To Be a King Read online

  As he, the Snow Rose, and Phineas flew into the night, Hoole reflected on what he had learned so far. There definitely were hagsfiends around. But no one knew quite where. There were stories of a black feather here and there, or a rank crowish scent carried on a breeze. There were sightings of the queer black pellets they yarped.

  But it was not only the information that Hoole and his friends picked up that was important. While they had been traveling, Hoole had the sudden inspiration that some of the more promising smiths should be encouraged to fly to the great tree to train under the watchful eye of Grank and Theo, when Theo returned to the tree. He let this information be revealed in a casual chatty way. “I hear,” he said to one Rogue smith in Tyto, “that at the great tree, the one they call the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, which was named for the king, that one can learn colliering and smithing from the masters themselves.” In this way Hoole managed to send a half dozen promising Rogue smiths and colliers to the tree to begin their training. There would be battle claws aplenty when the time was ripe!

  On the border of Silverveil and The Barrens, Hoole, Phineas, and the Snow Rose had a rendezvous with Joss. Joss reported that Grank was delighted with the influx of smiths and colliers. There were now four forges going, with two smiths to a forge, so the supply of battle claws had quadrupled. New recruits for the invasion were arriving every day, and Lord Rathnik and his lieutenants were training them in the use of ice weapons. The ice weapons themselves were surviving well due to the cool weather and the preservative powers of the milkberry vines.

  Hoole and Phineas, who for so long had watched Theo at his forge, learned to discreetly throw out suggestions and pointers while still being careful to conceal their true identities. It was in this way that Hoole, Phineas, and the Snow Rose forged their own strong bonds with these owls. Most important, they wanted to know if any hags-fiends had been spotted in the Southern Kingdoms who were known to be aloof, reluctant even to reveal their name. Repeatedly the answer was no. Not one had been spotted. But in his gizzard, Hoole had twinges of doubt.

  “But we would have smelled something if they had been around,” Phineas said.

  “Oh, that crowish odor!” exclaimed the Snow Rose. She would never forget the terrible stench of hagsfiends in the Battle of the Beyond. “You never get used to it.”

  “But owls don’t have the best sense of smell,” Hoole argued.

  And then one night when they were visiting a Rogue smith in Ambala, Hoole saw something in the fire there that made his gizzard lurch. It was a hagsfiend! Hoole knew it as certainly as he had known anything.

  Phineas immediately realized that Hoole had spotted danger in the fire. The Rogue smith was looking at Hoole peculiarly. “What’s wrong with your friend?” In that same moment, the first wave of the crowish stench filled the darkening night, and then the blackness of that night began to fade into yellow, and the yellow grew stronger as the outer edge of a fyngrot rolled in like a rising tide.

  “We have no weapons!” Phineas whispered. They must do something before the hagsfiend launched its half-hags with their poisonous loads. To do that, however, the hagsfiend had to be in range. It was the fyngrot, which was cast like a deadly net, that brought a victim into range and stilled the victim so the half-hags could take aim.

  “No ice sabers,” said the Rogue smith.

  Hoole seized a poker from the forge. It had the sphere of molten iron at its tip. Time seemed to slow and events happened in a dreamlike, liquidy way. But Hoole’s thoughts came clearly and distinctly. With his mother, he had escaped a fyngrot in the Battle of the Beyond. “Hold steady, my prince. Hold steady,” Siv had said then. In an unparalleled act of willpower she rendered them both impenetrable to the effects of the fyngrot.

  And now it was Hoole’s turn. He did not have his father’s ice scimitar, but he had the image of his mother, and in his talon the poker with the molten iron at its tip. He raised the poker and charged through the yellow light, slashing at the hagsfiend. The stink of singed feathers now mixed with the crowlike smell. Then the hagsfiend suddenly looked quite ordinary. The fyngrot faded, and there was a soft plop. No more yellow—just a pile of black feathers on the ground in front of the forge.

  “Look!” Phineas said in a stunned voice. “It’s just like an ordinary crow.”

  “It’s so small,” whispered the Snow Rose.

