Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

CHAPTER ONE
Blood Dawn
    T he tail of the comet slashed the dawn and in the red light of the rising sun, for a brief instant, it seemed as if the comet was bleeding across the sky. Every other owl had already tucked into their hollows in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree for the day’s sleep. Every owl, that is, except for Soren, who perched on the highest limb of this tallest Ga’Hoole tree on earth. He scoured the horizon for a sign, any sign of his beloved teacher, Ezylryb.
    Ezylryb had disappeared almost two months before. The old Whiskered Screech, indeed the oldest teacher, or “ryb” as they were called, of the great tree had flown out on a mission that late summer night to help rescue owlets from what was now referred to as the Great Downing. Scores of young orphan owlets had mysteriously been found scattered on the ground, some mortally wounded, others stunned and incoherent. None of them had been found anywhere near their nests, but in an open field that for the most part could boast no trees with hollows. It wasa complete mystery as to how these young owlets, most of whom could barely fly, had gotten there. It was as if they had simply dropped out of the night sky. And one of those owlets had been Soren’s sister, Eglantine.
    After Soren himself had been shoved from his nest by his brother, Kludd, nearly a year before, and subsequently captured by the violent and depraved owls of St. Aggie’s, he had lost all hope of ever seeing his sister or his parents again. Even after he had escaped St. Aggie’s with his best friend Gylfie, a little Elf Owl who had also been captured, he had still dared not to really hope. But then Eglantine had been found by two other dear friends: Twilight, the Great Gray, and Digger, the Burrowing Owl, both of whom had flown out with others on the night of the Great Downing on countless search-and-rescue missions. And Ezylryb, who rarely left the tree except for his responsibilities as leader of the weather interpretation and the colliering chaws, had flown out in an attempt to unravel the strange occurrences of that night. But he had never returned.
    It seemed grossly unfair to Soren that once he had finally gotten his sister back, his favorite ryb had vanished. Maybe that was a selfish way to think but he couldn’t help it. Soren felt that most of what he knew he had learned from the gruff old Whiskered Screech Owl. Ezylryb wasnot what anyone would call pretty to look at, with one eye held in a perpetual squint, his left foot mangled to the point of missing one talon, and a low voice that sounded like something between a growl and distant thunder—no, Ezylryb wasn’t exactly appealing.
    “An acquired taste,” Gylfie had said. Well, Soren had certainly acquired the taste.
    As a member of both the weather interpretation and the colliering chaws, which flew into forest fires to gather coals for the forge of Bubo the blacksmith, Soren had learned his abilities directly from the master. And though Ezylryb was a stern master, often grouchy and suffering no nonsense, he was, of all the rybs, the most fiercely devoted to his students and his chaw members.
    The chaws were the small teams into which the owls were organized. In the chaws, they learned a particular skill that was vital to the survival of not just the owls of Ga’Hoole but to all the kingdoms of owls. Ezylryb led two chaws—weathering and colliering. But for all his gruff ways, he was certainly not above cracking a joke—sometimes very dirty jokes, much to the horror of Otulissa, a Spotted Owl, who was just Soren’s age and quite prim and proper and was given to airs. Otulissa was always carrying on about her ancient and distinguished ancestors. One of her favorite words was “appalling.” She was constantly being“appalled” by Ezylryb’s “crudeness,” his “lack of refinement,” his “coarse ways.” And Ezylryb was constantly telling Otulissa to “give it a blow.” This was the most impolite way an owl could tell another to shut up. The two bickered constantly, and yet Otulissa had turned into a good chaw member and that was all that really counted to Ezylryb.
    But now there was no more bickering. No more crude jokes. No more climbing the baggywrinkles, flying upside down in the gutter, punching the wind and popping the scuppers, doing the hurly burly and all the wonderful maneuvers the owls did when they flew through gales and storms and even hurricanes in the weather interpretation chaw. Life seemed