Read The Siege for Free Online Page A

gagging.”
    Soren felt that Ruby had a point. The words were hard to say, and many did have harsh, gagging sounds. But he suddenly had another thought.
    “I’m not sure if we should know all of this stuff so well. It’s not as if we were hatched and raised in the Northern Kingdoms. Remember, we just arrived accidentally, thanks to a williwaw. It might seem weird if we know all this history like we were…were…”
    “Grot-ghots?” Otulissa said. “That’s the Northern Kingdom term for native.”
    Soren and Gylfie blinked at each other. Unbelievable, this Spotted Owl, thought Soren. Does she ever let up?
    “I think Soren is absolutely right,” Digger spoke up. “How are we supposed to have learned all this stuff if we were just blown off course? As a matter of fact, Otulissa, you’re going to have to watch yourself.”
    “Watch myself?” She blinked rapidly. “How do you mean?”
    Twilight stepped up close to her and bobbed his head forward. “He means put a mouse in it!”
    Otulissa looked crestfallen. “Oh…oh,” she said softly.“I see what you mean. Yes, they might think we were grot-ghots and not merely blown off course,” she paused. “I’ve learned so much, though.”
    “Well, you’ll be able to use it sometime, I’m sure, Otulissa,” Soren said. He actually felt a bit sorry for her. “And I think we can tell them a lot about the military stuff that Ezylryb mentioned. I mean, Ezylryb did say that we were supposed to pretend that we found some sort of weakness. How did he say it, Gylfie?”
    “He said that we must say something to the effect that we find the clans an inefficient and cumbersome method of social and military organization. Remember, St. Aggie’s owls have never been to the Northern Kingdoms, so they’re going to believe what we tell them.” Gylfie paused. “But you know what is even more important for all of you to learn? The most important lesson of all.”
    “What’s that?” asked Martin.
    Gylfie looked across to Soren and blinked. Soren knew what was coming. “How not to be moon blinked.”
    When Soren and Gylfie had been snatched by the owls of St. Aggie’s, they were shocked to find owls who no longer slept during the day. In a complete reversal of the normal cycle, these young owls were forced to sleep at night. Furthermore, during the nighttime, they were periodicallyawakened and made to perform the sleep march under the glare of a rising moon. It did not take Soren and Gylfie long to figure out that the reason for the march was to make hundreds of young owlets rotate through the moon’s glare. And no one was allowed to stay in the safety of the shadows for too long. For among older owls it was known that to sleep with one’s head exposed to the brightness of the moon’s light, especially a moon at the full shine, had a peculiar effect on the gizzards and the minds of owls, especially young impressionable ones. Through some mysterious process, their own personalities began to disintegrate, they lost any sense of their uniqueness, and their will simply evaporated.
    To aid in this process, they were each assigned a number in place of their name. While marching, they were told to repeat their old name endlessly. A name, or any word, repeated endlessly breaks up into meaningless sounds. It is no longer a name. It is just a senseless collection of noises. So Gylfie and Soren had pretended to say their names while marching, but instead, they had repeated their assigned numbers. Thus their numbers became meaningless, not their names.
    Soren and Gylfie had developed other tricks as well. Some were riskier than others. But the most effective strategy of all in resisting moon blinking had been tosilently whisper the legends of Ga’Hoole. At that time in Gylfie’s and Soren’s lives they had thought they were only repeating stories. They had no idea that the Great Ga’Hoole Tree really existed, and that the stories were true. By repeating these tales, Soren and