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

side. “He’s hurt! Badly hurt!” Soren cried out.
    “Uncle, I am dying.”
    “No!” Soren whispered.
    Otulissa appeared with the torn-off wing. “No, Coryn! No!” She could not believe this was happening. Above the place where Coryn now lay, Otulissa had years before perched on an outcropping and watched in astonishment as young Coryn had retrieved the ember.
    “Coryn,” Otulissa said softly, “Cleve will come. He will mend you. Sew your wing back on.”
    “I am fine. I don’t need wings where I am going.”
    He was so tired. Coryn looked up at the good noble owls gathered around him. The band, the Chaw of Chaws. They were all weeping, begging him to live. But he knew he was leaving them. They will have years and years, but my time is here. He was ready. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was not the voices of the Band but the howling of the wolves. And yet they seemed not near but in some distant country.
    Don’t worry, he wanted to say. Don’t worry, Uncle. But he felt as if he was already far away.
    A messenger arrived. “The enemy has been routed, sir.” Then he looked down and gasped. “The king?”
    “The king is dead!” said Soren quietly.
    Soren flew over and perched on the top of one of the great gates of the Beyond. He swiveled his head and surveyed the battlefield. It’s a miracle, he thought softly. We were but five hundred Guardians and yet creatures from all over joined us. Creatures who had never before fought together found a way. He saw Doc Finebeak in the distance. He was tending to the birds in his Black and White Brigade. Crows! Who would have ever thought we would have crows as allies? And seagulls? His eyes scanned the splatterings of white gull poop that seemed everywhere. But how effective that flying splat had been in the final rout. Perhaps they have less than noble digestive tracts but their gizzards proved true, Soren thought.
    Suddenly, there was a huge roar and the ground shook beneath them. The five volcanoes of the Sacred Ring began to erupt all at once. The wolves howled a warning for, although such occasions were rare, fire could sweep across the land and the sky would then become a sea of flames. Owls began to fly through the Hot Gates but Soren stayed perched. He knew in his gizzard that he must remain. And so apparently did the rest of the Band and Otulissa. When he looked about, the entire Chaw of Chaws was perched on the pinnacles of the Hot Gates. And as they watched, they saw a misty configuration that seemed improbable in the hot dry air begin to rise over the crater of Hrath’ghar.
    “Look, it’s growing brighter!” Otulissa said.
    “Like stars almost,” Gylfie whispered.
    “Not like stars, they are stars!” Twilight said.
    Soren could scarcely breath. “It’s a new constellation, I think.”
    “It’s a face—a Barn Owl’s face. I swear it’s Coryn’s, but there is no scar,” Digger said.
    “No, of course not,” Soren said. “He has been restored, just as the wolves of the Watch are mended when the ember is retrieved. So Coryn is mended in glaumora.”
    The din of the erupting volcanoes now quieted. The flames that had scratched the sky retreated. The she-winds stilled and the only sound to be heard now was the bubbling, crackling noises of the boiling lava in the five craters and the rising cries of the wolves.
    “Soren,” Gylfie said. “Soren, look around.” She nodded her head toward the ring of volcanoes. Upon each cairn a wolf stood and stretched its long neck toward the sky and began to howl.
    “The ember is back,” he replied. “They mourn for their lost king and their lost lives.”
    “No, Soren. They are not so selfish as to mourn for themselves. They could have left the Watch during Coryn’s reign. But listen to their song. It’s not sad.” The voices of the wolves grew louder. The wild, untamed song curled into the night. Namara trotted up to Soren. “It is the Song of the Monarch.”
    “Monarch? But the king is dead.”
    “There will be a new king, unembered but Glaux blessed.”
    “No!” Soren gasped.
    “Yes,” three voices said. He turned and looked at Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger perched before him.
    “Now it is your time,” Digger said. Twilight and Gylfie nodded. Another voice spoke. “Your time, Soren.” It was Otulissa. Namara had fallen to her knees, her belly scraping the ground. A mighty roar rang out through the Sacred Ring. The polar bears leaped into the night. And the