Then I remembered how high the tide had been when the Pygmy Owl had led me to Bylyric. Now it wasn’t nearly as high — the pathways I had glimpsed were no longer slippery with water. The tide must be receding, flowing back out to the sea! The current was with me. I was heading in the right direction!
In another few minutes, I could feel the turbulence of the sea pressing in upon me. I was so close! I slipped up, barely raising my eyes above the surface. The sight shocked me.
Just ahead, two dozen Great Grays and Snowies were skimming the water, fanning above the sea, searching for me. I dove as deep as I could. How long could I hold my breath? How could I ever get past this barrier of owls? A shadow passed over me, and I felt myself cringe. But it wasn’t the shadow of an owl’s wing. It was a strange, irregular shape that clunked up against another.
Ice! Ice bumping up against ice. Small chunks of ice that had been pulled into the channel by the incoming tide were now being sucked out again as the tide receded.
I felt a shimmer in my scales and knew exactly what to do. I must fix myself to the base of one of these ice chunks. With any luck, there might be a small crack that trapped a bubble of air beneath the water. I swam straight up to the ice chunk and sunk my fangs into the base. If there hadn’t been a crack before, there was now and I wriggled my head into it until I found a pocket of air. The ice chunk sped toward the sea, faster and faster as we got to the narrow head of the channel. And then I was free.
I’m not sure how long I stayed under the ice chunk before I dared to breach the surface.
As quickly as I could, I searched out one of the snakes who had accompanied me. We sent out a code and then struck out across the ocean to our rendezvous point.
We were out, we were safe, and we had priceless information.
The second Octavia returned, the general sent a sergeant to fetch me.
When Lil and I arrived at the general’s hollow, we could tell that Octavia was exhausted.
“Octavia!” I gasped. “Are … are you all right?”
General Andricus stepped toward me. “She found him.”
I blinked. “You found Bylyric?”
Octavia raised her head to give me a tired smile. “He’s there. Middle talon of the Ice Talons.”
“And you’re all right?”
“Of course I’m all right! I’m just tired!” she snapped. I blessed her crankiness. It meant she was indeed okay.
The general’s white face seemed to glow like a full moon in the dim light of the chamber. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “He’s there and we have to move fast! We have to get him before he moves.”
For years, Bylyric’s precise whereabouts had been a mystery. My parents had discussed sighting him when I was just a newly hatched owlet. Just when the Kielian League thought we had him, he would seem to dissolve like mist in the sun. Some whispered that he was no mere owl, that there was something supernatural about him. But I had always known that he was just an ordinary owl with an extraordinary lust for power.
And now, thanks to Octavia’s intelligence, we had him. If we could find and eliminate Bylyric, it would destroy the morale of the Ice Talons and stop their invasion in its tracks. Our plan was to get Bylyric and then surprise the Ice Talons with a full-scale invasion.
We listened carefully as Felix, a Boreal Owl who was a master cartographer, clawed at a rat-skin map of the Ice Talons. “This is the compound in the second or middle talon of the Ice Talons. Several ice notches run off the main passage. He’s confined to this one. As far as we can tell, it’s the only one that can accommodate his wingspan.”
“Are there guards with him?”
“Of course,” said Felix. Patches the snow leopard growled in agreement.
Between our best slipgizzles, Moss’s matchless team of snow leopards, and a cadre of Kielian snakes, we had managed to gather excellent intelligence. Now our main fear was that Bylyric had moved again in the time since Octavia had pinpointed his location. So far, our slipgizzles in the region, including the resistance leaders, had seen no sign of this. The slipgizzles had obtained profiles on all of Bylyric’s owl guards and had been able to track each one of them. The maze that constituted the Ice Talons was seemingly endless, and one could easily get lost. But the real problem was the constricted fighting space. “The big questions are,” I said, “do we go in or flush him out into the open? Is it to be a full-scale air strike or a targeted raid?”
“We should plan for both,” Lil said. I looked up at her.
