The War of the Ember

by Kathryn Lasky

  Frinkin’ racdrops! Soren thought. “Extend!” he called to Gylfie.

  There were three clicks. One click as the single-action prongs of Soren’s battle claws extended and two more as the double hinges of Gylfie’s unlocked.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  High Stakes

  Amazing!” Otulissa said. She was bobbling around on a chunk of ice that had been dislodged from the canyon wall when Cleve had performed the most basic and powerful of all Danyar moves, the Breath of Qui. A student of the Danyar, the way of noble gentleness, never used weapons that butchered an enemy. Instead, Danyar focused on developing the entire owl organism—its joints, its hollow bones, its gizzard, lungs, heart, and feathers—so that an owl could strike with great force using every part and fiber of its body. The Breath of Qui was a massive inhalation that expanded an owl’s lungs to four times their normal size. It was this inhalation and exhalation that were the central elements in the Danyar style of fighting. It most certainly did kill, but in a way that is what the Jouzhen owls call “owlyk,” which meant as bloodlessly and painlessly as possible.

  Cleve had just performed the Breath of Qui and now the bodies of four owls were rapidly sinking into the sea. They were dead by the time they had hit the surface of the water, but what was intriguing was how their feathers had become instantly sodden. They might as well have been stones. Otulissa blinked several times. She was not sure what astonished her more, Cleve performing the Breath of Qui and felling the owls with one exhalation or the fact that the blue owls were already nearly swallowed by the sea. She blinked again and looked up at Cleve. She felt absolutely foolish wearing her double-hinged retractable battle claws with their single-action recoil—whatever, blah, blah, blah, she thought. So much for technology. He had dispatched the blue owls bare-clawed!

  Otulissa tried to compose herself. “Cleve,” she gasped, “I know how you did it, but how and when did you learn?” But before the question was answered, she remembered Dumpy asking Cleve on the flight here why he and Tengshu had exchanged that funny look just before Tengshu left for the Middle Kingdom. “Funny?” Cleve had asked somewhat disingenuously. “Maybe it was just a nervous tic.” It came back to Otulissa now. She stood up straighter on the bobbling ice block. “You told Dumpy you had a nervous tic. But you don’t have any such thing, do you, Cleve?”

  “No, my dear, none whatsoever. It would have been difficult for me to learn the way of noble gentleness if I had had a nervous tic.”

  “So you’ve been studying with Tengshu?”

  Cleve nodded.

  “Behind my back?” Otulissa’s voice almost broke as she spoke the words.

  “Oh, Otulissa, I feared I might fail. I have never in my life fought before. I am not a fighting owl.”

  “But why now? Why did you decide to learn?”

  “I had forebodings. When I came to the tree and heard about the Striga and all that he had done and that he had not been killed—I just felt…I don’t know. I think it was love more than fear. I want to do all I can to protect you, and what you value. The tree.”

  “So you took up arms for me?” Otulissa asked incredulously.

  “Not arms. I learned the way of Danyar. I think things are going to be bad, Otulissa. I think a big war is coming, what with the Striga and Nyra trying to bring the hagsfiends back to life for this war. The stakes are so high. The ember and…you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Standoff at the Great Horns

  Soren blinked. He could not believe that he and Gylfie were in a standoff. Somehow, Wensel had shaken off his fear, regained flight, and unlocked his wings before crashing, but now Soren, Gylfie, and Wensel were perched directly under the twin shadows of the Great Horns, opposite the three Burrowing Owls who were advancing on them, the burning tips of their fire claws glaring like eyeballs from hagsmire. Soren was incredulous. They were only just past halfway to the Wolf’s Fang. They probably would have been there by now if Wensel hadn’t wandered off route. Did Wensel have the ember? Soren hoped he didn’t. He wished with all his gizzard that Ruby or Fritha had it, and were already at the Wolf’s Fang. Nonetheless, this was a dangerous situation. The numbers on each side were even, but their sizes were not. Burrowing Owls were larger than Barn Owls, and about four times the size of Gylfie.

