Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

Tuppa said.
    “I ate every eyeball you ever fed me,” Little Dumpy whined as he looked on enviously at the attention his mother was lavishing on Dewlap.
    “Can I keep her?” Tuppa said again.
    “I’m being replaced by a raggedy old owl?” Little Dumpy wailed. “Well, that does it!” Before anyone could stop him, Little Dumpy was on the edge of the ice hollow and had launched himself into the wind.
    “He’s flying!” Big Dumpy shouted. “Look at him go! Nothing like being insulted to get one out of the nest.”
    “Yes, it works every time. Doesn’t it, dear?” Tuppa said.
    All of the owls were thoroughly confused. “But I thought you said you wanted him to stay,” Soren said. “You were sobbing just a minute ago.”
    “What’s a minute?” Tuppa asked.
    “A very brief amount of time!” Gylfie almost roared. “And a minute ago you were sobbing.”
    “I know. Fickle, aren’t I? But I really would like to keep this owl.”
    “If only,” Otulissa muttered.
    “No, no, no.” Soren stepped forward. “It’s not possible. We have our orders, and we must deliver her to the Glauxian Sisters.”
    “I see,” Tuppa said. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to lay another egg next season. I wonder if I could hatch an old puffin. You know—no back talk.”
    “But the chicks are such fun,” Dumpy said.
    “Yes,” Soren said. “I’m sure you will find a baby puffin much more to your taste than an elderly Burrowing Owl.”
    “To my taste!” Tuppa exclaimed in alarm. “I’m not going to eat the baby, nor the Burrowing Owl. How savage!”
    “Oh, no, ma’am. I meant no such thing,” Soren replied. “It’s just an expression.”
    “Expression? What’s an expression?” Tuppa asked.
    “I think it’s a kind of fish, mostly found in Southern Waters,” Dumpy said.
    Oh, good grief. Here we go again, thought Soren.

CHAPTER THREE
The Ice Dagger
    I ’m exhausted!” Gylfie said as they flew up the Ice Narrows. “Completely and utterly exhausted.”
    “How can you be exhausted?” Soren asked. “We have a tailwind, and we’ve been flying for all of five minutes.”
    “What’s a minute?” Gylfie said in a mocking voice. “What’s an expression? What’s a this? What’s a that? That is what is exhausting, Soren. I couldn’t take another second, let alone a minute of their stupidity. How in the name of Glaux have they survived as a species this long?”
    “Well, there are different kinds of intelligence,” Soren replied.
    “Don’t you mean that there are different kinds of stupidity?”
    “Not exactly. We’d be stupid up here. Stupider than the puffins. It takes a special kind of intelligence to live in the north. What do we know about fishing or finding hollows in walls of ice?”
    “Hmmm,” Gylfie replied in a tone that suggested she was still less than convinced of the puffins’ intelligence.
    “So, what’s our course to the Ice Dagger?” Soren asked.
    “Due north. We shouldn’t have any trouble spotting it, especially on a clear night like this. Ezylryb says it sticks straight out of the Everwinter Sea like a blade.”
    “I guess that’s where they get the ice swords.”
    “So they say,” Gylfie replied.
    It was at the Ice Dagger that the Chaw of Chaws would split to perform their various tasks in the Northern Kingdoms before meeting up again. Before this, Soren and Gylfie had always been together on missions. But now, for the first time since they had known each other, they would soon be heading in opposite directions. It would be an odd feeling. But it could not be helped. They had each been given tasks specific to their particular talents.
    “Ice Dagger, ho!” Twilight called out. A huge, jagged blade of ice sliced through the sea and stabbed the blackness of the night. Soren flew up to Twilight, who was flying point in the formation. “Will you look at that!” Twilight said, his voice full of wonder. “They say it never melts. That’s why they can harvest those fantastic ice swords from it. Just think, Soren, what we could do with ice swords!”
    Weapons, fighting, war in general—that was what occupied Twilight’s mind most of the time. And he was a superb fighter. He could fight with anything, from a blazing branch and battle claws to his tongue, which was as fierce as any weapon when he unleashed his taunting verses, which were known to make an enemy go yeep and plunge to the ground. Having another weapon to contemplate—ice swords!—was almost more