The Hatchling Read online

  Nyroc could hear the posse overhead, as well as the snake’s progress on the ground. He knew they could not de-fryke until the sound of the snake’s scraping had disappeared entirely. It seemed like hours until they could open their eyes wide and carefully begin to creep about the ground to search for a burrow or cave of some sort. They kept close to the shadowy rock wall and dared not look in the center where an almost full-shine moon flooded the canyon floor with light. Finally, after nearly an hour as the night began to turn chilly, they found a burrow.

  “It’s a fox’s den,” Phillip said as they stepped into the cavity in the rock wall. They both stood very still and adjusted their eyes to the nearly complete darkness.

  “Red fox, I believe,” Phillip added, noting a patch of reddish fur under his talon. “Actually, I think this was a birthing den.”

  “A what?” Nyroc asked.

  “Foxes are odd that way. They have different dens for different things. During the breeding and birthing seasons, they usually find a separate den to live in.”

  “Is this birthing season?” Nyroc asked, his voice taut with anxiety.

  “Luckily not. Don’t worry,” Phillip said. “This place is empty. I can tell.”

  Nyroc blinked at his friend. “You’re awfully smart, Phillip. I sure am glad you’re here.”

  “I’m just older than you are, Nyroc. There’s stuff that I have seen that you haven’t, and that’s why I know it. But look at you. Had you ever been mobbed by crows before?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Had you ever even seen a crow before?”

  “No.”

  “So how did you know how to speak to them, to offer them that rat, to gain us free passage through all of the light of day so that we would never be bothered by crows?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought real hard, I guess.”

  “That is really being smart,” Phillip concluded. “Smarter than just seeing stuff and knowing it from experience as I have.”

  “But tell me about what you have seen, Phillip.” Nyroc was still amazed that the Sooty Owl had so quickly known it was a red fox’s den, and a birthing one at that. “I really want to know. All I’ve ever seen is the burnt-up canyonlands. I’ve never even seen a living, growing tree. Please tell me about the rest of the world.”

  Phillip blinked and thought a moment, then began to speak. “I’ve seen the red fox on a snowy morning, and I shall never forget the color of its fur. I’ve seen an eagle take down a wolf.” Nyroc blinked in surprise at that. “I’ve seen a bear cub drown in a stream and watched her mother rage and weep and curse the very water, which quenched her thirst, for taking her cub. And I’ve seen a mother fox and her babies leave a den just like this. And,” he hesitated. “I saw my father pick off one of those babies as the mum’s back was turned. And I ate it because da and I were near to starving.”

  “You were, Phillip?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  Nyroc suddenly realized that although he had known Phillip since the day he had hatched, he did not really know him at all.

  “How did you come to the Pure Ones, Phillip? And why? Didn’t you have a mum? You only ever speak of your da.” Nyroc wanted to know everything.

  “It’s a long, long story, Nyroc, and I’m hungry now.”

  “But we can’t go out. Where will we get food?”

  “These birthing caves go deep and long. There are bound to be some mice around. Let’s find some, and then I think you must first tell me your story, Nyroc.”

  “My story?” Nyroc blinked.

  “What is this quest for truth, Nyroc? You promised to tell me. Why are we flying away? What kind of truth is worth risking our lives for? Your mum is chasing us with a posse!”

  “Phillip,” Nyroc began slowly and carefully. This would be hard to explain. “Phillip, have you ever seen pictures in the flames of a fire?”

  “No. Definitely not.” Phillip shook his head slowly as if trying to imagine such a thing.

  “Well, I have. Gwyndor thinks that I might have something called fire sight.”

  “Fire sight!” Phillip said, his voice taut with awe. “Yes, I think I’ve heard of that. But, Nyroc—you? You have fire sight?”

  “Yes. And I saw something in the fire that was horrible.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw my father’s death, Phillip.”