For the first time we were to be together in battle. My gizzard clenched. I didn’t know if I could stand to see Lil in such danger. When the meeting broke up, I waited in agony for the general to send word that it was time to strike.
We clawed up slowly, deliberately, and in total silence. We donned our helmets — a new piece of gear Thora had designed with airfoils on the sides to increase our speed. Each owl double-checked the locking mechanisms on his or her claws. Every step in getting ready was an opportunity to focus, to ensure we were completely ready and not vulnerable to careless mistakes. Clawing up was a ritual of intense concentration. The last piece of gear we put on before taking up our weapons were our ice goggles.
We wore a new goggle design that was vastly improved. The design was a collaborative effort between Orf, Thora, and two ice harvesters, Liefa and Friedl. I had brought back samples of what I thought was an unusual kind of blue ice from the Shagdah Snurl. This ice was much bluer than the ice we’d previously used for goggles. I was impressed with its clarity and when I held it up to the sun in the brightest part of the day, I noticed that it could filter out the most blinding rays. “Imagine,” I’d said, “if we could fashion protective eye covers from these. We could do raids in the day when the enemy is blinded — we could attack in the noonday sun.”35
We worked on the goggles for several moons and, in fact, our entire attack strategy was planned around the use of them. We were going to attack at dawn and flush Bylyric out into the blinding sun as it was rising over the horizon. It was essential that we press the advantage of the sun’s glare. When the enemy came out from the protection of the ice walls of the Talons, we would force them to face east, directly into the rising sun. If they turned tail and fled west, we would lose them. We had to cut off all their exits.
For this operation, I wouldn’t be flying with Octavia. She was really too large for the narrow channels of the Ice Talons and wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of what we called the snakes’ “swing span.” So I was to carry a small but very effective snake named Albimore, a cerulean lazuli. Octavia would ride outside the Ice Shield aboard Rufus, our Spotted Owl navigator.
The silence was thick as we attached our goggles to our helmets. We would take off from Dark Fowl at night and wouldn’t pull down the goggles until dawn broke.
As we lifted off, Loki looked at me, and I could tell he was thinking of those fire spikes from the Other that I had dropped into the Bitter Sea. Would they have made us feel safer than these goggles? Would the spikes have given us a deadly advantage? These were questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Besides, the fire spikes were rusting at the bottom of the sea.
As we entered the narrow ice passage that led us toward Bylyric, I felt the onslaught of new strange winds. It felt as if we were caught in a latticework of gusts. Blix was flying wing command for one of the smaller units, called chaws. She was extraordinary. We followed her path as her tiny body shuttled through the warp and weft of the gusts. The other members of the chaw steadied as we mimicked her wing motions. We might not all be Saw-whets, but we were all now flying like Blix. In the narrow channel of water below us, I saw the mottled head of a snow leopard, swimming silently. They’re with us! I rejoiced.
It was not yet dawn, but the light in the passages was growing brighter, bouncing off the slick ice walls. In another few minutes, it would be blinding to the uncovered eyes of an owl.
We swooped around a bend, backwinging madly as we caught sight of two guards. As
tonishingly, they were sound asleep! Blix silently drew one of Thora’s new ice splinters and the action began. A startled guard gave a loud screech as the ice splinter pierced his shoulder. Two snow leopards sprang from the water with earsplitting screams. Enemy owls streamed out from their hollows in the ice walls.
We wheeled to begin our split maneuver. Blix looped back, skimming close to the water and underneath the enemy owls. A Pygmy Owl flew with her as a midair reloader. Blix let loose a barrage of ice splinters, pressing the Ice Talon owls east toward the rising sun.
A Whiskered Screech had swerved out of the pack and flew directly at me.
“Grip One!” I cried to Albimore. He coiled up into a spring on my back, a posture that gave him immense power. We dove beneath the Screech and came straight up under him. Between my battle claws and Albimore’s fangs, we split him in two.
The other five owls in our unit, each of us with a Kielian on our back, raced ahead. The snakes swung their heads like flails, and no enemy could get near us. Albimore kept up a running report. I was dying to know if Bylyric had appeared yet. Was he one of the pursuers?