  “What’cha got in that botkin, lad?” It was Tarn who spoke. Soren recognized him. Tarn, architect and chief excavator of the extensive burrowing encampment that the Pure Ones had set up in the Desert of Kuneer before the battle in the Middle Kingdom. He had been the highest-ranking officer below Nyra in the Pure Ones. Who is he working for now? Soren wondered. But then a voice out of nowhere cawed.

  “Hey, he ain’t blue,” said the unexpected voice from high up on one of the Great Horns.

  “And that other one ain’t no Barn Owl,” cracked another.

  The six owls on the ground all looked up, startled, to see where these voices came from. Soren jerked his head back. He had to strike now while Tarn and the other two Burrowing Owls were distracted. He hurled himself into flight while the others were still looking up.

  “You go, owl!” the voice from above them hooted. This is incredible, Soren thought. He caught a flash of silver streaking down from the peaks of the Great Horns as he struck at the Burrowing Owl nearest to him and sent him tumbling. Gotta get him into the air! Soren thought. In the air above, swirling around the peaks, there were more flashes of silvery gray from which taunts began raining down.

  He ain’t blue and he ain’t Barn,

  Holy racdrops, it must be Tarn!

  They say he be a genius owl.

  Say he’s a genius, I say he’s a dud,

  Bad-butt owl just like old Kludd!

  Was it Twilight? Two Twilights? The Great Grays were everywhere all at once—and Wensel! Wensel had just taken a piece of brush and, in an insanely daring move, flown directly at Tarn, igniting the brush from his opponent’s fire claws. Now that’s inventive! And crazy! Soren thought. But who are these Grays? The odds had definitely improved with the intervention of the Grays, and Wensel had lit another branch and passed it off to the larger of the two. Gylfie had dashed in and caught a twig midair that had dropped from one of the burning branches. Gylfie could be positively lethal with a burning twig.

  Let it burn, let it burn!

  Oh, let it burn, burn him not you!

  A nice burrow stew!

  Burn their butts naked as their legs,

  Now just watch them start to beg.

  “Hey, Cletus!” the other Great Gray shouted. “Got me a stick—it’s all on fire.” In a daring sweep, he rushed in, skimming, just out of reach of the enemy owl’s fire claws, and knocked him off balance. As the owl staggered, Gylfie darted in and ignited his tail feathers with her twig in an almost balletic movement.

  In another two seconds, the owl was consumed in flames. This was all the other two Burrowing Owls needed to see, and they were off in a flash, streaking through the night with the fire claws that had been their undoing.

  Soren, Gylfie, and Wensel collapsed, exhausted. “It’s all my fault!” Wensel said.

  “You’re right about that,” Soren said wearily. “But you sure fought well and you never lost the grip on the botkin.” Soren then turned to the two Great Grays.

  “Who are you?”

  “Cletus,” said the smaller of the two.

  “Cletus? That’s your name?”

  “Nobody else’s.” He turned to the other owl. “Brother Tavis, you know anyone else called Cletus?”

  “Can’t say as I do, brother.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re from the orphan school of tough learning?”

  The one called Tavis shook his head. “No…no, not really. We were pretty well raised until…” His voice dwindled off.

  “Until when?”

  “Until the night Cletus and I went out hunting for our mum. You see, she was sitting an egg. It was supposed to hatch soon. Our da had already died. Killed by one of the earliest leaders
of the Pure Ones.”

  “Long before Metal Beak,” Cletus added. “You’ve heard of Metal Beak?”

  Soren nodded.

  “Well,” Tavis continued, “when we came back she was gone. It looked as if the egg had hatched.”

  “We didn’t know what happened.” Cletus now picked up the story. “Then a few nights later we found her body. But no signs of a chick. Just gone. Probably killed.”

  Tavis stepped forward and spoke now. “The times were really bad. There were St. Aggie’s raids going on all over the place. We were young so we just decided to go underground.”

  “Literally!” Cletus interjected.

  “Yeah, we went to the Desert of Kuneer and lived for a long time in abandoned burrows.”