  “Don’t say it! Don’t say it.” Phillip quickly stuck his head under his wings so as not to hear. “If I hear it, I shall die.”

  “You shall die if you hear that it was not my uncle Soren who killed my da but a huge Great Gray? I don’t understand.”

  It was several seconds before Phillip pulled his head out from under his wing. He had wilfed to half his normal size. “Nyroc, when you hatched, word came down that we were never, ever to speak about your father’s death. If anyone violated that rule, they would be killed instantly.”

  “Then it is true and everyone knew—everyone except me.”

  “Yes, the rest of us had heard the stories about what really went on in that last battle with the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.”

  “There was no backdraft that forced my da and his troops into the cave, was there?”

  “No. Just the opposite. The Pure Ones led the Guardians into that cave. It was a trap. They were holding one of the Guardians hostage, one of your uncle’s best friends, a Burrowing Owl named Digger, I think.”

  “Tell me how it really happened.”

  “Soren and your father were engaged in a fierce fight. They were fencing back and forth. Soren held an ice sword. Your father wore fire claws. Some say that Soren hesitated at a crucial moment. It was as if he could not bring himself to kill his own brother. But then there was this silvery blur in the cave. It was the Great Gray…”

  Phillip continued with the story. It was exactly what Nyroc had seen in the flames. When the Sooty Owl had finished speaking, there was a thick silence in the fox’s den. Finally, Nyroc spoke. “I saw other horrible things in the fire, as well. I saw my mother on a killing rampage. She was smeared with blood—and not just from battles. She seemed to be killing lone owls for no reason at all. I saw her trying to kill a very young female Barn Owl who looked a lot like Soren.”

  “That would be Eglantine, his sister.”

  “I have an aunt, then? My mum tried to kill her, as well?”

  “There are rumors. We sometimes hear things from Rogue smiths—and others. Forbidden things. I don’t know if it is true. Some say Eglantine smashed the egg that Nyra had laid before yours. Remember, Nyroc, I was young when I first came to the Pure Ones. Some of these things that you saw in the flames might have happened when I was too young to understand, or even before I came to the Pure Ones with my da. There were always rumors.”

  “What were the rumors about Ga’Hoole? Tell me about Ga’Hoole.”

  Phillip shut his eyes for a long time. “I can’t believe I am telling you all this.” He opened his eyes finally and blinked rapidly. “You know, if I tell you all this I shall never be able to return to them.”

  “Do you want to return?”

  “Good question.” Phillip sighed. “Do you?”

  “Not until I know the complete truth.”

  “I can only tell you what I’ve heard. What I cannot tell you is if it is rumor or truth.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The Great Ga’Hoole Tree is a special place and so are the legends surrounding it. I think that is why Nyra forbade all talk of it. It seems that at the great tree, owls really do think for themselves. They decide things themselves, or so it is rumored. They learn not only how to read and write, but they learn many mysteries.”

  “What kind of mysteries?”

  “Mysteries of science and of stars, how the stars move in the sky, of air and weather currents, of fire and ice. They not only make weapons from iron but other things—complicated things. And it is said that there are all kinds of owls living together there. Barn Owls are not considered the
finest or the best. There are high-ranking Spotted Owls and Snowies and Burrowing Owls, even important Pygmy and Elf Owls.”

  “Pygmy and Elf!” Nyroc was astounded.

  “It is said that there are few rules. Nothing is really forbidden.”

  “Nothing spronk?”

  “Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, there was once a rumor that an elderly Burrowing Owl had declared a book from their library spronk, and she was disciplined for it.”

  Nyroc’s beak dropped open. He was speechless.

  “But, as I said,” Phillip continued, “I don’t know what is rumor and what is truth. For us, however, it was completely forbidden to talk of the great tree except to say the very worst things imaginable.”

  “Like when I was told that they eat owl eggs to give them courage?”

