Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

“She’s here, Harry. Nyra is here. And she’s going to Silverveil. We’re not going to Silverveil. Enough of your yoickish ideas.”
    Nyroc listened in a dazed state to the squabbling from the burrow. His gizzard seemed numb but his mind slowly began to process what he was hearing. They think I am my mother. They think I am a Pure One come to capture or kill them.
    Without another thought, he spread his wings and lifted off. He was half mumbling, half crying all the things he had meant to say to the Burrowing Owls, but never had the chance. “I only came for rest. I wasn’t going to stay. Myname is Nyroc, not Nyra. I am nothing like my mother or my father…”
    But you are, Nyroc! You are! a chorus of voices swirled in his head. You will never escape. And no matter where you go, you shall be hated and feared. Go back to the Pure Ones. Go back. You shall be revered. You are their leader, their king.
    It was a night in which the black was thick and neither moon nor stars shone above. A glaring gray light slowly whirled around Nyroc, first on one side of him, then the other. It was not his father’s scroom. It was three others—made of shreds of gray mist that appeared like tattered owls with fierce yet colorless eyes. They flew with him, one at the tip of each wing, another at his tail feathers.
    They looked as if they had come from hagsmire—hagsfiends caught up in a frenzy of hag winds. These singing gray shadows whirled about him and sang out in screechy voices:

We are the voices of the dead.
    We’ve come to tell you what to dread.
    A feeble prince, you’ve taken flight.
    You shall be ours before the night.
    But if your gizzard gallgrot gets
    A king of kings it shall beget.

    The words of their gruesome song made Nyroc shiver. Were they threatening him with death—“You shall be ours before the night”? Nyroc realized that despite the violent circling of these scrooms about him, they caused no wind. Indeed, the headwind he had been battling before he had landed in The Barrens had all but vanished.
    Nyroc flicked his port wing first, then his starboard one, ruddered his tail, lowered his head, and said in a very quiet voice, “You are nothing. Not even wind.” And he thrust forward through the misty figures that seemed to dissolve into the night.
    Yet still his gizzard quivered. Why had they followed him? Why had their voices seeped into his head?
    He was more determined than ever to get to Silverveil.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Terrible Beauty
    I n the distance, Nyroc saw a low range of hills. His gizzard fluttered. This must be the northern border of The Barrens. Phillip had told him about these hills. Just beyond them, not far was the most beautiful part of Silverveil, a region called Blythewold. There were all sorts of owls in Blythewold, including Barn Owls of all breeds. Surely he would be welcome here. He flew faster.
    Soon the hills were beneath him, and the moon had finally risen in the sky. Everything was awash in its silvery light. Oh, he knew what green was now. Never had he seen such greenness. He could hear the rippling silver sound of what seemed like a hundred brooks. A light wind stirred the sedges that grew along their banks. There were trees of all sorts. Trees with broad leaves that whispered in the breeze, some whose leaves were not green but red, and some even yellow. And trees that had no leaves at all, but long, thin, drooping branches like golden strands. These trees grew by the lakes, of which there were many, andthese strands of gold swept over the surface of the water, making beautiful sighing sounds. Oh, this was where he would live forever and ever. This would be his home. He would explain who he was. That he was nothing like his mum or da, that he had left them and the Pure Ones.
    Nyroc felt he was on the brink of a whole new world, a whole new life. No more day-for-night living. He would join the wonderful nighttime of owls—fly with them, hunt with them, live with them. But night was now thinning into the dawn. He would have to wait through a long day for First Black. Oh, he was so impatient!
    Nyroc had decided it might be a bit forward to try for a hollow in one of these lovely trees. He didn’t want to have to go poking his beak into places that might be occupied just when mums and das were trying to get their young’uns to sleep with lullabies and stories. He would be patient. He’d settle for something on the ground. And he should find it quickly. It had been