Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

sick. She settled on a branch just below the notices, then flipped her head almost upside down and read it again. It was as if her entire world fell apart in that minute. Of course, not for one second did she believe it. “Get a grip!” she muttered and, in fact, tightened her grip on the slender branch where she perched. Think, think, Pelli! she counseled herself. She took several deep breaths. Her mind began toorganize itself. Quietly, the thoughts came to her in a more orderly fashion. If the Band had seen this notice, their first instincts, she realized, would be to fly back to the great tree and say this was nothing but a pack of lies. “But that would be the last thing they should do,” she whispered to herself. Because , she finished the thought in her head, it must be some sort of trap! And this is what she must tell them. But how to find them? How? Mist! Her gizzard and her brain suddenly twinkled with the thought. A light seemed to flood through her. They often visited Mist, or Hortense, as Soren and Gylfie called her. Hortense was the Glauxparent to the three B’s. It was a long trip to Ambala but she would spend an even longer time searching for the Band. Mist and her two eagles and the snakes always seemed to know almost everything that was transpiring on the mainland. In the end, it would save her time if she went directly there. She would make up some excuse if she was really late coming back.
    But a dread began to rise within her. Although the Striga didn’t know she had left, if she were gone long enough to be missed, he would know that she might have seen the notices and then what? Well, she could not worry about that now. The most important thing was to alert the Band. Thank Glaux, she had gotten the Ember of Hoole out of there. “Thank Glaux,” she murmured toherself. She only hoped that Bubo’s ruse with the counterfeit ember had worked. It then dawned on her that the ember was not the only thing that was counterfeit. That letter Coryn had read! The one extending the Band’s “experiments.” Of course it was a fake! Hadn’t she really known it all along? And besides that, there was nothing wrong with consorting with scrooms. Many owls had at one time or another in their lives encountered the scroom of a relative or dear friend. It was consorting with hagsfiends that was bad. And, in that moment, Pelli reached the same conclusion that her mate had: This is hagscraft .
    She then had one further thought: There’s a hagsfiend in the great tree. It might be blue, it might look like an owl, fly like an owl. But it’s haggish, I swear by Glaux!

CHAPTER TWENTY
A Few Good Owls
    H ortense had settled herself into one of the heartwood branches high above the mossy dell of the Brad and watched quietly for a while. She reflected on all that she had learned in the last few days. When the Band had returned with the shocking news of the notice that had been posted of their exile and the horror of the charred remains of a burnt owl, Hortense asked them to repeat it, not once or twice, but three times. It was simply unbelievable. But there had been many things during her long life that at first had seemed unbelievable to her and that later she had come to realize were true. Almost as soon as she had sent the Band off to the Brad, Pelli had arrived with the news that things had deteriorated even further at the great tree, and that she and Otulissa and Bubo feared for the ember. And very shortly after all that, Slynella and Stingyll reported that a blue owl—known as Tengshu—had somehow found his way to the Brad. This, at least, was good news. The Band had told her ofthis sage owl and now with his help a plan was taking shape for regaining the tree. If anyone could help the Band and the Guardians rid themselves of the Striga it would be this Tengshu from the Middle Kingdom. Although a sage, he was also a master of the fighting art of Danyar. And that was exactly what Tengshu was teaching the Ambala owls of the Brad now as Hortense looked down from her branch high in the heartwood grove. If the Band was to return to the great tree, they had to be prepared and they would need all the help they could get. As if this news was not enough, Gwyndor had also come to Hortense with rumors of something being planned for Balefire Night. Something bad.
    Balefire Night occurred in the very last days of the season of the Copper Rose. It was one of the major holidays of the owl calendar and celebrated owlkind’s