Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

Bubo. But he was also something else—a slipgizzle. Gradually, the four owls began to understand that a slipgizzle was some sort of owl who listened hard and found out things.
    “That old Barred had ears like a Barn Owl,” Boron was saying. “We got more information from him than three other slipgizzles put together. And, as you said, my dear, his forge in The Beaks was ideally situated near the four points area where Ambala, The Beaks, Kuneer, and Tyto almost touch. Couldn’t be better. Flew egg guard in Tyto, I hear. Trained up a bunch of young ones to go into Ambala when they were having the worst of their problems…Oh, my. Well, to the immediate business. We must not lose a moment in shoring up the four points region. We’re going to need to cultivate a new slipgizzle, of course, but in the meantime we’ll have to send out some egg patrols and a small reconnaissance team. Nothing too big. Don’t want to attract undue attention. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it will be with the recent reports we’ve been getting. A lot of groundwork and, as you know, bobcats are numerous there.”
    “I’ll go!” a voice said. Soren blinked. It was that old boring Ga’Hoology ryb.
    “Count me in,” said Bubo.
    “And me.” It was the voice of another owl that Soren didn’t recognize.
    “I think that’s enough,” Boron spoke in a low voice. “Bubo, you sure about going?”
    “‘Course I’m sure, sir. He was a smith.”
    “Yes, Bubo, I know that, but you are our only smith. If we lose you…well, where would we be?”
    “I ain’t going to get lost, sir. Ain’t going to get captured. Ain’t going to get eaten by a bobcat. You need me on this mission. I can see what happened in that cave. It takes a smith’s eye and a smith’s nose to figure something like this out. He couldn’t have just vanished into thin air, and I don’t believe the Barred could have been captured by St. Aggie’s or them others. But there’ll be clues.”
    Them others? It was so maddening, Soren thought. Who were they? Who exactly was the “you only wish” Barred Owl?
    “Well,” continued Boron, “that taken care of, I think the time has now come to honor our brother the Barred Owl, who had no name and elected never to live with us on this island in the middle of the sea, never to be embraced by the lovely ancient limbs of our Great Ga’Hoole Tree, but served as nobly in his own peculiar way as any Knight of Ga’Hoole. Let us raise a flagon of milkberrymead and think gentle thoughts of this brave and noble owl who made safer the hollows and nestlings of so many other owls in the Kingdoms of Ambala, Kuneer, and Tyto. Slipgizzle beyond compare, artisan of metals, courageous defender against the growing tides of evil, a Glaux-blessed owl. Hear! Hear!”
    And with that, the parliament of owls was adjourned. An immense fluttering swelled up as they left. Soren, Gyl-fie, Twilight, and Digger looked at one another with tears in their eyes.
    “And to think,” Digger said, “that we are the ones who found him.”
    “But that’s just the problem,” said Gylfie. “What do we do now? Tell Boron and Barran that?”
    “Then they’ll know we were eavesdropping,” Twilight said.
    “Precisely,” Gylfie replied.
    Soren began to speak slowly, “I think we shouldn’t say anything, at least not now. Nothing we will say will change their plans. They still need to send in a reconnaissance team or whatever they call it and find a new slipgizzle. Our knowing that the Barred Owl is dead and telling them really doesn’t change anything.”
    “I think Soren’s right,” Gylfie spoke. “You know, eavesdroppinglike this…well…I have a feeling Boron would really be mad.”
    “Definitely,” said Twilight.
    So the four owls wound their way back to their hollow and slept until First Black.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Weather Chaw
    A sliver of wet ice hit Soren’s face and woke him up abruptly. Outside the hollow, the wind shrieked and a gale raged.
    “Great Glaux, it’s a mess out there,” Twilight muttered.
    “It’s cold, too,” said Gylfie, her tiny body shivering.
    “Hop under here,” Twilight said, and spread one of his enormous wings so that it touched the other side of the hollow and knocked Digger from his bed.
    “Twilight!” Digger complained. “Watch it with that wing.”
    “Gylf is cold.”
    “I sure hope they will serve something hot for breakfast,” Gylfie said through her clattering beak.
    “Me, too,”