Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

He must have done so by this time.
    Theo was concentrating so hard that he did not pick up the haggish stench of crow that was but a whiff on the edges of the tearing winds.
    But the hagsfiend of the Ice Narrows rarely missed a creature who passed her way. Kreeth backed quickly into her cave as she saw Theo rounding a bend in the channel.
    “Lutta, get out there. Remember the camouflage lessons I’ve taught you?”
    “Yes, Auntie.” Kreeth had settled upon “Auntie” as the term of endearment Lutta should use when addressing her.
    “Code S-S-S.”
    “Snowy-Slender-Still,” Lutta confirmed.
    “Get out there and do it. Keep one eye closed, the other a slit, and alert your half-hags. Then report back to me.”
    “Yes, Auntie.”
    “Be quick about it. He’s almost here.”
    Lutta didn’t pause to ask who Kreeth wanted her to watch. She immediately turned as white as a Snowy Owl, then stepped outside the cave and arranged herself on the ice shelf. Intentionally wilfing, she narrowed her body by pressing her feathers close to her sides and stood as tall as possible. She appeared to be just another icicle among the many that hung like a fringed ice curtain in front of the cave. Within seconds, she spied the Great Horned. A strong flier, she noticed. He seemed to be accustomed to the north winds. When he had disappeared around another bend, she lifted her wings slightly and dispatched her half-hags to track him. “No poison,” she ordered. A small swarm of them flew forth.
    Half-hags possessed the uncanniest abilities to interpret and detect the faintest changes or traces in an air current disturbed by the wings of a passing owl. A tinyfilament of down still spinning in the eddies, the musty odor of a pellet yarped in flight, nothing was too minuscule, too insignificant for the half-hags to detect.
    “So what did you find out?” Kreeth asked when Lutta returned.
    “Excellent flier. Appears to be used to the katabats. Heading on a course that will take him over the Ice Dagger.”
    Kreeth nodded.
    “Appears to have come from the south.”
    “That’s obvious,” Kreeth said scathingly.
    “But wait! The half-hags report that they picked up traces of a very strange sort of tree, one they have never detected from any bird coming out of the S’yrthghar.”
    Kreeth’s dark, crowish eyes became little pinpricks of blackness that had the intensity of the brightest light. Excitement stirred within Lutta at the sight of her mistress’s eyes. She knew that Kreeth was impressed. Her half-hags had performed brilliantly. “Very interesting!” Kreeth said in a raw whisper. “You must continue to follow him—discreetly. Send out your half-hags. I want to know everything.” She paused. “I repeat, everything.”
    “Yes, Auntie,” Lutta replied.
    “And, dearie?”
    “Yes, Auntie?”
    “Your mother was renowned for the excellence of her half-hags. I wager that yours will be twice as good.”
    There was a slight rustle deep within Lutta’s feathers. It was the murmur of the half-hags stirring in poisonous pleasure.

CHAPTER NINE
Theo Meets Svenka
    “ S he’s dead? Siv is really dead?” The polar bear swung her massive head from side to side as if trying to make sense out of these words.
    Theo nodded. “I am sorry to bring you this sad news.” He had found the polar bear Svenka in an inlet off the Firth of Fangs. Just before Theo left, Hoole had visited his forge at the great tree and seen in the flames of the forge’s fires what he felt was surely Svenka and her cubs swimming north by northwest.
    “Mum, did Auntie Siv die?” Rolf asked. Svenka’s cubs, Rolf and Anka, were now almost half as big as their mother. Siv nodded and both the cubs began crying.
    “We’ll never see her again,” Anka gasped in disbelief.
    Theo knew he must give the kind bear her time to grieve, but the urgency of his mission pressed upon him. His gizzard began to twitch nervously. He must set up the slipgizzling system. Every moment was precious. Information was desperately needed to plan the invasion.
    “But you say that they finally did meet as mother and son?” Svenka asked.
    “Yes. She died folded in his wings.” Theo was beginning to feel desperate. He could sense the minutes slipping through his talons. But Svenka and her cubs were there before him, awash in grief. He turned to the twin cubs and, remembering what Grank had said to comfort Hoole at his mother’s death, repeated it to Rolf and Anka. “Siv and her