Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

were very still except for the smooth turnings of their heads as they followed the two owls’ flight with their eyes. Several minutes later, Gylfie and Soren lighted down.
    “Is there any way we can get that mu off the doors of the shrine?”
    “That shouldn’t be hard, especially if it’s soft metal,” Twilight said, and flew toward the niche. Then with a force that would have torn a fox in half, he ripped off the metal.
    “Good!” Soren said. “Now we must leave our battle claws behind and fly out to find that forest fire that Gylfie spotted earlier. Twilight, seeing as we have no coal-carrying buckets, could you somehow bend one of those sheets of mu metal into something like a bucket?”
    “Sure thing, Soren.”
    Thus, a plan had been devised by Soren and Gylfie with the mu metal to protect and shield them. Since the bags were missing, it might be very easy for the owls to accidentally find themselves smack in the middle of a Devil’s Triangle. As an ultimate precaution, they intended to first fly to the forest fire and collect burning coals. And, if they did fly upon the bags of sacred flecks, they could, with the coals harvested from the forest fire, destroy the flecks’ power. If this triangle existed, they must destroy it. It would be a hazard to all bird life—owls, eagles, seagulls—yes, even crows—as much as they loathed that latter species. Something like this simply could not exist in nature.Otulissa thought that because she was indeed so sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure she might be able to sense the perimeter of the triangle. So it was decided that Otulissa would fly in the point position.
    They had been in the castle a long time. The light was seeping out of the day. Soon it would be First Black. The owls perched on the jagged edges of the north wall of the church and watched the smudge of smoke from an immense forest fire roll up to meet the coming darkness of the night. Gylfie stood beside Soren, hardly reaching his breast feathers. Six owls they were, Soren thought as he slid his head around to look at them. Six strong, quick-witted owls about to fulfill a destiny. They had indeed become a band of owls who would rise into the blackness and embark on the last part of a dangerous quest—to find the lost, to mend the broken, to make the world a better place, and to make each owl the best he or she could be. Soren knew that he was in fact the leader of the best of the best. And so he vowed that no matter how difficult this was, he would do all in his power to not only rescue Ezylryb, but to bring each one of these owls home safe to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
Into the Devil’s Triangle
    I t was, of course, Soren and Otulissa who, as trained colliers, would plunge into the forest fire to retrieve the coals. They had found a high rock ledge downwind of the forest fire that offered them the best point of observation. All the owls were massed on the ledge and listened carefully as Soren began to speak.
    “Now, you understand that it is only myself and Otulissa who will go into the fire.”
    Twilight, Digger, Gylfie, and Eglantine nodded gravely. There would be no argument, not even from Twilight. They all knew that only these two owls had been trained in this very dangerous work that demanded skills far beyond the ordinary. From breathing and flying, to the beak work of seizing a live coal, these owls had received the most specialized of instruction of any chaw.
    “If there is a problem, an enemy approaching or whatever—yes, come fetch us. I think it should be Gylfie or Eglantine, because Twilight and Digger, being larger,might have to remain to deal with an enemy. If either of you have to come to us, you must fly what we call the fringes of the fire.”
    “But what if you’re not there when we come?”
    “One of us will always be flying lookout, watching for the one below who is retrieving coals on the ground.”
    How he now wished that Ruby was here. The Short-eared Owl, being the best flier of them all, was particularly skilled in catching airborne embers. There would really be no one to fill that spot tonight. And how he missed Martin, who often performed the wide coal reconnaissance surveys that gave information as to the size and location of various rich ember beds. In addition to that, Martin was very good at finding glowworms. A glowworm was a particular kind of coal that was especially valued by Bubo for his forge. No one had the slightest idea