  “I’d never believe it,” said the Rogue smith. “It ain’t even half the size it was.” Hagsfiends’ wingspans were enormous, three times that of the largest owls, and now this bird seemed the same size—if that—of a crow.

  “So finally we find one, after all the rumors,” Hoole said. “Must have come by a land route. Not enough ice this time of year to risk a sea crossing.” And once more Hoole thought how they must be ready to invade by Short Light.

  Hoole stepped toward the body and prodded it with the poker so that it turned over. The four owls gasped. There was a shallow disc-shaped depression where its face should have been. But there were no eyes, no beak, and in the depression was a thin yellow liquid that was quickly evaporating to dust. It was shocking and horrible.

  “However did you bring this creature down, Hoole?” Phineas asked.

  “Hoole!” The Rogue smith gasped. “You are King Hoole?” The other three owls looked at one another as the Rogue smith fell to his knees. “I should have known.”

  “Rise up, smith,” Hoole said. “Yes, I am the king.”

  “You saved us with your magic. A magic greater than the hagsfiend’s. But you do not have the ember with you. The one they call the Ember of Hoole.”

  “It was not magic,” Hoole said sharply. “It was the power of my will, my gizzard. I used no magic at all. Good smith, you are right. I do not have the ember with me. I had a poker forged in your own fires, with a hunk of molten white-hot metal at its tip. But smith, promise me this: Tell no one that I am the king.”

  “Your Majesty, I give you my word of honor.” He paused. His pale yellow eyes locked with Hoole’s deep amber ones. “I give you my name and such is my honor: Rupert is my name.”

  Hoole knew after his time in the Southern Kingdoms and having met a score of Rogue smiths that the knowledge of a smith’s name was a trust not lightly given.

  So the young king bowed his head to Rupert and said simply, “I am honored, Rupert.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Black Feathers in the Desert

  Phineas thought he smelled the telltale stench. He had been skimming close to the low-growing bushes and scanning the nettles and spiny shrubs that grew in this region bordering the Desert of Kuneer when he had sighted a small ball of dark fluff and then caught the unmistakable whiff. He lighted down next to the shrub.

  “Look,” said Phineas.

  “What?” asked Hoole, lighting down next to him.

  “Small feathers, black ones, pin feathers,” Phineas replied.

  “What is it?” asked the Snow Rose.

  “Tumbledown,” Phineas said. Tumbledown was the delicate fluffy underfeathers of a bird. So light were these feathers that when molted, they would blow away and get caught up in tall grass or shrubs. With most birds, the tumbledown was pale in color, but this was black. Phineas looked up at his mates. “Tumbledown from a hagsfiend.”

  The three owls wilfed a bit. It was a long time before anyone spoke. Hoole twisted his head nearly completely around and then settled his gaze to the southwest. “The Desert of Kuneer is very close, I think.”

  “A quarter night’s flight at the most,” the Snow Rose replied.

  “It would make a perfect place for hagsfiends, wouldn’t it?” Hoole asked. “Dry, landlocked, far from any sea.” Water, especially salt water, was the only thing hagsfiends really feared. The N’yrthghar was the safe haven for hagsfiends because for most of the year the Everwinter Sea was frozen. So it made sense that if they came to the Southern Kingdoms that the Desert of Kuneer would offer refuge. But then again, the Beyond would also be safe. Far from any seas, it was a desert
of sorts, too. Hoole wondered if any had gone there. They had certainly fought there. Yes, they had had to retreat, but could the wolves have kept them away?

  Hoole shut his eyes for a long time and thought. Hagsfiends in the south. Rumors of the Ice Palace falling to new rebels. It would be a fight on all fronts. Hoole knew that unless forced to, they could not fight anywhere until they were ready. But they were less than two moon cycles away from Short Light. Still, it would be reckless to go into the Desert of Kuneer and hunt down hagsfiends now. Before passing out of Ambala into the desert, they had checked a dead drop. There had been a coded message from Grank asking about his progress and reporting that the rumor of an all-hagsfiend division led by Ullryk was true, though there had been no confirmation from either Joss or Theo that this division was the one holding the Ice Palace. All of this ran through Hoole’s mind now. His gizzard was in a fever, but Short Light or no, he would not act rashly. He still needed more information.

