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

translated. The ember had been retrieved from the palace. The three owls, numbers one, two, three, were progressing on their separate routes. So far, no enemy owls had been sighted in or around the palace. Estimates of distance covered was halfway for owl number one. That’s Ruby, Coryn thought. Owl number two, one quarter way. Wensel. And owl number three, one-third of the way. Fritha.
    Coryn crumpled up the note and put it in the grate. The message was purposely vague, but in fact there was very little that could be ascertained at this stage. At least the ember had been retrieved. Now if only it could simply vanish forever! Coryn thought. My life will never be normal until the ties that bind me to this ember are broken. But what force shall break them?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Surprise Warrior
    S omewhere, Otulissa was thinking as she and Cleve streamed through the canyon that split the cliffs of the Ice Talons, somewhere behind the walls of ice and the looming spires that crowned them, there are clutches of fiendish eggs, pulsing inwardly with life. Perish the thought! Had the murderous owls successfully transported their heinous treasure? Whoever was tending the eggs—most likely Nyra and the Striga—would need to remain concealed. She and Cleve were now looking for evidence, any clue of their whereabouts. A telltale blue feather. Anything. They had had ample time to get to the Ice Cliffs and tuck themselves into the maze of cracks and channeling fissures that penetrated deep into the cliffs and then opened into larger spaces perfect for schneddenfyrrs. Perfect for infant hagsfiends. Otulissa almost gagged at the thought. To use the words “infant” and “hagsfiend” in the same breath seemed perverted.
    Otulissa’s worst fears—that there was more thanone blue owl from the Middle Kingdom—had been confirmed. There was, indeed, a gang. Somehow they had been recruited from the Dragon Court. Why should it surprise her? If the Striga could strip himself of the cumbersome train of luxuriant feathers, why couldn’t other dragon owls do so, as well? The Striga was a compelling, charismatic bird. He had rallied plenty of disaffected owls in the Hoolian world to his cause. It was not impossible that he could do the same in the Panqua Palace. Otulissa would put nothing past him.
    Suddenly, a sapphire radiance suffused the glistening white walls of the ice canyon. “Duck!” Cleve hissed and both he and Otulissa plunged toward the surface of the ribbon of green water that furrowed in from the Everwinter Sea. Otulissa flipped her head up. Four enormous owls in a spectrum of colors ranging from cobalt to sapphire to azure and midnight blue flying above them had fixed them in their pale yellow gaze. They’re higher than we are! They have the advantage of altitude! was Otulissa’s first thought. But a quick assessment showed that they were not wearing battle claws. Still, they were fierce, trim, and ready to fight. And yet the owls were not chasing Otulissa or Cleve. They were not diving down after them, but rather making a phalanx above, closing off the free air, the sky, blocking any escape routeexcept if the two Guardians flew straight out the end of this narrow corridor of ice. But the corridor twisted and turned. It might grow even narrower, and the enemy might… Otulissa did not want to think in terms of “might.” She had to think of “now.” But who knew what awaited them at the other end of the canyon? More dragon owls? They had flown into a section that was now too narrow in which to turn around and head back the way they had flown in. But why weren’t the owls descending on them? This ran contrary to the most basic battle strategies. Otulissa had unlocked her own battle claws. These were the new models—the double-hinged retractables, sometimes referred to as “gizzard shredders.”
    “This is when it would help to be a puffin,” Cleve muttered, thinking how they could swim underwater.
    It would help, Otulissa thought, if you wore battle claws! But Cleve was a gizzard-resister. He did not believe in fighting. Idiot!
    “Otulissa, look, the lower we go, the higher they go. Keep doing that!”
    “Doing what?” She was truly irritated with Cleve for being unarmed.
    “That thing with your tail.” He and Otulissa were now skimming the water so closely that their undertailcoverts were dragging and casting up a plume of spray. “They don’t want to come down here, Otulissa. They’re