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  The Hatchling

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  Tags: Fantasy, General, Action & Adventure - General, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Animals, Children: Grades 4-6, Birds, Animals - Birds, Juvenile Science Fiction, Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic

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  Kludd is dead. Nyra, his mate, is determined that her hatchling, Nyroc, will fulfill his father's destiny: the vicious oppression of all the owl kingdoms. But Nyroc is a poor student of evil. A light grows in his heart, fed by scraps of forbidden legend and strange news of a place where goodness and nobility reign. He must summon all his courage to defy his destiny -- and the embodiment of evil that is his mother.

  Guardians of Ga’Hoole

  The Hatchling

  Book Seven

  By

  Kathryn Lasky

  For Maria Weisbin

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Maps

  Illustration

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE A Perfect Son

  CHAPTER TWO A Reprimand

  CHAPTER THREE The Marking

  CHAPTER FOUR First Prey

  CHAPTER FIVE What Does This Young’un See?

  CHAPTER SIX Murder with a Cute Name

  CHAPTER SEVEN Hammer and Tongs!

  CHAPTER EIGHT Facts of Life and Death

  CHAPTER NINE Burrowing Owls to the Rescue

  CHAPTER TEN One Wing Beat at a Time

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Free Will

  CHAPTER TWELVE Blood in the Flames

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Negotiating with Crows

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Chase Begins

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Phillip’s Story

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN A Speck in the Sky

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Pieces of Me!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Shredded

  CHAPTER NINETEEN It Hurts

  CHAPTER TWENTY Away

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE A Fallen Tree

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Riddle of the Forest

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE A New World

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR A Terrible Beauty

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE A Legend of Coals

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Spirit Woods

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Dire Wolves

  THE GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE

  OWLS and others from GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE The Hatchling

  A peek at THE GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE Book Eight: The Outcast

  Copyright

  Maps

  Illustration

  The young’un was seeing something. The old Rogue smith could tell by the way Nyroc’s eyes stared, unblinking, into the gizzard of this fire. Gwyndor studied the reflection of the flames in Nyroc’s eyes. He felt his own gizzard give a twang. Was it the Ember of Hoole he saw reflected in those young eyes?

  Prologue

  “It’s the hatchling,” a young owl said as the group watched Nyroc, only son of the great warrior Kludd, begin a power dive. He grasped a charred branch from the ground in his beak and in one swift movement rose seamlessly again into the air brandishing it before him. He had performed the retrieval perfectly and was swinging the branch with great style. And this was just his first flight. A power dive on a first flight was an outrageous and daring maneuver to attempt and he had executed it flawlessly. He then carved a perfect figure eight in the sky above the two large peaks known as the Great Horns. This was followed by spiraling descent to a slide-in landing on the ledge where his elders perched. His angle of approach was superb. Then, in front of his mother and her top lieutenants, the hatchling raised his starboard wing and shreed, “Hail, Kludd! Supreme Commander of the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones! Hail, Her Pureness General Mam, Nyra, beloved mate of the late High Tyto Kludd!”

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Perfect Son

  Magnificent!” exclaimed an older owl.

  “And to think that he has been flying for only a few nights.”

  “I’ve never seen the ‘Hail, Kludd’ so perfectly executed,” whispered another Barn Owl.

  “General Mam, you should be proud of your son. Nyroc is the perfect young Pure One. He shall soon be able to serve in the most elite of the Tytonic Union’s forces.”

  “Yes,” Nyra replied softly. She almost breathed the word. Her hatchling had exceeded her wildest expectations. She had lost much in the cataclysmic battle against the evil owl troops known as the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. Her mate, Kludd, the High Tyto of the Pure Ones, had been killed. But she had been blessed two nights later when Nyroc, her and Kludd’s chick, had hatched. Not only was the hatchling the first to be born to the High Tyto, he had hatched on a rare night when the shadow of the earth came between the moon and the sun, the night of an eclipse. His mother, too, had been hatched on such a night. Because of this, he had been given a special name, Nyroc, the one given to all male hatchlings born under the shadowed moon. Nyra told him that owls hatched on these nights were destined to have great powers.

