Guardians of Ga'Hoole 10 - The Coming of Hoole

Siv replied as all three lighted down in the cinder beds near Fengo’s cave.
    “Mother,” he repeated softly, then turned to Grank. “Why did you never tell me?”
    Siv spoke: “He had good reason, dear, and there is no time to explain now. I have come to warn you. Any hour, Lord Arrin, his forces, and the hagsfiends will arrive.”
    “They know he is here?” Grank asked.
    “Hordweard!” Fengo said. “I knew it.”
    “No, not Hordweard!” Hoole said firmly. And just at that moment, they heard a commotion among the wolves. Dunmore MacDuncan came up.
    “Sir, a most unusual…” He paused, then continued. “Unusual event.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Oh, Glaux, not yet the hagsfiends.” There was deep anguish in Grank’s voice.
    “No. It is Hordweard. She is back.”
    They all turned and saw the wolf much transformed. But it was definitely Hordweard, and she was dragging the body of Dunleavy MacHeath.
    “I told you she wasn’t a traitor!” Hoole lofted himself joyously up and down into the air.
    “Oh, no,” Siv said. “It is the dead wolf who was the traitor.”
    Hordweard dropped the body at Fengo’s paws. “I know not what he told Lord Arrin,” she said, “but I fear it was something to do with young Hoole. I should have killed him before he went there but I was not strong enough then, not big enough, not nourished enough.” She slid her green eyes around to look at the rest of the wolves who had gathered, including the nervous mates of MacHeath. “One must be well fed and strong to kill a tyrant such as Dunleavy MacHeath.”
    “Hordweard,” Fengo began, and laid back his ears. The other wolves looked on in awe. Never had they seen Fengo even begin these motions of submission. But he now crouched down and drew his lips back. His tail was low. “Hordweard,” he began again.
    “Fengo, my name is no longer Hordweard MacHeath. I am Namara MacNamara.”
    “Namara MacNamara, I ask you to forgive my most…” He hesitated. “My most uncivilized behavior. I thought at first that it was a grand gesture I made when I said that the mates of MacHeath were free to leave his clan. I now realize it was nothing more than a gesture, and I did not have the will to trust such a brave wolf as yourself. I ask for your forgiveness.”
    “I forgive you, Fengo.”
    Just at that moment all the wolves began to howl in alarm. Overhead, the sky darkened as an advanced guard of hagsfiends flew across the flame-torn sky.
    “Krakia H’rath Regna Vinca,” Siv bellowed the command in Krakish that summoned her troops.
    “Quick, battle claws!” Grank ordered. There were only four sets of the claws, but Siv’s troops had come armed with all manner of weapons. The H’rathian units had their deep ice weapons and the hireclaws carried sharp branches and their own finely honed talons, which they took pride in sharpening daily on flint stone. Just before they took off, Grank remembered his encounter with the scroom of H’rath. “Hoole, look for the channels!”
    Hoole blinked. The channels, yes he knew the channels, the cooler paths through the flames. He hadn’tknown that Grank did. “Yes, Grank, the channels!” And he rose into the air.
    Soon the sky was seething with owls and hagsfiends. The hagsfiends seemed to gain power from the fire and yet they often staggered in flight between the sudden updraft of hot air and the swirling whirlpools of cool air. Lord Arrin’s troops were having real trouble flying, and Hoole with his battle claws delivered a fatal blow to a Snowy Owl in Lord Arrin’s elite guard.
    “Stay close, Hoole,” Siv flew up to him and whispered.
    “I can fight for myself, Mother.”
    “I know, son, but if the fyngrot is cast…” She saw the Snow Rose and Grank begin to chase down a hagsfiend. If they could attack from the rear they could avoid the fyngrot. But Glaux help them if it wheeled around. Hoole quickly saw how this strategy would work. His lessons of hunting with the wolves came back to him.
    “Mother, Phineas, Theo, follow me.” They would make a flying byrrgis and use the same strategies to bring down a hagsfiend. Yes, look for the channels! And no one knew these channels as well as Hoole. There was one that he called the “river” for it seemed to flow just like a river. And during the most violent eruptions, like the ones that were now occurring, this “river” became as tumultuous as white-water rapids. The currents dumped downwarddirectly into the mouth of the