War of the Ember by Kathryn Lasky

Author:Kathryn Lasky [Kathryn Lasky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780545283465
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

To the Northern Kingdoms

Though Otulissa had never been a member of the tracking or search-and-rescue chaws, she had a sixth sense about certain things beyond her expertise. This sense began to stir in her gizzard. Shortly before she and Cleve had left Dumpy off in the Ice Narrows, Otulissa had warned Dumpy to say nothing but to keep his eyes wide open, and if he saw anything alarming, he was to fly immediately to Nut Beam, one of the Jossian messengers who had been installed at Coryn’s command on the Ice Dagger. Nut Beam would then get word to the Guardians.

Otulissa and Cleve had been holding fast to a north by northeast course. The wind was hard on them, but soon they would be inside the protection of the Ice Talons. There was a momentary lull in the wind and then the rain came down harder, denting the surface of the water below. Otulissa’s sixth sense twisted her gizzard painfully and she took a sudden dive.

“What are you doing?” Cleve called out as he watched her veer off the shoulder of the headwind.

“Course change!” she shouted back urgently. Now she was carving a turn that put them on a due east heading. Otulissa was hovering over a swirl of water. Laced in its foamy frills were feathers—blue feathers. Some pale, some the blue of midnight, some the tint of sapphires. None, however, were the turquoise of the Striga’s feathers. “This looks like a reverse eddy,” she said. “They sometimes occur spontaneously near land formations like this.” She indicated with her head the long reach of coastline to one side and the easternmost claw of the Ice Talons. “They begin at the head of the narrow inlet far inland and eventually spin their way to sea, catching bits of airborne flotsam as they go.”

“Such as blue feathers,” Cleve replied. Then like the blare of an alarm, “Otulissa!” Cleve hovered just inches over the swirling feathers.

“What is it, Cleve?”

“There aren’t just blue feathers here. Some are painted bright pink. And look—blood! There’s been a fight near here.” Cleve tried to quell the rising panic he felt. If there were wounded owls, he needed to help them. This was his duty. Cleve was a healer. He turned to Otulissa. “We need to think this through. It’s a short distance to the shore. We can get out of the wind under the rocks there.”

A few minutes later, the two owls huddled on a small scrap of beach under a rocky overhang. They had plucked the mass of feathers from the water so they could examine them more closely. There were several kraal feathers stained with blood. “Broken shafts!” Cleve said. “This was a real battle.”

“And then there are the emerald and cobalt-blue ones,” Otulissa said.

“Yes, but those aren’t broken. I’d wager the blue owls won.” Then he inhaled sharply. “That’s not a kraal feather or one from a blue owl.” He picked up a creamy white feather, a primary from a Snowy Owl, by the look of it, the bottom portion of which was soaked in blood.

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