The Siege

by Kathryn Lasky

  “But we can’t fake it. I mean, we only got as far as the Ice Narrows. We don’t know that much about Northern Kingdoms,” Gylfie said.

  “You will by the time I get through with you,” Ezylryb said bluntly.

  The seven young owls exchanged nervous glances. Then Boron began to speak again. “The seven of you shall report to Ezylryb’s hollow daily for the next week. During that time, Ezylryb will give you intense tutorials in the history and culture of the Northern Kingdoms.”

  Soren could sense Otulissa swelling with excitement over the prospect of yet another intellectual challenge.

  “I cannot impress upon you too much the need for absolute secrecy. No one is to know about this mission. Talk of it must not go beyond these walls or the walls of Ezylryb’s hollow,” Boron said.

  “What about our own hollow?” Soren asked. He was thinking of his sister, Eglantine. It would be hard to keep this from her. “And when we are with Ezylryb, won’t the rybs miss us for our usual classes?”

  “We’ve thought of that,” Barran said. “In regard to Eglantine, we have felt, as I am sure you have, that your hollow is a bit crowded with five of you in there. Primrose is knocking about in that hollow of hers all alone since that one Masked Owl from the Great Downing died of summer flux.

  “Primrose has asked time and time again if Eglantine could move in with her since they are such close friends. I think Eglantine would like to, but she felt that you might be hurt. In truth, I think that she would be more comfortable with Primrose, who is somewhat closer to her age. I shall handle her move. I’ll tell her that we have discussed it with you, and you understand.”

  Barran then turned to Otulissa, Ruby, and Martin. “You three present another situation. We cannot go about moving everybody, or it will arouse suspicions. With your hollowmates, you will just have to be as discreet as possible.

  “Now, as for your cover story for when you are gone…well, leave that to us. Ezylryb is devising a so-called scientific weather experiment that is going to require the transfer of some equipment to an area on the other side of the Sea of Hoolemere. The execution of this experiment necessitates the abilities of the members of a variety of chaws. Right, Ezylryb?”

  The old Whiskered Screech nodded.

  Boron continued, “I think that just about does it, then. You are dismissed for now, but please expect to report to Ezylryb directly at tween time for your first history lesson on the Northern Kingdoms.”

  The seven owls started to leave the parliament hollow. “Just one moment, young’uns,” Ezylryb called out. “I have something here for Otulissa.” She blinked and turned toward her chaw leader. “I believe you were looking for this?” In his three-taloned foot that had been mangled in an ancient battle, Ezylryb held out the book Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard.

  Otulissa gasped. “Really?!” She blinked in disbelief as he extended his talons with the forbidden book.

  “Yes…really, Otulissa. And I quite agree with you—sprink on spronk.”

  Barran gasped and Boron winced. But they said nothing as the sound of the vulgar word pealed through the hollow.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Learning by Heart and by Gizzard

  There is the Hollow of Lyze, on Stormfast Island, that is Ezylryb’s clan. Then there is the Hollow of Snarth on the Tridents, a cluster of three small islands. Then there is…”

  Ruby made a deep and mournful noise halfway between a sigh and a sob. “I’ll never learn all this history. There are so many clans and so many islands that I can’t keep straight what’s in the Kielian League and what’s in the league of the Ice Talons. It’s just too much.”

  Otulissa had, of course, learned all the dynasties of the Northern Kingdoms, the great battles, the heroes, and the villains. She had memorized passages from the long narrative poem the Yigdaldish Ga’far that related the heroic adventures of the Great Snowy Owl Proudfoot and an Eagle Owl named Hot Beak. The others felt positively dim in comparison, especially Ruby, who was not much of a scholar and had trouble sounding out some of the words in the books Ezylryb provided. She claimed that certain words got stuck in her throat. “These words are like rocks. They sound like gagging.”

  Soren felt that Ruby had a point. The words were hard to say, and many did have harsh, gagging sounds. But he suddenly had another thought.

