Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

the luminous glow from the egg. These were the longest minutes that I had ever endured. But Theo finally broke thesilence. “I shall make your battle claws. But first I shall make a good hammer. Without a good hammer, I cannot make what you want. The edges must be keen, the points sharp, sharper than anything you can imagine. I need a hammer to do this.”
    I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew in that moment the history of warfare had been changed. We would be unleashing terrible weapons into the world of owls. We had fought only with ice before, but now we had iron, as Theo called this new metal that he had coaxed out of the black rock. Were we creating something worse than magic with these iron weapons? But by these weapons a prince might be saved. Was it worth it? I thought so. Anything that could rid the world of the nachtmagen, the horrendous magic of the hagsfiends, was worth it. And this prince was our best, our only chance.

CHAPTER TWENTY
A Stubborn Owl Gets
More Stubborn
    T he sources for black rock were few and far between. Theo had exhausted the ones on the island in the Bitter Sea, but he felt that in the inhospitable Nameless region to the west there might be some of the rocks he needed. A particularly important ingredient was something he called “salt stars.” When combined with the black rock, this salt made the metal easier to manipulate. In the Nameless region, there were said to be evaporated lakes and one small landlocked sea. He felt this would be a perfect place to find the salt stars.
    “I want you to take these battle claws with you, Theo,” I said.
    “Why would I need battle claws in the Nameless? It’s far from the war. No hagsfiends go there. It is completely empty of owls, empty of everything, except for what Iseek, and no one knows that these black rocks are worth anything.”
    “It’s not the Nameless that I worry about. It’s getting there. You might encounter someone out there over the Bitter Sea.”
    “No one ever flies over the Bitter Sea.”
    “You did.” I paused. “I insist. No more arguments.”
    He blinked. “Just one thing.”
    This was the most exasperating young owl I had ever met. He never gave up. I sighed. Before I could say anything, he blurted out that one more thing.
    “I might have made these battle claws, but I don’t know the first thing about how to use them. I have never fought in my life.”
    “I’m sure you’ll figure out how if you have to.”
    “It’s going to make me fly funny. I just know it. I mean, I’m adding a lot of weight. Glaux knows how I’ll rudder, do a banking turn, and I can forget a steep dive for hunting prey.”
    “First of all, you’re not wearing these on your tail feathers. So let’s skip the ruddering question. Nor are you wearing them on your wings. They are to be worn over your talons. If anything, they will help you kill prey.”
    “It’s an issue of balance.”
    Issue of balance! Theo always got testy when he was being challenged. “It’s an issue of your stubbornness and your eternally argumentative nature. What we’ll do, Theo,” I spoke very slowly and carefully, “is have a few training sessions so you can—”
    “Can what? Kill something? Kill you ?”
    At this point I exploded. “Will you kindly shut your big fat beak and listen to your elder? I should have kicked you out of here days ago!” Now he did look truly contrite.
    “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Go on.”
    “Oh, go on? You’re actually giving me permission to speak? What I was going to say before you so rudely interrupted me was that you’ll practice flying with them.”
    “All right.”
    “I’ve saved some gut and sinew from that snowshoe hare we had the other night. We’ll use that to strap them on.”
    “Yes. That’s a good idea,” Theo replied. I blinked in surprise. A compliment from this youngster—rare!
    “There!” I said a few minutes later as I tied the last knot. “Ready?”
    “I guess so,” Theo said softly.
    “Come on now. Get your gizzard into this. It’ll be fun.”
    “Fun, he calls it,” Theo muttered.
    “I’ll ignore that!” I replied. “Now lift off from the rock on top of the forge. The heat will give you a good updraft.”
    A minute later, Theo was aloft. “You’re doing fine,” I called out.
    “I might just have to keep flying over these warm updrafts forever. These things are heavy. Glaux knows what will happen if I get into cold air. The differential pressure alone will wreak havoc