  “That’s why we could fight these suckers so well. We know the ways of Burrowing Owls. And yeah, we’ve heard of this Tarn. Bad-butt owl!”

  “But we always wondered what happened to the chick, our brother or sister. Don’t even know which,” Tavis said in a voice that seemed to ache with sorrow.

  Soren and Gylfie looked at each other in quiet astonishment. The similarities were not just remarkable but extraordinary—the brashness, the humor, the nonstop beak! And, of course, the spot-on fighting skills—all obviously learned in the infamous orphan school of tough learning to which their dear friend Twilight was constantly referring.

  “I think I know what happened to that owlet,” Soren said softly.

  “You know?” The two Great Grays were stunned.

  “He lives.”

  “He lives!” the two owls cried joyously, and seemed to swell like smoky moons in the wind-torn night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A Mustering of Troops

  It was like a current, a current not of wind or of water, but of apprehension and then resolve that swept through the Northern Kingdoms. A polar bear was doing something she had never done before as she plunged into the choppy water, leaving the den she had just cleaned out and fixed for winter. She began swimming out the Bay of Kiel and her usual winter territory in an easterly direction toward the Firth of Fangs, where Svarr, father of her cubs, resided for the winter. The ice was getting thicker as she swam north. She used her hind paws to steer herself around ice floes, which were becoming more numerous. Soon an entire ice field materialized. It was the outer apron of the H’rathghar glacier, a very good seal-hunting ground, and as Sveep turned her boulder-sized head, she caught sight of a tendril of vapor winding up from a hole. Undoubtedly a seal breathing hole. Normally, she would have stopped, hoisted herself out of the water, waited for the seal to poke its snout out of the hole, and then, springing, she would have grabbed its head in her immense serrated fangs and had herself a nice snack. But she didn’t have time. She had to get up the firth.

  “Grischtung issen micht micht.” She muttered the ancient Krakish oath, an oath of wonder and dismay as she swam. It was indeed a wonder that the young puffin had done what she had said he should. The tubby, awkward bird had actually flown to the great tree and, now, unbelievably, a king had come to visit her. Coryn, the three owls with him, and an ancient Kielian snake had arrived on the edges of an early winter storm. It seemed that what the puffin, Dumpy—was that his name? Yes—what Dumpy had witnessed in the cave in the Ice Narrows had much more serious implications than she had thought. Coryn was surprised but infinitely grateful that Sveep had traveled the overland trail to speak with Gyllbane. He had not known about the moon cycles Gyllbane spent with Sveep in her summer den after Cody’s death.

  “After your long journey,” Coryn had said hesitantly as he peered into the immense dark pools of Sveep’s eyes, “I feel that I don’t have the right to ask another favor of you. But a war is coming and it will not be just a war between owls. It will touch every place and every creature in the Southern and the Northern kingdoms. So we need the help of all creatures—be they owls, wolves, or bears. We have to fight for the freedom, the dignity of all animals. If this war comes it will not be won by evacuation, nor will it be won by animals hunkering down in their burrows or their winter dens until the fighting ends. We need to muster an expeditionary force. Sveep, you have done so much already. Do you think you can recruit and lead a fighting force of polar bears?”

  The polar bear had agreed. Already she had gathered the non-pregnant females who denned near her to meet her at a designated time on the westernmost shore of the Bay of Kiel, where they would travel the overland route and find their way to Beyond the Beyond. Sveep was not sure why, but the king said that the Beyond would be the battleground. She was just approaching the inlet where Svarr denned and began emitting soft sonorous growls to greet him.

  “Aaargh!” The reply came from deep in the den. She had been heard. Sveep rolled on her back, folded her huge paws across her stomach, and floated about while she waited for Svarr to come to the entrance of his cave. Finally, he appeared. He looked cross.

  “What in the name of Ursa are you doing here?”

  “A visit.”

  “It’s not that time.”

  “I know. What do you think I am…” She was about to say “a stupid puffin?” but she clamped her mouth shut.

  Sveep sighed and then said crisply, “Look, conversation closed about cubs and all that stuff.”

