Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

almost started to blubber now with tears and chokes. It was the most un-Otulissa moment any of them had ever witnessed. “I feel so strongly about this. You know me, I’m not an emotional kind of owl but this…this…I…I can’t explain, but you must let me be a part of this.”
    “Of course,” Soren said. Otulissa was very smart and beyond being smart, she of all of them possessed the most sensitivity to atmospheric pressure changes. She had proved herself invaluable to the weather chaw.
    And this would be the best of the best of the chaws! Indeed, it would be the chaw of chaws!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Empty Shrine
    T hey had picked an evening to leave when there were no classes and no chaw practices, but still they were careful to leave the tree in twos or threes near First Black and then once again take off from the cliffs where they would not be spotted. And they all, even the smallest, wore battle claws. They had filched them from the armory in the forge. Bubo happened to be gone so it was not a problem. Twilight had gone early in the morning of their flight and taken them from the forge and placed them in the crags of the cliffs.
    Soren had insisted that they practice with the claws, for none of them had flown that often with them. Eglantine had never flown “clawed,” as the expression went.
    “You need a lot of tail ruddering, Eglantine. See, you don’t have the same balance as before,” Soren called out ashe watched his sister fly in a wobbly line out from the cliffs.
    “She’ll get it,” Twilight said.
    But Soren wasn’t sure. Eglantine still seemed so fragile to him. Was she ready for this? She was the only one who would be able to recognize the ruined castle where she had been imprisoned. But then suddenly her flight seemed to even out.
    “That’s it! That’s it!” Soren cheered her on, her wings set and balanced on a smooth horizontal plane. “Phew!” Soren blew through his beak in relief. Still, it disturbed him that he was in fact doing just the opposite of what Ezylryb had sworn never to do again. Soren was not only picking up battle claws but arming a young innocent owl with them, as well. Then he thought of Octavia and the words she had spoken to them in the very chamber where Ezylryb’s old claws hung rusted but not forgotten. I swore an oath of peace, as well. But you know, now I think it is time to break it. I’ll do anything to rescue my beloved master.
    The time had come, Soren realized. If there was any chance of rescuing Ezylryb they must do it now before winter set in. There was no choice. The first blizzard could happen any day now and by then it might be too late. Soren ordered Eglantine back to the cliff. Then hestood before the chaw and spoke in a quiet but strong voice that did not waver as he gave the order. “Flight positions. Get ready to fly. Lift!”
    And six owls rose into the night.
    The plan was to first fly back to the place where Eglantine had been found in the Forest Kingdom of Ambala. They would then somehow try, with Eglantine’s help, to find their way to the castle ruins and hopefully to Ezylryb. As they flew, Soren wondered that if they were successful in reaching the castle, and if Ezylryb was there, how would they actually rescue him? Perhaps he shouldn’t think so far in advance. When they got there, maybe a plan would come to him. The first task was to get there—to this awful place where young owls were forced to sleep in crypts with bones of these so-called Purest Ones, whatever that really meant.
    Twilight was flying point at the moment and Digger flying below, for they were the ones who knew the territory where Eglantine had been found. “We are in Ambala and approaching the area of the Great Downing,” Twilight called down to Digger. Digger immediately went into a ground dive. Gylfie began to hover over him.
    Twilight turned to Soren and nodded. This was the place. Soren looked up and found the Star That Never Moves.
    “Gylfie, take a sighting of our position between Never Moves and the first head star of the Great Glaux constellation.”
    When Gylfie had their position fixed, they all began to spiral down, except Twilight. Twilight continued to hover above—alert for any other owls in the region. Then, with Digger and the others, they would try to work backward from the spot where Eglantine had been found and reconstruct a path to the castle ruins.
    They lighted down in the dry creek bed. “Well, the tracks are gone by now as I