The Siege. Kathryn Lasky

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СКАЧАТЬ in the borderlands between The Beaks and Ambala had been murdered, there had been no one. Now the owl called Mist sensed that there was great peril nearby.

      She had watched the strange sight a few nights before when a smouldering owl had plunged into the lake. She had seen the pilgrim owl rescue it and had been amazed when she observed the pilgrim flying out to fetch leeches. She could not imagine how that owl had survived its plunge, let alone the embers that encrusted its face. But it must have, for the next day she had seen the good pilgrim go out hunting, and had heard him fretting over finding a vole. He was muttering to himself in a taut voice that the injured owl had demanded meat and not fish. Mist could not imagine how that owl could be so demanding of the pilgrim who had saved his life. And now she watched as the pilgrim went out several times each day and always for red meat – rat, vole, squirrel, but never fish.

      She had become more and more curious about the owl recovering in the hollow of the sycamore. How close did she dare come? Most animals in this forest, especially owls, never really saw her. They looked through her. To them she appeared like fog or mist. But even when they did see her, they never seemed to recognise her as an owl, or as any creature they knew. And this was fine with her. The only ones who did know her were the eagles with whom she lived, Zan and Streak.

      So she crept forwards on the branch of the fir tree where she perched. It was a short flight to the spruce that grew next to the sycamore where the wounded owl was recovering. A few minutes later, she lighted down on to the spruce. There was one branch that extended further than the others and nearly touched the sycamore. From this branch she had a perfect view into the hollow where the wounded owl rested.

      The Spotted Owl gasped at what she saw. The injured owl was immense and his face was hidden behind a metal mask that made him appear horrifyingly brutal. She felt her gizzard twitch and a slow dread begin to build. She must get back to the eagles. There was something about this owl that was more evil than anything she had ever seen. But just then, she heard the approach of the pilgrim. Suddenly the entire world seemed to turn into a blizzard of bloody feathers. A terrible shriek shattered the forest. And then it was over. In a matter of seconds, the Brown Fish Owl lay dead on the forest floor. One wing ripped off, his head nearly split open. As the blackness of the night gathered in the forest, the huge owl with the metal mask raised its wings up, then flapped and lifted into the sky.

      The Spotted Owl’s gizzard turned to ice as the owl settled on the very same limb upon which she perched. She had survived so much. Was she now to die in the talons of this monster owl? The monster turned towards her. The Spotted Owl dared not breathe. Never had she perched this close to an owl and remained imperceptible. The monster blinked. Incredible! He sees straight through me. I am indeed mist.

      The branch shook as Kludd flapped his wings again and rose into the night to seek his Pure Ones. With this murder finished, the time for revenge had arrived. Vengeance and glory would be his. His gizzard quivered in exultation. A silent scream filled his brain. Kludd Rules Supreme!

CHAPTER THREE

       At the Great GaHoole Tree

      The big limbs of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree shook with the blasts from the first winter’s gale. It was the season of the white rain, when the vines that hung from the tree turned a glistening ivory. The best of the milkberries had all been harvested weeks before in the time of the copper-rose rain, when the vines were burnished a deep copper-rose colour.

      The weather chaw to which Soren belonged had just returned from an interpretation flight led by Ezylryb, captain of the chaw. It had been Ezylryb’s first flight since his rescue from the Devil’s Triangle. And it had been wonderful – a loud, boisterous mission with plenty of wet poop jokes and singing. But they had come back with good information despite Otulissa’s dire prediction that they would learn nothing if they didn’t stop all the gleeking about. Gleeking was the owl word for messing around and not being serious. Some chaw leaders such as Strix Struma never permitted such gleeking, but Ezylryb was different. He believed that gleeking was good, building trust and fellowship.

      Otulissa, however, a serious and proper young Spotted Owl, abhorred gleeking about in general, and wet poop jokes in particular. It was a never-ending debate between her and Soren.

      “Soren, I just don’t believe that exchanging wet poop jokes with seagulls should be part of any mission.”

      Otulissa and Soren, both members of the weather chaw, perched on a branch just outside the dining hollow waiting for Matron to announce that breaklight was ready. Breaklight was the meal the owls enjoyed at the end of the night, just before the break of dawn. After this, they would sleep for the rest of the daylight hours until the evening shadows began to creep over the earth and darken the sky.

      “You can learn a lot from seagulls, Otulissa,” Soren was saying.

      “I beg to differ. All that churring and guffawing and giggling over their pathetic humour interrupts the pressure-front vibrations.” Spotted Owls were known for their extreme sensitivities to atmospheric pressure that came with changes in the weather.

      “Well, you picked up on the fact that a blizzard was behind this gale, and look, it’s starting to snow now. So I don’t see how it damaged your prediction.”

      “Soren, I could have predicted a lot more precisely when and how much snow we would be getting if there hadn’t been all that gleeking about. Also, I just don’t find wet poop jokes funny. As owls, we should be proud of our digestive system and our unique manner of eliminating waste.”

      “Oh, it’s yarping, for Glaux’s sake.” A large Great Grey Owl named Twilight had just lighted down on to the branch next to them. Twilight was one of Soren’s closest friends.

      “It’s not simply yarping, Twilight. That we pack the bones and fur of our waste into neat little packets for excretion is quite extraordinary in the bird kingdom. That so little of our waste is liquid is exceptional. Yarping pellets through our mouths is magnificent,” said Otulissa.

      “Seen one pellet, seen them all,” Twilight growled.

      “I’m getting cold,” Soren said. “When is breaklight going to be ready? I, for one, am ready for something hot.”

      Before a mission, the owls of the weather chaw were not permitted to eat their food cooked. Ezylryb insisted that they eat their food raw and with all the ‘hair’ – as he called it – on the meat. Of course, the owls of the Ga’Hoole Tree were special in that they often ate cooked food. Most owls ate their food raw and bloody because, unlike the owls of the great tree, they did not possess knowledge of fire.

      The owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree enjoyed a civilisation unrivalled by any of the other kingdoms of owls. With their knowledge, they tried to protect the lives of owls in other kingdoms. Lately, however, the dangers had increased alarmingly. Not the least of these dangers were the evil owls of St Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls where Soren had once been imprisoned. At St Aggie’s he had met his best friend Gylfie, an Elf Owl. And now there was an even more destructive group, the Pure Ones. It had been on the mission to rescue Ezylryb that Soren had discovered that his own brother, Kludd, was the leader of this group.

      Matron, a bunchy Barred Owl, poked her beak out of an opening near the branch where Soren and the others perched. “Breaklight!” she announced cheerfully.

      “At last!” Soren said.

      “Ooh, bats! I smell roasted bat wings!” СКАЧАТЬ