Guardians of Ga'Hoole 10 - The Coming of Hoole

trying to pick up the few hot coals that were occasionally spewed from the volcanoes but he did not have the makings of a collier. Grank saw this immediately but did not tell him. Theo was purely a blacksmith. That was his art. Finally, toward the end of the dwenking, the volcanoes became more active. And then by the night when no moon rose or traversed the sky, the volcanoes erupted in a fury that was almost unimaginable.
    The owls and the wolf were all on Fengo’s favorite mountain ridge. “Look at those flames!” exclaimed Phineas.
    “Look at the coals!” Theo said. “They’re like thousands of red shooting stars!”
    But Fengo and Grank were not looking at any of this. They were watching Hoole. Hoole’s amber eyes seemed to grow to twice their normal size. He became very still. It is like the time when we were on the island, Grank thought. He is in some sort of a trance.
    The flames and fires that spewed from the five volcanoes were like no fires Hoole had ever seen before. He did not see the shape of his mother in the flames as he had before. He did not even think of his mother now. He saw wolves, only wolves, and something strange was happening to him. It was almost like the time he went fishing and felt that he had become more fish than owl. First, he felt a mighty heart beating in his chest. And his talons began to change shape. Yet, when he dared looked down for just a split second, he saw the same feet he had always had with their four talons gripping the ridge rocks. He was a Spotted Owl and Spotted Owls did not have ear tufts, but suddenly it felt as if his ear slits were moving to the top of his head and growing into little peaks. His beak began to extend into a squarish muzzle shape. And yet he knew it was still just a beak. And his feathers felt different. He was warmer.
    I am not a wolf, but I am a wolf, he thought.
    Grank nodded at Fengo. Fengo walked closer to Hoole.
    “Hoole, my pup. You are ready to go on the caribou hunt. We leave tonight.”
    Hoole instantly snapped out of his trance. “I’m ready, yes. I know I am ready.”
    And so they left on that moonless night when the flames singed the stars, and the coals flew red-hot inthe night. They were on a southwesterly course away from the ring of the volcanoes into what Fengo called the high plains. Hoole flew high, directly above Fengo. He could see his wings. He could see the feathers on his legs. If he swiveled his head around he could see his tail. He looked like a normal Spotted Owl. But in his heart, not his gizzard, in his wildly thumping heart, he knew he was a wolf. If he hooted, it would sound to him like a growl or a howl. I am a wolf. There were new sensations. One of the strongest was that of smell. He was bombarded by all sorts of strange scents. He realized that he had not rid himself of his body, but somehow entered that of another. Fengo’s, he guessed.
    As Fengo loped along, other wolves joined him. They were mostly from his pack or clan. They were accustomed to going on hunts like this together. To bring down a caribou or a moose, one could not act alone. The hunt became an elaborate and intricate dance. The wolves numbered almost a dozen. Hoole understood immediately the configuration of the byrrgis, in which his position was in the rear with the males. They were slower than the females, and so the females were in the lead. Even Fengo had begun to fall back when more females joined the pack. Hoole felt himself pressed close between Fengo and Dunmore, a younger wolf who loped with an odd gaitdue to a crooked hind leg. His heart beat in time with theirs. Long strands of saliva hung from their mouths and although Hoole knew that he had no mouth as they did, nor saliva, he felt the long wet strings blow in the breeze. And the rhythms of the wolves’ footfalls became the rhythms of his wing strokes as he flew above them.
    He noticed an earless wolf just ahead of him where the females ran. He had seen her before lurking about at the base of the volcanoes. She had seemed apart then. It was as if the other wolves avoided her, but now she was running with this clan. Still, Hoole could feel the tension of the wolves closest to her. They don’t like her, he thought. Wolves were very playful, always wrestling and nipping at one another, playing games of tag or bone toss, but he realized now that he had never seen this wolf play with any of the other wolves. They never shared food with her, never gave her the slightest