To Be a King Read online

  Later that evening, Hoole told Lutta that he had assigned her to fly in what was now being called the Eastern Regiment.

  “But that isn’t really the right assignment for me, Hoole,” she protested.

  “No?” He blinked at her. They were alone in his hollow once again.

  “When I came here, I flew through the Ice Narrows. The wind was blowing fiercely from the south for several days before I arrived. I was forced to take refuge in an ice hollow with a family of puffins—not the brightest, mind you—but they showed me something fascinating.”

  “What was that?”

  “A huge weapons stash.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes—close blades.” She paused. “I should take the squadron I have been training. We’ll collect the extra blades. We don’t have enough right now as it is. I can handle two blades at once. One in each talon.” She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. Two glowering slits. The glow of the ember cast her face in an odd light. Hoole’s gizzard gave a lurch.

  “Let me go there, Hoole. With two close blades and a set of battle claws, I’ll fight like you’ve never seen an owl fight.”

  Hoole looked at her oddly. There was something strange about this owl. Her intensity almost unnerved him, yet she was fascinating. She stirred in him something vaguely familiar. A confusion of feelings. It suddenly dawned on Hoole. She’s not unlike the ember.

  “Are you all right, Your Majesty? Is something wrong?” Lutta asked.

  “No, no, I’m fine. And you say there are enough weapons for the rest in your squad?”

  “Yes, of course…and Hoole…”

  “Yes, Emerilla?”

  Her gaze had softened and she seemed to be looking far off, almost as if she was in a trance.

  ”Emerilla, what is it? Did you have something more you wanted to say?”

  Lutta shook her head rapidly, almost violently. “Oh nothing, Your Majesty, nothing at all.” But of course she had so much more to say. The words pressed against her beak. She wanted to say, “And when this is over, we’ll be together, forever, always. I’ll be your queen.” No, just his mate—that would be enough. She began to feel a deep ache within her. “Just his mate.” These three words surprised Lutta as much as anything. They were true. She did not care about being a queen. She just wanted to belong, that was all. A dread crept through her. This cannot be. I don’t have a gizzard! I don’t have a gizzard!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Not the Ember!

  “What? What do you mean it’s not the ember?”

  “It’s a fraud, you idiot.”

  Kreeth swatted Lutta with a broad wing across her now darkly feathered face. Lutta had shed the plumage of a Spotted Owl. It had been a brilliant transformation. She had been leading her squad of owls through the Narrows according to Hoole’s battle plan, then had flown ahead around a bend. Mere seconds later, she flew out again, no longer a Spotted Owl but a full-blown hagsfiend. The shock of the owls in the squad had thrilled her. Three had actually gone yeep before she could even cast a fyngrot. The four others attempted to fight, but Lutta had come back with an ice scimitar and made quick work of them. She did not waste any time collecting their heads, but flew back immediately to the deserted great tree and seized the ember.

  But now Kreeth was telling her that this was not the ember.

  “But it looks exactly like the one in Hoole’s hollow. And look at this tear-shaped box it is in.”

  “I will claw your eyes out!” Kreeth flew at Lutta who wrapped her wings around her face.

  “No! No! Don’t!”

  “Then get it for me, you fool.”

  “He must have substituted this ember for the real one. He…he…he didn’t trust me.” And at that moment something broke in Lutta. A gizzard?

  From the air, the ridge lands of the H’rathghar glacier were a series of sawtooth ice crests that swelled in waves for nearly as far as the eye could see. It was at the edge of these ridge lands that the Ice Palace rose, now half its former size. With no hagsfiends to guard it, and an insane imposter king inside with only a handful of troops, the palace was defenseless. Yet taking it would be far from easy. Not with Lord Arrin’s troops amassing on the other side of it. Even from where Hoole perched, he could see the darker-than-night ragged shadows draped on those far ridges. Lord Arrin had reconstituted his hagsfiend regiment and combined them with those of Elgobad and every other renegade and outlaw. All these enemies of the old regime, with its codes of honor and nobility, were now gathered to take the palace.

  Around Hoole’s neck the ember hung in a battered vial, much like the ones Frost Beak masters wore to carry their ice-splinter repair kits.