  “I’m not sure if we should know all of this stuff so well. It’s not as if we were hatched and raised in the Northern Kingdoms. Remember, we just arrived accidentally, thanks to a williwaw. It might seem weird if we know all this history like we were…were…”

  “Grot-ghots?” Otulissa said. “That’s the Northern Kingdom term for native.”

  Soren and Gylfie blinked at each other. Unbelievable, this Spotted Owl, thought Soren. Does she ever let up?

  “I think Soren is absolutely right,” Digger spoke up. “How are we supposed to have learned all this stuff if we were just blown off course? As a matter of fact, Otulissa, you’re going to have to watch yourself.”

  “Watch myself?” She blinked rapidly. “How do you mean?”

  Twilight stepped up close to her and bobbed his head forward. “He means put a mouse in it!”

  Otulissa looked crestfallen. “Oh…oh,” she said softly. “I see what you mean. Yes, they might think we were grot-ghots and not merely blown off course,” she paused. “I’ve learned so much, though.”

  “Well, you’ll be able to use it sometime, I’m sure, Otulissa,” Soren said. He actually felt a bit sorry for her. “And I think we can tell them a lot about the military stuff that Ezylryb mentioned. I mean, Ezylryb did say that we were supposed to pretend that we found some sort of weakness. How did he say it, Gylfie?”

  “He said that we must say something to the effect that we find the clans an inefficient and cumbersome method of social and military organization. Remember, St. Aggie’s owls have never been to the Northern Kingdoms, so they’re going to believe what we tell them.” Gylfie paused. “But you know what is even more important for all of you to learn? The most important lesson of all.”

  “What’s that?” asked Martin.

  Gylfie looked across to Soren and blinked. Soren knew what was coming. “How not to be moon blinked.”

  When Soren and Gylfie had been snatched by the owls of St. Aggie’s, they were shocked to find owls who no longer slept during the day. In a complete reversal of the normal cycle, these young owls were forced to sleep at night. Furthermore, during the nighttime, they were periodically awakened and made to perform the sleep march under the glare of a rising moon. It did not take Soren and Gylfie long to figure out that the reason for the march was to make hundreds of young owlets rotate through the moon’s glare. And no one was allowed to stay in the safety of the shadows for too long. For among older owls it was known that to sleep with one’s head exposed to the brightness of the moon’s light, especially a moon at the full shine, had a peculiar effect on the gizzards and the minds of owls, especially young impressionable ones. Through some mysterious process, their own personalities began to disintegrate, they lost any sense of their uniqueness, and their will simply evaporated.

  To aid in this process, they were each assigned a number in place of their name. While marching, they were told to repeat their old name endlessly. A name, or any word, repeated endlessly breaks up into meaningless sounds. It is no longer a name. It is just a senseless collection of noises. So Gylfie and Soren had pretended to say their names while marching, but instead, they had repeated their assigned numbers. Thus their numbers became meaningless, not their names.

  Soren and Gylfie had developed other tricks as well. Some were riskier than others. But the most effective strategy of all in resisting moon blinking had been to silently whisper the legends of Ga’Hoole. At that time in Gylfie’s and Soren’s lives they had thought they were only repeating stories. They had no idea that the Great Ga’Hoole Tree really existed, and that the stories were true. By repeating these tales, Soren and Gylfie were able to r
esist moon blinking and even moon scalding, which was far more damaging.

  So their work in teaching the other owls these ruses began in earnest. Each owl was given one or two stories of the Ga’Hoolian cycle to remember and retell in a whisper to themselves and to one another. It was Soren’s belief that if one knew the story well enough, one did not have to say the words out loud. The story began to live within them, within their gizzards until each owl became a guardian of his or her story.

  Ruby found remembering the stories of Ga’Hoole much easier than sorting out and remembering the clans of the Northern Kingdoms. Since Ruby was the best flier of the group and a superb collier, it was her task to be the teller of the stories that were about forest fires. These were called the Fire Cycle.

