thickly scattered, the stars spread out into two mirror image spirals—just like the smallest dots on a Spotted Owl’s head.

  “What is that?” Soren asked Bubo.

  “Oh, maybe you have never flown this far north and east. There are different constellations here.”

  “What do they call it?” Soren asked.

  “Oh, I forget right now. I think it’s named after one of the snow flowers that grows up north at the edge of the glaciers. But I’ve never seen so many stars in it as tonight.”

  Some might have called it a flower, Soren thought. But tonight it has changed forever. He watched as Otulissa began to trace with the tip of one wing the spotted head that rose in the night.

  Dawn had broken and a rosy pink flooded into the hollow. Soren stirred in his sleep. He had been dreaming terrible gizzard-shattering nightmares. The owl who held the moon in her face blinded him. It was like being moon blinked within his own dreams. He felt himself freeze and go yeep. He could not escape the dream.

  A cold wind blew in through the hollow opening and brushed his face feathers. He blinked his eyes open. In an instant, he knew what he must do. Quietly, he rose and slipped out of the hollow and flew down to the entrance of Otulissa’s hollow.

  Otulissa was at her desk, writing. Her hollowmates were sound asleep. She looked up.

  “It was the moon-faced owl who killed her wasn’t it, Otulissa?”

  She nodded. “They call her Nyra. She is your brother’s mate.”

  “I know,” Soren said.

  Otulissa blinked. “How do you know?”

  “I dreamed it.”

  “Then you have what they call the starsight,” she said. “You dream about things and sometimes they happen. I’ve read about it. The stars, for you, are like little holes in the cloth of a dream.”

  Soren nodded. The way Otulissa had described it seemed right. “That blood across Nyra’s face, you did that, Otulissa?”

  “Yes, but it was just a little wound. Hardly mortal. Nyra attacked you after she killed Strix Struma, then she and your brother both got away.” She paused. “They aren’t finished with us, Soren. We can’t wait for them.”

  “What do you mean?” A tremor passed through his gizzard.

  “I mean that we can’t fight defensively. We have to go after them.”

  Soren blinked. There was a fierceness in Otulissa’s eyes. “What are you writing?”

  “A plan—an invasion plan. I’m different now, Soren.” Her words came in a hot whisper. One of her hollowmates stirred. “I’ve changed,” she said softly, but her voice was deadly. Soren turned to leave.

  Otulissa called after him. “Dream, Soren, dream. Dream your starsight dreams. Dream for your life, dream for our lives. Dream for the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.”

  OWLS

  and others from

  Guardians of Ga’Hoole

  The Siege

  The Band

  SOREN: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, from the Forest Kingdom of Tyto; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls; training to be a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  GYLFIE: Elf Owl, Micranthene whitneyi, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls; Soren’s best friend; training to be a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  TWILIGHT: Great Gray Owl, Strix nebulosa, free flier, orphaned within hours of hatching; training to be a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  DIGGER: Burrowing Owl, Speotyto cunicularius, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; lost in desert after attack in which his brother was killed by owls from St. Aegolius; training to be a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  The Leaders of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

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

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

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

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

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

  SYLVANA: Burrowing Owl, Speotyto cunicularius, a young ryb at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  Others at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

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

  MARTIN: Northern Saw-whet Owl, Aegolius acadicus, in Ezylryb’s chaw with Soren

  RUBY: Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus, in Ezylryb’s chaw with Soren

  EGLANTINE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, Soren’s younger sister

  PRIMROSE: Pygmy Owl, Glaucidium californicum, Eglantine’s best friend

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

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

  MRS. PLITHIVER: blind snake, formerly the nest-maid for Soren’s family; now a member of the harp guild at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree

  OCTAVIA: Kielian snake, nest-maid for Madame Plonk and Ezylryb

  The Pure Ones

  KLUDD: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, Soren’s older brother; leader of the Pure Ones (also known as Metal Beak and High Tyto)

  NYRA: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, Kludd’s mate

  WORTMORE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, a Pure Guard lieutenant

  Leaders of St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

  SKENCH: Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, the Ablah General of St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

  SPOORN: Western Screech Owl, Otus kennicottii, first lieutenant to Skench

  AUNT FINNY: Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, pit guardian at St. Aegolius

  UNK: Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, pit guardian at St. Aegoliu
s

  Others at the St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

  GRIMBLE: Boreal Owl, Aegolius funerus, captured as an adult by St. Aegolius patrols and held as a hostage with the promise that his family would be spared; killed when Soren and Gylfie escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

  HORTENSE: Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis, performed heroic acts at St. Aegolius (also known as Mist)

  Other Characters

  SIMON: Brown Fish Owl, Ketupa (Bubo) zeylonensis, a pilgrim owl of the Glauxian Brothers of the Northern Kingdoms

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

  STREAK: Bald eagle, free flier

  ZAN: Bald eagle and mate of Streak; mute

  SLYNELLA: Flying snake whose venom is lifesaving when administered correctly

  A peek at

  THE GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE Book Five