  “I can’t understand where the Ice Narrows squad is,” Hoole wondered aloud. “They should have been here by now.” Hoole looked at his troops. They were a motley army. The guardians of the parliament as befitted their stations looked quite formidable with their battle claws, ice sabers, cutlasses, and scimitars. Then there were the hireclaws from the S’yrthghar as well as others who had come because of their love of Hoole. Many more came to fight in honor of Hoole’s mother, the late Queen Siv. Large numbers of them had followed Siv into the Battle of the Beyond. They called themselves the Sivian Guard. Predominantly female, they were incredibly fierce and very skilled with both battle claws and ice scimitars. They were commanded by Strix Strumajen whom they adored.

  Hoole glanced now toward Strix Strumajen, erect on her perch, scanning the horizon for her daughter. He knew she was a stalwart soldier and would not let Emerilla’s second disappearance distract her from the task at hand. But then Hoole blinked. He saw something moving through the darkness, low to the ground. He blinked again. What were those slivers of green, like rips in the black of the night?

  “Great Glaux,” he whispered to himself, “it’s Namara.” He had left her in Ambala and she had made her way back to her den in the region of Broken Talon Point. But here she was, coming with legions of wolves: more, many more than had gone with her into the Desert of Kuneer. They were settling in at the base of the ridge, but Namara herself was advancing up the steep grade toward Hoole.

  “Namara!”

  “Yes, Commander.” She crouched down and laid her ears back flat and then scraped forward on her belly in the attitude of complete submission practiced by wolves when approaching a superior.

  “Get up!” Hoole intensely disliked the elaborate formalities of rank that governed the lives of wolves.

  “But you are my commander.”

  “I might command an army, but you, Namara, will always be my equal. What are you here for?”

  “To fight, sir. We are the Sky Dogs of the Beyond. And look carefully, sir, and you will see something else amongst us.”

  Hoole blinked, then squinted his eyes and blinked again. There was a slight quivering movement within the huge pack of wolves. “Pygmies, Elves, Northern Saw-whets!” All of the tiniest owls in the owl kingdoms, all veterans of the Frost Beak divisions that had scattered after being driven from the N’yrthghar during the long war. They were close fighters and their weapons of choice were deadly ice splinters. Hoole shook his head in dismay. It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. There was nothing that could compare to the strategic thinking of a wolf, and now Namara had had the inspired idea of combining small owls with wolves into an elite fighting force.

  “When are you planning to attack?” Namara asked.

  “We were waiting for a squad that seems to have vanished somewhere in the Ice Narrows.”

  “And if they come soon?”

  “Then we’ll attack.”

  “May I offer a suggestion, Hoole?”

  “Of course, Namara.”

  “You are ideally situated on this ridge. You are facing west. The enemy is facing east. Wait until daybreak.”

  “Daybreak?” Daybreak was a long way off.

  “Wait until the sun is nearly the length of a high leaping wolf.”

  “Why?” And then it dawned on Hoole. Of
course! If they attacked at daybreak, the enemy would be blinded by the rising sun. More than blinded, for shards of light as sharp as a sword’s edge would bounce off the ice-sheathed ridges of the glacier.

  Hoole called together his lieutenants and the members of the parliament. He paused before he spoke. Oh Glaux, he thought, steel my soldiers’ hearts. Make trim their gizzards for this fight. Give me the words that will burn like the Rogue smiths’ metal and pierce with the keenness of a blade cut from the heart of the Ice Dagger. Protect these noble owls. How I envy the ease of their gizzards and do wish that sometimes I were not born a prince, or had to be a king.

  Then he explained the strategy and told them of Namara and the Sky Dog Unit.

  There was so much to be done, and Hoole knew that even if they won by the blessings of all that was Glaux, and though he planned to rule from the great tree, the task of clearing the rot from his father’s palace, restoring the throne and the kingdom to what it had been in the days of the H’rathian code was a monumental task. But he did not mean to get ahead in his thoughts. First, a most decisive battle must be won. So he put his private thoughts away and began to address his troops.

