Guardians of Ga'Hoole 04 - The Siege

know your friend there, too, 82-85, except that Barn Owl was 12-1 when he was in my pit before.”
    Soren, hovering above, could not believe what he was seeing. Auntie had now reached out to grab Gylfie by the throat with her talons. Without thinking, Soren folded his wings and, with a breathtaking velocity, plunged downward. The force alone sent Finny sprawling. A dusty blur flew upward. With one rake of his talons, Soren openedthe old scar on the Snowy’s throat. The pure white feathers ran red.
    “Behind you, Soren!” Otulissa called.
    It was Skench. “So, you are an imposter! The owl who escaped from the library,” she screeched. Spoorn was soon there, too, along with three other immense Great Horned guards. Four against one. A taunt from Twilight wouldn’t be enough. It was hopeless. This was the end for Soren. He could only hope the others would go on without him. They had to save themselves. They had to!
    But at that moment, just above him, he heard the voice of Gylfie. “Once upon a time before there were kingdoms of owls, in a time of ever-raging wars, there was an owl born in the country of the North Waters and his name was Hoole. This is the first legend of Ga’Hoole and how that great tree came to be. You see, some say there was an enchantment cast upon this owl called Hoole at the time of his hatching.”
    Skench and Spoorn and the other two owls stopped. Their wings fell to their sides. If they had been flying they would have plummeted to earth, but they were yeep standing up. Gylfie is doing just what we did in the moon-scalding chamber reciting this, the most powerful of all the Ga’Hoolian legends, Soren thought. Look at them flinch each time the word Hoole or Ga’Hoole is uttered!
    Soren’s voice now joined that of Gylfie’s. “This owl called Hoole was said to have been given natural gifts of an extraordinary power. But what was known for certain of this owl was that he inspired other owls to great and noble deeds. Although he wore no crown of gold, the owls knew him as a king. In a wood of straight tall trees he was hatched, in a glimmering time when the seconds slow between the last minute of the old year and the first minute of the new year, and the forest on this night was sheathed in ice.”
    Ever so softly, Soren flapped his wings and rose in the dawn light. He kept reciting the first legend, the one known as the Coming of Hoole.
    And then they were gone—seven owls faded into the breaking day. St. Aggie’s was behind them. Ahead lay the great Forests of Ambala, then due north were The Barrens, then turning two points east of north was Silverveil, out across the Bight to Cape Glaux, then straight over the Sea of Hoolemere to the island of Hoole and the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
An Old Friend Discovered
    A small lake glittered in the sunlight of the crisp winter morning. The seven owls were flying over Ambala but it was too dangerous to continue in the broad light of day. They could be mobbed by crows. And although Soren’s tail had stopped bleeding where it had been slashed, it was painful. It felt like the shaft of one of his tail feathers had broken off. Whenever Soren tried a ruddering maneuver with his tail feathers, it hurt, and his turns were sloppy. He spotted a large sycamore below that grew at the edge of the lake.
    “Prepare to land, sycamore below,” Soren called.
    The owls began to bank. Soren wobbled as they circled down. Finally, they were all perched on one long limb that extended out from the trunk of the tree and hung over the lake. There was a large hollow that could easily accommodate the seven of them for one day. But just as they were about to move into it, a young Spotted Owl appeared and hovered overhead.
    “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” he said.
    “Why not?” asked Gylfie.
    “It’s haunted.”
    “Haunted by what?” Otulissa asked in a testy voice as she stepped forward.
    “By the scroom of a Brown Fish Owl,” he said.
    “Smells like fish all right.” Twilight had poked his beak into the hollow.
    “He was murdered,” offered the Spotted Owl.
    “Murdered?” they gasped.
    “Yes.”
    “Who murdered him?” Digger asked.
    “Metal Beak.”
    At the sound of Kludd’s other name, Soren nearly toppled off the branch. If Digger hadn’t quickly extended a wing to steady him, he would have. The Spotted Owl continued to hover, seeming to enjoy the fact that he had impressed these rough and wordly owls. “It was really