Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

that he might be prejudiced in this case. He was a Burrowing Owl after all, and Burrowing Owls lived in similar holes. Any ground cavity was always extremely attractive to an owl such as Digger. So he walked forward a few paces. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and blinked. Quivering on a low shrub next to the hole was a feather.Not just any feather. A Barn Owl’s, and not just any Barn Owl’s, but Eglantine’s.
    “What is it, Digger?” Gylfie asked, seeing that the Burrowing Owl had stopped.
    “Eglantine has been here.”
    “No!” Gylfie said excitedly. “How can you be sure? I mean, how can you tell one Barn Owl feather from another?”
    Digger gave the Elf Owl a withering gaze. “My friend, need I remind you that when Eglantine was first rescued all those months ago, I was the one who tracked her? I am more than familiar with Eglantine’s plumage. And from the looks of it Primrose has been here, too!” The Burrowing Owl plucked from another bush a short black feather, just like the ones that grew on the back of the head of a Pygmy Owl.
    Gylfie lighted down beside him. “Bless my gizzard! That is a Barn Owl feather, from its neck band.” Barn Owls were brown and white. Their faces and the front of their necks were all white.
    “I’m going inside to explore,” Digger announced. “You keep a lookout, all right?”
    Seconds later, the Burrowing Owl called up from the hole. “They’ve been here for sure. Talon marks, pellets, a few more feathers.” Digger paused. “And…”
    “And what?” Gylfie was almost hopping with excitement.
    “You’re not going to believe this.”
    “What?”
    “There is a mark here that could have only been made by one thing.”
    “What, for Glaux’s sake?” By this point, Gylfie was almost jumping out of her feathers.
    “An egg—a Barn Owl egg.”
    A stunned silence followed. Then Gylfie, recovering her senses, stuck her head into the hole and said out loud to no one in particular, “That can’t be. Eglantine is too young.”
    “Who says it’s Eglantine’s?” Digger asked, crawling out of the hole. “There are other Barn Owls as we know all too well.”
    Gylfie nodded and blinked. All too well, she thought.
    “If you want to go in and see for yourself—” Digger offered.
    Gylfie twisted her head no. Digger was one of the best in the tracking chaw, and this was exactly what the tracking chaw was trained to do: read the almost invisible signs left behind; the clues to where a lost owl might be; where a bobcat might have trodden; where crows might have mobbed and settled to peck away at their dying victim. But the mark of a single egg must indeed be one ofthe most subtle of all signs. What a cunning eye that Burrowing Owl had!
    Gylfie looked overhead. She could spot Soren and the rest of the chaw. “We better go back and tell them.” But she had hardly finished speaking when she saw a flame-colored dart whistling down from the sky. It wasn’t, however, a ball of fire. It was Ruby, the Short-eared Owl, who was a superb flier.
    “Enemy spotted!” Ruby called out.
    Digger and Gylfie spiraled up and followed Ruby to a cliff where the chaw had assembled.
    “We found signs of a hole where Eglantine and Primrose have been,” Digger said. But there was no time to report about the strange markings left by an egg.
    “No idea where they were heading?” Ezylryb asked.
    “We didn’t have time to explore any farther before Ruby came. But there was no blood. No signs of violence,” Gylfie added and looked at Soren, who was shaking so hard she thought he might just tumble from his perch.
    “Well, we’ve spotted a squadron of Pure Ones,” Ezylryb said, “and they have not yet spotted us. So that gives us some advantage. I guess they are chasing Eglantine and Primrose. So if we can continue to follow them without being seen, so much the better.”
    Gylfie blinked. How could they follow them without being detected? Indeed, how could they follow them iftwo of the best scouts, Twilight and Ruby, were perched right here with the rest of them as was Sylvana, leader of the tracking chaw.
    “Gannets,” Ezylryb replied tersely, seeming to read Gylfie’s mind.
    Of course , thought Gylfie. Gannets. And who would know those seabirds better than Ezylryb?
    Ezylryb knew all the ocean birds. The old Whiskered Screech, who came from the Northern Kingdoms and the land of the Great North Waters, was as close as an owl could get to being a seabird. Intimate of