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

perch. “You know this with certainty?”
    “Yes, with absolute certainty. Reports from trusted sources—sources too…simple to lie—put Orlando and the owl called Nyra, leader of the Pure Ones, together.” He waited a moment. The green light that flowed from the H’ryth’s eyes seemed to congeal. “Not only that. There are rumors about eggs—strange eggs.” He remembered Dumpy’s reconstruction of the conversation he had overheard between the Striga and Nyra.
    The H’ryth gasped in alarm. “This is bad. Terrible! You remember the middle chapters of the papers of Theo?”
    Tengshu nodded solemnly. “I do indeed! In the Theo Papers there was a section pertaining to the reproductive habits of the Dragon Court owls. It was theorized that if these owls’ feathers were allowed to grow toextravagant lengths they would no longer be able of produce offspring. It would effectively terminate egg laying. And the eggs these Dragon Court owls had laid prior to the therapies to stimulate feather growth had been extremely strange in color. Not white and spherical like all owl eggs, but gray that would darken to black. And they were often oddly shaped.”
    “Tengshu, this can’t be!”
    “I’m afraid it is true, and then where are we?”
    “Then we stand in grave danger of violating our Theotic Oath.” The Theotic Oath was the vow to Theo in which the owls of the Mountain of Time swore to maintain the Dragon Court forever in the ways prescribed by the revered Theosang, the first H’ryth. “What do you propose, Tengshu?”
    “I propose we do exactly as you have suggested. We should not agree to provide a refuge for the Ember of Hoole.” This much had become very clear to Tengshu. It was the Hoolian ember. It had no business being out of the five kingdoms at the other end of the River of Wind. But at the same time, the Hoolian world needed their help. Help to vanquish once and for all these maniacal owls, now reinforced with recruits from their own Middle Kingdom. He took a step closer to Gup Theosang. “But sir, we should not deceive ourselves. We can avoidthe ember, but we cannot avoid the battle, nay, the war that will inevitably come. The survival of the civilized kingdoms of good owls depends upon the outcome of this conflict. The fury and the might of these evil owls and their forces could easily be turned on us, our own Jouzhen empire invaded. If we fail, the world of owls will sink into an abyss of darkness and the most sinister epoch imaginable will commence. I am asking for an entire Danyar division. We must fly across the River of Wind to the Hoolian Kingdoms. And fight!”
    This was going to be a massive war. It would require immense power. This would be the War of the Ember.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
To the Northern Kingdoms
    T hough Otulissa had never been a member of the tracking or search-and-rescue chaws, she had a sixth sense about certain things beyond her expertise. This sense began to stir in her gizzard. Shortly before she and Cleve had left Dumpy off in the Ice Narrows, Otulissa had warned Dumpy to say nothing but to keep his eyes wide open, and if he saw anything alarming, he was to fly immediately to Nut Beam, one of the Jossian messengers who had been installed at Coryn’s command on the Ice Dagger. Nut Beam would then get word to the Guardians.
    Otulissa and Cleve had been holding fast to a north by northeast course. The wind was hard on them, but soon they would be inside the protection of the Ice Talons. There was a momentary lull in the wind and then the rain came down harder, denting the surface of the water below. Otulissa’s sixth sense twisted her gizzard painfully and she took a sudden dive.
    “What are you doing?” Cleve called out as he watched her veer off the shoulder of the headwind.
    “Course change!” she shouted back urgently. Now she was carving a turn that put them on a due east heading. Otulissa was hovering over a swirl of water. Laced in its foamy frills were feathers—blue feathers. Some pale, some the blue of midnight, some the tint of sapphires. None, however, were the turquoise of the Striga’s feathers. “This looks like a reverse eddy,” she said. “They sometimes occur spontaneously near land formations like this.” She indicated with her head the long reach of coastline to one side and the easternmost claw of the Ice Talons. “They begin at the head of the narrow inlet far inland and eventually spin their way to sea, catching bits of airborne