The Coming of Hoole (13 page)

“
W
hat’s that?” said a tipsy Great Gray Owl as he looked up from his perch on the grog tree.

“Looks like a comet!”

“Naw, ish ish too clossh for a comet,” the Great Horned Owl slurred.

An Elf Owl, who had an astounding capacity for bingle juice despite his miniscule proportions, suddenly blurted out, “It’s the scimitar of H’rath!”

“His scroom! King H’rath’s scroom!” an owl gasped and tipped off his perch plummeting to the ground, recovering just in time.

“It’s NOT a scroom!” the Elf Owl shouted. “It’s the queen, Queen Siv…Queen of the N’yrthghar.”

“Oh, Great Glaux,” a large Snowy gasped and then belched loudly as Siv settled at the top of the tree. “Your Majesty!” The Snowy attempted a curtsy but sprawled and then only succeeded in hanging upside down on the limb.

Siv held the scimitar high so they could all see it. “Grog seller, cut off the bingle juice. Sober up, all of you!” A sudden silence fell on the tree.
A sorry lot,
she thought,
but they’re all I’ve got to work with.

“I am no scroom. My husband, good King H’rath, is dead. But we have a son and his name is Hoole,” Siv spoke in a firm voice.

“Aaaaaaaah.” The sound rolled through the tree.

“I know that many of you here fought with King H’rath and were part of the old H’rathian troops. I am your queen and I now come for your help. The rest of you are perhaps from elsewhere and I am not your queen, but still I ask for your help in fighting for a just cause. Hoole is in danger now, grave danger. Lord Arrin and an elite unit of hagsfiends are flying this way and on to Beyond the Beyond, where they plan to destroy young Hoole, heir to King H’rath.” There were more gasps.

“The hagsfiends are coming to the Southern Kingdoms?” a Burrowing Owl asked.

“Yes. This is the brutal truth. Furthermore, Lord Arrin has made significant advances in the N’rythghar. He is within striking distance of capturing the Glacier Palace. We are losing the war, and we shall definitely lose if he captures or kills young Prince Hoole. I know you owls of the Southern Kingdoms. You are good owls. You feel with
your gizzards and think with your brains. You are compassionate, smart owls and would never rely on the cheap yet deadly art of nachtmagen that has beguiled so many. Together, we stand for decency, compassion, and honor. So I ask now who will join me in the fight—this battle that is a battle against tyranny, a war against nachtmagen. This a war to save the very soul of owlkind.”

“I will!…We will!…Hail,” a huge cry went up. “Siv, our queen, lives. Our queen lives!” Never had the grog seller seen so many of his customers sober up so quickly.

The news that the queen was alive swept through the forests of Tyto, of Silverveil, of the Shadows, Ambala, and even as far as the Desert of Kuneer. With the scimitar of H’rath clutched in her talons, Siv led a ragtag company of veteran owls made up of hireclaws and finally the H’rathian troops, which Joss had gathered as soon as he received word from Svenka. Joss and an old lieutenant, Lord Rathnik, flanked her on either side, protecting her from adverse winds and making her flight easier. But she steadfastly refused to have any owl fly in front of her, which would have eased her flight considerably. She knew that no leader worth her gizzard went into battle anyplace but in the front line. And on her tail flew none other than the Snow Rose, who had given up her gadfeather ways for a short time and joined the order of the Glauxian
Sisters. She soon found that meditation was not a vocation for her. So when she heard of Siv’s mission she decided that the time had come to put aside meditation, wandering, and singing alike, and she set forth. For years, she had flown hither and yon not knowing precisely why or where she was going. So she joined a group heading south and when they met up with the swelling troops heading for the Beyond, she nearly staggered in flight, in a manner most embarrassing for a former gadfeather, when she discovered that their leader, Queen Siv, was in fact her old friend Elka!

They flew fast on a route that Joss was certain would avoid an encounter with Lord Arrin. They entered the Beyond at dawn and then flew to the ring of volcanoes where Siv knew Grank and Fengo often stayed. She asked that the hireclaws and the H’rathian troops except for one unit, the Ice Regiment of H’rath, wait behind. She wanted to greet her son and Grank alone and to prepare them with her news.