“Got a fully armed small Snowy off your starboard tail feathers,” Albimore called. “Must be his son.”
“Not Bylyric?” I felt my gizzard sink to my talons.
“Watch out! There’s a butt-ugly Spotted Owl to port —”
Feathers streaked with blood swirled up beside me.
“Albimore! What’s that?”
Albimore whooped. “Snow leopards took out a guard on the ice ridge.”
We were approaching the main shaft. I could feel the suck of the wind on my wings. The air currents were immensely strong, as if we were being inhaled by some enormous creature. And then we were up and out, in the full-glare sun.
“There he is!” shrieked Albimore. And so it was! The Orphan Maker, Bylyric himself, was staggering through the blades of the rising sun. Bloodred crescents crisscrossed his facial disc, swiping over his beak and curling up beneath his eyes, which seemed to spin against the white feathers of his face. The design tilted at an odd angle and I felt myself tilting, too, as if I were hypnotized in some way. There must have been an escape hatch for Bylyric in a side notch of the ice maze. How else would he be flying here, away from the main action below?
My eyes widened and, for a second, shock locked my wings. For flying by his side — by his side! — was Ifghar with Gragg riding high on his back.
One thought filled my mind: Separate them! If I could separate Ifghar from Gragg, I could save him.
“No, Lyze! No!” Albimore cried out to me as I started to bank, but I barely heard him. I was obsessed with tearing Gragg from the back of my brother.
“What are you doing?” I screamed at Ifghar. He opened his beak and howled maniacally, then peeled off to port. Gragg hissed and swung his head toward me.
No! Don’t follow! shrieked a voice in my head. Ifghar and Gragg were baiting me, distracting me. Gragg was riding my brother’s back like a succubus, a hagsfiend without wings, a witch.
I had just one thought: It was Gragg’s fault! Kill Gragg and I would get my brother back. I chased them, flying very low now, just skimming the white caps of the Ice Talon straits.
“Go back! BYLYRIC!” Albimore’s voice finally scratched through my anger. I looked up and saw his head tossing frantically upward.
“Oh, great Glaux!” I yelled.
Lil was advancing on Bylyric with Miss Hot Point clutched in her starboard talon. He carried a fizgig in one talon and an ice dagger in the other. Strix Struma was flying a decoy pattern to keep Bylyric heading directly into the sun, which blasted over the eastern horizon like the fire from an immense and diabolical forge. Had it not been for the goggles, our eye tubes would have been fried. They’ve got him! I thought.
Then a wind came out of nowhere, a haggish wind that threw Lil and Strix Struma into a dangerous tilt. Lil had just raised her hot lance, and the weight pulled her into a roll. She careened wildly and lost her grip on the lance, which fell into the sea.
The haggish wind kicked Bylyric over sharply so that he was no longer facing the sun. He could see again, and he screeched and advanced on Lil. He had her in his sights! Through my goggles, I could see the bright fire of lunacy burning in his eyes.
“LIL!” I shrieked.
I winged upward like a streak. I could feel Albimore rising into a strike coil on my back, the winds whizzing by his fully extended fangs.
Then the world seemed to slow. I staggered in flight as I saw Ifghar appear once more. He was closing in on Lil as well, Gragg on his back, fangs glinting. It was an ambush! Ifghar hooted something to Lil that I couldn’t hear at first. Then a gust of wind snagged his cries and slammed the words into my ear slits.
“We’ll die together! I love you! I’ve always loved you!”
I couldn’t believe it. Ifghar loved Lil? Ifghar was going to kill her?
I shot up like a lava bomb from a volcano, my battle claws curved to rip my brother in two. But in my rage, I got too near to Gragg. Before I could do anything, I felt Gragg’s fangs reach out and tear at my eyes. I saw blood — my own blood. Suddenly, the haggish winds were drenched in red, more blood than could possibly come from me.
From the corner of my good eye, I caught sight of Lil, her golden eyes frozen in horror.
