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

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    Halfway through the song, Soren and Pelli turned to each other. Their black eyes were bright with a mixture of joy and alarm. “Great Glaux!” Soren exclaimed. “Do you think she’s courting already?”
    “Oh, Da!” Bell and Bash both said at the same time.
    “It’s just an old gadfeather love song,” Bell said.
    “With a little R and H beat laid in to make it more modern,” Bash added.
    Pelli blinked. “What in Glaux’s name is R and H?”
    “Rhythm and hoots,” Bell said. “And not everybody can sing it. It’s complicated, and Blythe is great, and Mrs. P. said that because of Blythe the harp guild snakes have developed a whole new style of plucking.”
    Soren and Pelli exchanged glances. Their eyes glistened with unshed tears as they gazed at Bell, her sister Blythe’s staunchest fan. But a year before, under the powerful, malignant influence of the Striga, Bell had tried to discourage her sister from singing. Bell had believed, as the Striga had told her, that singing, along with many other artistic and playful pursuits that owls of the great tree had enjoyed, was a “vanity,” a word now rarely heard around the Great Ga’Hoole Tree without causing a shiver deep in one’s gizzard.
    The Striga, this peculiar blue owl from the sixth kingdom, had saved Bell’s life, and Coryn’s and the Band’s, as well, for he had learned of a plan to assassinate them. By saving them, the Striga had earned the deepest gratitude of the owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Little did anyone suspect that this tattered, blue-feathered owl would become a terrible danger. On Balefire Night, one of the most joyous holidays of the owl year, the Striga had finally been driven from the tree. Now singing, and all else the Striga had forbiddenas vanity, was once again welcome at the tree. Blythe was singing her gizzard out and no one was happier than Bell.
    “Look at Otulissa and Cleve!” Pelli exclaimed. Cleve had put his wing gently around Otulissa and was crooning softly in her ear slit. From watching his beak, Soren could see that Cleve was repeating the last words of the gadfeather song. Soren had to stifle a churr as it seemed so improbable that anyone could get away with crooning anything to Otulissa. But Cleve was another story. There had never been two owls more different from each other than Cleve and Otulissa. Cleve of Firthmore was a prince from an ancient dynastic line of owls in the Northern Kingdoms who had given up his title and inheritance to pursue a meditative life studying the healing arts at the Glauxian Brothers retreat. He was also a dedicated gizzard-resister. He would not fight nor would he fly with battle claws. Otulissa, although she shared his scholarly nature, was a seasoned warrior. She commanded the Strix Struma Strikers. Could a dedicated soldier and a gizzard-resister find true happiness together? Apparently they could.
    Gylfie noticed Soren observing Cleve. “I would say that Blythe is singing their song.”
    “If it hadn’t been for Cleve,” Pelli said, “I don’t thinkOtulissa would have ever taken wing again. She would have just retreated into her books.”
    “Out of the way! Out of the way!” Fritha, a young Pygmy Owl barreled through the birds that had crowded the balcony. “I’ve got to go to press. I have to include a review of this concert in the next edition. Your sister was great!” she shouted to Bell as she flew by.
    “I’ll help!” Bell called out, and flew after her. “I’ll make sure you get all the details right.”
    Soren, the rest of the Band, and Coryn enjoyed the night air in silence a moment on a branch just outside of the Great Hollow. The dancing had begun.
    “Quite a difference from last year,” Coryn said. The Band seemed relieved that Coryn had said what was in everyone’s mind—that last year Coryn had been so completely duped by the Striga that the tree had nearly been lost to that fanatical blue owl and his converts. Left unsaid, it would have hung like the last vaporous shreds of a dark storm cloud. The evening, however, was lovely, the air smooth for dancing.
    “The dancing will go on late,” Gylfie said.
    “Good!” Coryn exclaimed with unbridled joy. “Good!”
    By the time dawn broke, the first edition of The Evening Hoot was completed. The owls, tipsy from the milkberry wine or from dancing the glauc-glauc,had long since staggered to their hollows. They would be able to read The Hoot that evening at tweener. The headline