As she approached the volcanoes, she gasped. It was twilight, or tween time as owls called it, that time between the last drop of the day’s sun and the first shadows of the night, but never in her life had she seen such a beautiful tween time. The sky was beginning to purple as the sun sank beneath the horizon and soaring up against the
purple of the sky were the fiery reds and oranges of the volcanoes’ flames. All five were now erupting. And between the towering flames a lone owl flew, flew so magnificently it took her breath away. “It’s Hoole,” she whispered to herself. His face was aglow as he caught one bonk coal after another.

H
oole saw her at the same time Grank did. They both flew to her. Then in mid-flight, Hoole shouted, “Mother!”

“Yes, my dear,” Siv replied as all three lighted down in the cinder beds near Fengo’s cave.

“Mother,” he repeated softly, then turned to Grank. “Why did you never tell me?”

Siv spoke: “He had good reason, dear, and there is no time to explain now. I have come to warn you. Any hour, Lord Arrin, his forces, and the hagsfiends will arrive.”

“They know he is here?” Grank asked.

“Hordweard!” Fengo said. “I knew it.”

“No, not Hordweard!” Hoole said firmly. And just at that moment, they heard a commotion among the wolves. Dunmore MacDuncan came up.

“Sir, a most unusual…” He paused, then continued. “Unusual event.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, Glaux, not yet the hagsfiends.” There was deep anguish in Grank’s voice.

“No. It is Hordweard. She is back.”

They all turned and saw the wolf much transformed. But it was definitely Hordweard, and she was dragging the body of Dunleavy MacHeath.

“I told you she wasn’t a traitor!” Hoole lofted himself joyously up and down into the air.

“Oh, no,” Siv said. “It is the dead wolf who was the traitor.”

Hordweard dropped the body at Fengo’s paws. “I know not what he told Lord Arrin,” she said, “but I fear it was something to do with young Hoole. I should have killed him before he went there but I was not strong enough then, not big enough, not nourished enough.” She slid her green eyes around to look at the rest of the wolves who had gathered, including the nervous mates of MacHeath. “One must be well fed and strong to kill a tyrant such as Dunleavy MacHeath.”

“Hordweard,” Fengo began, and laid back his ears. The other wolves looked on in awe. Never had they seen Fengo even begin these motions of submission. But he now crouched down and drew his lips back. His tail was low. “Hordweard,” he began again.

“Fengo, my name is no longer Hordweard MacHeath. I am Namara MacNamara.”

“Namara MacNamara, I ask you to forgive my most…” He hesitated. “My most uncivilized behavior. I thought at first that it was a grand gesture I made when I said that the mates of MacHeath were free to leave his clan. I now realize it was nothing more than a gesture, and I did not have the will to trust such a brave wolf as yourself. I ask for your forgiveness.”

“I forgive you, Fengo.”

Just at that moment all the wolves began to howl in alarm. Overhead, the sky darkened as an advanced guard of hagsfiends flew across the flame-torn sky.

“Krakia H’rath Regna Vinca,” Siv bellowed the command in Krakish that summoned her troops.

“Quick, battle claws!” Grank ordered. There were only four sets of the claws, but Siv’s troops had come armed with all manner of weapons. The H’rathian units had their deep ice weapons and the hireclaws carried sharp branches and their own finely honed talons, which they took pride in sharpening daily on flint stone. Just before they took off, Grank remembered his encounter with the scroom of H’rath. “Hoole, look for the channels!”

Hoole blinked. The channels, yes he knew the channels, the cooler paths through the flames. He hadn’t
known that Grank did. “Yes, Grank, the channels!” And he rose into the air.

Soon the sky was seething with owls and hagsfiends. The hagsfiends seemed to gain power from the fire and yet they often staggered in flight between the sudden updraft of hot air and the swirling whirlpools of cool air. Lord Arrin’s troops were having real trouble flying, and Hoole with his battle claws delivered a fatal blow to a Snowy Owl in Lord Arrin’s elite guard.

