Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

the yellow light, slashing at the hagsfiend. The stink of singed feathers now mixed with the crowlike smell. Then the hagsfiend suddenly looked quite ordinary. The fyngrot faded, andthere was a soft plop. No more yellow—just a pile of black feathers on the ground in front of the forge.
    “Look!” Phineas said in a stunned voice. “It’s just like an ordinary crow.”
    “It’s so small,” whispered the Snow Rose.
    “I’d never believe it,” said the Rogue smith. “It ain’t even half the size it was.” Hagsfiends’ wingspans were enormous, three times that of the largest owls, and now this bird seemed the same size—if that—of a crow.
    “So finally we find one, after all the rumors,” Hoole said. “Must have come by a land route. Not enough ice this time of year to risk a sea crossing.” And once more Hoole thought how they must be ready to invade by Short Light.
    Hoole stepped toward the body and prodded it with the poker so that it turned over. The four owls gasped. There was a shallow disc-shaped depression where its face should have been. But there were no eyes, no beak, and in the depression was a thin yellow liquid that was quickly evaporating to dust. It was shocking and horrible.
    “However did you bring this creature down, Hoole?” Phineas asked.
    “Hoole!” The Rogue smith gasped. “You are King Hoole?” The other three owls looked at one another as the Rogue smith fell to his knees. “I should have known.”
    “Rise up, smith,” Hoole said. “Yes, I am the king.”
    “You saved us with your magic. A magic greater than the hagsfiend’s. But you do not have the ember with you. The one they call the Ember of Hoole.”
    “It was not magic,” Hoole said sharply. “It was the power of my will, my gizzard. I used no magic at all. Good smith, you are right. I do not have the ember with me. I had a poker forged in your own fires, with a hunk of molten white-hot metal at its tip. But smith, promise me this: Tell no one that I am the king.”
    “Your Majesty, I give you my word of honor.” He paused. His pale yellow eyes locked with Hoole’s deep amber ones. “I give you my name and such is my honor: Rupert is my name.”
    Hoole knew after his time in the Southern Kingdoms and having met a score of Rogue smiths that the knowledge of a smith’s name was a trust not lightly given.
    So the young king bowed his head to Rupert and said simply, “I am honored, Rupert.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Black Feathers in the Desert
    P hineas thought he smelled the telltale stench. He had been skimming close to the low-growing bushes and scanning the nettles and spiny shrubs that grew in this region bordering the Desert of Kuneer when he had sighted a small ball of dark fluff and then caught the unmistakable whiff. He lighted down next to the shrub.
    “Look,” said Phineas.
    “What?” asked Hoole, lighting down next to him.
    “Small feathers, black ones, pin feathers,” Phineas replied.
    “What is it?” asked the Snow Rose.
    “Tumbledown,” Phineas said. Tumbledown was the delicate fluffy underfeathers of a bird. So light were these feathers that when molted, they would blow away and get caught up in tall grass or shrubs. With most birds, the tumbledown was pale in color, but this was black. Phineas looked up at his mates. “Tumbledown from a hagsfiend.”
    The three owls wilfed a bit. It was a long time beforeanyone spoke. Hoole twisted his head nearly completely around and then settled his gaze to the southwest. “The Desert of Kuneer is very close, I think.”
    “A quarter night’s flight at the most,” the Snow Rose replied.
    “It would make a perfect place for hagsfiends, wouldn’t it?” Hoole asked. “Dry, landlocked, far from any sea.” Water, especially salt water, was the only thing hagsfiends really feared. The N’yrthghar was the safe haven for hagsfiends because for most of the year the Everwinter Sea was frozen. So it made sense that if they came to the Southern Kingdoms that the Desert of Kuneer would offer refuge. But then again, the Beyond would also be safe. Far from any seas, it was a desert of sorts, too. Hoole wondered if any had gone there. They had certainly fought there. Yes, they had had to retreat, but could the wolves have kept them away?
    Hoole shut his eyes for a long time and thought. Hagsfiends in the south. Rumors of the Ice Palace falling to new rebels. It would be a fight on all fronts. Hoole knew that unless forced to, they could not fight