Free The River of Wind by Kathryn Lasky

lately. It must be that herb mixture that you’ve been getting for me.”
    Stryker wilfed a bit. He didn’t want to tell her that the last time he had gone to the herbalist in Kuneer, an Elf Owl, he had had to rough the fellow up a bit to get the medicine.
    The moonfaced owl, Nyra, was the supreme commander of the Pure Ones. Stryker was her top lieutenant, although she had recently been thinking about replacing him. After too long a time, things were again looking up for the Pure Ones. The alliance with the wolves had proved to be a mistake, but one learns from mistakes.Stick to owls—down-and-out owls. A series of forest fires had also proved a boon for Nyra. Owl families had been split apart; orphans were available for the snatching. And what could be snatched at an early enough age could be trained, indoctrinated, gizzard-washed until they were pliant, docile, and perfect for her growing army of Pure Ones. Those who were not orphans but adults, hollowless adults who had been burned out of their homes and had lost their mates and families, could also be lured into the cadres of the Pure Ones, which offered support, the promise of leadership roles, and new responsibilities other than just the daily grind of providing fresh meat for one’s family. Many found this, if not a welcome change, at least a way to forget that once upon a time they’d even had families. Most were so grief-stricken that any memory of their former life was searingly painful.
    So Nyra had offered an alternative: the Desert of Kuneer. No trees, no forest fires. When displaced owls asked where they would live, Nyra explained the joys of burrows, although cactus dwelling was available. It was the Burrowing Owl Tarn, a sergeant, whom she was thinking of to replace Stryker. Tarn had been the architect of the extensive burrow system in Kuneer. It was now inhabited by the largest force of Pure Ones Nyra had managed to muster in a long time. It would be tricky, though,promoting Tarn, a non–Barn Owl, to such a high position. Technically, he was not a Pure One, but it was Tarn who had dug out their first encampment in a remote region in the Desert of Kuneer, supervised its continued expansion, and introduced them to the herbalist and healer Cuffyn, an Elf Owl. The odd but useful little owl lived in an immense cactus with several good-sized hollows, where he practiced medicinal arts.
    So successful had Nyra’s recruitment campaign been that she had even set a few fires herself in service to her cause—the rebuilding of the Pure Ones’ empire. She liked to think of it as an “empire” although it had never been associated with any particular part of the owl kingdoms or geography for any length of time. But things are going to be different now, she thought as she watched the hollow where the peculiar blue owl tended some creature. Yes, different! And if her hunch was right, whatever was in that tree would be just what she needed to shift the winds completely in her favor. Nyra would wait and watch. According to Stryker, the blue owl was going out more often to hunt. Nyra would just wait and continue to watch patiently. Over time, she had learned patience, which had given her cunning an edge, tempered it to a fineness as deadly as the sharpest battle claws. And when the time was right, Nyra would strike.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Sage at the River’s End
    F ollowing the strings, the owls descended through layers of clouds that had streaked through the River of Wind. Soon they spied high, jagged mountains, range upon range of icy peaks that appeared to march across this new continent that had appeared where the sea ended. Their eyes were fixed on the mountains directly ahead, and they neglected to see that just beneath them another landscape began to appear through a scrim of mist that was tossed up by the sea. Cliffs of pink-and-gray-swirled stone cascaded into the clouds of vapor. Occasionally, a notch in the cliffs revealed pine forests and boughs of trees