  “Yes. I never believed that one,” Phillip scoffed.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Nyroc said miserably. “Maybe I’m just seeing things in the fire that don’t exist at all. Maybe what you’ve heard about what my mother and father did is not true.” He looked up anxiously at Phillip.

  “I can’t answer that for you, Nyroc.”

  Nyroc sighed. “All right, now tell me your story. You promised.”

  Phillip had always felt that his own story was a sad one. But he now realized that Nyroc’s story might be even sadder as he quested for the truth about his parents.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Phillip’s Story

  We came from Silverveil, one of the most beautiful forests in the entire owl universe.”

  “Full of trees with green leaves?” Nyroc asked.

  “Yes, and green needles, too, like spruce and fir and pine. You’ve never seen so many trees in all your life.”

  “I’ve never seen any trees in all my life,” Nyroc replied.

  “I suppose not. Well, Silverveil is one of the most beautiful forests. But there was the occasional forest fire.”

  “That’s awful,” Nyroc said, thinking of his experience of living in the barren, burnt-out canyonlands.

  “You’d think so. But fires can help a forest to grow. They clear out old dead trees. With pine trees, it takes years for their cones to open up and release seeds for new trees. But when there’s a fire, the cones pop and the seeds spread.”

  “Don’t the seeds burn?”

  “No. It’s like a miracle. Out of the destruction comes new life.” Phillip paused and then whispered to himself, “For some.”

  Nyroc tipped his head and blinked. “For some, Phillip?”

  “For my family, it was the end. It was in a forest fire that I lost my mum, my sisters and brothers, and, really, my father.”

  “But you said you came here with your father.”

  “He might as well have been lost,” Phillip answered bitterly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Phillip sighed deeply. “My mum and da were quite different from each other. My mum, you see, had aspirations.”

  “What are aspirations?” Nyroc asked.

  “Hopes, dreams. She came from a very old family of Silverveil, one of the oldest, a noble family from the time that Silverveil had kings and queens. If they had still had them she would have been a princess. Sometimes my da even called her princess. She liked that.” Phillip’s eyes softened as if he were dreaming of something long ago.

  “But my da was different. He was a meat-and-insect kind of fellow. You fly out. You get the vole, the mouse, the occasional small fox—very occasional. My father was not happy when he had to pick off that baby fox. I mean, Da, he had his standards. Oh, that he did!”

  “What do you mean by standards?” Nyroc asked.

  “Oh, you know, rules—rules you make up for yourself, not the ones that others give you. When you decide for yourself what’s right and wrong.”

  Nyroc was intrigued. “What do these standards do?”

  “Do?” Phillip was puzzled. How could he explain this? It wasn’t as if these standards were practical. They didn’t “do” much in the practical sense. “They aren’t rules like the Pure Ones have—like you can’t carry a certain kind of weapon if you’re not of a certain rank or like all the rules against us Sooties. These kinds of rules, standards, well, they just make you a better owl.” That, Phillip suddenly realized, had been the tragedy of his father. He had been a better owl at one time, a really fine owl. Before he joined the Pure Ones.

  “Oh,” Nyroc said quietly. “But what happened when the forest fire came? You said you lost your father. But he didn’t die then.”

  “I’ll try to explain. The fire broke out in the daytime. It was so fierce that it jumped the Silver River. The smoke was terribly thick. It was impossible to see. Smoke stung our eyes and filled our throats so we could hardly breathe. We were all together fleeing our hollow in a part of Silverveil called The Brooklets.

  “Somehow my da and I got separated from Mum and my brothers and sisters. I begged my father to go back and look for them. He said no. It would be useless. He was probably right. But soon enough, I could tell that he regretted that he had not gone back. After the fire burned itself out, there was nothing left of The Brooklets. We went back. But we found no sign of Mum or the rest of the kids. We looked everywhere, flying from one part of the forest to another.

  “I could tell that my father regretted more and more each day that he had not even tried to rescue them. He stopped hunting for a while and just moped about. Worst case of the gollymopes I’d ever seen. I was really hungry. You have to understand, I was younger than you are now. I had no hunting skills.

