Kathryn Lasky - The Rescue

COPYRIGHT Copyright Chapter One: Blood Dawn Chapter Two: Flecks in the night! Chapter Three: What a Blow! Chapter Four: The Spirit Woods Chapter Five: Bubo’s forge Chapter Six: Eglantine’s Dilemma Chapter Seven: The Harvest festival Chapter Eight: Into a Night Stained Red Chapter Nine: The Rogue Smith of Silverveil Chapter Ten: The Story of the Rogue Smith Chapter Eleven: Flint Mops Chapter Twelve: Rusty Claws Chapter Thirteen: Octavia Speaks Chapter Fourteen: Eglantine’s Dream Chapter Fifteen: The Chaw of Chaws Chapter Sixteen: The Empty Shrine Chapter Seventeen: A Muddled Owl Chapter Eighteen: A Nightmare Revisited Chapter Nineteen: Into the Devil’s Triangle Chapter Twenty: Attack! Chapter Twenty-One: Good Light Keep Reading About the Author Other Books By About the Publisher

HarperCollins Children’s Books

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the USA by Scholastic Inc 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2006

Text copyright © Kathryn Lasky 2004

Kathryn Lasky asserts the moral right to be identified as the author

of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007215195

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008226817

Version: 2016-12-05

… soon the walls of the castle ruins rose in the dawn mist …

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One: Blood Dawn

Chapter Two: Flecks in the night!

Chapter Three: What a Blow!

Chapter Four: The Spirit Woods

Chapter Five: Bubo’s forge

Chapter Six: Eglantine’s Dilemma

Chapter Seven: The Harvest festival

Chapter Eight: Into a Night Stained Red

Chapter Nine: The Rogue Smith of Silverveil

Chapter Ten: The Story of the Rogue Smith

Chapter Eleven: Flint Mops

Chapter Twelve: Rusty Claws

Chapter Thirteen: Octavia Speaks

Chapter Fourteen: Eglantine’s Dream

Chapter Fifteen: The Chaw of Chaws

Chapter Sixteen: The Empty Shrine

Chapter Seventeen: A Muddled Owl

Chapter Eighteen: A Nightmare Revisited

Chapter Nineteen: Into the Devil’s Triangle

Chapter Twenty: Attack!

Chapter Twenty-One: Good Light

Keep Reading

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

The tail of the comet slashed the dawn and in the red light of the rising sun, for a brief instant, it seemed as if the comet was bleeding across the sky. Every other owl had already tucked into their hollows in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree for the day’s sleep. Every owl, that is, except for Soren, who perched on the highest limb of this tallest Ga’Hoole tree on earth. He scoured the horizon for a sign, any sign of his beloved teacher, Ezylryb.

Ezylryb had disappeared almost two months before. The old Whiskered Screech, indeed the oldest teacher, or ‘ryb’ as they were called, of the great tree had flown out on a mission that late summer night to help rescue owlets from what was now referred to as the Great Downing. Scores of young orphan owlets had mysteriously been found scattered on the ground, some mortally wounded, others stunned and incoherent. None of them had been found anywhere near their nests, but in an open field that for the most part could boast no trees with hollows. It was a complete mystery as to how these young owlets, most of whom could barely fly, had got there. It was as if they had simply dropped out of the night sky. And one of those owlets had been Soren’s sister Eglantine.

After Soren himself had been shoved from his nest by his brother Kludd nearly a year before, and subsequently captured by the violent and depraved owls of St Aggie’s, he had lost all hope of ever seeing his sister or his parents again. Even after he had escaped from St Aggie’s with his best friend Gylfie, a little Elf Owl who had also been captured, he had still not dared to really hope. But then Eglantine had been found by two other dear friends: Twilight the Great Grey and Digger the Burrowing Owl, both of whom had flown out with others on the night of the Great Downing on countless search-and-rescue missions. And Ezylryb, who rarely left the tree except for his responsibilities as leader of the weather interpretation and the colliering chaws, had flown out in an attempt to unravel the strange occurrences of that night. But he had never returned.

It seemed grossly unfair to Soren that once he had finally got his sister back, his favourite ryb had vanished. Maybe that was a selfish way to think but he couldn’t help it. Soren felt that most of what he knew he had learned from the gruff old Whiskered Screech Owl. Ezylryb was not what anyone would call pretty to look at, with one eye held in a perpetual squint, his left foot mangled to the point of missing one talon and a low voice that sounded like something between a growl and distant thunder – no, Ezylryb wasn’t exactly appealing.

“An acquired taste,” Gylfie had said. Well, Soren had certainly acquired the taste.

As a member of both the weather interpretation and the colliering chaws, which flew into forest fires to gather coals for the forge of Bubo the blacksmith, Soren had learned his abilities directly from the master. And though Ezylryb was a stern master, often grouchy and suffering no nonsense, he was, of all the rybs, the most fiercely devoted to his students and his chaw members.

The chaws were the small teams into which the owls were organised. In the chaws, they learned a particular skill that was vital to the survival of not just the owls of Ga’Hoole but to all the kingdoms of owls. Ezylryb led two chaws – weathering and colliering. But for all his gruff ways, he was certainly not above cracking a joke – sometimes very dirty jokes, much to the horror of Otulissa, a Spotted Owl who was just Soren’s age and quite prim and proper and given to airs. Otulissa was always carrying on about her ancient and distinguished ancestors. One of her favourite words was ‘appalling’. She was constantly being “appalled” by Ezylryb’s “crudeness”, his “lack of refinement”, his “coarse ways”. And Ezylryb was constantly telling Otulissa to “give it a blow”. This was the most impolite way an owl could tell another to shut up. The two bickered constantly, and yet Otulissa had turned into a good chaw member and that was all that really counted to Ezylryb.

But now there was no more bickering. No more crude jokes. No more climbing the baggywrinkles, flying upside down in the gutter, punching the wind and popping the scuppers, doing the hurly burly and all the wonderful manoeuvres the owls did when they flew through gales and storms and even hurricanes in the weather interpretation chaw. Life seemed flat without Ezylryb, the night less black, the stars dull, even as this comet, like a great raw gash in the sky, ripped apart the dawn.