Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

killing something you might want to eat but then not eating it, right?”
    Nyra’s eyes glittered. “Not exactly, but close. I shall explain more as we draw nearer to the time of the ceremony.”
    Centipedes? Nyroc wondered. He loved centipedes. They were one of his favorite foods. But he had a feeling that it was not centipedes. Centipedes, after all, didn’t have blood. Perhaps a fox, or something larger. Could it be the prisoner he was to kill? He did not want to, would not, think about that.
    Maybe it had to do with his da’s battle claws. Yes, that must be it. He would be required to kill something with his da’s battle claws! His mum had saved them for him. They were pretty special, and so was his da’s mask, which hung in their hollow in the cliff. Actually, Nyroc thought, the mask gave him the creeps. Every time he looked at it he wilfed a bit. But he was drawn to the battle claws. They were his inspiration. Everything he had learned how to do was because of the claws. They burnished his ambition and stirred his gizzard every time he was put to a new challenge. You shall grow into those claws, Nyroc, his mother had told him … You were born to wear them into battle. Regard them closely, my hatchling.
    Indeed, no one knew how closely he had studied them and yearned for their power with the deepest part of his gizzard.
    “But first,” Nyra continued, “you must learn to hate.” She regarded her son closely as she said this.
    “Hate—why hate?”
    “My dear, hate can make you strong. Very strong.”
    “But I don’t hate anything.”
    “Give it time, my little hatchling,” she said. “I shall help you learn to hate. These are the facts of life and death, my dear.”
    Nyroc felt as if his gizzard were cracking with fear. He knew he was wilfing in front of his mother’s eyes. He was trying to be brave. He tried to summon the image of his father’s battle claws. “You will help me?”
    “Of course. I’m your mother. What are mothers for but to teach their little ones?”
    “To hate?”
    Nyra nodded. “And here is your first lesson. You know who Soren is.”
    “My uncle,” Nyroc answered. “The owl who killed my father.”
    “Well, it’s as easy as that.”
    Nyroc’s eyes shined now. “You mean I am supposed to hate him?” he replied excitedly.
    “Exactly.”
    “Well, that’s not hard, Mum. I already do.” And in Nyroc’s mind’s eye an image blazed: his father’s battle claws on his own talons tearing through the backbone of Soren. He could hear the crack of the bones, could see the blood. Nyra watched her son and observed how his black eyes grew blacker and harder just as his father’s once had. Killer eyes! The likeness to his father almost took her breath away.
    “You see,” Nyra finally spoke, “hate comes easily. There will, however, be harder lessons.”
    But this did not concern Nyroc. This first lesson had been easy. It was natural to hate his father’s killer. He felt his gizzard stir with a heat he had never before known. So this is hate, he thought with great wonder. It was a most powerful emotion. If this was what his mum meant by hate, how hard could the other lessons be?
    “Yes,” said Nyra. “You must learn to hate him. You must think of your da’s broken spine every time you hear Soren’s name, every time you hear the words ‘Guardians of Ga’Hoole.’”
    “Yes, Mum, yes. I shall hate. I promise.”
    “Swear upon the battle claws of your father,” Nyra whispered.
    Nyroc hopped over to where the claws hung on thestone wall and raised one talon. “On these claws of my great father, I do swear to hate.”
    “And to kill,” his mother added softly.
    “And to kill,” Nyroc repeated, and once more his eyes turned black and hard. Like black diamonds with a fierce sparkle at their very center.
    Nyra peered out of the hollow and saw the last scraps of the night dissolving into the gray of the new day. “It is nearing twixt time. Go to sleep now, my little hatchling. I am proud of you. Know that.” But deep in Nyra’s gizzard there was a tremor of doubt. She did not know why. It made no sense. She had seen the dark glitter in those eyes so like Kludd’s. He was her perfect hatchling and yet she thought, There is something too sweet in this lad’s gizzard, something too sweet. If I could only drain that sweetness from his gizzard and replace it with the gallgrot of his father. But his eyes. His eyes are killer eyes — are they not?

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