“Stay close, Hoole,” Siv flew up to him and whispered.

“I can fight for myself, Mother.”

“I know, son, but if the fyngrot is cast…” She saw the Snow Rose and Grank begin to chase down a hagsfiend. If they could attack from the rear they could avoid the fyngrot. But Glaux help them if it wheeled around. Hoole quickly saw how this strategy would work. His lessons of hunting with the wolves came back to him.

“Mother, Phineas, Theo, follow me.” They would make a flying byrrgis and use the same strategies to bring down a hagsfiend.
Yes, look for the channels!
And no one knew these channels as well as Hoole. There was one that he called the “river” for it seemed to flow just like a river. And during the most violent eruptions, like the ones that were now occurring, this “river” became as tumultuous as white-water rapids. The currents dumped downward
directly into the mouth of the volcano. For the unsuspecting, it was a true death trap, but if one was ready, it was possible to ride it out and peel off in the nick of time. Could his mother with her crippled wing survive the ride? He couldn’t take the chance. Instead of leading the hagsfiends toward the channels, they would have to drive them from behind. He slowed his flight so his mother, Theo, and Phineas could catch up. Quickly, he told them the strategy. “Mum, stay close by. The idea is to push them from behind toward the channels.”

The four owls then swept down on a trio of hagsfiends, and Hoole immediately started driving them toward the nearest channel that fed into the cool river of air. Theo and Phineas kept up a flanking pressure on either side of the trio. The hagsfiends wobbled in flight as soon as they hit the coolness and then they were swept into the river. They panicked utterly as they spun out of control.

First one, then another, fell into the crater of boiling lava.

“Port wing! Hoole, port wing,” his mother called out frantically.

Hoole felt his gizzard seize up. There was a terrible hagsfiend flying right toward him now. A strange yellow glare emanated from his eyes. They were not in a cool spot but an intensely heated updraft. He could not stop
staring at the fyngrot. He felt it tightening around him, strangling him. He began to reel. His wings would not work. Suddenly, a shadow passed between him and the fyngrot. It was the shadow of an owl with a misshapen wing.

“Mum, what are you doing?”

“Hold steady, my prince. Hold steady.”

Twice before, Siv had resisted the fyngrot, become completely impenetrable to its effects. The first time was in the Ice Cliff Palace when the hagsfiends had tried to steal the egg she had just laid. The second time was when they had brought her to ground on an ice floe. She had resisted by sheer will and the most intense concentration imaginable. She had focused on the scimitar of her noble mate the king, and she would do the same now. But this time she had two images in her mind’s eye—that of her mate and that of her son. The king and their prince. And Hoole watched as his extraordinary mother beat back the fyngrot, her scimitar raised and slashing through the yellow light.

Hoole felt his own gizzard begin to unlock. The yellow seemed to be receding. The hagsfiend began to look quite ordinary to Hoole. The hagsfiends themselves seemed to sense how ordinary they had become to both Hoole and Siv.

Fengo perched on his ridge, his claws digging into the dirt as he watched the battle. Red missiles from the eruptions scoured the sky while yellow flashes of the fyngrot soaked up great patches of darkness. Lord Rathnik, leading the Ice Regiment of H’rath, flew high above the flames. Their ice swords and daggers sparkled red in the reflections of the flames as Lord Arrin and his troops swarmed in to meet them. Below, the wolves howled their mad songs, and above, ragged clouds raced across the moon. It was a scene straight out of hagsmire, and the hagsfiends, drunk with the taste of blood, hoisted the heads of slain owls on their pikes in ghoulish delight.