  Nyroc remembered that moment perfectly. His mum had brought her huge white face, unusually large for a Barn Owl, close to his. It appeared as large as a moon itself. Pure glistening white with a seam that ran diagonally across it, a scar from a long-ago battle wound. This was Nyroc’s first memory: the moon in the sky being eaten by the shadow of the earth, and the moon of his mother’s face hovering over him. In his confusion Nyroc had thought that the moon had dropped from the sky and was speaking to him. He recalled those first words his mum spoke even though he only half understood them. “I shall call you the name of all male chicks hatched at the time of the eclipse,” she said. “I name you Nyroc, my hatchling.” Then she nodded toward a set of burnished metal claws that hung against the stone wall of their hollow. “You shall grow into those claws, Nyroc, your father’s battle claws. They are the sacred relics of the Pure Ones. You were born to wear them into battle. Regard them closely, my hatchling.”

  Every night, as his mum told him of the magnificent feats of his father in battle, Nyroc fastened his gaze on the great battle claws. They seemed to glow with an intensity that matched a full-shine moon. And each night, Nyra would conclude her battle claw stories with these words: “You shall bring to these claws great honor. You shall grow up to be strong and fierce like your father.”

  But the little hatchling was becoming much more. Some said he might prove even greater than Kludd. There was now only a remnant left of the original Tytonic Union of Pure Ones. Their defeat in the battle known as The Burning had been decisive, humiliating, and complete. Or so the rest of owlkind thought.

  But this young hatchling, the one called Nyroc, was the hope—the greatest hope of the Pure Ones. The tarnished destiny of their Union would be polished bright with the hatchling’s power, his skill, and his agility. The other young owls who had recently been lured to the Union wilfed as they witnessed Nyroc’s unbelievable performance. How would they ever live up to this paragon of Tytonic splendor? They almost resented him, but that was a very dangerous sentiment to allow oneself to feel. Instead, they clacked their beaks loudly along with the other owls in a loud ovation of admiration that bordered on the ecstatic. Nyroc was indeed “perfect.”

  “He has the moves, by Glaux! He has the moves. Great Glaux in glaumora, that power dive for the branch! I have no doubt had it been ignited he would have astonished us further.” It was the tough old lieutenant commander Uglamore who spoke now. And Uglamore should know. He and Stryker were among the few left from the elite forces who had faced the flame squadrons of Ga’Hoole and survived.

  Fighting with fire was not a natural thing for the Pure Ones. They had had to force themselves to learn. The Ga’Hoolian owls, however, were experts. Manipulation of fire was a crucial part of their culture. They not on
ly forged weapons and tools and used it to light the Great Tree, they had a team, the colliering chaw, that dove into forest fires to retrieve coals. And nobody was better at this than the Ga’Hoolian owl called Soren—the brother—and murderer—of Kludd.

  Of course all such talk of the Great Tree was strictly forbidden. Under the threat of the most severe punishment, no owl of the Union was ever to speak of the Great Tree, or the legends of the Great Tree. Knowledge of the tree was considered “spronk,” the owl word for forbidden.

  It was with added excitement that Nyra viewed the aerial displays of her son, for they proved he would indeed be their redeemer and the one to wreak vengeance on Soren. He had been told as much since birth. And his gizzard quickened to the task. At twixt time, when the last gray tatters of the darkness dissolve into the pale pinks of the dawn, when owls finish their night’s work and get ready for sleep, his mum had told him stories of how his da, Kludd, had died at the fiery talons of his uncle Soren. It was their twixt time ritual, a kind of prayer they chanted together now, for Nyroc knew the words so well.

  The lives of owls were filled with ceremonies that marked important events from an owl’s hatching to its death and the Final ceremony. Nyroc had already performed many of these rites. He had gone through the First Meat ceremony, when an owlet eats something other than a worm or a bug for the first time. This had been quickly followed by the First Fur ceremony, when Nyroc first ate his fresh-killed meat with the fur still on it. Next was the First Bones ceremony, when the young hatchling had been deemed mature enough to eat his meat with the bones. Then came the all-important First Pellet ceremony. The fur and bones were packed into a tight little bundle in the gizzard of the owl and then it was “yarped” or expelled through the beak. Because of this neat way of ridding themselves of most of their waste materials, owls considered themselves to have the noblest digestive systems in the bird kingdom. They commonly referred to all other birds as wet poopers.

