Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

When?”
    “Yes, when my brother tried to assassinate me.”
    “But that is impossible!”
    At that precise moment, there was a cry from Lord Rathmik. “They’re coming! They’re coming!” And the last drop of light slid beneath the horizon to another morning somewhere far away. The Short Light was finished.
    “Great Glaux!” Hoole blinked wildly. He had never seen anything like this. A hundred hagsfiends followed by hundreds of owls. Hoole had never expected them to recover so quickly, and where had these additional troops come from? Oh, the Long Night has come! thought Hoole. And we must fly out to meet it!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Into the Long Night
    T he night was torn with blood and the flash of ice swords and battle claws in the moonlight. In his starboard metal-clawed talon, Hoole carried the ice scimitar of his father, the very same one his mother had used in the Battle of the Beyond. More than the ember, it was this ice scimitar that emboldened him. And just as the scimitar had infused Siv with a concentration that seemed to resist the paralyzing effect of the deadly yellow light, so now did it sustain Hoole. But it was not the scimitar alone that inspired him. It was the memories of his mother’s valor. He felt the gallgrot rise within him as he slashed through the fyngrot, cutting a swath for his troops to follow. What cowards those traitorous owls are to hide behind the yellow glare, he thought.
    “Fight like an owl of honor!” Hoole cried out. Elgobad and Arrin with their flanking captains, Snowy, and an immense Great Gray, melted from behind the last remnants of the glare. Strix Strumajen and Theo rushed in behind Hoole. The three advanced upon the two lords andtheir captains. Three against four. The four enemy owls all fought with long swords so it was difficult to get close with only battle claws. The ice weapons that Theo, Hoole, and Strix Strumajen carried were shorter than the long swords of the enemy, but they were also sharper. Hoole had anticipated this when training the owls on the island. He silently gave the signal for the parry-and-feint maneuver. All three began a forward skipping motion with an abrupt swerve, and then a violent backstroking of the wings. The long swords of the enemy pointed here, then there, trying to keep up with this odd aerial jig. This maneuver was used to open a clear space for attack with short weapons. Once, twice, three more times, a very small space opened. Too small! cursed Hoole, but suddenly there was a spray of blood. Lord Elgobad plummeted. From the corner of his eye, he saw a young Spotted Owl peel off to port.
    “Emerilla!” The name exploded in the night, and in that moment Strix Strumajen realized that here was the real Emerilla, and the creature who had called herself her daughter was guilty of a most heinous deception.
    That false creature now perched on an icy peak with her creator and regarded the battle that raged. Kreeth narrowed her eyes and saw the bouncing movements of the vial that Hoole wore around his neck. “There is your ember,Lutta.” As the old hag watched, she saw isolated patches of fyngrot scattered through the battlefield. The owls of Lord Arrin were now exposed. More fyngrot was needed, and although Kreeth herself did not care which side won or lost this stupid war—for all she wanted was the power of the ember—she now saw that it would be to her advantage to reinforce the existing fyngrots with her own. She knew that her own fyngrot had an intense potency because she had not recklessly squandered it in silly wars. This, however, would not be reckless, nor would it be squandered. She had one goal in mind: to seize the ember. Then leave them to fight over that rotting palace, she thought.
    Lutta herself had remained in her hagsfiend form. Kreeth had to admit that Lutta was a beautiful fiend. The blackness of her feathers had a hint of deep blue and her plumage poured off her body like dark glistening flames. But now it was time for the transformation back into a Spotted Owl, a close fighter, as was her true counterpart, Emerilla.
    Lutta shut her eyes tightly and began to concentrate. In her mind’s eye, she saw the spots that spiraled out like small galaxies from the center of the top of her head. She swore she felt the streaks of white begin to break up the dark plumage of her breast.
    “What’s wrong with you?” Kreeth muttered.
    Lutta blinked and looked down at her breast feathers. There were white spots and