Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

beak shut. She had been so excited at the sight of Soren flying out of a smoke bank and leading the Chaw of Chaws, with Bubo and the colliering chaw following, that she had forgotten and spoken aloud. In that instant, Nyra suddenly went into a steep, banking turn and headed directly toward the tree where Eglantine and Primrose were perched.
    “To the fire! Leave the egg, Eglantine,” Primrose screeched.
    “No! Never!”
    Egg! What egg? Then Soren remembered that Digger had found the imprint of an egg. Soren’s mind was racing. His gizzard was aquiver with gladness and terror. Gladness that his sister was alive and terror as he saw Nyra head directly toward the sound of Eglantine’s voice. Then he saw his sister and Primrose blast out of the branches of thelarch tree and head directly toward the fire. Genius! Little genius! She’s leading them into the flame field, which she knows they cannot contend with as skillfully as we can. But can Eglantine and Primrose do it? They’re so inexperienced. The thought had barely passed through his mind when another slammed into it. It all made sense now. That egg. He saw Eglantine clutching it. It must be Nyra’s egg!
    “Very high stakes your sister plays with.” Twilight slid in next to Soren.
    “Where’s Ezylryb?” Soren asked.
    “Back with the Frost Beaks,” Twilight replied. Soren had asked the question in all seriousness and had forgotten that Nyra and the other enemy Barn Owls could pick up on everything. How quick of Twilight to carry on the fiction of the Northern Kingdoms with a reference to the legendary 24 th Frost Beaks Division, which Ezylryb himself had commanded.
    Eglantine and Primrose had just sliced through the clear space between two blazing trees.
    “Torch,” Soren said. Otulissa and Ruby approached with burning branches in their beaks.
    “Snap set one.” At that, Bubo flew up and, having the strongest beak of all the owls, bit the two burning branches in half.
    “Ignite,” Soren ordered.
    Martin, as the smallest of the colliering owls, flew in with a small, glowing, kindling twig and set fire to the ends of the newly broken branches. Now instead of two burning branches there were four.
    “Snap set two.” This time Poot, the first lieutenant in colliering, and Elvan, a Great Gray who was the colliering ryb, flew in with two more branches. Bubo repeated the action. Now there were eight. The burning branches multiplied expontentially.
    Soon they were all armed and flying. So far, the colliering chaw and the Chaw of Chaws had performed flawlessly, meshing their particular skills, their actions, and their maneuvers in perfect harmony.
    Soren gave the next order. “Round out.” With those words, the Chaw of Chaw split and flew into formation for a bilateral attack on Nyra’s squadron.
    Nyra saw them coming in. She felt the terror in her squadrons’ gizzards. “The Sacred Orb!” she screamed. “Cowards will have their eyes pecked out!” At that moment, Ruby struck. Nyra did not turn her head, but she heard a rearguard owl plummet from the formation toward the ground. Then she felt a stillness in the air beside her as Uglamore went yeep. She dove after him and gave him a sharp jab with her beak. “Mooncalf!” Nyra shreed in the high-pitched wail of a Barn Owl. To be called a mooncalf,which meant both idiot and coward, was the worst insult a commander could throw at a soldier. But the jab and the insult did the trick. At twenty feet, Uglamore recovered before hitting the ground, and now they all pressed on with new vigor in their chase after Eglantine and Primrose.
    “We’re leading them on a merry” Eglantine whispered. It was what Soren and Martin had done in the last battle of the siege when they had lured Nyra into a tight space. But this space was not just tight, it was hot and they were getting bounced around fiercely by the tumultuous drafts of the burning forest. Behind a curtain of flames, they had both spotted a safe tree. If only they could get there and lose Nyra and her squadron! Look for a hole in the flame curtain. Soren told me there were holes. If not a hole, a tear, a nick. Anything will do, Eglantine thought.
    There it was! There it was! “Charge!” Eglantine yelled, and they both zipped through the opening, which closed behind them almost immediately and singed some of Primrose’s tail feathers. But they were on the other side. And there was a tree. Not as safe as their last tree, for it was smoldering at its