Guardians of Ga'Hoole 04 - The Siege

hollow. Digger was with a unit of Burrowing Owls from the tracking chaw, and they were assigned to digging cache holes for extra supplies around the island. Soren was anxious to talk to him.
    “Listen, Digger—how’s Dewlap been behaving in your unit?”
    Digger blinked. “She isn’t in my unit.”
    “What? I thought all of the Burrowing Owls were assigned to digging cache holes. I thought she was the leader.”
    “No. Sylvana is.” Sylvana was the head of the tracking chaw so this made some sense, but she was much younger than Dewlap. Usually unit leaders were older owls.
    “Well, what unit is she with?” Gylfie asked.
    “Internal excavation, I think. They’re enlarging some of the bigger storage hollows to hold more supplies if it really gets to be a siege. Speaking of which, Ruby in thehunting unit brought in a huge haul of those big shore rats. She is some hunter!”
    Twilight yawned. “I wish I was in the hunting unit. This weaving is a bore.”
    “Don’t worry, Twilight,” Gylfie said. “By tomorrow afternoon it’s going to get more interesting. We have to fly out with the snares and place them.”
    Soren was not listening. He was still preoccupied with his thoughts of Dewlap. Why hadn’t the war cabinet placed her on the cache-hole mission? He yawned now, too. He was completely exhausted, and they would have to get up early tomorrow—by noon—to finish the last of the weaving and then set the snares. He was too tired to think about anything. He was almost too tired to dream.
    But what if the snares don’t work? was his last thought before he fell asleep.
    Soren saw something very black and glistening, but it was just a speck at the center of a white forest lacy with snow. How curious, he thought as he flew closer. The speck swelled. Then his gizzard began to tremble as he counted eight huge legs. It is just a spider, a mere insect. I am a powerful bird. But the spider was changing before his eyes. The legs were coming together, congealing, turning from black to a feathery brown dappled with spots. And the face—theglinting face was sheathed in metal. And then he felt his own wings catch. He simply stopped flying. He had not gone yeep, but his wings, which were spread out on either side of him, were entangled in a crisscross of vines.
    “Caught in your own trap!” It was his brother’s voice.
    “A bit of your own medicine, little brother?” Now it wasn’t Kludd who spoke, but a beautiful owl whose face was whiter than the moon.
    “Let me go! Let me go!”
    “Wake up, Soren! Wake up.” Digger and Twilight were both shaking him.
    “Great Glaux.” Soren was panting. “I had the worst dream. I dreamed I was caught in the snare.”
    “We’re setting the snare for them, Soren,” Twilight said. “Not them for us.”
    “I know that! But something happened and we got caught.” He hesitated but Kludd’s words flowed back. Caught in your own trap. And who was that owl with Kludd? She was quite beautiful.
    Later that afternoon while they set the snares, the dream kept haunting Soren, especially the moon face of the beautiful owl. Had he just made her up in his imagination? Or was the dream like the ones Hortense sometimes had? Was he able to see into the future?

CHAPTER NINETEEN
At War
    A nd so, Ezylryb, as I understand it, you are proposing that we launch our first air advances in a decoy movement in order to lure them into the snares,” Boron said.
    Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger huddled in the reverberating roots deep beneath the inner chamber of the parliament where the war cabinet held its most secret meetings. Soren realized that they had no right to be there. But they couldn’t help it. They were just too curious, and Soren kept telling himself that maybe something good would come of it. Although he was not sure exactly what. Still, they pressed their ear slits closer to the roots. And Soren held his breath as he heard Ezylryb unfold the strategy for war to the other members of the war cabinet that included Bubo, Strix Struma, Boron, Barran, and Elvanryb, who led the colliering chaw along with Ezylryb.
    “It is my suggestion that we launch this as a light-armored air division. None of our fanciest battle claws, not the NAST—at least not yet.” Soren felt a tremor ofexcitement pass through Twilight at the very mention of the word NAST. “Let them think we’re just a rag-tag outfit. There is no one better at playing decoy than Strix Struma,” said