  Twilight, of course, was the teller of the War Cycle. Gylfie, as a member of the navigation chaw and thoroughly knowledgeable about the stars and the constellations, told the stories of the Star Cycle. The Star, the Fire, and the War cycles were the three main cycles. The rest of the stories were of weather, heroes, and villains. Otulissa, Digger, and Soren divided these up among themselves. They were the stories on which owls grew strong and bold. They were stories to be learned by heart and by gizzard.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Special Flint Mop

  It was the day before the mission. As the light grew dusky, the seven owls began to stir. They were all nervous and slept little during that day. The three owls who did not share a hollow with Digger, Gylfie, Soren, and Twilight were especially jittery. It wasn’t easy being alone in one’s hollow with only a couple of other owls who knew nothing of the mission you were about to embark upon. One was completely isolated with his or her thoughts and fears. A sense of dread inevitably began to creep through each owl’s gizzard. Will I do my part? Will I remember my section of the Ga’Hoole cycle? Will I be moon blinked? Moon scalded? Or perhaps even worse, would they be discovered and then subjected to some brutal punishment, such as the one called laughter therapy, in which feathers were plucked from an owl’s wings?

  Ruby looked enviously at her hollowmates, another Short-eared and a Great Horned Owl, as they snoozed, their sleep smooth as summer air, undisturbed by any thoughts of wing pluckings or moon scaldings. In her head she kept repeating the saga of the famous collier from ancient times. The words that opened this story of the Fire Cycle sang softly in her head.

  It was in the time of the endless volcanoes. For years and years in the land known as Beyond the Beyond, flames had scraped the sky, turning clouds the color of glowing embers both day and night. The volcanoes that had been dormant for years had begun to erupt. Ash and dust blew across the land and, although it was thought to be a curse from Great Glaux on high, it was something else. For this was the time when Grank, the first collier, was hatched. This was the time when a few special owls discovered that fire could be tamed.

  And in another hollow, Martin repeated to himself a short piece from the weather sagas about an owl that, just as Martin once had, plunged to the bottom of the sea to be rescued, not by a seagull as Martin had been, but by a passing whale.

  Otulissa tried to sleep, but she had failed, as had the others. Her head now swirled with so many thoughts. There was so much to know, to learn—and to unlearn! Soren had been right. She couldn’t appear too knowledgeable about the Northern Kingdoms. And then there was her portion of the Ga’Hoolian cycle to know, which one could never learn well enough. On that her very life, her gizzard, her mind depended.

  There was no sense even trying to sleep, she thought. She untucked the book Ezylryb had given her from where she had stashed it deep in the moss and down of her nest bed. She would read just one or two pages. Reading did ease her mind. It always had, always would. She was just about to turn the page when suddenly a voice oozed into the milky light of the hollow.

  “Caught you!” Otulissa’s gizzard seemed to drop to her talons. It was Dewlap. The Burrowing Owl had poked her head into the hollow through the sky port, blocking the mid-afternoon sun, so that shadows spilled across the floor. She beckoned with a talon at the end of her long, featherless leg. “Come here, immediately, and bring that book!”

  “B-b-b-but, but…” Otulissa stammered.

  “No buts.”

  Otulissa got up shakily and moved toward the sky port. Dewlap snatched the book.

  “But you don’t understand,” Otulissa said. “Ezylryb…”

  “I understand perfectly. More than you think. Now, you follow me, missy. I have a special flint mop for you.”

  Otulissa didn’t know what to do. She could hardly tell Dewlap that within two hours she was supposed to go to the cliffs on the far side of the island to meet the others for a top secret mission. She knew that Ezylryb was fast asleep in his hollow, and it was always strictly forbidden to wake him up. What would happen if she simply refused to fly after Dewlap? But that, too, might raise a fracas. In no way could she jeopardize the mission. It was unthinkable. So the Spotted Owl followed the old Burrowing Owl. And as she followed her, she could not help but notice what a miserable flier this ryb was.

  Burrowing Owls, of all the owls, were the least skillful and the weakest fliers. They were known, however, for their superior abilities in walking and even running over all sorts of terrain on the ground. Dewlap was the worst flier Otulissa had ever seen. She lacked silence and balance as she flew. Her strokes were rough and feeble. She rarely got any significant lift from them and when she carved a turn, it was a complete mess. And she was attempting to fly while still holding in her talons the book she had snatched from Otulissa.