Hoole heard the Snow Rose shriek but paid no heed. From the corner of his eye he saw a splash of blood in the night. But there was something else that drew his attention more strongly. His gizzard began to tingle in a way he had never experienced. He felt as if he were being drawn, inexorably drawn, toward something wonderful. He flew toward a volcano that they had begun to call Dunmore and dissolved through a rip in a wall of flames. The din and the chaos of war seemed to have been left behind him. He was alone now flying over the crater of Dunmore and in the center of the crater he saw something sparkling as fiercely as a wolf’s green eye. But soon he realized that in the center of the flame was a lick of blue ringed by green.
It was an ember floating in a cradle of lava. The sides of the volcano were beginning to turn transparent, and he could see the gleaming brilliance of this ember shining through it, turning the entire volcano a shimmering green with splashes of orange and blue. The grackling of the boiling lava seemed to grow still, the closer he flew. The ember beckoned him.

Below, a curious silence had descended on all. The warring owls flew to ground behind their battle lines, and even the hagsfiends remained still and unmoving. Grank was awash in grief as he held the dying body of his queen. Dunmore whispered to him: “He has found it, Grank. Listen to the volcano. He has found it.”

Suddenly, Hoole burst through the wall of flames with the ember clutched in his beak, his feathers slightly singed, and a splattering of lava on his talons. A beautiful radiance seemed to pour from the ember and bathe Hoole’s face. Indeed, his entire body was enveloped in a shimmering cocoon of light. And above Hoole’s head a sparkling crown hovered as if the very stars from the sky had descended to anoint this prince who was now a king.

“Hail, Hoole, son of King H’rath, son of Queen Siv!” A murmur swept through the gathered owls and wolves. The wolves began to crouch to their knees and lay back their ears. Then Lord Rathnik and the noble knights of
the Ice Regiment of H’rath kneeled and took up the cry. “Hail, Hoole, King of the N’yrthghar.” The wolves howled and the owls hooted and hooted. But in the background almost as loud as the cheering was the low roar of wings flapping. The hagsfiends were leaving. Lord Arrin’s troops were in complete disarray. Some fled with the hagsfiends. Others fell to their knees and began to hail the new king. Lord Arrin could be heard screeching, “But he is just a boy. There is no proof of his parentage. He is an unknown, barely fledged owlet. Not even a prince.”

Hoole set the ember down between his two feet. “A prince?” He blinked in complete bewilderment. “My mother, a queen?” And then he caught sight of Grank holding his mother’s bleeding body.

“Mother!” He flew over to her.

“What they say is true, Hoole,” Siv said.

“Mother, don’t talk now. You are wounded.”

“I am dying, Hoole.”

“No! No! You can’t be dying.”

“I am, but fear not. My life is complete. I feel only happiness, my son, my prince, my king,” she whispered faintly and died.

Grank gently shut her eyes with his beak. He felt his heart crack open, his gizzard wither.

“I only wanted to be her son a little bit longer,” Hoole said in a hushed voice to Grank.

“You will always be her son, Your Grace. But you are now our king.”

After several long minutes, Hoole straightened up and turned to look at the masses of owls and wolves still on their knees.

“Please rise, all of you,” he commanded, and then he flew a short distance to that noble knight Lord Rathnik. Before him he knelt and if he had had ear tufts he would have laid them back. The owls and wolves grew still again. “Lord Rathnik, I have heard of your noble deeds in both war and peace from Grank, my foster father and tutor. Before I become a king I must become a knight. I am not sure if I have yet fought long enough or valiantly enough to be worthy of such a title.”

“Oh, indeed you have, Your Grace.” The Whiskered Screech touched him on his shoulders with his ice sword and dubbed him a knight. “In the name of Glaux and of your good father, King H’rath, and your good mother, Queen Siv, I dub thee a knight of the H’rathian Guard of the Ice Regiment.”

Hoole then rose and turned to the multitude of owls. “Who was it who slew my mother the queen?” There was
a sudden rustling on a distant ridge and a clutch of owls rose up and sped off into the night. In the middle of those owls was Lord Arrin.

“A cowardly retreat this lord does make,” Hoole muttered.

He turned and looked at the lifeless body of his mother.

“You will see her again when you leave this world, dear Hoole,” Grank spoke softly.

“In glaumora,” Hoole said and then flew over and bent down to touch his mother’s lovely face with his beak. “In glaumora.”