  “But it was something worse than just the gollymopes with Da. He had this terrible anger. He would strike out at me for no reason. There was something wrong with his gizzard, with his mind.

  “The worst of winter was soon upon us. We were starving. Game was scarce. It was at this time that we found the fox’s den and Da went after the baby. Da had always said that it was wrong to kill the young of any prey because if you did that, they would not grow up to have children of their own and then there would be no animals left to hunt. So I knew how Da had broken his own rule here. But we were starving. It wasn’t long after the killing of the baby fox that I noticed other changes in Da, small ones at first. It was as if he didn’t care about anything. He cursed in front of me, which he had never ever done before.”

  Never? Nyroc thought. Nyroc recalled how his mum cursed in front of him all the time.

  Phillip continued, “It was also around this same time that Wortmore showed up with Stryker. This is one of the Pure Ones’ best strategies for finding new recruits. They go into regions where forest fires have destroyed the land, where owls feel lost, confused, disoriented, and are almost starving to death. They promise them a good hollow with soft moss, plump voles, and rock rats. The new recruits are promised a chance to become the pioneers and leaders of a new empire.”

  “But the Pure Ones only recruit Barn Owls, right?”

  “Yes. Stryker and Wortmore said that only Barn Owls were worthy of joining this elite union. That the Union must be kept pure and only Barn Owls were pure enough.”

  “I know that’s what Mum always tells me—that we Barn Owls are Glaux’s favorites.”

  “Yes, but what they didn’t tell us was that some Barn Owls are more pure than others. No, no. My da thought he was going to be a big important squadron leader. He had become very bitter. It seemed that now that he had lost most of his family, he was ready to kill.”

  “So what happened when your father joined?”

  “What happened? Ha! He got killed!”

  “Killed?”

  “In the first battle he ever went into. Kludd had managed to kidnap one of the leaders of the Ga’Hoole Tree. But the great tree sent the Chaw of Chaws to rescue him.”

  “I know of the Chaw of Chaws. I heard Mum talk about it. I think my uncle Soren was a leader of it. Was he the one who killed your father?”

  “No, it was a Short-eared Owl. Female. I forget her name.
She is supposed to be an incredible flier—fast, with unbelievable precision.”

  “Not the Great Gray who killed my father, then.”

  “No, not Twilight.”

  “Twilight? Is that what they call him?”

  “Yes.”

  Nyroc now knew the name of his father’s killer.

  A silence stretched between the two friends. Outside the den, they could hear the wind whipping through the narrow canyon. An occasional gust of snow was sucked into the den from a downdraft. Finally, Nyroc spoke. “So what happened to you after your da died?”

  “Nothing good. Without him, I was just another mouth to feed. Because I was a Sooty, I was given the most menial tasks and never trained for the elite units. I was miserable until you came along. Then everything changed.” Phillip shook his head in wonder. “I was the one chosen to be the closest friend, companion to the hatchling, the little chick that had emerged from the egg they called the Sacred Orb. My life changed. I got the choice pieces of freshly killed vole. I got to fly out and gather insects for your First Insect ceremony. I occupied a place of honor at all your First Ceremonies—right next to your mum. And although I did not much care for Nyra, I was liking, loving you more every day.”

  Again there was silence. Nyroc peeked out of the den. “It’s really dark out there now.”

  “Yes,” Phillip replied, “but I think it would be foolish to leave. We should stay here until daylight. Less chance of them keeping up the chase through the daylight. Besides”—Phillip gave a wink to Nyroc—“they don’t have a free pass from the crows.”

  “That’s right. I never thought of that.”

  “So let’s rest up and wait for daybreak.”

  So the two friends wedged themselves into the most comfortable corner they could find and tried to fall asleep. But Nyroc couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts were swirling through his head. His gizzard was in a twitter.