The Coming of Hoole (12 page)

G
rank once again could not sleep. It was nearly autumn, and still Hoole had not discovered nor even sensed the presence of the ember despite frolicking all the livelong night around the volcanoes. Grank and Theo had more bonk coals than they knew what to do with. Grank himself had never seen such a flier as Hoole. He negotiated the fickle hot drafts and vexing cool spots above the craters nimbly and with such grace! Hoole far surpassed Grank’s own skills of colliering. He had even taught Phineas and Theo how to catch a few bonk ones, and most extraordinary of all, he had taught some of the wolves on the watch how to jump high and catch coals.

Occasionally, he would ask a few questions of Dunmore about the watch, but he did not seem curious any longer as to what they might be guarding. Had Grank made a mistake about the young’un’s destiny? Was Hoole perhaps not the owl he thought he was? A prince by blood, by accident of birth, by name but perhaps not of gizzard?
Perhaps his gizzard was a very ordinary one like most owls in which the seeds of Ga’ were lodged but still, doomed never to sprout. But when he remembered that seedling in the middle of the island in the Southern Sea, he took hope. He had not imagined it, for Phineas and Theo had seen it as well. The seedling had grown more in a few hours than most do in a full circle of seasons. They never discussed it. It was as if the strange seedling was a secret that they all kept in their gizzards and that talking about would make less real.

Svenka had left MacHeath just north of the Ice Talons. It would still be a long haul for the wolf to reach Lord Arrin’s stronghold. Svenka neglected to tell him that swimming there would be much quicker. Nor did she tell him that she knew an inlet through which she could pass that would get her there a good day before MacHeath would arrive. Once there she planned to find an old friend of hers, Svarr, the father of Anka and Rolf. It was not yet mating season but she knew where Svarr usually denned this time of year. It was not far from Lord Arrin’s stronghold. So she climbed out of the sea and headed inland.

“What are you doing here? It’s not mating season yet. I’m not really in the mood,” Svarr said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Svenka replied. “I’m not here for that.”

“What are you here for?” Svarr looked at Svenka blankly.

“Look, Svarr, I know you might have trouble understanding this because…well…you’re a male polar bear and you don’t care really all that much about young’uns and cubs.”

“That’s for mothers.”

“Yes, exactly.”

He interrupted before she could continue. “But, by the way, did you have any cubs last season?”

“Yes, three. One died. But the other two are fine.”

“Good. Now what is it you’ve come for?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve made friends with a lovely female owl. And she is most worried about her young’un. She thinks that Lord Arrin or one of his hagsfiends wants him for some reason.”

“Oh, Great Ursa, the way those owls and hagsfiends carry on.” Svarr sighed. “This stupid war. Too bad about King H’rath. He was a good bloke. And Lord Arrin’s lieutenants are always trying to get young’uns who fought with H’rath to join them. He’s a very bad sort.”

“Yes, that’s just the point. My friend wants to know exactly what Lord Arrin is up to these days.” Svenka had
to be careful. She didn’t want to say too much, but she was actually tempted to tell him a little more. Svarr was a good fellow and she knew that in his own dull way he had really admired H’rath. The only reason Svarr had ventured so close to Lord Arrin’s stronghold was that the seal hunting was good.

“Look, Svarr, can you keep a secret?” Svenka asked.

“Who do I ever see, except you once a year?”

“Well, I know sometimes you see what’s her name, Svaala?”

“Gone!”

“Oh, too bad.”

Svarr shrugged his shoulders. “So, what is the secret?”

Svenka proceeded to tell him that her special friend was Queen Siv. She continued with the story of the young owl prince and the traitorous wolf from the Beyond.

“Your close friend is Siv? My, you’ve come up in the world.”

Svenka was shocked. “How dare you, Svarr! I was up just fine in the world even before I met Siv. Just remember, friends don’t make the animal. Animals make friends.”

Svarr blinked.
She is pretty smart,
he thought.
Always had a way with words.

“So do you want me to take out the wolf?” Svarr asked.

“Maybe later, but right now I want to know what that wolf is telling Lord Arrin, and what Lord Arrin is up to. So, I was wondering…are there any dried-up smee holes around his place that we could get to?”

Smee holes riddled the N’yrthghar. Some of them dried up over the years and provided snug dens for polar bears. They were known, but only by the bears, to transmit sounds. In the right smee hole one could hear quite clearly a conversation almost a league away.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I know where to find a mess of them.”

“Could you take me to one, one that would be especially good to listen to Lord Arrin?”

“Sure, no problem. Too bad it isn’t mating season. We wouldn’t have to make another trip to meet up.”

Svenka rolled her eyes.
Males!
Thank Ursa, one didn’t have to live with them all year round.

“
Y
ou say that they call this young owl Hoole?” It was Lord Arrin’s voice they were hearing.

“Yes, sir,” MacHeath replied.

“And that Grank claimed this Hoole was Siv’s chick?”

“Yes, sir,” MacHeath said again.