There was an ice dagger deep in her chest, and she was spinning down and down in a slow spiral until a cresting wave below reached up and dragged her into the sea.
“NOOOO!” I screeched. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! It was supposed to be Ifghar, not Lil. Not my darling Lil!
Yet through that blood I saw a clear path to Bylyric. I shot straight up to him. It was his ice dagger that had killed my Lil, and he only had one weapon now, the fizgig. He never saw me coming. I thrust my battle claws deep into him. Something dropped through the air, like a blood star out of the dawn.
“The gizzard! Bylyric’s gizzard!” came the cry. To strike the gizzard is truly one chance in a million. It’s so rare that it’s thought to be almost magical. The battle stalled. It’s as if I’d taken the gizzard of the whole Ice Talon army.
But my own gizzard was shattered as well. With my good eye, I looked down at the sea below. Lil’s lovely face, eyes closed now, bobbed up once, then twice, then sank into the tumultuous water. The foam of the waves was pink with her blood.
I went kerplonken, plummeting toward my love.
This is what’s so terrible about grief: You relive the final moments of your beloved’s life for years and years and years. It’s like flying with one wing. You never become used to it. The shock might wear off, the images grow a little dimmer. But the panic creeps back while you sleep in the brightest part of the day. My dreams are drenched now with the pink foam of the cresting waves, waves pink with the blood of my Lil. The same pink as the ice flowers she had worn on our wingfast night, the pink of the garland she had draped over her head. I have a deep and abiding hatred of morning light now, of high noon, of anything that reminds me of the day my mate died.
I went kerplonken during the battle and when I regained consciousness, I found myself in a vacuum transport. A voice murmured to me in comforting tones, trying to reassure me. But what could anyone say? Lil was dead. I’d watched the Everwinter Sea swallow her lacerated body. And with it, the future had died, been snuffed out — the very future of which she had spoken about so boldly to me. It was as if a knife had cut through the lovely darkness of dreams to reveal a horrible and eternal brightness that was to be my future.
We owls are creatures of the night, companions of darkness. Our dreams blossom in darkness, and in the light, they wither and die.
The voice beside me in the transport vacuum kept speaking in soothing tones. It took me a while to realize that it was Octavia. I gasped as I saw her head. It was so small, so damaged. And what was wrong with her face? Then I realized it was her eyes — they were gone. I gasped.
“Octavia, what happened to you?”
“They got my eyes with a billy hook.” She chuckled, but it wasn’t her usual raucous laughter. “I can be a nest-maid snake now, like the ones in the Southern Kingdoms.”
“No! No!” I couldn’t believe it. My dear Octavia had been trying to comfort me when she had lost both her eyes.
The boisterous winds rocked us as the owls carried us toward the Glauxian Brothers retreat on the Bitter Sea.
The Glauxian Brothers were renowned for their healing arts, but they couldn’t restore Octavia’s eyes. My own eye injury was minor in comparison. I have fierce scars around the socket and I can’t see out of it as well as before. But it was my talon that bothered me more. An Eagle Owl had grabbed me as I fell toward the sea and had broken one of my talons. The brothers tried their best to set it and gave me ointments and salves to rub into it. But the pain was almost constant and finally one night I’d had enough and I bit it off. What did I need a talon for? I was never going to hold a weapon again. I hung up my battle claws and swore never to put them on. I could hunt perfectly well with my remaining talons.
Octavia and I shared a hollow in one of a large circle of birch trees that composed the Glauxian Brothers retreat. The brothers were bound by a vow of silence, but they weren’t quite as strict about it as the Glauxian Sisters. They spent a good deal of the night chanting. There were several Boreal Owls among them, whose voices rang like chimes against the silver of the birches.
I sank into a deep depression. For months on end, I hardly left the hollow except to hunt. It’s difficult for me to explain the strange feelings that afflicted me. I could not speak about them to anyone, not even to Octavia. Lil’s death was a wound that never healed. I thought at first that if I committed my feelings to verse and wrote about her, it would help. But each time I completed a poem, it was like peeling off a fresh scab.