Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

asked.
    “That it’s difficult to explain. You never seem to be at a loss for words, Theo.”
    “Could we get on with the rules?” he pressed.
    “That’s about it. I keep a clean camp. Find your own hollow.”
    “Thank you…thank you so much, sir. I’ll be the best student you’ve ever had.”
    “I’ve never had a student!”
    “Well, I’m sure we’ll both learn a lot, then. I, as a student, and you, as a teacher. And if you need any help in tending the egg, don’t hesitate to ask.”
    I glared at him now. “No! The egg is my business. Learning about the fire and the forge is yours.”
    “Yes, sir! Yes, sir. I promise to be an attentive, hardworking apprentice. I want to learn.”
    And learn he did. The irony of all this was that as I had become the first collier, Theo the gizzard resister would become the first blacksmith and learn how to shape black metal into incomparable weapons—weapons as deadly as ice swords, ice slivers, or ice scimitars. I quickly altered that old Krakish word “smeisshen” to something Icould pronounce without gagging. The word became “smith”—and then blacksmith, for we were soon able to extract a new kind of metal that was much harder than any I had encountered in the Beyond, and it turned black when it cooled.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Wounded Queen
    M y last vision of Siv in the flames had been a terrible one indeed. I had seen her caught in that horrifying searing yellow light that radiated from the hagsfiends’ eyes, then taking the scimitar and rushing at the hagsfiends, and the sudden terrible sight of a torn wing and blood, lots and lots of blood. Since that time I had been too frightened to scour the flames for any other sight of Siv. I had sensed that she had survived. She would later tell me that just before she charged the hagsfiends, she feared that she was turning into one.
    “So this is nachtmagen!”
    That was her last thought before she felt her mind scraped clean. And then no thoughts, no feelings. It was as if she were becoming nothing. Or was she becoming something else? Something pecked at her gizzard. There was a peculiar ringing at the back of her mind. “Am I becoming a hagsfiend?” She felt her plummels dissolve in the cold night air. And where they had been, she felt theedges become ragged. She looked in horror as her beautiful white-spotted, rich brown feathers began to darken. “No!” she shrieked.
    But she was not becoming a hagsfiend. No, my friend, it was the Nacht Ga’. The dreadful spell had been cast, and Siv was resisting it with all of her might. Only to herself did her plumage appear to change. Outwardly, to anyone else, she would seem the same. What was changing was her gizzard and within it the seeds of her Ga’. It was at that moment when she dimly perceived these strange gizzardly mutations that she cried out with a bellow worthy of the mightiest warrior, “No!” and charged the hagsfiends. It was at that moment that I lost her image in the flames, when the harsh yellow light receded and the snowflakes turned red.
    It was much later still that I would learn that all the while I was tending the egg, Siv was not dead but grievously wounded, her port wing nearly torn off. She had been able to fly only with Myrrthe’s help in a kronkenbot, a windless kind of vacuum used for transporting wounded soldiers from a battle. Normally, it would have taken a minimum of two owls to create the kronkenbot, but Myrrthe was determined, and if there was anything Snowy Owls of the far north were known for, it was their unfaltering resolve, their sheer stubbornness.
    “I can do it, milady, I can do it. The tailwind is favorable. I know I can do it.” By ruddering her lateral tail feathers and making minuscule adjustments to her primaries, Myrrthe was somehow creating a windless space in which Siv, still bleeding, could be sucked along in flight. It was this sudden favorable wind change that had initially allowed them to escape because the wind brought with it the risk of salt death for the hagsfiends. You see, Dear Owl, despite all their powers, hagsfiends feared one thing: salt water from our icy seas. They could be seriously wounded or even killed by seawater. Their drenched feathers lacked oil and could not shed the salty water. Thus, their wings iced up immediately, often causing them to plummet into the sea. They avoided any contact with seawater.
    It was for this reason that both Siv and Myrrthe knew that they would be safest in one