  Today’s First Flight was one of the most important of all the ceremonies and because Nyroc had passed it with such astounding success, he would be permitted to go on to the next ceremony, First Prey, then finally the one that was mysteriously called the Special, or sometimes “Tupsi.”

  Cries of “Perfect! Perfection!” rang out. “This is the most perfect example of what our young P.O. Youths should be.” The other young owls wilfed again as they heard their elders exclaiming over Nyroc’s performance.

  But there was one, a small Sooty Owl, who did not wilf. Indeed, he seemed to experience quite the opposite reaction. He puffed up and appeared especially pleased with the hatchling’s performance. This owl was known as Dustytuft. In the rigid ordering that defined the Pure Ones’ society he occupied one of the lowest ranks.

  Any owl who joined this odd Union of Barn Owls, who claimed to be the purest owls in the entire owl universe, soon learned that some Barn Owls were considered more pure than others. Of the many kinds of Barn Owls, the purest were thought to be the Tyto alba, the Barn Owls with the heart-shaped white faces like Nyroc, his mother, and Uglamore and Stryker. Beneath them in the social order of the Pure Ones were the Masked Owls whose heart-shaped faces were not pure white. Then came the Grass Owls, with even darker heart-shaped faces. Toward the bottom of the rankings were the Greater Sooties, like Dustytuft, and lowest of all, beneath the Greater Sooties, were the Lesser Sooties.

  Dustytuft, like all Greater Sooties, known more formally as Tyto tenebricosa, looked as if he’d been sprinkled with coal dust, leaving only a few white spots flecking his darker upper parts. His face was not precisely heart-shaped but looked a little more squashed.

  It was Dustytuft’s particular misfortune in life to have been born into this second-lowest order of Tytos. Indeed, until the hatching of Nyroc, Dustytuft thought himself to be the most miserable owl in the world. He had never wanted to join the Union. It had been his father’s idea. After the great forest fire in Silverveil in which the rest of his family had perished, his father had gone a bit yoicks and felt their future lay with the powerful and mysterious group of owls known as the Pure Ones. His father had then gotten himself killed in his first battle, a minor skirmish with a small group of Ga’Hoolian owls.

  It was not long after his father’s death that Dustytuft began to understand how truly awful it was to be a Sooty Owl within the Union of the Purest. His formal name might include the word Tyto, but it seemed to count for nothing. With no father and a lineage considered less pure, less noble than those Tytos who ranked above him, he had been given all of the worst jobs. They would not even allow him to be called by his real name, which he had forgotten although he was certain it had been something quite distinguished. The Pure Ones had renamed him Dustytuft. All Sooties had similar dirty-sounding names, such as Muddy Wings or Ash Beak. Even now there was a Lesser Sooty named Smutty being held prisoner for supposed cowardice in the face of the enemy. Theirs was not an enviable lot. And if Dusty had said “it ain’t fair” once, he had said it a thousand times.

  But all that had changed when the hatchling was born. It had seemed just short of miraculous at the time, how Dustytuft had been summoned to attend the hatching. And then ever since that momentous occasion when the earth slid between the moon and the sun, it was as if Dustytuft himself had slipped into a new, more exalted orbit within the solar system that was known as the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones. His fortunes had definitely changed. He was asked to attend to the young hatchling at every important ceremony. Indeed, he and Nyroc had become the best of friends.

  So while other young owls wilfed at Nyroc’s flawless performances in every task required to prove himself a fearless and worthy member of the Tytonic Union, Dustytuft rejoiced in his companion’s accomplishments. He himself would never be tested in this way. He would never be permitted to even dream of being a member of the most elite forces like the scouts or the Fire Talons. He would never be measured for a pair of battle claws to be made by a Rogue smith. But now it didn’t matter. He was the companion and best friend to Nyroc, future leader of the Pure Ones, heir to the most feared title in the owl kingdom—High Tyto!

