foundation of the tree- becomes suspect and books are burnt. Somehow the Band must open Coryn's eyes to the Striga's influence. The War of the Ember Dumpy, a puffin, discovers Nyra and the Striga working together in an ice cave to bring back the Hagsfiends. Scared, he tries to inform someone of this conspiracy but cannot, as all the other puffins he knows are as stupid as a rock. He then seeks out a polar bear known as Sveep and blurts out everything he saw. Sveep travels to Namara, the leader of the MacNamara clan of the Wolves of the Beyond, and informs her of what Dumpy had said. Namara then howls to the other clans about the grave danger, and all the wolf clans of the Beyond participate to relay this message to the rest of the kingdoms. Gwyndor, father of the Rogue Smith Gwynneth and one himself, hears the relay and flies to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree to inform them of this imminent danger to the Hoolian world. Meanwhile in the Palace of the Mists, Bess is about to sleep when a dying Boreal Owl comes flying to the hidden scholarly retreat. Bess attends to him. The owl whispers that he has been poisoned and that he wants to be sung to Glaumora. Without questioning him, she sings to him, then retreats to the maparium to sleep. Just as she is about to doze off, she hears a loud bang and peers out to see the supposedly 'dying' owl, now wearing deadly battle claws, obviously searching for the hidden Ember of Hoole. Bess, a pacifist, has to kill him to defend herself. She then flies to the Great Tree and reports what had happened. Soren, Coryn, the Band and Otulissa plan an extraction for the ember. They devise a plan where a few skilled owls from the tree take botkins to the Palace of Mists and Bess, her eyes closed, drops the ember into one of them. The fliers take different routes, not knowing which botkin the ember is in, and are tracked in the high cloud cover by the band. Tracking the Barn Owl Wensel from the cloud cover, Soren, using his extremely elusive auditory skills as a Barn Owl, then finds out that Wensel was about half a league off from his course, obviously thinking his botkin was the one with the ember. Soren also devises