Capture (18 page)

"We fly patrol over Kuneer," Streak said, nodding at Digger. "We have a great liking for these desert creatures. While we were out hunting once, one of our little ones tried to fly before she was really ready. You know young ones. It's the one thing we always tell them not to do -- don't try to fly too soon, never leave the nest when Da and Mum are away, and, bless my beak, don't a few always go and try it?

She got a far piece but didn't know how to land and broke a small wing bone. One of these strange little owls, the ones that burrow in the sand, found our little Fiona and tucked her into their hole, fed her, coddled her, took the best care of her till her bone mended and she could fly. They found out where she came from and brought her back to us. Zan and I have always believed that there is more goodness than evil in the world. But you know, you still got to work at it. So that's what Zan and I do, now that all the little ones are gone. We work at it -- doing good, that is."

Soren, Gylfie, Digger, and Twilight looked at the two large birds in wonder.

"I don't know how to thank you," Digger said.

Zan made a few nodding movements with her head that Streak observed carefully. "My dear mate says -

- you see, I can understand her even though she does not speak -- Zan says that you must quit that foolish walking about in the desert all day and night. Too dangerous. What are you looking for so hard, my dear?"

"My family," Digger said. He then told Streak and Zan the story of what Jatt and Jutt had done to his brother Flick and how he had run off and was now lost.

Streak and Zan exchanged a long look. In that instant, Digger sensed that the two eagles knew his parents' fate. Zan stepped up to Digger and began preening his feathers with her beak in a soothing gesture. Streak took a deep breath. "Well, my son, I am afraid that we know what happened to your parents. You see, the feathers of the little brother you described were still there by the burrow and we saw your mum and da weeping mightily. So we asked what happened, and they told us how this had been their son Flick and they didn't know where in the world their two other young ones might be. Zan thought that this surely was the worst thing she'd ever heard. And though she can speak nary a sliver of a sound, she came back each

day to preen your mother -- to simply say in her own way 'I've been a mother, too, and though I have not lost a young one in this way I can feel how terrible it must be.'

"Then one day we got there a mite too late. The same two owls that nearly killed you just now came back for another run at the burrows and this time they came with reinforcements. There must have been fifty of them and they were wearing the most ferocious battle claws we'd ever seen. Well, we can take em on if there are only two or three in a war party, even with the claws, but fifty -- no, no, that's no match."

"D-d-d-did ..." Digger began to stutter. "Did they eat them?"

"No, just killed them. Said they were too tough and gristly."

There was a long silence now. No one knew what to say. Finally, Gylfie turned to Digger and spoke,

"Come with us, Digger."

"But where is it you're going?" he asked.

"To the Great Ga'Hoole Tree."

"What?" said Digger, but before Twilight could answer, Streak broke in. "I've heard of that place, but isn't it just a story, a legend?"

"To some it might be," Twilight said, and blinked at the eagle.

But not to owls, thought Soren. To owls, he thought, it is a real place.

The dwenking moon had begun to slide down the bowl of the night. It hung like the curve of a talon low in the desert sky, spilling a river of silver across the land that seemed to flow directly to the four owls, lapping at the edges of their own talons. This light, flooding low and cool, seemed so different from the moon's scaldings and blinkings. It was a light that seemed to clear the mind and make bold the spirit.

And something strange began to happen. Soren, with Mrs. Rhiann. on his shoulder, and Twilight and Gylfie stepped close to one another until their feathers were touching, and even Digger tucked in on the other side of Twilight. Where a short time before, Soren had wondered how he would explain his thoughts to the other owls, now he knew that no explanation was needed, that they had within the slivers of time and the silver of moonlight become a band. They were four owls who had lost their parents. But the time had come for them to become something else. They were not simply orphans.

Together they were much more. Hadn't the Great Ga'Hoole Tree of the Ga'Hoollian Legends been the source of their greatest inspiration when they had been at St. Aggie's? Hadn't the Tales of Yore and the nobility of the knights of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree saved them from moon scalding? Could the legend become real? Could they, in fact, become part of the legend?

