Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

hesitated.
    “Start with the head, Lutta. Always start with the head,” Kreeth counseled. Lutta snapped her beak shut and began to feel the bottom of her face expand. Her head was becoming larger and rounder. Her face expanded to nearly twice its size. Her plumage grew denser and silvery.
    “Come with me, dearie. Our flight lessons begin!”

CHAPTER SEVEN
Strix Strumajen Yearning
    A cry was heard. “He’s sighted! Joss is sighted!” Then Cuthbert, commander of the second watch, flew into Hoole’s hollow. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but we done caught a glimpse of him in the dawn. It’s Joss, all right. He’s back!” Hoole was instantly alert. “So sorry to interrupt your sleep, what with tween time hardly passed.”
    “Don’t go apologizing, Commander. This couldn’t have happened soon enough.”
    Within seconds, Hoole was at the top of the great tree, peering into the rose-colored dawn. “Bless my gizzard and thank Glaux, he’s back.” Before anyone could blink, Hoole launched himself onto a rising thermal and flew out to greet the faithful messenger, the Whiskered Screech, Joss.
    “Let him catch his breath, lad, let him catch his breath,” Grank called from below.
    “No need, sir,” Joss replied. “There is much to tell and no time to be wasted.”
    “Sorry, sorry,” Hoole apologized. “Here, come to the hollow and rest first.”
    “May I begin, sir?” Joss asked as he settled onto a perch in Hoole’s hollow.
    “Please. What is the news?”
    “You did a right good deal of damage to Lord Arrin, no doubt about it, Your Majesty.”
    Hoole interrupted. “Joss, please do not call me Your Majesty. It’s just the three of us here.” Hoole nodded at Grank.
    “Oh, certainly…well…sir, many have broken with Lord Arrin. Lost faith, I guess you’d say. But, at the same time, new alliances are being formed. Of that you can be sure.”
    “Yes, I feared that. There was always that possibility. But so soon?”
    “Apparently.”
    “Do you know the nature of these alliances?”
    “Well, we know for sure that Ullryck has deserted.”
    “Ullryck! Ullryck was Lord Arrin’s best assassin, wasn’t she, Grank?” Hoole turned to look at his counselor.
    “Indeed,” Grank replied gravely.
    “It’s rumored that she has started her own division of hagsfiends.”
    “Just hagsfiends? Nothing else?” Hoole asked.
    “Just hagsfiends,” Joss replied.
    Hoole and Grank exchanged looks and blinked. This had always been their worst fear. An army of just hagsfiends. And then they both had the same unspoken thought. Though they were both flame readers, the fires had rarely rendered clear images of hagsfiends. It was as if the hags-fiends’ magic in some way inhibited the clarity of the flames. Images became garbled, almost nonsensical, and certainly not trustworthy. But, Hoole wondered, was the answer to turn to the magic of the ember? Was this when he must fight magic with magic? He did not like the notion.
    “Tell us more,” Grank urged.
    “There are rumors of a young upstart—an owl, not a hagsfiend—from someplace far north of the Firth of Fangs, but no one is quite sure who he is. If he has an alliance with hagsfiends, it is not known at this time.” Joss paused. “And finally, I fear that I have some troubling news for Strix Strumajen.”
    “Oh, dear!” Grank groaned deeply. “What is it?”
    “Her daughter, Emerilla, has been lost in a skirmish over the Ice Fangs.”
    “Lost, you say?” Grank blinked at Joss. “But not killed?”
    “Not as far as we know, sir. There were a great number of hagsfiends in the battle and if they had killed her,well, you know…” Nothing further needed to be said, for they all knew of the ghoulish practices of hagsfiends in battle.
    “Call her mother here immediately,” Hoole said.
    As soon as Strix Strumajen entered the hollow and spied Joss, she seemed to know. Her feathers flattened and she wilfed to nearly half her size. “She’s dead. My dear Emerilla is dead.”
    “Not dead, milady,” Joss said softly. “Missing…for now.”
    “There was no…no…head?” she asked quietly.
    Hoole’s gizzard clenched. How hard it must be for this owl to suddenly refer to her daughter as simply a head.
    “No, ma’am. No head.”
    Strix Strumajen recovered a bit. Her feathers plumped up slightly. She turned to Hoole. “She is a dear young owl, and you know, Your Grace, Emerilla’s gift for interpreting weather was—” she hesitated