Guardians of Ga'Hoole 04 - The Siege

I’m glad you found me in the corridor and asked me to your hollow. I think Ezylryb should come here as well to listen to this plan. I don’t know how to say this exactly, but there have been certain breeches in security. There have been information leaks. It is suspected that the parliament hollow is not completely secure.”
    Soren and the three others tried not to gasp. They were the only ones who knew about the strange phenomenon that allowed the roots to transmit sound beneath the parliament chamber, or at least they thought they were. Had they been discovered? Had their listening post been discovered?
    “Wait here,” Octavia said. “I’ll be back with Ezylryb soon. There’s not a minute to waste.” And the old Kielian snake slithered out of their hollow, her green scales glowing in the dim light.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Coo-Coo-Coo-Roo
    E zylryb looked down at the scratchings Soren had made in the dirt. His bad eye seemed to grow squin-tier as he studied the small Xs that Soren had drawn, which stood for the Guardian troops.
    “It’s going to take time, almost a month, I should think,” Ezylryb said.
    “A month!” Digger gasped. “Sir, there are three units of Burrowing Owls. We could do it in less than a week.”
    “Well, you see, that is the problem. This must remain absolutely top secret. The fewer owls who work on it, the better. This place is leakier than a rotted-out stump.” Octavia nodded in agreement. “I want only three owls working on it from the Burrowing units—you, Digger, Sylvana, and Muriel.”
    “Not Dewlap?” Soren said.
    “Not Dewlap.” There was an uncomfortable silence and then Octavia coughed slightly.
    “Lyze,” she said. Only Octavia ever called Ezylryb Lyze,his old name from the Northern Kingdoms, and she rarely used the name in front of other owls. “If I may suggest something.”
    “Of course, my dear.” Ezylryb’s usually gruff voice always softened when the old Kielian spoke to him.
    “Why couldn’t Twilight, Soren, and Gylfie help out on this project? They aren’t Burrowing Owls, but why should they stand by idly? I am sure under the guidance of Digger, they could become adequate excavators. With their help, the work might go a little faster.”
    “That is an excellent idea, Octavia.” He swiveled his head toward the other three owls. “Well, young’uns, what do you say? Think you can learn the ways of the Burrowers?”
    “Yes, sir!” the three owls responded at once.
    “Then I think you must begin immediately.”
    It was hard work. It was dirty work. But even though they were not the robust owls they once had been because of the short food rations, the six owls found a new energy. The cause itself seemed to feed them, for they were digging their way to freedom. Octavia helped out as well. Despite her age and her girth, she proved particularly nimble at tunneling out some of the trickier turns.
    Soren would have never guessed it, but Burrowing Owls were a talkative lot when they worked. They hadsongs they sang to set the rhythm for the digging, and they had loads of stories of the great legends of the Burrowing Owl world. There was one Burrowing Owl, a female known as Terra, who was renowned for having, in just one night, dug a burrow that tunneled straight through a mountain.
    Sylvana herself could have been a legend, Soren thought. She was an exceptionally pretty owl, and Soren marveled at how featherless legs, which he used to think of as rather revolting, could suddenly seem so lovely to him. White and exceedingly thin but muscular, Sylvana’s legs flashed in the faint light of the tunnel like lightning crackling in the summer sky as she dug furiously. Sylvana had started to sing a digging song that had quickly become Soren’s favorite. The coo-coo call was the call of the Burrowing Owl, and their voices were lovely and almost dovelike as they all joined in song. Soren felt rather shrill by comparison whenever he tried to use the call that wove through the song, but Sylvana never criticized him. She encouraged everyone.
Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
    Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
    Burrow, scrape,
Excavate
    Through gravel, ice, hard-packed earth
Through sand, through muck, through mire.
    We pit, we dig, we gouge,
and never do we tire.
    Our legs are bare,
Our talons sharp,
We drill the earth and know the spots
    Where rock crumbles into soil,
Where shale can shift and slide like oil.
    Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
    Coo-coo-coo-ROOOO!
    We shall burrow through and