Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

the night, flashing his ice sword inches from the vultures’ tails. The phalanx of black birds followed by the sweeping arcs of the gleaming sword made an eerie vision in the night. Whooping and hollering like an owl possessed, Twilight drove forty vultures toward the tips of the Great Horns.
    Twilight caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the Pure Ones’ hireclaws go yeep. Then another and another. Psychological warfare, Ezylryb had called it. Well, it seemed to be working. Hireclaws were a skittish lot in their own way. Like the pirates of the Northern Kingdoms, they held a lot of strange beliefs and superstitions. And the one thing they dreaded more than anything else were vultures on the battlefield on the night of a wolf moon.
    Otulissa breathed a deep sigh of relief as she saw a gap in the air trench suddenly open. She had been fighting as hard as she could with her ice dagger, and now she saw Martin coming in with an ice splinter. Backup was here at last. “Port side, Otulissa!” Bubo bellowed. She wheeled just in time to see a Barn Owl flying toward her. It was the one they called Stryker. She recognized him from the battle in The Beaks. His battle claws were extended, and he held a burning branch. It was going to be her ice dagger againsthis burning branch. They aren’t any good at this, Otulissa told herself. They are battle claw fighters. They have just learned how to fight with fire. She tried to remember the lessons from Dark Fowl, about fighting with an ice dagger against an enemy with a burning branch. It was scary because she must wait for the attack, luring the attacker in closer and closer, then begin a series of deceptive moves, or feints. But Stryker’s branch was longer than her ice dagger. Otulissa feinted, moving quickly from one side of Stryker to the other. A little more of this, she thought, and I will be able to make a contact thrust. Otulissa began darting about, sometimes back-winging and actually pushing herself into a defensive posture. If I can get him to think he’s got me pinned against this cliff… It was a terribly dangerous maneuver, because if he did actually pin Otulissa there would be no escape.
    Stryker’s eyes began to gleam as he saw the Spotted Owl pressing back toward the cliff. Her tail feathers were almost touching the stone of the cliff when suddenly Otulissa charged. She was under him, delivering a slice to his belly. He shrieked and came toward her, rage in his black eyes. It was a superficial wound. “Racdrops,” Otulissa muttered and wondered how long she could keep fencing. With two power strokes, she shot above Stryker and then, performing an inside-out flying loop she had learned from her beloved Strix Struma, she dived, screeching,“This one’s for you, Struma!” and sliced her ice sword through the air.
    “Racdrops!” She’d missed his head, but his burning branch was plummeting toward the ground. Stryker gasped when he saw what had happened to his weapon. He jetted off through the stream of small sparks that flew up from the falling branch. But Otulissa was on him, chasing him through the night, her dagger gripped in both talons. She flew as she had never flown before. Ruby joined her in the hot pursuit, winding in and out of the rock corridors of the canyonlands.
    “Force him to ground,” Ruby said. She raised her ice scimitar in the night, yelling, “Force him to ground!” The two owls would try to trap him between the fire below and the ice above.
    Meanwhile, Soren and Martin were advancing on a hireclaw and another Pure One when Twilight suddenly appeared.
    “Where’ve you been?” Soren gasped, without taking his eyes off the hireclaw and the Pure One they were chasing.
    “You’ll see. Watch this!” The Great Gray power-stroked ahead.
    “Is he going to start singing one of his taunts?” Martin asked.
    But Twilight was not planning on singing, as he closed in on the two owls. “Hey, stupid,” he yelled at the hireclaw. “Look up there! Someone’s waiting for you!”
    Soren and Martin blinked as they watched the hireclaw look up and see the vultures, go yeep, then plunge into a burning patch of scrub on the canyon floor.
    “Let’s get the other one!”
    “Gylfie!” Soren shouted. “I saw you back there.”
    “Yeah, no time for talk. I’ve brought a unit from E company. Meet Frost Blossom and Grindlehof.”
    Soren remembered Grindlehof, the little Pygmy with whom Gylfie had sparred on Dark Fowl Island. Now Soren,