Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

cliff midway between the Great Horns and the Beak of Glaux.
    “They certainly are flying slow,” Stryker said to his sergeant. “Let’s wait a bit before we engage. Let’s see how the Devil’s Triangles work.”
    A few minutes later, a Grass Owl came back with a report. “Lieutenant Stryker, no sign of the enemy rising from the ridge of the Great Horns. Not a one. They must be very confused. Not one owl spotted since coming into the fleck zone. And the weather is deteriorating.”
    “Excellent! If they were coming, they would certainly decide to divert with this weather.”
    “I’m not so sure,” Uglamore said as he flew up.
    “Why’s that, sir?” Stryker snapped.
    “These owls know how to fly with this wind. This storm is coming directly out of Hoolemere. It’s full of Hoolspyrrs and they know how to work them.”
    “Racdrops. They would never be so insane to attack on a night like this—full shine moon—have you ever seen it brighter? It’s a wolf moon, and bad weather coming in, too.”
    “Sir!” A Barn Owl had just flown into the garrison.
    “What’s that you have in your talons, Flintgrease?”
    “It’s an owlipoppen!” There was a collective gasp.
    Uglamore barked. “I knew they’d try something like this! I just knew it! Alert the High Tyto and Her Pureness at once.”
    “Nonsense!” Stryker bristled. He didn’t care for Uglamore, who, he felt, was always trying to impress the High Tyto. Stryker had been offended that they had both been promoted at the same time, although as a lieutenant major he outranked Uglamore. “It’s a bluff. That’s all. They are trying to distract us. Don’t you understand? They dropped these over the The Great Horns hoping to lure us there. But they’ll enter through the Beak of Glaux. Almost as easy as the Great Horns. Mind you, that is where they will land now—the Beak of Glaux. These owlipoppen were to make us think they were coming through the Great Horns.”
    “How can you be sure?” Uglamore pressed.
    “I just am.”
    “I think you should order a deployment of troops to the other side of the canyon,” Uglamore said. “We don’t have flecks over there. We should set up a fleck zone there immediately.”
    “Only the High Tyto or Her Pureness can do that,” Stryker replied.
    “Well, go ask them!” Uglamore shrieked now.
    “They are sleeping. I shall not disturb them. It is practically the evening of the hatching of their first chick. I shall not wake them. They are reserving their strength for the real battle.”
    “This could be the real battle. It could be the invasion!” Uglamore shouted.
    Meanwhile, on the far side of the canyon of St. Aggie’s, a lone Sooty Owl flew a patrol. He was absorbed in a half-muttered, half silent conversation with himself on his bad luck of being born a Sooty Barn Owl and not a Tyto Alba Barn Owl. “It ain’t fair. I mean, look at me. Am I that different from a Barn Owl? So I don’t have that flashy white face. Big deal! Hey, it could be worse. I could be a Lesser Sooty. Now there’s really a lowly sort of owl. They smell funny, too. If they had more Lesser Sooties in this outfit, I wouldn’t be flying watch on this miserable piece of the canyon. But no. Got a frinking awful job? Bring in old Dustytuft.” Dustytuft —he hated the name.
    Once he had had a real name, none of this Dustytuft business. What had been his real name? It was something almost noble, he recalled. Something like Phillip or Edgar. Had it been Edgar?
    So absorbed in his thoughts was Dustytuft, who had possibly been Edgar, that he failed to notice the first pile of brush. What’s that…? but he had not even completedthe thought before a dreadful coldness began to creep through his gizzard. “Someone,” he whispered to himself “has been flying brush in here.” Now Dustytuft began linking one thought to the next. “Those are ignition piles. Who flies the best with fire? The Guardians of Ga’Hoole!” And it was just then that he saw the first ranks of the enemy owls cresting the menacing spires of rock that scratched the sky like a thousand red needles in the night. This is it. The invasion. It’s coming. Right to me. I’m going yeep. I’m going yeep. I don’t want to die. I don’t care if I’m a Sooty Owl forever, if I can just live. Oh, Glaux! I don’t want to die. I’m going yeep under a wolf moon. Yes, on a bright night like this, if the Guardians don’t kill me, the wolves will eat me.

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