Guardians of Ga'Hoole 08 - The Outcast

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 andshe 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 hadnever 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 hovered between the two eagles. Or perhaps not fog, but Mist!

CHAPTER THREE
The Eagles’ Nest
    T hey had just alighted on the rim of the nest. The smaller eagle, the male, nodded at Nyroc and spoke. “Welcome to our aerie. My name is Streak and this is my mate, Zan.” Zan made a series of nodding movements with her head. “I must explain,” said Streak. “My dear mate, Zan, had her tongue torn out in battle with Skench and Spoorn, the old leaders of St. Aggie’s. She is mute, but she can communicate with a language of gesture that Mist and I can understand.”
    Nyroc had not been able to take his eyes off the strange patch that hovered between the two eagles. The patch was now assuming a more definite form and appeared to be an elderly and somewhat shrunken Spotted Owl. He could resist no longer. He had to speak to this creature.
    “Are you a scroom?” Nyroc asked.
    There was a gentle churring, the sound owls make when they laugh. “No. I am known as Mist or Hortense, and I am alive, very much so.”
    “I don’t mean to be rude,” Nyroc said. “But why do you look the way you do?”
    “Well, it’s a long story but I’ll try to make it brief. In Ambala, where I was hatched, the streams and brooks and lakes—even the ground itself—are rich in a magnetic material called flecks. It was both a blessing and a curse. Some owls were hatched with unusual powers because of the flecks. My father, for instance, could see through rock.”
    “See through rock?” Nyroc repeated.
    “Yes. Quite amazing, isn’t it? But sadly his own mother went yoicks, lost her wits and every gizzardly instinct she ever had.”
    “How awful.”