Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

pound.
    We’ll yarp in the heart of the hottest flame
    Then bring back its coals and make them tame.
    For we are the colliers brave beyond all
    We are the owls of the colliering chaw!

    They arrived shortly after daybreak at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, their faces smudged, their beaks sooty black. But they were welcomed as heroes. The coals were delivered to Bubo’s forge and then there was a great banquet.
    “Where’s Twilight?” Soren said as he sat down with Gylfie at Mrs. Plithiver’s table. “And Primrose?” Soren wanted to tell Twilight about the forest fire. Few things impressed Twilight but this might.
    “They’re both out on a mission and so is Digger. They needed the tracking and search-and-rescue chaws. Something big’s going on,” Gylfie said.
    “What?”
    “I’m not sure exactly. Boron is being very quiet about it. But suddenly a lot of owlets need rescuing fast.” Just then, he saw Ezylryb huddled with Boron and Strix Struma in a corner of the dining hollow. They looked terribly serious, and he saw Ezylryb nodding quickly every now and then. Poot started to approach the three owls, and he was immediately shooed away.
    Because Ezylryb had not taken up his usual position with Elvan at the head of Octavia, the weather and colliering table was empty. Martin and Ruby had joined Soren and Gylfie at Mrs. P.’s, along with Otulissa. “Thank goodness we can now have our vole roasted,” Otulissa said. “It seems like forever since we’ve had anything cooked.”
    “I would have thought you would have had your fill of things roasting after flying into that fire,” Mrs. P. said, and they all laughed. “Now I do have a little announcement to make.” The old nest-maid snake spoke softly.
    “What is it, Mrs. P.?” Soren asked.
    “Well, I have been asked to join the Harp Guild.”
    “Oh, Mrs. P.!” they all cried.
    Perhaps Soren’s visit to Madame Plonk had counted for something. He had dared not even hope ever since he had visited her extraordinary apartments that day. Soren couldn’t have been happier. Everything, he thought, was really perfect. But as soon as he thought of the word “perfect,” he realized no, not quite. And once more that strange melancholy feeling began to creep like a mist over him. He knew what it was immediately this time. Eglantine. What had happened to his dear baby sister? He supposed that if she were alive, and if she had not been captured by St. Aggie’s or something worse, she would be flying by now. But who would ever see her? Not his parents. Who knew if they were still alive? Soren grew very quiet. Mrs. P. sensed his sadness.
    “Come up later, Soren dear, and sit with me a spell and tell me all about your adventures in the burning forest.”
    “Sure, Mrs. P.,” he said distractedly.
    But he didn’t. He was simply too tired from the flight, the work at the fire, to do anything but go right to sleep. He was so tired he did not even hear the beautiful voice of Madame Plonk. And underneath the voice that morning there was an especially lovely rippling sound, almost liquid, as Mrs. Plithiver slid with a steady pressure very quickly from the midpoint on a string and stretched for the next octave, all the way to G-flat. It was a virtuoso move and Madame Plonk knew that she had made the right decision. This Mrs. P. had a maestro’s touch to match her own magnificent voice.
    But, of course, Soren slept through it all, dreaming perhaps of his little sister, but perhaps he was even too tired for dreams.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Owlets Down!
    W hile Soren slept, in a distant woods across the Sea of Hoolemere, Twilight swooped through the gathering gloom at the end of the day. He and Primrose and Digger worked together. Digger, of course, as part of the tracking chaw, did the groundwork, looking for telltale pellets, a fluff of down, or, sometimes, a wounded or dead owlet. Primrose, who was in the search-and-rescue chaw along with Twilight, flew all levels as an outrider and kept a sharp lookout for enemies. Twilight did most of the heavy work of lifting the owlets and when possible restoring them to their nests.
    This particular mission had started as what Barran described as routine. But it quickly became something much more complicated. In the first reconnaissance wave, a number of owlets had been reported on the ground, but they did not seem to be near their nests. At first the rescuers thought these owls, stunned and cold, simply had forgotten where their nests