Then Svenka and Svarr heard a collective gasp from the other owls and the hagsfiends in the inner sanctum of the stronghold.

“You know the meaning of this?” A hagsfiend cawed in his ragged voice.

“I know that the first owl was called Hoole and was said to be a mage,” Lord Arrin said.

“And not any mage, but a very powerful one,” the hagsfiend replied.

“An owl would not be given such a name if it were not thought that he might possess these powers,” said the hagsfiend who had spoken first. “It could be the end of all of us.”

“We must fly immediately to the Beyond. This owl prince, the one called Hoole whose egg was said to be so luminous, must be destroyed—or he must be ours.”

That was all Svenka had to hear. “See you come mating season, Svarr. I have to go.”

“Yes, dear.”

Svenka ran and then swam as she never had before. She could see Lord Arrin’s troops and the hagsfiends rising in the night. She knew that the hagsfiends would not follow the same route as the owls because of all the open water. They, like the wolf, would go due west over the H’rathghar glacier toward Broken Talon Point and then swing south into the Beyond. There was a chance at least that Siv might be able to get there before they did. Svenka knew that she would have gone herself. She could swim all the way to the Southern Kingdoms and then race through the forests, but she couldn’t leave the cubs. Not yet at least.
Oh,
she thought for perhaps the thousandth time,
males are so useless. If only Svarr could be trusted to care for them.
It wasn’t as if male polar bears were dim-witted, they just seemed to be missing something when it came to feeling any kind of emotion or attachment to anyone but themselves. And yet they could not be called selfish, not willfully so, at least.

Svenka arrived at dawn of the following day.

“You must be exhausted, Svenka,” Siv said.

How gracious of her,
Svenka thought.
She inquires about me first. So unlike Svarr.
“No, not really. The news is not good. I have confirmed that Hoole is in the Beyond with Grank, and Lord Arrin and the hagsfiends have already set flight.”

Siv wilfed until she seemed a quarter her original size. “Oh, dear!”

“The only good news is that the hagsfiends and the wolf are going by the long route because of open water.”

“You mean across the H’rathghar glacier and then west?”

“Yes, it will take them a good while especially with the prevailing winds.”

“So I have a chance of getting there before they do.”

“Yes, and I don’t think Lord Arrin would strike without the hagsfiends. He’ll wait for them.”

Siv’s eyes suddenly brightened. “Svenka, I have one more favor to ask of you.”

“Anything, Siv.”

“There’s a messenger, Joss, who served the king and me faithfully in the past. I suspect that he is in the region of the Ice Talons. The cubs can swim with you there. It is not so far. You can find him. There are usually lots of gadfeathers around there this time of year, one of their many
gatherings. Ask around and when you find Joss, tell him that I live and that my son is in mortal danger. That he must quickly gather what troops he can and any hireclaws he can find and fly to the Beyond.”

“Yes, madam,” Svenka said.

“Madam? Why are you calling me ‘madam’?” Siv asked.

Indeed, the word had just slipped out. But when Svenka looked at Siv now she saw not just a regal Spotted Owl of great elegance, she saw an owl of incomparable force and leadership.

“Never mind. But what I was going to say, Siv, is that it is often dangerous to send messages. Other animals can overhear them. I overheard Lord Arrin because of the smee holes.”

“I would never send it in plain Krakish. There is a code. It is simple. All you need to say is ‘The moon bleeds silver. The ice fox comes before the dwenking.’ Do you have that?”

Svenka repeated the code and then she was off, flanked by Anka and Rolf, who were ecstatic to be a part of this adventure.

Siv left immediately, flying first to the Ice Dagger where she had hidden the scimitar of H’rath.

O
h, my blood grows hectic and this worm called revenge does twist in my heart and burns out any gentleness, any virtue. I live now only for revenge.
Hordweard lay in wait on top of a boulder. So carefully had she covered her tracks with tangled paths of scent marks that any wolf who had wanted to follow her would become hopelessly confused. She wanted no interference, no distractions from her business. And her business was to kill. MacHeath was bound to return this way, if indeed he did return and had not met with trouble. By Lupus, she would not have trouble stealing her revenge!

The sky suddenly darkened above her. She looked up and saw strangely shaped dark birds flying overhead. “Hagsfiends!” she muttered. Although she had never seen one before she had heard of them and knew there could be no mistake.
Yes, of course,
she thought.
And they be flying the wolves’ route from the Beyond, for it is water they fear. Oh, that MacHeath has been up to no good.
It had to have something to
do with the young owl, Hoole. There was something special about him. Anyone could tell that. Ever since the caribou hunt she knew he had powers. She wondered, briefly, if indeed she should turn back and run to warn them. She liked the young’un. He was the only one who had not shunned her.

But she would not sacrifice the moment that was her due, the moment of revenge. Vengeance was the blood that pumped through her heart, the air she breathed. She loved it with a passion. Vengeance was her mate now, and she would not give it up.

And so she waited. And waited. Never anxious, always patient, polishing her vengeance as if it were a precious thing, gnawing it delicately as if she were etching a bone with her fangs into a magnificent design.
He will come…He will come.
And he did. She smelled him first.
Ah! Even the wind is my accomplice!