  “We need to turn back. I need to see Rupert again and have him build me a fire. I need some good flames to read.”

  And so they returned that very evening to Ambala.

  “Back so soon?” Rupert looked up from his forge. “Don’t tell me, more hagsfiends?”

  Hoole nodded. “We think so. Rupert, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Anything at all,” Rupert replied.

  “I need your fire, Rupert.”

  Rupert looked perplexed. “Wanna try your hand at a bit of smithing, do you? Bet you’re a natural.”

  “Well, no actually, Rupert—I have a certain gift for reading the flames.” He looked now very seriously at Rupert. “It is a talent, Rupert. It is not magic. It is the same as when some owls are born with more sensitive gizzards and seem to sense things before they happen. That is the way it is with me and flames. Might I use your fire?”

  Rupert stepped away. “It is all yours, Hoole.”

  “And one more thing, might you give that rock on top of the vent a shove? I would like the fire to get some more air and build up the flames a bit.”

  Within a very few minutes, great towering flames were leaping from the crack in the boulder. Hoole hovered in front of them. It was several minutes before he found the gizzard of the flames. He did not know precisely what he was looking for. One could not come to a fire with preconceived notions and ideas and demand that the flames answer specific questions. That was not how it worked. He had to empty his mind and let the antic flickerings sort themselves into an image. And now in the gizzard of the fire, in that curved yellow plane, was a pinprick of color. Yes! A familiar green was seeping into the yellow. Where had he seen it before? The ember of Hoole had some green in it, but that was not it. And then it burst upon him. It’s the green in the eyes of dire wolves! The eyes of dire wolves burned like green fire. A certainty glimmered, then grew in Hoole’s gizzard: The green of the wolves’ eyes bore some trace of magen. If only he could get them to focus the powerful green of their eyes. Yes…yes! That’s what we need for an attack on hagsfiends—wolves! The thought had crossed his mind before, but in truth he hadn’t had a clue as to how he would have used the wolves back then. But now he thought he knew. Wolves had cunning strategies and uncanny instincts for what an enemy was about to do. Their unmatched abilities to communicate in the thick of action with nary a sound or detectable signal would be invaluable. But to whom should he go with this plan? Fengo? No. Hordweard. Or as she now called herself, Namara. Yes, Namara MacNamara the brave wolf. The wolf he had believed in when every other wolf and owl thought her a traitor. I must find Namara, Hoole thought. I must run again with the wolves. I must run with Namara!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In Search of a Feather

  Yonot fyngrot velink velink,

  inhale the vapor and the stink.

  Transform this mess of cursed stew

  and make it into haggish brew.

  Snick, snick the gizzard is nigh on gone

  and thus a new monster is spawned.

  Gimlich gimloc machten ma,

  this is the hagsfiends’ nachtga’th.

  The smee chant swirled in Kreeth’s head as she flew out of the Ice Narrows. She must find a feather from the family of Emerilla. The most likely choice would be Emerilla’s father, who had been killed in a battle over the Ice Dagger. She must find the hagsfiend who went off with his head. There was a covey of hagsfiends that lived near the Ice Talons, and one in particular by the name of Penryck interested her. He was a skillful fighter. She had heard that he had thrown in his lot with Lord Arrin. But Lord Arrin was not faring well these days and Penryck was not one to fly about with losers. She turned east and flew up a twisting channel that penetrated deep into the cliff where it was said there was another ice palace of the old king’s, the palace of the Ice Cliffs. Very difficult to find and not nearly as elaborate and grand as the H’rathghar glacier palace, it was said to be deep within an impenetrable maze of ice canyons.

  But the Ice Cliffs themselves were riddled with the hollows of hagsfiends. It was a very safe place because the water remained frozen in the channels for most of the year. It was pure daring of King H’rath to have a hideaway so close to hagsfiends. Kreeth had to credit the king and queen for their audacity. But it was also true that most hagsfiends were not extraordinarily bright. It would have been a challenge for them to navigate through the tangled maze of ice channels and canyons. Kreeth, of course, counted herself an exception to this rule.