  “All that stuff! You’re talking, madam, of my progeny.” Svarr tried to look nobly offended, but only succeeded in looking crotchety.

  “Don’t look so crotchety.” She knew this would get him.

  “Old bears are crotchety. I’m not an old bear.”

  Sveep knew she had him just where she wanted him now. She’d injured his pride. Nothing like a war to make a male polar bear feel fit. She rolled over onto her stomach and paddled to the lip of the ice of his den and rested her elbows on it. She drew her face very close to his. “All right, big guy!” The pleasant odor of the bluescales that she had consumed on her swim north washed over Svarr’s face as she spoke. “Now listen to me. This is the time for all brave bears to come together. Noble bears, bears of valor.” She could see Svarr’s eyes fasten on her. His surliness had dissolved. There was only the black intensity of his eyes. “I have been charged by a king, King Coryn from the great tree, to form a fighting division of polar bears.”

  “You?”

  Sveep ignored his dismay. “Listen to me, Svarr. You are a bear of valor, an ursus maritimus. A bear of the sea and the land as well. In our world, it has been the noble Guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree that have fought the good fight. We have lived apart in a world bound by ice and sea. But there has never been, in all of time, a chance like this for us polar bears. We can go forth now, to guard our land against a terrible threat from ancient times.” She paused to let that sink in.

  “What threat from ancient times?”

  “Hagsfiends.” She noted the shock in his dark eyes, like a little flinch in the darkness of a moonless night. “Listen to me, Svarr. We have in our sinew, our muscles, our paws, our sheer size, instruments for shattering power. We possess colossal strength. Now of whom else might this be said? Join me, Svarr. Swim with me and we shall fight the good fight and help the Guardians of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree win this war.”

  As Sveep swam out of the Firth of Fangs with her sometime mate following, high overhead, buried in the last of the stria clouds, Coryn, Gwyndor, Kalo, and her brother, Cory, flew up the firth to visit the old warrior Moss. They took turns carrying Octavia, who did seem to have grown sleeker on the arduous flight. Just before nearing Moss’s territory Gwyndor took Octavia on his back and flew toward Stormfast Island for a parlay with Octavia’s distant relative, Hoke of Hock.

  Although infirmed and barely able to fly himself, Moss was still the commander in chief of all the armed owls of the Northern Kingdoms, which included the Frost Beaks, the Glauxspeed division, and an all-female unit of mostly Snowy Owls, many of them former gadfeathers who flew with the deadly ice scimitars. They were ironically known as the Sissies, which was short for Screaming Ice Scimitars. Co
ryn would ask Moss to provide troops for the war.

  After Gwyndor’s departure with Octavia on board, Coryn, Kalo, and Cory continued on course up the firth for some time in silence. Coryn was surprised when a Snowy and a Barred Owl flew out from the lagoon where Moss was said to nest. “We have been expecting you,” they announced.

  Coryn blinked in confusion.

  “Nut Beam told us,” the Snowy Owl said. “He wanted to get an urgent message to you. He had heard that you were flying this way. The message is from Otulissa, and Cleve. She says it is imperative that you fly to the Ice Dagger immediately.”

  Coryn swiveled his head toward Kalo and blinked. “I think you should go, Coryn,” Kalo said. “We can convey your request to Moss.”

  The Barred Owl nodded his head in agreement. “I think Moss knows why you have come. Permit me, Coryn, to escort your companions to Moss. You should feel free to take your leave of us to meet with Otulissa and our old friend Cleve.”

  So Coryn turned back. At least the wind had shifted and would be behind him now. It was pretty much a straight shot to the Ice Dagger. What has Otulissa found out now? he wondered. Perhaps he could get back to the tree earlier than expected. Time was of the essence.

  He didn’t realize quite how essential it truly was.

  In another part of the Northern Kingdoms on Stormfast Island, Octavia arranged herself in a coil and held her head erect it as she prepared to address Hoke of Hock. Gwyndor had dropped her on the barren island and made himself scarce to give the old compatriots some time alone. Like Octavia, Hoke was a glistening green-blue snake. He was not, however, blind.