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

some time alone. Like Octavia, Hoke was a glistening green-blue snake. He was not, however, blind.
    “Octavia, old friend,” he said. “It has been much too long.”
    “Yes, Hoke. Too many years.”
    “I understand that our dearest comrade Lyze, or Ezylryb as you called him in the Southern Kingdoms, has died.”
    Octavia nodded her head slowly.
    “Now what brings you here?”
    “War,” Octavia said simply.
    “I have heard no news of war. I only hear of good things about your king, the one who seized the ember.”
    “Yes, and he is good and he has the ember in his power—for now.”
    A quiver went through Hoke’s long slender body. He was draped over a pinnacle of ice that jutted out nearly perpendicular from the rock. “For now? Explain! Tell me!”
    And so Octavia began to plead eloquently, hoping that Hoke would agree to support the guardians with a squadron of Kielian snakes. “Hoke, you trained the original stealth force of Kielian snakes. It was Lyze who recruited you for the War of the Ice Claws. And now I ask you in the name of Lyze and all the values that noble owl embodied, join us.”
    “I am surely too old,” Hoke replied.
    “Your body is old but not your mind.”
    Hoke wound himself tighter around the ice pinnacle. “Rest assured. You will have all that you need. The elite force commanded by my grandson, Harlo, will be dispatched to the Southern Kingdoms. And you say the king has gone to seek out Moss?”
    Octavia nodded.
    Hoke slithered down the pinnacle and settled himself on a rock surface. “It’s interesting. I saw a polar bear who frequents this area making her way northward, north and west as if she was going up the Firth of Fangs. Odd time of year to see polar bears out and about. However, I don’t suppose the polar bears know yet of this business.”
    “Oh, but they do!” Octavia exclaimed. “A puffin informed them. It was actually a puffin who came and told us about Nyra and the Striga in the Ice Narrows.”
    “A puffin!” Hoke hissed in amazement.
    “Yes, our reaction as well, but apparently this one is somewhat brighter.”
    “An intelligent puffin!” Hoke waggled his head slowly in a wonder. “That would be a sight to see!”
    At the very moment Hoke was marveling over the rumored intelligence of Dumpy, forty puffins perchedon the ridge where puffins of the Ice Narrows lived. “Something big is coming,” Dumpy addressed them. “I mean, really big.” Dumpy’s eyes widened as he tried to convey the bigness, the seriousness of what he was going to explain.
    “How big? Big as your butt?” one puffin shouted.
    “Knock it off,” said another puffin.
    “It was a joke,” said the first.
    “Well, it’s not funny, so knock it off.” At which point the jokester raised a webbed foot, smacked herself in the head, and succeeded in knocking herself off the ledge into the churning waters. There was a swell of raucous puffin laughter. Dumpy blinked, then shut his eyes for several seconds. This was going to be difficult. He had to figure out a way to catch these birds’ ever-wandering attention.
    Dumpy opened his eyes slowly and spoke carefully and distinctly, but in a low voice so they had to lean forward to hear him. “If you be quiet and listen, I will tell you a very big secret.”
    “What’s that? What’s that?” They pressed close to him, looking eager and alert.
    “The secret is that I have been to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”
    “Oooh,” they all sighed.
    “I have spoken to their king.”
    There were more oohs.
    “I have spoken to the king’s counselors.”
    “What’s a counselor?” someone whispered.
    “An ornament,” another said.
    Dumpy forged ahead. “And the secret that I have to tell you is that we are not nearly so dumb as we have always thought. Indeed, we each have a brain.”
    “We do?” It was the Chubster who spoke now. “Are you sure, Dumpy?”
    “Yes, I am sure. And if you use it, it gets better and better, and you get smarter and smarter. And I am going to show you how to use it. Now what do we know best in all the world?”
    “Fish,” said a tiny little female named Popo.
    “Right you are. See, Popo used her brain. And what do we do most?’”
    “Fish,” said another puffin.
    “And what happens when we leave a fish out for a long time without our eating it?” Dumpy asked.
    “It freezes stiff and you can almost break your beak on it.”
    “Mummy says no playing with frozen fish. They’re dangerous,” Popo piped