  A hagsfiend now flew in her wake and swooped in beside Kreeth as the narrow channel widened and deepened into a canyon.

  “What brings you here, Kreeth?”

  “I seek Penryck. He fought in the Battle of the Ice Talons, did he not?”

  “Yes, as did I.”

  Kreeth looked at the hagsfiend but she could not remember her name. “There was an old lieutenant, a Spotted Owl.”

  “Oh, Strix Hurthwel.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “A hagsfiend named Mycroft.”

  “And where might this hagsfiend be found?”

  “In the Ice Narrows.”

  “What?” Kreeth staggered in flight. “No hagsfiends live in the Narrows except for me.”

  “He indeed does.”

  “Don’t you ‘indeed’ me! You, you…” She wheeled around on her port wing and headed back to the Ice Narrows.

  Flying as fast as she could and beating her great ragged wings against the wind, she was in the Narrows before the moon had risen. She had intended to scour every cave and cranny for this Mycroft. But then she suddenly realized there was no need for that. No need at all. The divining eyeball! It had taken years for her to find just the right eyeball, but not long ago she had plucked one from a young Barred Owl who had been blown into the Narrows by accident. It had all happened just before Lutta had hatched.

  “Did you bring the feather?” Lutta asked as Kreeth swept into the ice cave.

  “No. The head is in the possession of a certain hags-fiend called Mycroft.”

  Neither Kreeth or Lutta noticed, but the puffowl began to wilf and cower in a corner when the name Mycroft was spoken. He knew of Mycroft, and Mycroft himself had promised to change the puffowl into either an owl or a puffin if he would spy and bring him the secrets of Kreeth’s potions. It was a dangerous game the puffowl was playing, but he was sick of Kreeth and her experiments and her abuse. He was sick of being this horrible, ridiculous waddling mixture.

  Kreeth got the eyeball and suspended it over a small ice pyramid. It turned slowly and the slivers of gold began to sparkle and glint. An image was forming. “What is it, Auntie?” Lutta asked.

  “Shut up. I’m concentrating.”

  Lutta backed away. Kreeth bent closer to the eyeball.

  She saw Mycroft in his cave. He was not an especially large hagsfiend. His tail barely swept the floor. His cave was also strewn with the bits and pieces scavenged from slaughtered creatures. She scanned the cave as he busied himself with his work. Within a minute, no more, she s
aw it. On an ice ledge in the cave, there was a head—and a handsome one it was! Well, she thought, there is no denying that Spotted Owls are handsome, comely birds. And this one’s eyes had retained a wonderful luster. Kreeth tried to suppress her excitement. She must get a feather or two from that magnificent head and then…and then she froze.

  In an ice bowl on the shelf in Mycroft’s cave floated two yarped pellets and the spine of a dead fish. That was her formula! The one she hoped would render water powerless against hagsfiends. There was only one way Mycroft could have come up with that formula! Kreeth spun around. “Puffowl!” she screeched, but the creature was gone.

  She flew out of the cave, first turning north into the Narrows and then south. She searched for him for an hour. She went back and looked into her divining eyeball, but it had grown murky and she could see nothing. Where was the cursed little beast? Had he gone to warn Mycroft? There was no way of knowing. At least not until the eyeball had recovered its sight. Until then, she was essentially blind. There could be no divining. Well, she would wait. If there was one thing Kreeth had, it was patience. But it galled her to think that another hagsfiend was living in the Ice Narrows and was now stealing her formulas, her spells! Was there no honor in this world?

  And so she waited one night, then two, and finally on the third night, the divining eyeball cleared. She fully expected to see the puffowl in the cave. She had thought he would have flown to Mycroft’s cave to warn him, but the cave appeared empty and the beautiful head was still in its niche. Was it a trap to lure her there? Had the puffowl warned him of her intentions? She looked again in the divining eyeball and muttered an old demonic incantation, a charm especially suited for making visible the invisible and revealing what was concealed. Her breathing calmed. It looked as if neither the puffowl nor Mycroft was around. The time was now.