The Siege. Kathryn Lasky

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СКАЧАТЬ Dewlap was not there. Only Ezylryb and Boron and his mate Barran, the two Snowy Owls who were the monarchs of the tree, were in attendance. And much to Soren’s surprise, two other members of the weather chaw, Ruby, a Short-eared Owl and the best flier in the chaw, and Soren’s flight partner Martin, a tiny Northern Saw-whet.

      What’s going on here? Why Ruby and Martin? Soren blinked at them in dismay, and they seemed equally puzzled as to why they had been called.

      Barran coughed several times to clear her throat and began to speak. “The seven of you have been called here for a reason.” Dread swam in all of their gizzards. What was it to be? Burying pellets? Or would they be chaw-chopped?

      Boron was now speaking. “The seven of you combine an interesting array of talents.” He paused. “As was proven in the extraordinary rescue of Ezylryb.” Ezylryb nodded and seemed to fix his gaze on Soren. “Some have come to refer to you as ‘the Chaw of Chaws’.” Soren almost gasped, and he felt his gizzard give a thrilled little twitch.

      “To get to the point,” Boron continued, “your special talents as the Chaw of Chaws are now needed.” One could have heard a blade of grass drop in the parliament hollow.

      Glaux, Soren thought, if Twilight pipes up about war and battle claws, I’ll smack him. That was all the Great Grey ever thought about. But of course he was brilliant in battle.

      Then it was as if Barran had read Soren’s thoughts. She swung her head round and fixed Twilight with a piercing stare. The light from her yellow eyes was like sharp, bright-golden needles. “In a sense, it is much more dangerous than war. Although the stakes are as high, for you could be killed.”

      Whether Soren and his friends drew a breath for the next several seconds was questionable.

      “Your mission is to penetrate the St Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls.”

      What! Soren thought. Go back? He and Gylfie were horrified.

      The two owls almost fell off the parliament perches. They were being asked to go back to the place that had attempted to destroy their personalities and their wills, through the brutal processes called moon blinking and moon scalding.

      “We have reason to believe that a dangerous group of owls, the ones that call themselves the Pure Ones, have possibly already infiltrated St Aggie’s with the intention of capturing the immense stores of flecks. We have had intelligence reports from Ambala that suggest this,” said Boron.

      “Ambala?” Digger said. “Isn’t that where the slipgizzle was, the Barred Owl?”

      “Was is right,” Boron said. “As you know, he was killed. Over the last several months, we have been cultivating a new slipgizzle. She is rather frail and quite eccentric. They call her Mist, and she is perfectly suited for this work because through some odd accident, an almost terminal shock to her gizzard, she has lost all her colouration. Her feathers have turned a pale, almost foggy grey. Some might think she is a scroom. But she isn’t. She does not fly well, but she has incredible powers of observation. The reports she has been sending about the Pure Ones are most disturbing.”

      Soren blinked. “Why?”

      “They want flecks,” Barran said, “and St Aggie’s has the largest repository of flecks in existence. But Mist thinks their interest extends beyond the flecks, and that is what we want you to find out. The two greatest threats to the owl kingdoms are St Aggie’s and the Pure Ones. The very idea of their being brought together in some sort of grand mischief is …” Barran hesitated. “… gizzard-chilling, to put it mildly.”

      Then Boron resumed. “So, you see how important the seven of you are. We have faith in you. Now the question is, will you accept this mission?”

      The owls were stunned. They had come in expecting a scolding or a flint mop and instead they had been charged with this important mission. Soren felt Ezylryb’s gaze upon him. And Boron began to speak. “Soren and Gylfie, we realise that going back to St Aggie’s will be most difficult for you.”

      “Yes,” Soren said slowly. “But Boron, won’t they recognise us?”

      “Never!” Barran said quickly. “You were an owlet when you were there before. Your flight feathers had not fledged, nor had your face fledged white, and you were half your size. Gylfie – you too looked quite different.”

      “And,” Ezylryb began to speak for the first time, “as you two well know, they are stupid, these owls of St Aggie’s.” He paused. “But still, you’ll need a cover story.”

      “A cover story?” Martin asked.

      “Yes, where you came from, why you are there,” said Ezylryb.

      Otulissa raised her talon now to speak. “Can we say something like we got sick of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree? We didn’t trust the Guardians – something like that.”

      “No,” snapped Ezylryb. “They’ll never believe you. It will raise their suspicions if they think you have anything to do with the great tree. You need to come from a place that they know very little about.”

      Soren suddenly realised that Ezylryb had thought out this entire cover story.

      “A place like what?” Soren asked.

      “A place like the Northern Kingdoms,” said Ezylryb.

      “Hold on a second.” Digger had now raised a talon to speak. “Ezylryb, Gylfie and I are desert owls. The chances of our coming from the Northern Kingdoms are just about zero.”

      “I have it figured out,” Ezylryb replied. I thought so. Soren blinked.

      Ezylryb continued, but he did not stand still on the perch. He began sweeping through the air.

      “Last summer, before certain unfortunate incidents like the Great Downing and my own entrapment in the Devil’s Triangle, I had commenced a set of weather interpretation experiments. My original intention had been to pick up information on atmospheric particles and subparticles as they are related to the displays we call the Aurora Glaucora, those magnificent colours in the summer sky when the entire night seems to pulsate with glorious lights. There was one last summer, as I recall, just around the time of my entrapment. Well, as often happens with scientific inquiry, one sets out to solve one problem and, quite by accident and happy surprise, one finds the answer to something entirely different. What I stumbled across was a new method for detecting distant williwaws.”

      “Williwaws!” Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger blurted out together.

      “We know williwaws!” Gylfie said.

      “Oh, you do, do you?” There was a churr, a kind of owl chuckle embedded in Ezylryb’s voice.

      “Yes sir,” Gylfie continued. “On our journey to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, we thought we were right on course for the island when somehow we got sucked up into the Ice Narrows …” Gylfie’s voice began to dwindle off as the realisation dawned.

      Now Ezylryb really did laugh. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “You’re getting the picture! Yes, you see, that’s how desert owls get to the Northern Kingdoms. They get sucked up there. For what is a williwaw but a sudden violent wind?”

      “He СКАЧАТЬ