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Reprimand

  You what?” Nyra screeched.

  Uh-oh! thought Nyroc.

  “You dare question me about why that Lesser Sooty is a prisoner?”

  “I’m sorry, General Mam. I…I…thought…”

  “You didn’t think. When I say someone is a coward, he is a coward. And that is exactly what Smutty is—a coward. Not only that, he violated the code of spronk.”

  “You mean he said something about the Great Ga’Hoole Tree?”

  Nyra flinched as Nyroc said the words. “Yes,” she hissed.

  “That’s awful, Mum.”

  Ever since Nyroc remembered, talk of the Great Tree, except in the most scathing and derogatory terms, was absolutely forbidden. His mother had drummed this lesson into him so completely that whenever the word “Ga’Hoole” was mentioned Nyroc’s ear slits automatically sealed.

  This blistering reprimand occurred minutes after Nyroc completed his flawless First Flight ceremony when mother and son were alone in the stone hollow they shared in the cleft of a high cliff. It had been stupid of him to question her. He was never supposed to question his mum.

  Although he was barely two months old, Nyroc the hatchling knew that his mother’s moods were unpredictable. One minute he could be basking in the warm glow of her pride and the next minute he was scorched by her anger. Dustytuft had tried to explain it to him many times. “It’s because she loves you so much, Nyroc. And there are things about you that remind her so much of your dear dead da. It must be hard for her. She has great expectations and you know, well…sometimes she just gets a little intense.”

  “What’s intense?” Nyroc asked. Dustytuft was older than Nyroc and knew a lot more.

  “Well, it just means she gets kind of desperate. She’s proud of you. She really is.”

  Dustytuft always made Nyroc feel better. Nyroc d
idn’t know what he would do without him. For one thing, his life would be very lonely, for none of the other young owls who had been recruited into the Pure Ones seemed to like Nyroc. He sensed their resentment. For the most part he didn’t care. He just wanted to be the best Pure One he could be. He wanted to be exactly like his da. Even though his da had been killed before he was born, after all the wonderful stories his mother had told him of his father’s greatness, he felt as if he knew him. His only real desire in life was to be as great a leader as Kludd. He felt it was his destiny, although he was not quite sure exactly what that strange word—destiny—meant.

  Nyroc was not only an expert flier for such a young owl but he was an expert at something else—erasing unpleasant thoughts from his mind. It was probably this more than anything else that made him a model young owl in the small but growing cadre of young owls being trained to restore the glory of the Union. So that is exactly what he did now: He erased Nyra’s anger by basking in the glow of his recent achievement.

  His mother was a stern and unforgiving flight instructor. But how he loved her for that now. He churred softly to himself when he thought of those first lessons. Since the Battle of The Burning the primary element that owls used in their First Flight exercises was missing—trees. Young chicks, unless they had been hatched in the desert, usually began their flying lessons by “branching” or hopping from branch to branch. But since that last battle, the trees of the canyonlands—which had been sparse to begin with—were reduced to charred, jagged stumps. So there was no hopping from limb to limb for Nyroc but from rock to rock or ledge to ledge. It had not been a problem for him. Within a day he was managing short flights between rock ledges. But his mum was always demanding that he fly faster, and criticized his turns, which she said were messy, not worthy of a “drunk pigeon.”

  He gave another churr, the owl form of laughter, when he recalled this. He hadn’t minded flying faster but it made so much noise when he did it. The soft fringe feathers, unique to most owls, were responsible for the lovely silent flight at slower speeds, which he so enjoyed. But his mother insisted that he fly silently at ever greater speeds. Nyra herself was a very noisy flier although she thought she was quite silent. Nyroc could hear her coming in from a league away. She flapped in as noisily as a duck. But not Nyroc. He finally mastered the art of flying fast and silently. That was another bit of praise he had heard from the elders at the ceremony. “So fast! So quiet! Unbelievably gifted!” And another exclaimed, “Swift as an eagle. Silent as an owl. Truly brilliant. Just what we need to rebuild the empire.”