Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

Phillip was sick of dragging this brushy stuff behind him. The passageway was damp and smelled of dead animals and the scat of creatures he didn’t even want to think about. The walls seemed to weep with water, and there was no moving air. It was not a bird kind of a place at all.
    “I’m flying!” Nyroc called back a few seconds later.
    The two birds flew through a twisting passageway barely wider than the span of their wings. It felt as if theywere flying in an upward spiral within the canyon walls. They heard rats scurrying about and occasionally the darkness was slashed by the glowing red slits of their eyes. The owls were not tempted to hunt them, even though their stomachs were empty. Indeed, all they thought of was the task. They had become the task, and the task was to escape.
    “I see some light ahead,” Nyroc called back.
    It couldn’t be much, Phillip thought, for it was almost night. And then as if to answer him, Nyroc called out, “It’s a star.”
    They both blasted out from the close, damp, fetid air of the den into the velvety blackness of the night.
    “It’s Nevermoves,” Phillip said. “The star that never moves. We must be flying north if we are heading toward that star.”
    “Aren’t the Shredders to the north?” Nyroc asked.
    “Yes, but don’t worry. We’ll change course before we get there. We’ll cut into The Barrens. Lots of Burrowing Owls there, plenty of ground holes for cover.”
    “Dens again!” muttered Nyroc. But he knew he shouldn’t complain. He quickly looked back to see if he was trailing any feathers. “Oh, Glaux! It’s the posse! They’re coming!” Nyroc shreed.
    “How did they find us?” Phillip said. “All right. Spiral down,” Phillip yelled.
    “Down there?” Nyroc gasped in amazement. Below them were The Needles, sharp and stabbing at the sky. Were they even flyable? They looked so tightly packed together it was hard to imagine any space between them to light down. They were not, however, going to light down.
    “This is going to be the fanciest flying you’ve ever done,” Phillip said.
    The Needles were meant to be flown over, not between, but that was exactly what the two owls were doing in hopes of confounding and losing the owls who were chasing them. Phillip and Nyroc made quick wing shifts, minute adjustments of flight feathers as they threaded their way at top speed between the rocky spires.
    It would be easy to get lost within The Needles’ tangled maze of stone and easy to clip all the plummels off the leading edge of one’s primaries. Nyroc’s muscles began to ache fiercely. He noticed that Phillip had fallen behind him for the first time. Nyroc felt every feather shaft as he had never felt them before. The tiny adjustments he had to make to his primaries, to his greater wing coverts, to his tail coverts were difficult and exhausting. But he must keep flying. Glaux, even my talons hurt!
    What was that ahead? Nyroc blinked. There was something projecting from The Needles directly in front of him. Glaux bless, it was a sliver of rock. He settled down upon it. A moment later, Phillip joined him.
    “I don’t think I could have kept going,” Phillip said.
    “Do you think we’ve lost them?” Nyroc gasped.
    “I don’t know. Maybe. Press in as close as you can. The moon is almost full shine and we could cast shadows.”
    “Look, it’s starting to snow again.” Nyroc nodded toward some great roiling gusts of snow.
    “Yeah. The Shredders are just where you see those gusts. They toss the snow into whirlpools.”
    Nyroc saw. It was frightening. He had never seen wind like this. It not only disturbed the snow, but the very blackness of the sky and the light of the moon looked to Nyroc as if they were swirling violently.
    Phillip was looking up. He spoke quietly. “They’ve found us!”
    Nyroc felt his gizzard drop to his talons. “No.”
    “Yes, but they can’t figure out how to get at us.”
    “How long will we be safe here?”
    “Not long.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because there is only one tracker in the entire owluniverse who can find his way in here. Doc Finebeak.” Phillip paused. “And he’s flying with them.”
    Nyroc looked up and saw an immense Snowy Owl circling overhead, and between his two wings in the middle of his back another feather rose, long and black.
    “What’s that sticking out of his back?” Nyroc asked.
    “It’s a crow’s feather. That’s how you know it’s him. The crows love him. He’s a