  “Dear owls, it troubles me not if another might wear my crown, or sit upon a throne that now rots inside a melting palace. That is only the outer show, and I do not care for such outward things as they do not make the owl. But I do yearn for honor, and for honor I shall be the most ferocious owl alive. This night to come is called the Long Night. He and she who live out this day and night to see old age will yearly, in celebration of it, fly high, tip their wings, show their scars, and say, ‘These wounds I did suffer in the Battle of the Short Light and the Long Night.’ Old owls shall remember what feats they did that day. And our names will be spoken in hollows and become familiar to all—Strix Strumajen, Rathnik, Garthnore, Bors, and Tobyfyor. Each good owl will tell their sons and daughters of this, the Battle of the Short Light and the Long Night and, in the telling, you shall be remembered from this day to the ending of the world.

  “So once more into the breach, dear friends, to halt that rotting from within, or close the gaps in those sickly walls with our dead. I say to you that in peace there is nothing that becomes an owl as much as a quiet stillness and humility, but when the roar of war blasts in our ears, let us stiffen our wings and fly with a hardened rage.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Into the Short Light

  And so they waited for the Short Light. Waited through the thick darkness of the night and then the thinning of the black into deep gray. They watched as that gray dissolved, becoming a pale transparence before the dawn. Hoole swiveled his head toward the east and watched as a blush crept over the horizon. The pink reddened and the sky became hectic with color as the sun began to rise. He could feel the tension of his army. He counted quietly to himself and at precisely one hundred twenty-two seconds after the sun was over the horizon, Namara leaped high into the air. The sun flared off her silver coat. This was the signal.

  “Hi-yaaaa!” Hoole roared. First off the ridge were the Hot Claws of Hoole, commanded by the king himself, then the Sivian Guard led by Strix Strumajen. Next came the Ice Regiment of H’rath, captained by Lord Rathnik. The other squads, platoons, and regiments followed. All flew low so as not to block the fiery blades of the sun from the enemies’ eyes. A ranger owl slid in next to Hoole. “Your Majesty, Theo and a small squadron have been spotted coming from the south.”

  Hoole was tempted to look south, but he could not let himself be distracted. He and his forces had the advantage now. He could see the enemy troops in chaos. Even the hagsfiends were having trouble mustering a fyngrot in the growing brightness of the Short Light. Hoole knew that he and his troops must not squander the advantage bestowed by the sunrise. The enemy would fly out and then, blasted by the glare, come to ground where the Sky Dogs—the wolves and the tiny owls of the Frost Beaks—would attack. While training the troops on the island, Hoole tried to adapt some of the strategies that the wolves practiced for his owl armies, in particular, the subtle signaling system used by the wolves in their byrrgis formations. Hoole cocked his tail feathers and that signal swept through the Hoolian troops. The army split into four divisions and took command of four strategic ridges, two of which had been occupied by the enemy. On these four ridges, Hoole’s troops would rest and reinforce. Scouts were sent out to count the dead and collect discarded ice weapons. The report was promising. The hagsfiends’ fyngrot had been useless in the glare of the Short Light, and now scores of hagsfiends lay dead. Lord Arrin’s troops had been pushed back farther than Hoole had dared hope for, but they were still a threat, not yet near full retreat. In the Long Night to come, Hoole knew that the battle would rage on. Hoole touched the vial with the ember. He could feel its glow. Magic will not win a battle, he thought. But magic might restore the Ice Palace of his forebears, the once magnificent structure that appeared to be in watery shambles. What had taken a thousand N’yrthghar winters to build, from warping winds, raging blizzards, and ice storms, had collapsed within a few short cycles of the moon. Hoole blinked as he saw a lone owl in a jagged flight over the last standing turret. “Who is that mad owl?” Hoole spoke to himself.

  “My brother, sir,” Theo said.

  “Theo!” Hoole was stunned. “Theo, you are here!”

  “Yes, my squadron is on that next ridge.” He indicated with a twitch of his head.

  “And that owl you say is your brother?” Hoole did not even know that Theo had a brother.

  “Yes, he took over the Ice Palace with a ragtag army of idiots and hagsfiends. He is completely mad. He tried to kill me. He is the cause of the rotting ice.”

  Hoole touched the vial and felt once more its heat.

  “By the way,” Theo began, obviously wanting to change the subject, “your lessons from the wolves are good ones.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “We are using the byrrgis formation and the wolves’ signaling system. Oh, I nearly forgot. I have found Emerilla. I must tell Strix Strumajen. She saved my life, you know.”

  “What?” Hoole was thoroughly confused. “You found Emerilla? She saved your life? 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

  The 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 and their 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.