Guardians of Ga'Hoole 15 - The War of the Ember

from here into the canyonlands, then circle back west and head for Beyond the Beyond, and head straight out toward the Wolf’s Fang.”
    “And you, Wensel?”
    “Yes ma’am.” Wensel then repeated the details of his route.
    “Excellent!” Bess replied after they had recited their individual flight plans. She accompanied them to the turret opposite the bell tower and watched them take off into the wildness of the storm. She had to wedge herself into one of the stone turret notches to keep from being swept off. The raging wind blew the cascading water of the falls in horizontal sheets across the night. Trees shuddered, the noise of their branches a drumbeat beneath the wind. Flashes of lightning illuminated the undersides of rolling clouds, giving them a harsh metallic glow, and always that odd whining that sliced through the wind’s roar, splitting it like a talon through tender flesh.
    But the three owls were amazing fliers. Bess watched as they lifted off into the teeth of the storm. Catching every favorable draft, they manipulated their wings constantly to adjust to the confusing air currents. There were alarming shifts and abrupt shears where a wind could accelerate or decelerate dramatically, change its direction completely, pocking the air with deadfalls and suck-down vents, which could spell disaster for the average flier. But these were no average fliers. “Glaux speed,” she murmured softly as she saw them dissolve into a thick dark cloud bank. “Glaux speed!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Proposal or Experiment?
    I n the Northern Kingdoms, there is a promontory that juts out into the Everwinter Sea, which is called the Ice Talons. On the southwest side of the Ice Talons, a thread of water penetrates deep into the interior of that frozen landscape and, on either side, spires of ice, twisted and turned by time and wind, rise wraithlike in the fog-shrouded air of that canyon. The spires are connected by ice bridges and arches and behind the walls of the canyon winds a complex maze of tunnels and channels. In ancient times, during a series of desperate wars, it had served as a stronghold, a hidden redoubt for the H’rathian monarchs, and upon one occasion, the widowed queen Siv had come here with her faithful servant, Myrrthe. With them they brought the egg from which the greatest of all kings would hatch: King Hoole, the first holder of the ember.
    The canyon was, however, also known to be a passageway in ancient times, a shortcut for hagsfiends, whowere said to have a refuge on the other side of the promontory, far from salt water. Hagsfiends liked to be as far from the ocean as possible. They feared salt water, for it destroyed their oil-less feathers, and, when drenched in briny water, they nearly always drowned instantly. They would rush through this narrow watery channel to get to dry land, hardly ever slowing to explore the tangled passageways of the cliffs.
    And now two owls, who should have had no reason to fear water but were feeling nervous nonetheless, were making their way not to the dry land that had been the hagsfiends’ redoubt—for they knew nothing of that place—but instead to another refuge deep within the ice cliffs. They carried in their botkins two dozen double- and triple-yolked eggs of monsters.
    “Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Nyra asked.
    “Yes. Your son, Coryn, told me of this place. Or rather he read to me part of the legend of the first collier, which described it.”
    “His name is Nyroc. Not Coryn. I named him Nyroc. He ceased to be my son when he renamed himself Coryn. How far must we fly? Are you trying to find the exact spot where this ancient queen brought her egg?”
    “Not the exact spot. Just a safe place for our experiments. And, even though many more eggs are coming, we can’t afford to lose another one.” He paused, then turned his head toward Nyra. “Everything has gone so well. Our troops in Kuneer are trained, organized. They will be ready to join us on Long Night. This is the last part of the plan, but the most important.”
    Nyra did not like the way the Striga had called them “our troops.” She, in fact, was the one who had gathered the ragtag remnants of Pure Ones and rebuilt them into a fighting force. Yes, more troops had come and were coming to the Northern Kingdoms from the Dragon Court. But the backbone of this army, at present, was Pure Ones. However, she kept quiet about that. “We could have finished off those puffins that