Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

sound halfway between a whimper and a sigh. Then she looked up, her eyes beaming as Theo had never seen them. “But now I have a new mate. And he don’t swat me—no, not never—like your da sometimes did.”
    Theo was astonished beyond anything. “Well, I’m so happy for you. And what’s this about Shadyk? You said he’s gone off to the wars?”
    Now Philma’s eyes grew large. “Oh, my goodness, he certainly did. And he’s not so little anymore.” Her voice dropped. “Theo, dear, you’re not going to believe this, but Shadyk started himself up a regiment. And guess what?”
    “What?” Theo was afraid to ask.
    “They have captured H’rath’s old Ice Palace.”
    This was truly beyond belief. Theo blinked his eyes several times. “The Ice Palace of the H’rathghar glacier?”
    “The very one.” Philma nodded.
    “But Mum, that was King H’rath’s. He was a good king.”
    “Well, you know how these things go, dear,” his mum replied.
    “No, Mum. I don’t know.”
    “Well, King H’rath was defeated, and that awful Lord Arrin came and took it over. But he doesn’t know how torun anything, Shadyk says, and it’s a shame to let that beautiful palace go to waste.”
    “To waste? Mum, Shadyk has to be a king to live there. What in the world does Shadyk know about running anything?”
    “He’ll learn, dear. He’ll learn. And you know he has the nicest group of young hagsfiends.”
    “Hagsfiends! He has hagsfiends?”
    “Why, yes, dear. You know, they’re not as bad as you might think, especially the young ones. He’s training them, bringing them up right and proper.”
    Proper hagsfiends? Madness! There were tens, hundreds of questions Theo was dying to ask. Had Shadyk or his mum no loyalty to Siv or H’rath? To Hoole? They had certainly heard about Hoole and the Battle in the Beyond. Had Shadyk no reservations about hagsfiends? But as soon as Theo found out about his brother’s alliance with the creatures he knew that these questions could not be asked. And even more important, he knew that he must not under any circumstances reveal that he was an ally and close friend to King Hoole, the rightful heir to the throne of the N’yrthghar.
    “We go up there all the time to the Glacier Palace,” his mother continued. “They treat us like royalty.”
    It was all Theo could do to keep from yarping. Butsuddenly, he realized this was his chance. He composed himself as best he could. “I would love to see Shadyk again.”
    “Well, we could all go for a visit. What fun!” Philma lofted herself straight up into the air and beat her talons together in a gesture of utter joy. Theo was stunned. Imagine celebrating a son who was consorting with hagsfiends.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Stench Most Foul
    “ K eep a sharp lookout for smoke,” Hoole said as he, Phineas, and the Snow Rose flew in a southeasterly direction over the Forest of Ambala. The three owls had been in the Southern Kingdoms almost two moon cycles now. At the moment, they were looking for the telltale signs of a blacksmith’s forge, or Rogue smith, as these independent ironmongers had already come to be called.
    The news had quickly spread throughout the S’yrthghar of the powerful new weapons that Hoole and Theo and a few others had fought with in the Battle of the Beyond. In the few moon cycles since then, Hoole was amazed to see several of the hireclaws who had fought for Siv trying their luck diving for coals and building fires. A few of them had actually become proficient at it. But then they were faced with the harder task of trying to figure out what seemed like magic to them—melting rock into metal and making weapons from it. But most important, the new Rogue smiths and colliers were all passionatelydevoted to the late Queen Siv. Loners by nature, they avoided settling down. That did not mean they were completely unsociable. They genuinely liked it when visitors stopped by their forges and admired their fires or their ironwork. And they became positively chatty when discussing blacksmithing.
    Hoole quickly ascertained that Rogue smiths would make excellent slipgizzles. Every owl now craved battle claws and came to them in hopes of procuring a set, so the smiths heard plenty of news. A forge could yield as much information as a grog tree these days. Hoole decided early on that they would not directly ask the owls if they wanted to be slipgizzles. He would first determine a smith’s loyalties and secondly assess if he or