Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

owl lives to return to his troops, the word will spread. And then what will happen?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I know,” he said suddenly. “You see, Grank, we have invented a better way to kill. The whole owl world will want battle claws.”
    “It will take a long time, Theo. The owl world does not know about smithing. They don’t know about the black rocks, about iron. It is a complicated thing you have invented. A new technology. For thousands of years wehave fought with ice. And now iron? It will take time. You have a kind of genius.”
    “A genius for what? Killing? Don’t flatter me.”
    “With this skill, you will make other things, not just battle claws. From copper, small containers for carrying and holding, and tools of all sorts. It will not be all battle claws.”
    Theo blinked at me as if to say, You fool. You old fool! I felt my gizzard squirm.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Haggish Lord
    M y last flame vision of Siv had been of the bear teaching her to fly. The images had faded before I saw what Siv had just spotted, and it was not until much later that I would learn what exactly had transpired, Dear Owl. But ever since Siv told me of how Lord Arrin arrived to treat with her, to make this so-called peace, the scene is vivid in my mind.
    “Peace, he called it,” Siv said scathingly. “It was surrender, that’s what he wanted. Surrender of the egg.”
    “I am pleased that you are healing,” the wily old bird said to Siv as he swept down to land on the berg.
    Siv blinked and narrowed her eyes as she studied the leading edges of Lord Arrin’s wings. No wonder she had heard him. There were no plummels. The tips of his flight feathers were ragged and dark, too dark for a Snowy. Oh, she thought, there is something haggish about this lord, yes, very haggish, and yet he dares fly close to water. Her gizzard shuddered. So he is not a hagsfiend yet, just haggish enough—for now.
    Every instinct in her drove her to wilf. But she resisted. I shall not wilf in front of this dastardly creature who calls himself an owl. I shall not wilf! Never! And overhead, camouflaged in a thick dark cloud, she knew the haggish Pleek flew. And most likely, his mate, Ygryk, who so longed for her egg, was nearby.
    Svenka had disappeared but Siv knew that she lurked close by, listening. One swipe of the polar bear’s huge paw and she could decapitate this owl, but who knew what else lurked above in the clouds—Arrin’s troops along with Pleek and Ygryk? Perhaps even hagsfiends ready to cast their deadly yellow light. Siv knew, as did Svenka, that it would be utter foolishness to risk an attack.
    She wondered how much small talk there would be before Lord Arrin got to the point of his visit. “I see you are flying short distances. Quite amazing,” he said.
    “Yes, but I have always been a quick healer,” Siv answered.
    “Is that so? And your parents are well, I suppose.” Siv remained silent. He peered at her as if expecting a response. Siv, however, was growing extremely tired of this play at civility.
    “Suppose what you want about my parents, Lord Arrin. What have you come here for?”
    “Oh, just to see how you are doing, to inquire about your egg and its hatching.”
    Aha! Siv thought. It was just as she expected. She must lie. She must fool him. For her hatchling’s sake, she must keep him believing that the egg was still here. If she said anything else, Lord Arrin would launch a huge hunt for the egg. Every hagsfiend in the N’yrthghar would be summoned. Not to mention all of his own troops. They wanted that egg, that hatchling. Through that still unhatched owl, they suspected, perhaps they knew, that they could control owlkind.
    You see, Dear Owl, just as I had come to know that from this egg would hatch a chick with special powers, the hagsfiends, with their own peculiar instincts, had sensed that it was special, too.
    Lord Arrin asked again if the egg was near hatching.
    Siv looked at the Snowy. What a vain creature he was. She could tell by the way he held himself and continued to preen when speaking to her. The cock of his head, the set of his beak, all betrayed vanity and arrogance. She sighed as if speaking to a small child and not a lord. “These things happen in their own time, Lord Arrin. You certainly must know that. They hatch when they hatch.”
    “But no signs yet?” he asked.
    “Why should this concern you?” Siv said.
    “I was only thinking, milady, how difficult it will be for you to