Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

them nod their heads in a silent salute.
    “How about that!” Phillip shouted, and slid in next to Nyroc. “Slam four!” and the two birds touched their four talons from their adjacent legs midflight.
    They had been flying for some time when the clouds began to roll in behind them, smudging the perfect blueness of the sky. But ahead it was still clear. They were holding a north-northeast course so as to avoid the Shredders of the Shadow Forest. It was a course toward Silverveil but first they would have to cut through The Barrens. Nyroc had wanted desperately to go to Silverveil.If he was going to see trees for the first time in his life, he wanted to see the most beautiful trees of all and that was where they grew. Phillip wanted to return because he wanted to see how much had grown back in The Brooklets since the fire.
    They kept a keen lookout in case Nyra and her troops had followed them into the daylight, but so far they had seen nothing. They stopped to hunt a couple of times. They were very careful not to leave tracks of any kind—either pellets or talon marks. Nyroc now swiveled his head back toward the clouds that rolled in thicker and thicker behind him. Weather coming in—snow or rain, he guessed, this time of year. He noticed something dark in the cloud but it was just a speck. But as soon as he swiveled his head back to face forward he felt a funny little ping in his gizzard. This time, he flipped his head all the way back and cranked the muscles in his facial disk to orient his ear slits toward any sound that might come from that speck of darkness. He heard a rhythmic wuff wuff wuff …so soft, no other creature except a Barn Owl could have ever detected it.
    “Phillip! We’re being followed!”
    “No!” Phillip flipped his head back and then gasped. “You’re right. What should we do?”
    “Split up for now,” Nyroc said, surprised at the certaintyin his own voice. “It’ll be harder for them to follow both of us.”
    “But where should we meet? I sort of know this territory, but you don’t know it at all.”
    Nyroc thought a moment, then said, “We’ll circle back. They won’t expect us to do that. We’ll meet back at the fox’s den tonight.”
    Phillip had to admit it was a good idea. The overhanging ledges of the canyon gave them some protection from being seen. No owl would expect another owl to dive into a deep box canyon that was full of rattlesnakes.
    “All right, let’s go.”
    And so the two young owls peeled away from each other in opposite directions.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pieces of Me!
    N yroc peeked out of the fox’s den to scan the sky for a sign of Phillip. He had arrived a good time before and had expected Phillip by now. But there was not a speck in the sky. Well, he supposed he should consider this lucky. There was no sign of Phillip—then again, no sign of the posse. But what if the posse had caught Phillip? That was a scary thought. Nyroc turned to walk deeper into the shadows of the den. He yarped a pellet, picked it up, and walked farther into the den to scratch out a place to bury it.
    As he was digging with his talons, he felt something odd drop from his tail. He wheeled around and saw a feather, one of his undertail coverts, lying on the ground. “Great Glaux! What’s happening to me?” He stared in a mixture of dismay and horror. Another smaller covert slipped lazily to the ground. He began to tremble uncontrollably and moan. His gizzard shuddered and grew squishy.
    “What in Glaux’s name is going on in here?” Phillip said as he flew into the den.
    “Phillip! I’m so glad you’re here.”
    “What is wrong?”
    Nyroc straightened up and tried to look brave. He gulped and then blinked several times. “Phillip, I hate to tell you this but…but I think I am dying.”
    “Dying? What are you talking about? You look perfectly healthy to me.”
    Nyroc nodded toward his feet and then bent down and picked up one of the feathers. “How do you explain this, Phillip?”
    “Explain it? What’s to explain? You’re molting, that’s all.”
    “Molting?”
    Phillip sighed deeply. “Hasn’t that idiot mother of yours told you about molting?”
    “No.”
    “First of all, it’s natural.”
    “You mean I’m not ill? I’m not going to die?”
    “Not from molting. Sorry to disappoint you. Molting is a sign of maturity. When you were a very young hatchling, your first fluffy down fell off and you were pretty unsightly. We had a First Molting