Guardians of Ga'Hoole 13 - The River of Wind

behindhim. It was the danyk. The Grass Owl plunged toward the ground. “I could have gotten him! I could have!” Twilight shouted.
    “Save breath, stupid one!” the danyk barked, and flew off.
    From a spire high on the owlery, Mrs. Plithiver perceived the battle. She did not need to see to know what was transpiring. Every sensory fiber in her body was grasping the most minute details. Feathers flew through the air along with detached fire claws. It seemed as if the Pure Ones were losing their edge in this battle despite their numbers. She began calling out commands to the Hoolian owls. She did not know the ways of the Danyar but she knew her owls, the ones of the great tree. She knew their skills and how they fought. “A flying wedge, keep torches down, now loft and hurl.” The commands she had just shouted out were for a classic rocket maneuver that the Bonk Brigade often used. The owls worked in teams of two. One owl launched the flaming missile, in this case torches. The second owl retrieved it after the target had been hit. It took incredible skill and cooperation. Soren had invented it.
    The Chaw of Chaws was being very effective right now, but then Mrs. P. began to perceive something profoundly disturbing. Were they about to lose that edge?
    “Oh, Great Glaux.” The rocket maneuver was backfiring. Nyra had lured the two-owl team of Soren and Coryn, uncle and nephew, into an indefensible situation. Mrs. P. couldn’t see it, but she knew it. She felt a great stirring in the air. More Guardians, she thought. They would now outnumber the Pure Ones. Nyra’s own losses were mounting. But did it matter? The slink melf was with her. The whole purpose of this battle, Mrs. P. suddenly realized, was not to destroy all the Guardians but to assassinate just two.
    “It’s the Frost Beaks, the Flame Squadron! They’re coming!” Ruby cried out. It doesn’t matter, thought Mrs. Plithiver. Not if they only want Soren and Coryn. She knew in the spiraling bones of her spine that Nyra did not care about the lives of her followers but only sought the death of her own son and his uncle, the brother of her mate, Kludd, whose mask she now wore.
    Soren swerved in his pursuit of Nyra. He kept the torch low. Coryn flanked his starboard wing, ready to dive at the moment of launch. Nyra was heading toward a break in a cliff. They were closing the gap. Just before the notch, she ducked down, reversing her direction. But the king and his uncle worked smoothly together. No words were exchanged. They knew instinctively how to maneuver. They pivoted, hovered, and dove. The torchwhistled out. But then something flew from the notch, pressing them back against the ice face. It was a Pure Ones’ captain. He caught the torch on the fly. Four Pure Ones now advanced on them. How did we get outmaneuvered? I should have known! Coryn thought, and made a wild dive. But the slink melf was on him. Nyra was howling and called him by his hatchling name. “You had your chance, Nyroc! You had it. Now, what’ll it be? The ember or your life?”
    Soren now had nothing—no torch, no battle claws, nothing. He saw a reddish streak. Ruby? Ruby and Twilight?
    Save your breath, Twilight, save your breath, the Great Gray cautioned himself, but in his head a chant began. Tore your face once, tore it twice, going to smash you up with that ice …The chant dwindled. He could not even think it. He had to concentrate… concentrate. Ruby had the torch. He would try the Zi Phan, the talon like the spiked flower. He spread the four talons of each foot as far as he could. He knew the power came from the downstroke. He felt his zi begin to tingle and was about to strike.
    He would get her—get Nyra once and for all. He opened his beak. “Eeeyrrrrk!” The terrible sound tore the clouds from the sky, shattered the light of the moon, peeled the ice from a cliff. There was another blur of blue! A blue owl Twilight had never seen before. Had that terrible sound come from this owl’s throat or his own?Twilight was confused. Then he saw Nyra lurch in flight. The blue owl hurled himself toward the slink melf. Feathers spun through the air. Blood—so much blood! The ice cliff was streaked with blood. Something bright and shining went flying through the air and there was a metallic clank below. Then silence, a profound silence. Even the wind seemed to have stopped. Soren, Twilight, Ruby, and Coryn alighted on a bloody shelf.
    “They’re gone, I think,” Ruby