The War of the Ember Read Free

Ga’Hoole Tree? The owls! The Guardians! He’d seen them once or twice. And there were the four called the Band. Oh, and that very nice Spotted Owl from the north. What was his name?…Cluck, Clem—Cleve! Yes, Cleve. Cleve had passed through when Dumpy was just a chick. But he remembered. Indeed, he did! Dumpy’s foot had had a sea tick lodged in it, and Cleve had removed it. I must find Cleve and I must find the Band. But they’re so smart, and I’m so dumb! It would be so embarrassing, and it’s so far to travel. Maybe…maybe I can tell the polar bears. They are big and tough. And they’re much closer.
    Dumpy waddled to the back entrance of the cliff cave and perched on a ledge that overhung the Ice Narrows. He looked down into the churning waters. Hecould see his brother, the Chubster, as he was known, diving for fish for his own young family. The Chubster caught sight of him, opened his beak to shout a greeting, and the twenty-four fish that he had neatly lined up in his beak dropped back into the sea.
    “Ah, for the love of ice!” A squawk erupted from one of the ice nests that notched the cliffs. “Chub, you idiot. You lost our dinner!” It was the Chubster’s mate, Pulkie.
    “Just wanted to say hi to Dumpy. Hey, Dumpster, baby! How’s it icing?”
    “I got young’uns to feed,” Pulkie shouted, and blasted out of the nest. Folding her wings back against her plump sides, she hurled herself into the thrashing water below. Some baby pufflings peered over the edge of the ice nest.
    The Chubster, oblivious to his hungry pufflings, flew up to where Dumpy perched. “What ’cha doing?”
    “Uh…nothing.” Dumpy wasn’t sure if he should say anything to his brother about what he had just witnessed. He tried changing the subject. “Pulkie—she can really dive. Look at her.”
    “Yep, she’s a can-do sort of puffin. You got to get yourself a mate, Dumpy.”
    “I don’t think I’m ready.”
    “Ready? Mum always said you were the smartest. Too smart for your own good maybe.”
    Dumpy blinked. She might be right, he thought. “Uh…listen, I got to go.”
    “Go where?” asked the Chubster.
    “I’m not sure,” Dumpy said.
    “Imnotsure! A fabulous place!” the Chubster exclaimed. “Heard all about it. Great fishing.”
    “Uh, well, I better be off.” Dumpy spread his wings and lifted off the edge of the cliff. He heard the Chubster yelling at his pufflings. “Wave bye-bye to Uncle Dumpy. He’s going to Imnotsure.”
    Pulkie was back in the ice nest, sorting fish. She and the pufflings turned and looked wistfully at Dumpy as he dissolved into the fog bank over the Ice Narrows.
    Oh my, fog. Which way do I go? Dumpy thought. Finally, he carved a turn and headed north toward the end of summer gathering place for the bears. He knew where that was. Not far from the Ice Narrows. But what should he tell them? He tried to order the facts in his disorderly mind. First there was the strange blue owl. And the owl with the frightening face. But worse than what they looked like was what they said. Hagsfiends. What were hagsfiends? Another kind of bird? Definitely not apolar bear. The faint dark memory stirred again, like a shadow invading his being.
    Dumpy must have been flying faster than he thought, for soon he was looking down at the remnants of summer ice in the Everwinter Sea. He followed the floes up the Firth of Fangs. He hoped the polar bears were still there and had not begun their long swim north to the more remote firths and small channels where they hibernated for the winter. He spiraled down, and to his great delight saw several bears swimming about and some reclining on floes with their cubs. Many of the floes were bloody with freshly killed seals. The polar bears were fattening up for their long winter sleep.
    The firth was quite narrow at this point, and Dumpy saw one bear slip off an ice floe and swim toward the base of the cliffs where there appeared to be a cave. Dumpy hovered outside.