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  NYROC: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, son born to Nyra and Kludd after Kludd’s death, in training to become High Tyto, leader of the Pure Ones

  DUSTYTUFT: Greater Sooty Owl, Tyto tenebricosa, low-caste owl in the Pure Ones, friend of Nyroc since his hatching (also known as PHILLIP)

  WORTMORE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, a Pure One lieutenant

  UGLAMORE: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, a Pure One sub-lieutenant under Nyra

  STRYKER: Barn Owl, Tyto alba, a Pure One commander under Nyra

  Other Characters

  GWYNDOR: Masked Owl, Tyto novaehollandiae, a Rogue smith summoned by the Pure Ones for the Marking ceremony over Kludd’s bones

  A peek at

  THE GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLE

  Book Eight: The Outcast

  Nyroc had the eerie sensation of someone watching him, following him perhaps. He now realized he had felt this since first arriving at the sycamore tree. And when he had been by the lakeside, almost swallowed by despair, in the back of his tattered gizzard he had sensed this presence watching. But he had been too distraught to care.

  Now, as Nyroc approached the sycamore, he noticed a curious green glow emanating from the hollow. Cautiously, he poked his head in, then gasped in disbelief. Two luminous, bright green snakes were suspended by their tails from a ridge in the hollow. Nest-maids? No, these are not the nest-maid snakes he’d heard civilized owls often had. They can’t be.

  The snakes’ eyes glittered turquoise. Their fangs were long. Nest-maids would never have such fangs! Nyroc thought. Their tongues flicked about as if tasting the air, and they were the strangest tongues imaginable. They were forked like most snakes’ tongues, but one side was pale ivory and the other was crimson. It suddenly dawned on Nyroc! He knew what kind of snakes these were. His mother had spoken of them. He had heard her talking about them to her top lieutenant, Stryker. She had wanted to recruit these snakes for a special elite unit in the Pure Ones. These were the flying snakes of Ambala. The most venomous snakes in the world!

  “She sent you, didn’t she?” Nyroc asked.

  “Yesssssss,” one hissed.

  “I knew she would find me one way or the other,” Nyroc whispered. “Here.” He stepped into the hollow and thrust his chest out. “Just do it now. Do it quickly.”

  “Do what now?” the other one said. The words seemed to slither off the snake’s tongue.

  “Just kill me, quickly. Here, right to the heart.” He nodded his head and with his beak poked the feathers on his chest.

  “What issssss he talking about?” said the first snake to his companion.

  “We didn’t come here to kill you,” said the other snake.

  “But I’m not going back with you. I will never go back to her, to the Pure Ones.”

  There was a flash as both snakes, in one quick green fluid motion, slipped from their perches to the floor of the hollow where they arranged themselves into neat coils. With their heads waving hypnotically they spoke in unison:

  “We are not emisssssssssaries from the Pure Ones. We detesssst the Pure Ones.”

  “You do?” Nyroc blinked in amazement.

  “We do,” answered the first snake. “My name is Slynella and this is my mate, Stingyll.”

  “But you said that she sent for me?”

  Both snakes nodded, looping their heads into figure eights and then resting them in a knot on top of their coiled bodies. It was rather dizzying to watch.

  “So who is ‘she’?” Nyroc asked.

  “She is Misssssst,” Slynella replied.

  “She is the watcher in the woods,” said Stingyll. “She has been watching you ssssince you arrived in Ambala.”

  “She has?”

  Both snakes once more went through the elaborate nodding procedure, unknotting their heads from the figure eights and then knotting them again.

  “But who is she? Why does she care about me?” Nyroc asked.

  “She is a very ssssssspecial owl.”

  “Oh, she is an owl?”

  “Mosssst definitely,” Stingyll answered.

  “She often ssssends us on misssssions. The lassst time, I came to save a Barn Owl by the name of Ssssssssoren.”

  “Soren!” Nyroc couldn’t believe his ear slits. “You helped save Soren?”

