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

the yondo, and Soren to another, both brandishing ice scimitars. A signal was given and the dire wolves rushed out in classic double byrrgis formation. Though they stood only half as tall as the polar bears, they began leaping straight up to a distance that was twice the bears’ height as they herded the first ranks of the approaching enemy owls and funneled them through the two gates to trap them. Colliers of the Sacred Ring swooped down, launching thousands upon thousands of burning embers. The sky sizzled with the red-hot trajectories inscribed against the black night. Behind them, like a massive solid wall, a phalanxof polar bears reared up. The attacking owls that slipped through the ember grid were batted out of the sky by the bears with their massive paws.
    “We are holding them off!” Twilight cried. He and his two brothers together formed a flying wedge that blasted through the capricious winds, heading off any owls who broke through these first barriers of the ember grid and the polar bear phalanx. Some of the enemy did breach these barriers. But the three brothers chased them relentlessly. “Tarn, you fool,” cried Tavis, for Tarn the Burrowing Owl, with a squad of a dozen owls, was advancing on Coryn. The three brothers flew and fought together as if they had been doing it all their lives.
Chase that tail! Let him wail.
    Slug him, bug him,
    That pile of splat.
    Mow him down, the dirty rat.
    The three chased Tarn and his small contingent. Meanwhile, Soren and Ruby and other members of the flame squadron pressed, with burning branches, a larger contingent of Pure Ones that was trying to breach the eastern flank. They were not having much success.Half of those enemy troops had managed to slip by them, but suddenly, as the dawn was approaching, tinting the horizon a cool pink against the hot red of battle, a loud roar went up. It was the Strix Struma Strikers under the command of Otulissa, flying in her late mentor’s position on the windward flank. They had just routed a sub squad that had broken into the armory. Quentin, the quartermaster in charge, an elderly Barred Owl, had tried to hold them off but he was injured. Soren caught all this as Otulissa screamed by him shouting commands: “Vacuum transport needed at armory!” A half dozen sky medics led by Cleve flew by seconds later.
    Coryn raced to the armory. “Hold on, old fellow! Hold on!” He crouched over Quentin, who had collapsed in the cave. A wolf was helping by cleaning up the wound to his port wing.
    “Coryn,” gasped the old Barred Owl.
    “Don’t try to talk now, Q. You have to save your strength.”
    “No, Coryn. Listen to me. Dawn is coming. I have an idea. These ice shields. They’re cloud ice, you know.” Cloud ice was ice that was opaque because of trapped air bubbles.
    “Q, you shouldn’t be talking.”
    “I’m not hurt badly. Not as bad as it looks. You’ve got to listen to me!” There was a fierceness in his amber eyes. “That cloud ice. I’ve been experimenting with it. I got an idea when this wolf was licking up my blood…what’s his name?”
    “What’s your name?” Coryn asked, swiveling his head toward a gray-and-black wolf.
    “Patches, sir.” His left forepaw was deformed. Obviously, a gnaw wolf who would have been destined for the Sacred Watch if the ember had been buried in the volcano. Coryn felt a stirring in his gizzard. The ember itself was tucked away right now in the armory cave, one bucket amid many toward the back. These buckets were only to be broken out if they were low on coals at the ignition stations and only with Coryn’s explicit permission. It would have been easy perhaps to return the ember in the thick of battle, but before he did it he had plans for it. To himself, Coryn called those plans Operation Death Lure. He would lure Nyra and the Striga into an absolutely indefensible position. There would be no escape. If the ember could be the instrument through which these two owls met their deaths, then it was worth all the grief it had caused.
    Coryn turned his attention back to Quentin. “His name is Patches. Now, what do you want to tell him?”
    “Patches, young’un,” Quentin said softly. “You got brothers? Sisters?”
    “Yes, sir. But you know, they don’t pay me much heed, sir.”
    “Now why’d that be?” Quentin asked. Coryn was ready to explode. He did not feel Quentin should be wasting his energy. He could see that the old Barred Owl was growing