Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

?”
    “All right, when there is a war—”
    “An invasion, more precisely.” She sniffed.
    Soren sighed. Glaux! This Spotted Owl frinked him off. “All right, Otulissa, we all know that you are a strategist for the invasion. At that time you will be the leader and Ishall follow your orders. But this is not the invasion. This is a mission to the Northern Kingdoms, and if we don’t succeed in reaching our allies, there will be no invasion.”
    “So what does Dewlap have to do with all this? She is immaterial.”
    “That she may be, but Elsemere is on our way and it makes perfect sense that we deliver her to the Glauxian Sisters. Would you prefer that she continue to live in the great tree?”
    Otulissa blinked. Soren’s right, she thought. Do I want that miserable old owl in my feathers forever? Logic always appealed to Otulissa. She tipped her wing, carved a turn, and headed for the Burrowing Owl at the rear.
    Soren breathed a sigh of relief as he saw her fly back. The invasion was something Otulissa had dreamed of for months. She had urged the parliament of Ga’Hoole to finish off the Pure Ones as soon as possible after the siege of Ga’Hoole. But they had waited too long. Only a few months later the Pure Ones themselves launched a surprise attack, not against the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, but against St. Aggie’s, where a bad congregation of owls roosted in a stone fortress that was rich in flecks. These strangely powerful magnetic particles could destroy not only an owl’snavigational abilities, but, in certain situations, shatter their minds and make them mindless tools for evil.
    The owls of St. Aggie’s were brutish and rather dumb. They had no idea of the power that possession of the flecks put within their grasp. But the Pure Ones did, and when St. Aggie’s fell to them, the parliament of Ga’Hoole began to take Otulissa more seriously. They realized that this counterattack against St. Aggie’s was not a matter of vengeance, but a matter of absolute necessity for the survival of owlkind. Flecks in the talons of the wrong owls would make for a disaster of unimaginable proportions. And so it was decided. They must launch an immense invasion of St. Aggie’s.
    The owls of Ga’Hoole could not do this alone. They would need the help of owls as skilled in battle as they were. The kind of elite fighting force that Ga’Hoole required could only be found in the Kielian League of the Northern Kingdoms, where Ezylryb had come from originally. For more than two centuries these owls, raised in a free society, had fought one of the longest wars in the history of owlkind against the League of the Ice Talons, a brutal regime to the east of the Kielian League. But they had finally won.
    Originally, Ezylryb had ordered only six of them go to the Northern Kingdoms. But Soren had convinced himthat this was a complicated mission and had entreated Ezylryb to allow the entire Chaw of Chaws to go. So Martin and Ruby, both superb fliers, joined the mission.
    Soren looked down at the battle claws he was now wearing, which had been made by the legendary blacksmith Orf. They sparkled in the light of the moon. Once these claws had belonged to Ezylryb, back in his days as a warrior and commander of the legendary division known as the Glauxspeed. But Ezylryb had given them to Soren. The memory of that moment of the passing of the claws came back now to the young Barn Owl. Once again, Soren could hardly believe it had happened. In his mind, he could still hear Ezylryb’s voice: The claws are for you…They are the keys to the Northern Kingdom…Every owl will know that you are my ward. You are under my protection as a son might be.
    A son! The thought was incredible to Soren, who had been orphaned so early in life, snatched by the horrid owls of St. Aggie’s, and taken to their vile “academy” in the canyonlands. When he had finally escaped, he found that the old hollow where his parents had dwelled for years was empty. He had suspected that his brother, Kludd, now leader of the Pure Ones, had murdered their parents. He had later learned that blood sacrifice of a family member was part of the oath taken when an owl became a Pure One. Two such different oaths! Soren thought as he recalled thewords of the Guardian’s oath. He could not even imagine the words of the oath of the Pure Ones.
    The wind had begun to shift, making their flight easier. It was now a tailwind, and perhaps, Soren hoped, they would reach the Ice