Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

into the hollow and thrust his chest out. “Just do it now. Do it quickly.”
    “Do what now?” the other one said. The words seemed to slither off the snake’s tongue.
    “Just kill me, quickly. Here, right to the heart.” He nodded his head and with his beak poked the feathers on his chest.
    “What issssss he talking about?” said the first snake to his companion.
    “We didn’t come here to kill you,” said the other snake.
    “But I’m not going back with you. I will never go back to her, to the Pure Ones.”
    There was a flash as both snakes, in one quick green fluid motion, slipped from their perches to the floor of the hollow where they arranged themselves into neat coils. With their heads waving hypnotically they spoke in unison:
    “We are not emisssssssssaries from the Pure Ones. We detesssst the Pure Ones.”
    “You do?” Nyroc blinked in amazement.
    “We do,” answered the first snake. “My name is Slynella and this is my mate, Stingyll.”
    “But you said that she sent for me?”
    Both snakes nodded, looping their heads into figure eights and then resting them in a knot on top of their coiled bodies. It was rather dizzying to watch.
    “So who is ‘she’?” Nyroc asked.
    “She is Misssssst,” Slynella replied.
    “She is the watcher in the woods,” said Stingyll. “She has been watching you ssssince you arrived in Ambala.”
    “She has?”
    Both snakes once more went through the elaborate nodding procedure, unknotting their heads from the figure eights and then knotting them again.
    “But who is she? Why does she care about me?” Nyroc asked.
    “She is a very ssssssspecial owl.”
    “Oh, she is an owl?”
    “Mosssst definitely,” Stingyll answered.
    “She often ssssends us on misssssions. The lassst time, I came to save a Barn Owl by the name of Ssssssssoren.”
    “Soren!” Nyroc couldn’t believe his ear slits. “You helped save Soren?”
    “Yesssss, that was some years back. He had been badly wounded. His wound became ‘gamby,’ as we ssssay. My venom ssssaved him.”
    “Your venom saved him? I thought your venom killed.”
    “It does that, too.” And both snakes now laughed, making a strange, slurred hissing sound.
    “So who exactly is this Mist?”
    “You shall sssssee. She lives with the eagles. Sssssome call her Hortensssse.”
    “Wait a minute! Wait just one little minute. I have already met one Hortense, that Great Gray, very young and very rude. I didn’t like him a bit.”
    “There are many named Hortensssse in the foresssst of Ambala. It is an honor to be named Hortensssse, no matter if you are born female or male. But Missst is the original Hortenssse, a hero beyond compare. They ssssay a hero is known by only one name in Ambala—Hortensssse. But there is truly only one Hortensssse, and she now calls herself Misssst and she lives apart from the other owls. She lives with the eagles.”
    “With eagles?”
    Once more they nodded, but Slynella and Stingyll must have gotten tired, for this time they did only half a figure eight.
    “And she really wants to meet me?”
    “She does. She does, indeed.”
    “Does she know who I am?”
    But by this time the snakes were slithering out of the hollow and casting themselves onto the breeze that stirred with the new day. Nyroc hesitated not out of fear, but astonishment. Flying snakes! Incredible. But I am seeing them , he thought.
    “Follow usssss,” Stingyll said, twisting his head around. “Follow usss!” Both snakes flattened themselves into ribbons that rippled in slow, undulating motions over the waves and billows of windy air.
    Higher and higher they flew until they were far above the forest. Soon Nyroc spied a rocky promontory. Scraped by wind and scoured by endless winter storms, the rock had been worn to a smooth finish, and atop the promontory was the most enormous nest Nyroc had ever seen. Its circumference was at least the size of the crown of a very large tree. He had heard about eagles’ nests but he had never seen one. No mere twigs were used in its construction. The nest was built from long, sturdy branches woven together in a seemingly haphazard fashion. And perched on its edge were two immense eagles. Between them was a figure that Nyroc could not quite make out. He was flying into a rising sun, which was difficult enough, and his day vision could not compare to his night vision. He was not quite sure exactly what he was seeing. But it seemed to him that a patch of speckled fog