Soren's dream of Grimble was the worst sleeping dream he had ever had, but there was another dream, a waking dream that haunted the borders of Soren's mind and made his gizzard quiver. It was a dream that filled him with despair. In it, Soren was flying and spotted his parents perched in a tree. They had found a new hollow, and there was a brand-new nest lined with the fluffiest down. In the nest, there were new little owlets. Soren alighted on a limb. "Mum? Da? It's me, Soren." And his parents blinked, not in amazement but in true disbelief. "You're not our son," said his da. "Oh, no," said his mum. "Our son wouldn't look like you even grown up and fully fledged." "No," said his da, and both owls turned and ducked into the hollow. This, Soren realized in the deepest part of his gizzard, was why they had to go to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. For when the world one knew began to crumble away bit by bit, when not only your memories but the memories that others might have of you grew dim with time and distance, when, indeed, you began to fade into a nothingness in the minds of the owls that you loved best, well, perhaps that was when legends could become real.

But at the heart of this nightmare was another deeper

truth. Soren had become something else. He turned slowly to look at the three other owls in the cool moonlight. Their eyes burned with a new intelligence, a new understanding. Yes, thought Soren, and so had Gylfie and Twilight and Digger become something else. No words were spoken. No words were needed. But a silent oath was sworn in that desert river of moonlight and the four owls all nodded. In that instant they knew that they were a band forevermore, bound by a loyalty stronger than blood. It was as a band they must go to Hoolemere and find its great tree that loomed now as the heart of wisdom and nobility in a world that was becoming insane and ignoble. They must warn of the evil that threatened. They must become part of this ancient kingdom of knights on silent wings who rose in the blackness to perform deeds of greatness.

And, indeed, Soren knew still another truth: Legends were not only for the desperate. Legends were for the brave.

"Let's go" said Soren.

"To Ga'Hoole!" cried Twilight.

"To Ga'Hoole!" echoed the others.

"All for owls and owls for all!" shouted Soren.

And in the still, deepest part of the night, four owls lifted into flight, their shadows printed on the hard desert sand below by the last spray of the moon's light. A Great Gray flew in the lead, to windward a handsome Barn Owl, downwind flew a minute Elf Owl, in extremely quiet flight for such a talkative owl with no fringe on her feathers. Flying in the tail position, grappling with his talons across the windy wake of Twilight, flew Digger. All flew toward the River Hoole, which would empty into the great sea of Hoolemere, and an island where the Great Tree of Ga'Hoole grew and where, once upon a very long time ago, in the time of Glaux, there was an order of knightly owls who would rise each night into the blackness and perform noble deeds.

And Soren knew in his heart that now was the time for the legend to be true.

THE OWLS GUARDIANS of GAHOOLE The Capture

SOREN: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, from the kingdom of the Forest of Tyto; snatched when he was three weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols

His family:

KLUDD: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, older brother EGLANTINE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, younger sister NOCTUS: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, father MARILLA: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, mother His family's nest-maid: MRS. PLITHIVER: blind snake

GTLFIE: Elf Owl, Micrathene whitneyi, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; snatched when she was three weeks old by St. Aegolius patrols

TWILIGHT: Great Gray Owl, Strix nebulosa, free flyer, orphaned within hours of hatching DIGGER: Burrowing Owl, Speotyto cunicularius, from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; lost in desert after attack in which his brother was killed by Jatt and Jutt

SKENCH: Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, the Ablah General of St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls

SPOORN: Western Screech Owl, Otus kennicottii, first lieutenant to Skench JATT: Long-eared Owl, Asio otus, a St. Aegolius sublieutenant, warrior, and enforcer JUTT: Long-eared Owl, Asio otus, a St. Aegolius sublieutenant, warrior, and enforcer; cousin of Jatt AUNT FINNT: Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, pit guardian at St. Aegolius UNK: Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, pit guardian at St. Aegolius GRIMBLE: Boreal Owl, Aegolius funerus, captured as an adult by St. Aegolius patrols and held as a hostage with the promise that his family would be spared

47-2: Western Screech Owl, Otus kennicottii, picker in the pelletorium of St. Aegolius HORTENSE: Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis, originally from the forest kingdom of Ambala, snatched at an indeterminate age by St. Aegolius patrols; trained as a broody owl in the eggorium of St. Aegolius STREAK: Bald eagle, free flyer

ZAN: Bald eagle, mate of Streak

Look for the next book in the GUARDIANS of GA'HOOLE series, coming soon.

Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger -- along with Mrs. Plithiver -- search for the Great Ga'Hoole Tree...

They had left the hollow of the fir tree at First Black. The night was racing with ragged clouds. The tree covering was thick beneath them, so they flew low to keep in sight the river Hoole, which sometimes narrowed and only appeared as the smallest glimmer of a thread of water. The trees thinned and Twilight said that he thought the region below was known as The Beaks. And for a while they seemed to lose the strand of the river, and there appeared to be many other smaller threadlike creeks or tributaries. They were, of course, worried they might have lost the Hoole, but if they had their doubts they dared not even think upon them for a sliver of a second. For doubts, they all feared in the deepest parts of their quivering gizzards,

might be like an owl sickness -- like grayscale or beak rot -- contagious and able to spread from owl to owl.

How many false creeks, streams, and even rivers had they followed so far, only to be disappointed? But now Digger called out, "I see something!" All of their gizzards quickened. "It's ... it's ... whitish ... well, grayish."

"Ish? What in Glaux's name is ish?" Twilight hooted.

"It means," Gylfie said in her clear voice, "that it's not exactly white and it's not exactly gray."

"I'll have a look. Hold your flight pattern until I get back," said Twilight.

The huge Great Gray Owl began a power dive. He was not gone long before he returned. "And you know why it's not exactly gray and not exactly white?" Twilight did not wait for an answer. "Because it's smoke."

"Smoke?" The other three seemed dumbfounded.

"You know what smoke is?" Twilight asked. He tried to remember to be patient with these owls who had seen and experienced so much less than he had.

"Sort of," Soren replied. "You mean there's a forest fire down there? I've heard of those."

"Oh, no. Nothing that big. Maybe once it had been. But really, the forests of The Beaks are minor ones.

Second- rate. Few and far between and not much to catch fire."

"Spontaneous combustion, no doubt," Gylfie said.

Twilight gave the little Elf Owl a withering look. Always trying to steal his show with the big words. He had no idea what spontaneous combustion was and he doubted if Glyfie did, either. But he let it go for the moment. "Come on, let's go explore," Twilight said.

They alighted on the forest floor at the edge of where the smoke was the thickest. It seemed to be coming out of a cave that was beneath a stone outcropping. There was a scattering of a few glowing coals on the ground and charred pieces of wood.

"Digger," Twilight said, "can you dig as well as you can walk with those naked legs of yours?"

"You bet. How do you think we fix up our burrows, make them bigger? We just don't settle for what we happen upon."

"Well, start digging and show the rest of us how. We've got to bury these coals before a wind comes up and carries them off and really gets a fire going."

It was hard work burying the coals, especially for Gylfie, who as the tiniest had the shortest legs of all.

She and Mrs. Plithiver, who was not much more effective, worked as a team.

"I wonder what happened here," Gylfie said as she paused to look around. Her eyes settled on what she thought was a charred piece of wood, but something glinted through the blackness of the moonless night. Gylfie blinked. The object glinted and curved into a familiar shape. Gylfie's gizzard gave a little twitch and, as if in a trance, she walked over toward it.

"Battle claws!" she gasped.

From inside the cave came a terrible moan. "Get out! Get out!"

But they couldn't get out! They couldn't move. Between them and the mouth of the cave, glowing eyes -

- redder than any of the live coals -- glowered, and there was a horrible rank smell. Two curved white fangs sliced the darkness.

"Bobcat!" Twilight roared.

About the Author

Kathryn Lasky has long had a fascination with owls. Several years ago she began doing extensive research about these birds and their behaviors -- what they ate, how they flew, how they built or found their nests. She thought that she would someday write a nonfiction book about owls, illustrated with photographs by her husband, Christopher Knight. She realized, though, that this would indeed be difficult since owls are nocturnal creatures, shy and hard to find. So she decided to write a fantasy about a world of owls. But even though it was an imaginary world in which owls could speak, think, and dream, she wanted to include as much of their natural history as she could.