Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

he could see their plumage stirring, the half-hags did not emerge. It was as if the green light had made them fall yeep before they could even fly out from the safety of their hosts’ feathers. This sent the hags-fiends into a panic. An order to cast a fyngrot was shrieked. Hoole knew that this would be the real test.
    The wolves now tipped their heads up. Green light issued from thirty pairs of eyes. Fengo began howling commands to direct their gaze, and just as he had hoped, shimmering green light beams shot across and over the hagsfiends as they tried to cast their ghastly fyngrot. Glaring yellow flashed from haggish eyes, but green blades of light cut through it, and the yellow fractured, shattering into millions of pieces.
    Hoole, aloft, together with Fengo on the boulder coordinated their commands from their different vantage points and guided the wolves’ eyes. For those hagsfiends who had lofted themselves into flight, it was as if the entire night had turned into a slope glazed in slippery green ice. They were losing their purchase on the air. Then Hoole saw something that froze his gizzard. “Behind you, Fengo! Behind!”
    Two hagsfiends who had slid down from the night skywere slithering on their bellies through the desert sand. Their talons were inches from Fengo’s back. Suddenly there were streaks of blood in the silver fur, and Fengo was rising in the night, clutched in the immense talons of a hagsfiend.
    “Look up! Look up! Cast your green!” Hoole shouted, but his words were swallowed by the night. The second hagsfiend was now racing toward Fengo’s head. One talon extended beyond the length of the rest. The truth of this moment began to sink in. The hagsfiend was going for Fengo’s eyes. Blood spurted into the night. A sickening feeling engulfed him.
    When Hoole had fought in the Battle of the Beyond, he had not been aware that his mother had sustained a direct hit. He thought she was beside him the entire time until he suddenly became aware that she was gone. This time, however, he had seen the attack. This time he could do something and a rage built in Hoole’s gizzard. He had never felt anything so intensely in his life. It was as if the heat of the ember was rising within him. A passion that seemed almost craven in its power flooded his entire being. He flew directly at the hagsfiend that had seized Fengo. They were high in the air. If the hag dropped Fengo, the wolf would surely die. And Hoole—not even half of the size of a hag—would not have the strength to carry his weight.
    “Do not drop him. I command you to set him downgently!” The words sounded entirely foolish. It was hard to imagine, let alone daring, to command a hagsfiend to do such a thing. But if any creature had looked up, they would have seen a curious sight. Overhead, an owl began to glow luminous green. He appeared to be composed more of light than feathers and bones and flesh. The hags-fiend was trying desperately to cast a fyngrot, but the yellow simply washed away in the night. “Down, down gently! Gently.” The hag, as if in some strange hypnotic state, began to sink slowly through the air and gently laid the bleeding wolf on the boulder.
    Taking their cue from Hoole, the other wolves began to bring the rest of the hagsfiends to ground by manipulating the beams of their eyes until a large web of green light was formed that, like a spider gathering its prey, drew them in.
    Then, when the hagsfiends touched ground, a silent signal was given, and the wolves sank their teeth into the throats of the stupefied hagsfiends. Hoole ripped open the chest of the hag that had gouged out Fengo’s eye, and another wolf killed the hag whose talons had clutched Fengo.
    Blood seeped from Fengo’s empty eye socket. The other eye still burned fiercely, but Fengo’s breath came in ragged gasps. “My time on earth is near its end, my friend, dear Hoole.”
    “No! No! It cannot be. It simply cannot be!”
    “But it is, Hoole,” Fengo said calmly.
    “The ember. I felt the power of the ember. It brought the hagsfiends to the ground. It can bring you back to life.”
    “No, no, young king. It does not work that way.”
    “The magic of the ember can, though. It is good magen, not nachtmagen.”
    “Just the point, young’un. Good magic works in harmony with Lupus and Glaux and nature. Death is also part of the Great Game we wolves play. I am an old wolf, my time has come. You must not go against such things just because