Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

please go on with the celebration. I shall be back by Punkie Eve if not before .
    Yours in faith ,
    Striga
    Coryn was so relieved, so happy he thought he might cry. He read the letter twice over, and then went out immediately to make the announcement. Oh, there would be a Punkie Night as never before!
    It had been two nights since the Band had left Ambala. They had long forgotten the weather experiments, the original reason for their trip to the mainland. They were much more interested in trying to determine how widespread the influence of the Striga and his Blue Brigade were. To do this they had to operate with some stealth. Keep a low wing, flying on the edges of the night. There was always the chance of being mobbed by crows, but in recent times, ever since Doc Finebeak, a great friend of crows, had begun to reside at the tree, the Guardians had been mostly left alone by the raucous creatures. Therefore, more and more the Band found their flights extendinginto the morning and even afternoon hours of the day. Unfortunately, they came across ample evidence of the Blue Brigade’s devastation. They spotted numerous smoldering fires each morning, littered with the charred remnants of ornaments obviously bought from Trader Mags: countless books, scorched jewels, singed scraps of paintings.
    One evening shortly after leaving Ambala, a piece of paper flapping against a slender birch tree attracted their attention. They flew down to take a closer look.
    “What the…” Gylfie reached it first and was hovering as she read it aloud.
    “‘The four members of the Guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, known collectively throughout the owl kingdoms as the Band, were seen consorting with scrooms and dabbling in faithless acts of hagscraft. They were doing this under the cover of a so-called scientific expedition. Further information suggests that they have renounced their Guardian oath and switched their allegiance to the Northern Kingdoms. For this reason, the parliament of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree forbids anyone to welcome them into their hollows, speak to them, or transact any manner of business with them. Warning: These owls are considered dangerous.’”
    Luckily, the ground was only a foot or so beneath them because Gylfie, Digger, and Soren looked at each other, wilfed, and went yeep, falling gently to the ground.
    “This is outrageous!” Soren shouted.
    “We’re as good as exiled,” Digger said.
    “Twilight, get over here!” Soren yelled. “You gotta look at this notice written by some scribe. Absolutely outrageous!”
    Gylfie turned her head to look at Twilight, who had been investigating a still smoldering fire. The Great Gray looked like a pillar of solid ashes. He was frozen, stiff, like one of the statues in the Palace of Mists.
    What could have silenced Twilight? They all rushed over to where the Great Gray stood and looked down.
    There was the charred skeleton of an owl, still lashed to the stump of a burnt stake.
    “This is hagscraft!” Soren said in a hoarse whisper.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Wing Prints of Bao
    F ar away, across a vast sea at the end of the River of Wind, a blue owl perched. Tengshu had been the sage of these Luminous Pearl Gates at the river’s end for years beyond counting. Perched on his branch of meditation, he looked out toward the River of Wind where the qui he flew danced in the patchwork of gusts.
    Tengshu flew his qui for many reasons. Often for the sheer joy of it, and at other times to collect vital weather information about the air currents, wind speeds, and any shifts in the windkin. But he also flew them when he needed to meditate on a question, and at this moment, Tengshu was deeply disturbed and needed to meditate. He sensed that things were not as they should be in the Hoolian world. In particular, he was worried about his good friends, the four owls known as the Band. He knew that the blue owl, the one who had renamed himself “the Striga,” had never returned to the Dragon Court. He had gone missing shortly after the battle at the owlery.He had distinguished himself at this battle not so much for his courage but for the brutality with which he had killed. This went against every tenet of Danyar, the way of noble gentleness. The Hoolian owls had said that he could return with them, and Tengshu had concluded that, in fact, the former Dragon Court owl had flown to the five kingdoms of the Hoolian world.
    Accompanying this certainty, another feeling had been