Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

Aggie’s?”
    “How could there be?” Soren said.
    “What is this place?” Gylfie said. “Why are there battle claws here but it isn’t a battlefield? If it had been, we would have seen other owls, wounded or dead.”
    They turned toward the Great Gray. “Twilight?” Soren asked.
    But for once, Twilight seemed stumped. “I’m not sure. I’ve heard tell of owls—very clever owls that live apart, never mate, not really belonging to any kingdom. Do for themselves for the most part. Sometimes hire out for battles. Hireclaws, I think they call them. Maybe this was one. And the The Beaks is a funny place, you know. Not many forests. Mostly ridges like the ones we’ve been flying over the last day or so. A few woods in between. So not a lot of places for owls to fetch up. No really big trees with big hollows. Probably a real loner, this fellow.”
    They looked down at the dead Barred Owl.
    “What should we do with him?” Soren asked. “I hate to leave him here for the next bobcat to come along. He tried to warn us, after all. He said, ‘Get out! Get out!’”
    It was Digger who spoke next in a quavery voice. “And, you know, I don’t think he was warning us about the bobcat.”
    “You think,” Gylfie said in a quiet steady voice, “that it was about these others, the ones worse than St. Aggie’s?”
    Digger nodded.
    “But we can’t just leave him. This was a brave owl…A noble owl.” Soren spoke vehemently, “He was noble even if he didn’t live at the Great Tree as a knightly owl.”
    Twilight stepped forward. “Soren’s right. He was a brave owl. I don’t want to leave him for dirty old scavengers. If it’s not the bobcats, it’ll be the crows; if not crows, vultures.”
    “But what can we do with him?” Digger said.
    “I’ve heard of burial hollows, high up in trees,” Twilight said. “When I was with a Whiskered Screech family in Ambala that’s what they did when their grandmother died.”
    “It’s going to take too long to find a hollow in The Beaks,” Gylfie now spoke. “You said it yourself, Twilight—it’s a second-rate forest, no big trees.”
    Soren was looking around. “This owl lived in this cave. Look, you can tell. There’s some fresh pellets just outside, and there’s a stash of nuts and over there, a vole killed not long ago—probably his next dinner…I think we should—”
    “We can’t leave him in the cave,” Gylfie interrupted. “Even if it is his home. Another bobcat can come along and find him.”
    “But Soren is right,” Digger said. “His spirit is here.” Digger was a very odd owl. Whereas most owls were consumed with the practical world of hunting, flying, andnesting, Digger—with his legs better for running than his wings were for flying, with his inclination for burrows rather than hollows—was undeniably an impractical owl. But perhaps because he was not focused on the commonplace, the ordinary drudgeries and small joys of owl life, his mind was freer to range. And range it did into the sphere of the spiritual, of the meaning of life, of the possibilities of an afterlife. And it was the afterlife of the brave Barred Owl that seemed to concern him now. “His spirit is in this cave. I feel it.”
    “So what do we do?” Twilight asked.
    Soren looked around at the cave slowly. His dark eyes, like polished stones, studied the walls. “He had many fires in this cave. Look at the walls—as sooty as a Sooty Owl’s wings. I think he made things with fires in this pit right here. I think…” Soren spoke very slowly. “I think we should burn him.”
    “Burn him?” the other three owls repeated quietly.
    “Yes. Right here in this pit. The embers are still burning. It will be enough.” The owls nodded to one another in silent agreement. It seemed right.
    So the four owls, as gently as they could, rolled the dead Barred Owl onto the coals with their talons.
    “Do we have to stay and watch?” Gylfie asked as the first feathers began to ignite.
    “No!” Soren said, and they all followed him out the cave entrance and flew into the night.
    They rose on a series of updrafts and then circled the clearing where the cave had been. Three times they circled as they watched the smoke curl out from the mouth of the cave. Mrs. Plithiver moved forward through the thick feathers of Soren’s shoulders and leaned out toward one of his ears. “I am proud of you, Soren. You have protected a brave owl against the indignities of scavengers.”