Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

the great tree!” He rushed at her. But in that same second something whizzed by like a comet from the flaming tree—a spinning ball of flying sparks with a deadly chain attached. Kalo soared up out of the grasp of the Great Horned just before it hit him. Something sailed off into the sparks: a large head, its yellow eyes staring. The Great Horned’s body fell to the ground.
    “Coryn!” she gasped.
    “Kalo!” Coryn swooped up under her and supported her beneath one wing.
    “No, I’m fine, Coryn. I’m really fine. We have to go to the rabbit. The rabbit saved my life…“ She paused and looked at Coryn. “As you did,” she said shyly.
    The rabbit was dying. There was a deep rip in his chest. There was a strange whistling sound as if a low wind was blowing through his lungs. He tried to speak. The flameswere spreading. They would have to leave soon or be smoked out by the fire. “Look up!” gasped the rabbit. “Look up.”
    Coryn and Kalo both looked up into the lowest branches of the closest tree that was not yet burning. Sparkling, like a small constellation fallen to Earth, was the glittering design of a spiderweb.
    “It’s the last design,” the rabbit said in a gurgling whisper. A trickle of blood came from his nose. “Easy to read—an orb weaver’s web. Remember Coryn? I told you. They’re the easiest. The design is coming to me whole—because it is the last, you see. Find moss, not flames. Clad yourself in green, not fire. And fly…fly with the green…the green…” he gasped. “Fly with the Greenowls of Ambala to the tree.”
    “Don’t leave us,” Kalo begged.
    “Another web reader will come. They always do.” He sighed. It was almost a sigh of contentment, and then the mystic rabbit was gone. The heat from the fire was growing intense.
    “We have to go now, Coryn. We have to get moss. We must do as the rabbit told us.”
    “Yes! Fly with the Greenowls of Ambala!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Greenowls Are Coming
    T he night sky was split with song, and the gizzards of those who sang swelled with a fierce new hope.
The path is a ribbon of moonlight across a dusky sea .
The wind sings a song that beckons us
To that great and mighty tree .
    We are the Greenowls of Ambala, clad in raiments of moss ,
Sprigged with lichens and grasses
Then gilded with silvery frost .
    Fair and square we play—for a sporting lot we are .
We ride the boisterous Balefire gusts
And we reach for every star .
    As Soren flew with these owls of the Brad, who could doubt they were not as carefree and happy as theysounded? But their mission was a most serious one, a deadly one. For under these cloaks of green, they wore battle claws and carried scimitars crafted by Gwyndor, who had set up a forge in the deep dell of the Brad. Even more deadly than these weapons were the methods of Danyar, which the owls of the Brad had mastered.
    Soren prayed that the coded messages that had passed via Hortense to Pelli had been safely delivered and that she and the others back at the tree were ready to carry out their part of the plan. He looked around as they closed in on the Island of Hoole. It seemed that there were a few more Greenowls than when they had left. Yes , he thought, Gwyndor has most likely decided to come with us. Have Streak and Zan come as well? he wondered as he glanced at two other birds cloaked in moss. But, no, there were no owls who could compare in size to the two eagles.
    Indeed, they were not eagles. Under the thin blankets of moss was a Barn Owl and a Burrowing Owl. Coryn and Kalo had found mousefoot moss in Silverveil when they had fled the fire in the Shadow Forest. They had caught sight of the Greenowls as they flew over Cape Glaux, scores of Greenowls, flying to the great tree. They knew they would not be noticed. But now Kalo seemed alarmed as one flew toward them.
    “Who’s that, Coryn? I’m worried.”
    Coryn felt a deep tweak in his gizzard. “My uncle, Soren.”
    “Oh, dear!” Kalo said weakly. Coryn had told her about the Striga, and his own failures as king. It had been one of the most shameful moments of his life, having to tell this story of his pathetic, reprehensible weakness. He made no excuses, however. He just simply said, “I was a weak fool. I do not deserve to be king.”
    And Kalo had answered, “I don’t think one ever deserves to be king. One must earn it and keep on earning it. You began tonight when you saved me. You shall continue, Coryn. I know.”
    Now as