  Otulissa thought she knew where Dewlap was leading her; to another side of the island, about as far away as could be from the cliffs from which they were supposed to take off on their mission. This was a favorite flint-mop site. The cliffs here were not very high. There was a small beach below, where seaweed drifted up, sometimes accompanied by dead fish or pellets yarped by owls as they flew over Hoolemere. The dead fish, the pellets, and the seaweed were extremely rich in nutrients that benefited the tree if properly buried at its base. So groups were often sent on collection trips. This was obviously the flint mop that Dewlap had selected for Otulissa.

  Well, Otulissa thought, perhaps if I work quickly, I can get it over with and still be on time. But before she even began, Dewlap insisted that Otulissa go kill a vole for her, as she was hungry. The young owl did this promptly and dropped it at the Burrowing Owl’s talons, which were placed protectively on the book.

  “That’s a nice vole,” Dewlap said in that oozy voice of hers. Otulissa did not respond. “You’re a bit angry, I suppose.” Otulissa would not even give her the satisfaction of looking at her. She immediately flew down to the beach and began collecting seaweed and salt-soaked pellets.

  The sky had turned a dusky purple. It was a weak light at the end of one of the short, winter days. The world would soon enough be plunged into darkness. In the winter, First Black seemed to drop suddenly and sharply like a stone blade from the sky, severing the day from the night, the light from the dark. Six owls waited on the cliffs.

  “She was supposed to be here at tween time!” Soren muttered. Then for perhaps the tenth time, his voice betraying his anguish, “Where could she be?” He almost moaned. “Otulissa, of all owls! She’s never late, always prompt.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be here,” Martin said, although there was little conviction in his voice.

  How long can we wait? Soren wondered. The winds were growing confused. It was hard enough flying across the Sea of Hoolemere from this particular point. It lengthened any journey across the sea and the winds were very often unfavorable, as now, and they were getting stronger. Soren and Gylfie were soon going to decide whether to go or not, with or without Otulissa. The Barn Owl and the Elf Owl had been appointed the leaders of this mission since they were the only two owls in the group who had actually been inside St. Aggie’s.

  They exchanged glances.

  Gylfie blinked. I think we have to go.r />
  Soren could read the thought in the Elf Owl’s eyes. She’s right, he thought.

  “Prepare to fly!” Soren gave the command. “Course check, please.” He turned to Gylfie.

  “North by northeast, keeping wingspans between the first two points of the Golden Talons and the starboard foot, turning to east after three leagues, then due south. If possible, keep to starboard of the Little Raccoon, which should be rising soon.”

  “Fly!” Soren hooted in the shrill screech of a Barn Owl.

  Meanwhile on the crescent beach, Otulissa muttered to herself, “What am I going to do?” She had collected a huge pile of nutritious debris. It would require at least four trips to take it all back to be buried at the base of the tree. And Dewlap kept sending her out to fetch snacks.

  Just now she called down to Otulissa, “Dear, I’m feeling a twinge of hunger. I just saw a chubby little ground squirrel wander by. Do you suppose…?”

  Suppose what, you fat old witch? But Otulissa dropped a dead fish in the pile and flew up. One of the things that really frinked Otulissa off about Dewlap was not just her voice but how she pretended to be so polite—all the “Dear, do this” or “Dear, do that” or the “Would you minds.” Everyone knew there was no choice. Why did she even bother with this pretense of sweetness?

  In the moment that Otulissa spiraled down in a dizzying plunge to kill the ground squirrel, the blade of darkness had begun to fall. And with a quick slash, day was severed from night and the world turned black. A small animal died, and Otulissa rose, her beak bloody from killing. They’ve gone! she thought mournfully. She power-stroked through the confusing winds that had grown stronger toward Dewlap, who was perched on a rock outcropping, her talons still clutching the book. Otulissa started to angle in to drop the squirrel at the Burrowing Owl’s long, ugly legs. But then something seized her. There was a tremendous lurch in her gizzard. Indignation flooded every hollow bone in her body. She flung the bloody ground squirrel directly into the face of Dewlap. “SPRINK ON YOU!” she cried.