Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

The Beaks. It was known to be a dangerous place for owls with its mesmerizing beauty, softest moss, plentiful game, and the shimmering Mirror Lakes.
    “Heh!” snorted Ezylryb. “Imagine that! The Beaks on fire. Very curious. Might want to see that myself.”
    Soren exchanged glances with Otulissa.
    “The Beaks,” Otulissa whispered. “The Beaks is the last place we need to go.”
    Soren knew exactly what Otulissa was thinking. She wanted to go to the Northern Kingdoms, specifically to the Kielian League to gather forces to help fight the Pure Ones, but so far no one had paid much attention to her idea. She spent unbelievable amounts of time in the library, researching the Northern Kingdoms and all their various clans.
    Later, a decision was made, and as twilight stole over the sea and the Island of Hoole was wrapped in the first purpling of the night, a chaw rose into the sky. It was not just any chaw, however. At its very center was the Chaw of Chaws. Perhaps this had been Ezylryb and Barran’s strategy from the beginning, when the Snowy monarch of the tree suggested that Gylfie fly with search-and-rescue and then Ezylryb suggested that the weather-and-colliering chaw reconnoiter the possibility of forest fires in The Beaks. Maybe it had all been a grand scheme to assemble the band in addition to Ruby, Martin, and Otulissa for an action that was more extensive than finding two lost owls. Soren didn’t know, but he felt more confident than he had in the last three days as they circled and climbed higher over the Sea of Hoolemere and set a course for The Beaks.
    “South by southeast,” Gylfie shouted out. Now, in addition to her usual navigation responsibilities, she had to fly low-level for search-and-rescue.
    The hurricane was far to the southwest of them but was causing unstable weather throughout most of the Southern Kingdoms. Massive thunderheads piled up like mountains around them, and as they approached the coast, they threaded their way through a string of electrical stormsthat were setting forests on fire. It was unimaginable to Soren that either Eglantine or Primrose could fly through this kind of brutal weather. Lightning cracked the sky, flaying the blackness of the night. “Showing its bones,” as owls said. Each time a bolt sent its jagged white fire across the night, Soren flinched. That whiteness bothered him. Why? He’d flown through electrical storms before. It was all part of being a member of the weather chaw. There was another crack. The blackness was fractured once more by the bony streaks of lightning, and just above the horizon, it looked as if a deranged skeleton were dancing an eerie jig across the night sky.
    Ezylryb had dropped back from the point position and slipped in next to Soren.
    “The path of this hurricane and its speed make me think that the most logical place Eglantine and Primrose would be blown is toward The Beaks. Hurricanes, as you know, go counter-round, so if it gives you any peace of mind they would at least be on the less turbulent side of it.”
    But it didn’t give Soren much peace of mind because ahead the coast of The Beaks raged with fires. And Eglantine and Primrose knew very little about navigating through forest fires. Some choice, he thought, being battered to death by a hurricane or being fried by a forest fire!
    Twilight, who was flying point, now called out, “Mirror Lakes ahead!”
    And for the band the words were like an electrical current crackling through their gizzards.
    Soren blinked. I shall not be transfixed. I shall not be charmed. I shall not yield! Below him, the usually still and gleaming silver surfaces of the lakes danced frantically with the reflections of flames.
    “Great Glaux!” Gylfie gasped. “It looks like hagsmire.”
    Indeed, Soren thought he was looking into the very heart of owl hell. The flames dancing across the surface might have been the devils of that hell, the hagsfiends that flew with not two wings but dozens, all tipped with fire. Was this yet a new way that the lakes could work their deadly charms? It could be like fire blinking, the most dreaded trick that fire could pull on a collier. This happened when the fire, raging with all its deadly beauty, transfixed an owl so that it could not fly. The owl went yeep, lost all instincts to fly, and suddenly plummeted to the ground or, in this case, into the water to drown.
    Then suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning hissed down toward