Guardians of Ga'Hoole 08 - The Outcast

The silence would grow even denser the closer he got to the Shadow Forest, where evergreens covered most of the land, climbing up the steepest hills of the deepest valleys. And the wind would have a different sound when blowing through the needles rather than ruffling through leaves or the bare branches of deciduous trees. He once again cocked his head, but this time he was not after prey. He was listening for predators, predators most vile, most despicable, predators who preyed on the unhatched young of decent families like the Burrowing Owls of The Barrens.
    He began to hear something. Voices whispering directly below him. The words were almost indistinguishable, but he thought he heard another sound running beneath the words. An odd sound that he had never in his life heard before—almost as if something were swishing, but it was not a pond. He had roosted in stump hollows by ponds before. He knew the sound their waves made lapping the shore when the wind rippled the surface. This was not the same at all. This was a muffled rushingnoise—like a river? No. Like an ocean? But I have never heard the sounds of an ocean. I have never been that close to Hoolemere. Besides, oceans were vast and this sound was small. Very small, like a tiny ocean in… an egg! The realization seemed to burst in his brain and sent a sizzle through his gizzard. And within the depths of that miniature ocean, he heard something else. A heartbeat!
    He drifted out of the clouds, scanning the sky below and the forest for any sign of the Pure Ones. He was a good half league from the source of the sound he had identified as that of not just one egg but several. He realized now that even if he did get to the eggs, he could rescue only one and it had to be that of the Burrowing Owl. How would he know which one was the Burrowing Owl’s egg? He’d never seen any owls’ eggs in his entire life.
    Well, first things first, Coryn thought again. He had to get closer to the source. One thing gave his gizzard a boost: He had not recognized any of the voices he had heard guarding the cache of eggs. That meant his mother was not there. Nor was Stryker, her fiercest lieutenant. In fact, the voices sounded rather young. Not much older than himself. Probably the rumored new recruits, so perhaps they might not recognize him. Oh, but of course they would! He looked so much like Nyra and then there was the cursed scar. How could he have forgotten? Even ifthey had never seen him, they had probably heard about…
    Coryn stopped. A realization seized him mid-flight and sent a jolt to the deepest part of his gizzard. He lighted on the branch of the tree directly beneath him, a creaking old oak draped in thick moss. Small bits and pieces, mere fragments of ideas, began to link together in his mind. Perhaps for once his resemblance to his mother, scar and all, could work in his favor.
    Coryn’s brain worked faster. He could do this, he knew it. He stared hard at the scrim of moss hanging from the limb in front of the one where he was perched. It reminded him of something. Yes, of course, those hagsfiends that had swooped down on him when he had first fled from The Barrens the last time. They looked like tattered owls, shrouded in shreds of gray mist. They were hagsfiends, the hellish witches from the owl hell known as hagsmire. His mother had told him frightening stories of these fiends, and now this moss reminded him of them.
    He looked up at the moss scarves waving eerily in the breeze. Reaching up, he pulled down a long piece of it. It fell perfectly over his shoulders, trailing off the edges of his wings. He flipped his head around and nipped up one edge with his beak so that it fell like a hood over the topof his head. He didn’t want to hide his face completely. The scar should show. Coryn then spread his wings and lifted off from the branch where he had perched.
    The raccoon, ground squirrel, mouse, rat, and lynx paused in their nightly bustle as they foraged for food and looked up at the strange creature that flew overhead. A tree squirrel that had just poked its nose out to go on its evening rounds for nut collecting backed quickly into its knothole. A skunk sprayed its noxious odor into the sky, but to no avail. Coryn was much too high in flight. A deathly quiet fell upon the forest. A hagsfiend was abroad!

CHAPTER EIGHT
A Fiend Comes to Life
    W hy’s everything suddenly so quiet?” the young Barn Owl asked.
    “I don’t know. It’s weird, isn’t