The wind, which had been coming from the west for the last few nights making MacHeath’s progress slower, had shifted at last to east. He growled a soft, contented sound of pleasure that at last the wind had turned to help speed his journey. He had anticipated his arrival in the Beyond on the tail feathers of the hagsfiends who by then would have joined Lord Arrin. Finally, MacHeath would
be rid of Fengo. A delightful prospect. Yes, Fengo would be killed and his friend Grank and the other owls slaughtered with him. As for his own reward, Lord Arrin had promised him a kingdom. Yes, the Beyond and all the land creatures of the entire Southern Kingdoms would be under his rule. The sky would be Lord Arrin’s, but the earth would be MacHeath’s—and the volcanoes! He had withheld some vital information from Lord Arrin—that of the ember. Neither Lord Arrin nor the hagsfiends knew of the ember—what nonsense that Fengo had called it the owl’s ember. It was the wolf’s ember, and with it, by Lupus, he would rule even the hagsfiends.

Hordweard had picked the perfect point from which to observe him. It was a high boulder. Another smaller one perched atop it, perfect for concealing her presence. She saw him coming down the trail. He looked ragged, much thinner. His bones jutted up so that his pelt draped sharply now over the massive shoulders. He breathed hard, too hard for a wolf who was traveling at this easy pace, and she heard a rasping sound in his lungs.

It had begun to snow. The moon had risen and its light fell directly on the boulder. Quietly, she stepped out from behind the boulder. His instincts were off. He did not
even hear the scratch of her claws on the rock. She made a low growl. MacHeath stopped, his hackles suddenly stiff, his ears up. He lifted his head. She could see the look of surprise in his one eye.
He does not know it is me,
she thought.
Have I changed that much? As much as he has changed?

MacHeath blinked his one eye and again was caught in the strange state somewhere between fear and aggression, threat and submission, as his hackles raised and his ears laid back and the odd half-growl, half-whine sound came from deep in his throat.

He actually doesn’t recognize me,
Hordweard thought.
Have my ears grown back? No!
She knew that this was impossible.
I’ll save him from his own confusion,
she thought, and took another step closer to the edge of the boulder.

“It is me, MacHeath.”

He stared for a long moment in disbelief. His old mate, the oldest of all his mates suddenly looked young. Her once patchy mud-colored pelt had thickened and turned a tawny gold. She gleamed in the moonlight. Her green eyes, once dull, were now luminous. She was bigger, heavier. He had been gone not quite the cycle of one moon and yet…“Hordweard?”

“Yes, but that is no longer my name.”

Now his ears and hackles rose even higher. His tail went out straight, and he snarled. “But it is. I name all my mates. You are Hordweard MacHeath!” he snarled.

“No longer MacHeath. I am Namara!”

“You are not Namara, and you have no clan but MacHeath.”

“I am a clan unto myself.”

Then in the night, there was a golden explosion as she leaped high and howled, “I am Namara! And my clan is MacNamara!”

She hurtled down on top of MacHeath’s back. There was the sound of a bone cracking and a terrible howl of pain. He tried to rise but his hind legs flopped out behind him. But still he had his fangs and his front legs with their claws. He managed to roll over and clawed at her chest. He missed but opened a gash on her shoulder. This maddened her.

“I shall not stop till I finish you, MacHeath.” She tore at his face. This time he howled not with pain but with unleashed fury and with his broad chest and still mighty shoulders managed to fling her off.

Namara stepped back a few paces. He tried to drag himself toward her. “I’ll take your other eye now, MacHeath!”

“No. Never, she wolf from hell.” His voice was guttural and raspy with pain and rage.

Although MacHeath’s back was broken, his hind legs useless, he still dragged himself toward her. He was dying, she knew it. She had been on enough hunts to know when the end was near. The newly fallen snow had turned red with his blood. She came closer. There was a sudden fear that iced his eye and then a melting, aggrieved look as he finally laid back his ears and twisted his head into a submissive position and exposed his throat for Namara’s fangs.

“Namara,” he whispered.

He expects lochinvyrr? This cur, this wretched cur expects lochinvyrr?

Namara glared at him now. “You call me Namara, and you expect in return the dignity of lochinvyrr. You cannot give me permission to kill you. I take your life not because it is worthy, not because I respect you, but because I must destroy you!”

“But, Namara—lochinvyrr…” MacHeath was gasping now. “Without lochinvyrr I will not find the spirit trail to the star wolf.”

“I do not plan to eat you. You now offer up your life to me as if it is something of value. You who have never
honored any code now wish for lochinvyrr.” Namara laughed harshly. “I’ll give you lochinvyrr!” she howled as she raised her forepaw and clawed out his remaining eye. Blood spurted from the socket.

“I am blind, I am blind!” he whispered in despair. The bleeding empty socket flinched in one last desperate attempt to lock his eyeless eyes with his killer.

“You are dead!” she said quietly, and sunk her teeth into his neck.