Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

numb, he began to swing the ice sword as he advanced. Kludd was weak. He was back-winging into a corner of the cave. He was losing altitude.
    Then there was a whistling noise and a silvery blur.
    “Hiiii-yah.” No song. No prancing. Just a slash of glittering ice through the dark. Then the clank of metal as Kludd fell against the rock floor of the cave. A pool of blood began to form. The fire claws sizzled in the blood. Soren perched on a rock spur and looked down at his brother. He was transfixed. He could not pull his eyes away. They were riveted on the gash that ran from Kludd’s neck to his tail, the bone of his severed spine jutting up through his bloodied back feathers. Soren blinked. My brother is dead! My brother, who pushed me from the nest when I was a chick, is dead. My brother, who swore to destroy me, is dead!
    It was almost too much for Soren to grasp. His life had been shaped by the viciousness of Kludd. Had it not been for Kludd, I would never have been separated from my parents. Had it not been for Kludd, I would have never found the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Soren felt neither elation nor relief. He did not know what to feel. It was all too immense, too mysterious, too confusing.
    “Soren, you all right?” said Twilight softly.
    Soren blinked. A silence had fallen upon the cave. “Twilight!” Soren said softly. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
    “You mean I didn’t chant him, taunt him?” Twilight said.
    “Yeah.”
    “I killed your brother, Soren. I didn’t feel he needed to go out with a song.”
    “But you killed him. You saved Gylfie, you saved me.” Then he paused. “Twilight, do you know what this means? It means the end of the war. It means the defeat of the Pure Ones.”
    “Yes,” Twilight answered simply, “the war is over.” And surprisingly, at one moment when one of the most boastful owls in owlkind could have boasted, Twilight did not. He blinked and turned his attention to Gylfie; Digger was tending her singed wing. Twilight then lighted down by the little Elf Owl.
    “Glad to see you back, Gylfie. You were great with that ice splinter.”
    “Well, sort of,” Gylfie said weakly.
    “She’s going to be all right,” Digger said to Twilight. “Flying will be hard for her for a while. But it looks to me that these feathers were about to molt, anyway. Where are the other Pure Ones now, anyhow?”
    “They’re gone,” Twilight said. “The Frost Beaks chased them out.”
    “Gylfie…Gylfie…Gylfie…I can’t believe it’s you.” Soren blinked at his dear friend.
    “It’s me, all right.”
    “I thought I’d never see you again.”
    “But here I am,” Gylfie replied. “We are all here, Soren. We are together again—the band is together.”
    And the four owls who had met so long ago looked now at one another again.
    “Yes, we are together again,” Soren said solemnly. “And now we must go back to Ga’Hoole.”
    “I’m not very strong, Soren,” Gylfie said. “I don’t know if I can make it. And I think all the vine slings for transporting the wounded are being used.”
    “We don’t need vine hammocks to transport you,” a voice spoke up.
    “Cleve!” Gylfie said. “What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t believe in war.”
    “I don’t believe in killing, but I do believe in saving lives. I went to the Glauxian Brothers to learn medicine, remember? Now, Gylfie, don’t talk anymore. Save your strength. I’m going to get a Glauxspeed unit and make a flight vacuum.”
    “I thought only pirate owls did that,” Gylfie said, remembering how the kraals had transported her from the Ice Dagger to the tundra.
    “Glaux, no!” A Frost Beak had just arrived. “They’re toodumb to think up that on their own. They copied it from us. That’s how we transported our wounded during the War of the Ice Claws.”
    And so the band and six owls from the Glauxspeed division rose in the night. The landscape below was one of charred brush and scorched rocks. Soon other Glauxspeed units fell in beside them, transporting other Guardians who had been wounded. Silver and Nut Beam had sustained injuries. And a Snowy Owl named Bruce, a member of the Flame Squadron, had been killed and was being transported in one of the vine hammocks woven by the weaver’s guild for transporting dead or severely wounded owls. Bubo was one of the sling bearers as Bruce had been a good friend of his. He muttered sadly as he flew, “No, Bruce, I ain’t going to let one of