  “Yesssss, that was some years back. He had been badly wounded. His wound became ‘gamby,’ as we ssssay. My venom ssssaved him.”

  “Your venom saved him? I thought your venom killed.”

  “It does that, too.” And both snakes now laughed, making a strange, slurred hissing sound.

  “So who exactly is this Mist?”

  “You shall sssssee. She lives with the eagles. Sssssome call her Hortensssse.”

  “Wait a minute! Wait just one little minute. I have already met one Hortense, that Great Gray, very young and very rude. I didn’t like him a bit.”

  “There are many named Hortensssse in the foresssst of Ambala. It is an honor to be named Hortensssse, no matter if you are born female or male. But Missst is the original Hortenssse, a hero beyond compare. They ssssay a hero is known by only one name in Ambala—Hortensssse. But there is truly only one Hortensssse, and she now calls herself Misssst and she lives apart from the other owls. She lives with the eagles.”

  “With eagles?”

  Once more they nodded, but Slynella and Stingyll must have gotten tired, for this time they did only half a figure eight.

  “And she really wants to meet me?”

  “She does. She does, indeed.”

  “Does she know who I am?”

  But by this time the snakes were slithering out of the hollow and casting themselves onto the breeze that stirred with the new day. Nyroc hesitated not out of fear, but astonishment. Flying snakes! Incredible. But I am seeing them, he thought.

  “Follow usssss,” Stingyll said, twisting his head around. “Follow usss!” Both snakes flattened themselves into ribbons that rippled in slow, undulating motions over the waves and billows of windy air.

  Higher and higher they flew until they were far above the forest. Soon Nyroc spied a rocky promontory. Scraped by wind and scoured by endless winter storms, the rock had been worn to a smooth finish, and atop the promontory was the most enormous nest Nyroc had ever seen. Its circumference was at least the size of the crown of a very large tree. He had heard about eagles’ nests but he had never seen one. No mere twigs were used in its construction. The nest was built from long, sturdy branches woven together in a seemingly haphazard fashion. And perched on its edge were two immense eagles. Between them was a figure that Nyroc could not quite make out. He was flying into a rising sun, which was difficult enough, and his day vision could not compare to his night vision. He was not quite sure exactly what he was seeing. But it seemed to him that a patch of speckled fog hovered between the two eagles. Or perhaps not fog, but Mist!

  Copyright

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  eISBN 978-0-545-28338-0

  Text copyright © 2005 by Kathryn Lasky. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Cover art by Richard Cowdrey

 
Cover design by Steve Scott

  First Printing, June 2005

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONEA Perfect Son

  CHAPTER TWOA Reprimand

  CHAPTER THREEThe Marking

  CHAPTER FOURFirst Prey

  CHAPTER FIVEWhat Does This Young’un See?

  CHAPTER SIXMurder with a Cute Name

  CHAPTER SEVENHammer and Tongs!

  CHAPTER EIGHTFacts of Life and Death

  CHAPTER NINEBurrowing Owls to the Rescue

  CHAPTER TENOne Wing Beat at a Time

  CHAPTER ELEVENFree Will

  CHAPTER TWELVEBlood in the Flames

  CHAPTER THIRTEENNegotiating with Crows

  CHAPTER FOURTEENThe Chase Begins

  CHAPTER FIFTEENPhillip’s Story

  CHAPTER SIXTEENA Speck in the Sky

  CHAPTER SEVENTEENPieces of Me!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEENShredded

  CHAPTER NINETEENIt Hurts

  CHAPTER TWENTYAway

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONEA Fallen Tree

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWOThe Riddle of the Forest

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREEA New World

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURA Terrible Beauty

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVEA Legend of Coals

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXThe Spirit Woods

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENDire Wolves

  A peek atTHE GUARDIANS of GA’HOOLEBook Eight: The Outcast

 


 

  Kathryn Lasky, The Hatchling

 


 

 
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