Guardians of Ga'Hoole 10 - The Coming of Hoole

caught in the strange state somewhere between fear and aggression, threat and submission, as his hackles raised and his ears laid back and the odd half-growl, half-whine sound came from deep in his throat.
    He actually doesn’t recognize me, Hordweard thought. Have my ears grown back? No! She knew that this was impossible. I’ll save him from his own confusion, she thought, and took another step closer to the edge of the boulder.
    “It is me, MacHeath.”
    He stared for a long moment in disbelief. His old mate, the oldest of all his mates suddenly looked young. Her once patchy mud-colored pelt had thickened and turned a tawny gold. She gleamed in the moonlight. Her green eyes, once dull, were now luminous. She was bigger, heavier. He had been gone not quite the cycle of one moon and yet…“Hordweard?”
    “Yes, but that is no longer my name.”
    Now his ears and hackles rose even higher. His tail went out straight, and he snarled. “But it is. I name all my mates. You are Hordweard MacHeath!” he snarled.
    “No longer MacHeath. I am Namara!”
    “You are not Namara, and you have no clan but MacHeath.”
    “I am a clan unto myself.”
    Then in the night, there was a golden explosion as she leaped high and howled, “I am Namara! And my clan is MacNamara!”
    She hurtled down on top of MacHeath’s back. There was the sound of a bone cracking and a terrible howl of pain. He tried to rise but his hind legs flopped out behind him. But still he had his fangs and his front legs with their claws. He managed to roll over and clawed at her chest. He missed but opened a gash on her shoulder. This maddened her.
    “I shall not stop till I finish you, MacHeath.” She tore at his face. This time he howled not with pain but with unleashed fury and with his broad chest and still mighty shoulders managed to fling her off.
    Namara stepped back a few paces. He tried to drag himself toward her. “I’ll take your other eye now, MacHeath!”
    “No. Never, she wolf from hell.” His voice was guttural and raspy with pain and rage.
    Although MacHeath’s back was broken, his hind legs useless, he still dragged himself toward her. He was dying, she knew it. She had been on enough hunts to know when the end was near. The newly fallen snow had turned red with his blood. She came closer. There was a sudden fear that iced his eye and then a melting, aggrieved look as he finally laid back his ears and twisted his head into a submissive position and exposed his throat for Namara’s fangs.
    “Namara,” he whispered.
    He expects lochinvyrr? This cur, this wretched cur expects lochinvyrr?
    Namara glared at him now. “You call me Namara, and you expect in return the dignity of lochinvyrr. You cannot give me permission to kill you. I take your life not because it is worthy, not because I respect you, but because I must destroy you!”
    “But, Namara—lochinvyrr…” MacHeath was gasping now. “Without lochinvyrr I will not find the spirit trail to the star wolf.”
    “I do not plan to eat you. You now offer up your life to me as if it is something of value. You who have neverhonored any code now wish for lochinvyrr.” Namara laughed harshly. “I’ll give you lochinvyrr!” she howled as she raised her forepaw and clawed out his remaining eye. Blood spurted from the socket.
    “I am blind, I am blind!” he whispered in despair. The bleeding empty socket flinched in one last desperate attempt to lock his eyeless eyes with his killer.
    “You are dead!” she said quietly, and sunk her teeth into his neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Scimitar and the Ember
    “ W hat’s that?” said a tipsy Great Gray Owl as he looked up from his perch on the grog tree.
    “Looks like a comet!”
    “Naw, ish ish too clossh for a comet,” the Great Horned Owl slurred.
    An Elf Owl, who had an astounding capacity for bingle juice despite his miniscule proportions, suddenly blurted out, “It’s the scimitar of H’rath!”
    “His scroom! King H’rath’s scroom!” an owl gasped and tipped off his perch plummeting to the ground, recovering just in time.
    “It’s NOT a scroom!” the Elf Owl shouted. “It’s the queen, Queen Siv…Queen of the N’yrthghar.”
    “Oh, Great Glaux,” a large Snowy gasped and then belched loudly as Siv settled at the top of the tree. “Your Majesty!” The Snowy attempted a curtsy but sprawled and then only succeeded in hanging upside down on the limb.
    Siv held the scimitar high so they could all see it.