To demonstrate, Nyra tipped her head one way then another.
“You’re right, General Mam, as always. I have been distracted.” Nyroc was replying mechanically in just the tone his mum expected after a reprimand. It signaled total obedience. “I offer no excuses except that I was deeply moved by my great father’s Marking ceremony.”
He blinked three times. His mother’s words came back to him. You shall grow into your father’s battle claws, Nyroc. They are the sacred relic of the Pure Ones. You are the only one fit to wear them into battle. Regard them closely, my hatchling.
Nyroc was indeed inspired. He could imagine the claws sinking into flesh in battle. And this, now, was his first battle—his First Prey ceremony. He began to swing his head just as his mother had demonstrated in the lesson on directional ear slit maneuvering. Within seconds he had picked up the noise of scampering feet. It was coming from his downwind side. His left ear was receiving the sound before his right ear. He angled his tail and began to fly in the direction of the noise source. It was the chipmunk, he was fairly sure. The sound of the chipmunk’s feet and then its breathing came to both ear slits at almost the same time. There was only the difference of a fraction of a second.
In another three seconds, Nyroc had begun the plunging kill-spiral. While spiraling, he managed to stay with the prey—silently. The ground rushed toward him, but Nyroc kept his eyes on the striped back of the little chipmunk.
The squeak as Nyroc sank his talons into the fleshy sides of the rodent was very tiny—more a squeak of surprise than pain. Even so, for a creature that small there was an awful lot of blood. Overhead he heard cheers. He had not known that others would be attending his First Prey ceremony. But Uglamore, Wortmore, and Dustytuft, of course, and the Rogue smith Gwyndor were flying above in a circle formation to welcome the new hunter.
“Hooray! Hooray! You got your first prey!” The cheer rang out into the darkening night. Nyra took the dying animal from his talons and squeezed the blood from it over Nyroc’s head. When they returned to their rocky nest, Nyroc’s white face was red with the chipmunk’s blood. His gizzard squirmed uncomfortably as he felt the mask of blood drying, tightening on his face.
There was a celebration that night on the ledges between the Great Horns, the two peaks that rose like the tufts of a Great Horned Owl into the starry sky. Nyroc saw his mum in deep conversation with Gwyndor. She saw her son perched off to one side, alone and in deep thought. She came up to him and gave him a gentle swat. The other owls his age were off in playful flights riding the thermals off the Great Horns. They had not invited Nyroc to join them. “Don’t be a spoilsport, dear. This is your celebration. You don’t look happy at all. What in Glaux are you thinking about?”
Nyroc hesitated a minute while he commanded another thought to enter his head so he would not have to tell his mother what he was truly thinking about. He knew this was close to lying. He had never told a lie before, never even dreamed of it, and especially not to his mum. “You really want to know, Mum?”
“Of course I want to know.”
“Green,” Nyroc said quietly. “I was thinking about green.”
Nyra blinked and then narrowed her eyes. Sometimes her son confounded her. She would perceive a glimmer of something in him that made her uneasy. He was so disciplined. She credited herself for developing that in him, but how could such a controlled mind be thinking about something so ridiculous as green? “Green? Green what?” she screeched.
“Green, the color green. I want to know what green is.”
“Leaves are green,” Nyra said with exasperation.
“But I’ve never seen a leaf. Everything is burnt up around here.”
“Well, someday, after your Special ceremony—if you perform your Special ceremony in a brave manner—I’ll fly you to a place so you can see a living tree.”
“Really, Mum? Really! Oh, Mum, I love you sooo much.”
Nyra looked at him strangely. Where did he learn these things? These words like “love”?
Later during the celebration when he and Dustytuft were riding the thermals, Nyroc spotted his mum on a ledge below in deep conversation with Gwyndor again.
“Dustytuft, what’s Mum talking to Gwyndor about, and how come he’s still here? I thought he had just come for the Marking at the Final ceremony.”
“I’m not sure. Rumor has it that she is trying to get him to make some fire claws.”
“What are fire claws?” Nyroc asked.
“The deadliest kind of battle claws. Somehow they put a live coal in the tip of each claw. It allows a soldier to fight within intense heat at very close range.”
“Glaux. It sounds exciting! Have you ever fought with them?”
Dusty blinked. “Of course not. You don’t think they would give a lowly Sooty Owl such a powerful weapon?”
“Oh, Phillip,” Nyroc said softly. “I’m going to talk to Mum about getting you promoted.”
“That’s very kind of you, Nyroc, but I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Why not? She’s let you become my best friend.”
“Yes,” Dustytuft replied, trying not to let his voice quaver or betray his anxiety. This special treatment by Nyra was still confounding him. That she would let her precious hatchling become such good friends with a Sooty Owl was not easily explained.
CHAPTER FIVE
What Does This Young’un See?
It was a chilly dawn and normally Nyroc’s mum would have been there all fluffy and cozy to nestle up against. She had been there a short time before when they had nestled in for their day sleep. It was most unusual for his mum to be gone at this hour. Nyroc stood up a little straighter. He cocked his head one way and then the other. He heard whisperings from a ledge several feet below him. In the pit of a stone well there were the twigs and curls of bark laid out.
“Look here, Gwyndor,” Nyra was saying. “Isn’t this a perfect place for a forge? I had my lieutenants bring in this kindling for you. I think you could get a fire going hot enough for some good fire claws.”
“It’s not that, madam.”
“Well then, what is it?”
“It’s difficult to explain. But I am not comfortable making the claws.”
“Battle claws, be they fire claws or not, have never been a matter of comfort.”
“But they do bad things to the Glaux-given talons we have. They scorch and ruin your talons, madam.”
“But they kill so well!” Nyra replied harshly, and then blinked at Gwyndor as if he were the stupidest creature in the world.
“Yes. That they do.”
“Hi, Mum,” Nyroc said as he lighted down next to the spot where Nyra and Gwyndor were talking.
“What are you doing here? You have no business being out of the hollow at this time of the morning,” his mum said sharply.
Gwyndor backed away and pretended to be fiddling with something in his blacksmith’s kit.
“I just wanted to ask you one question, Mum.”
“What is it now?” Nyra gave him a withering look. Questions again! Always questions. Too many questions, she thought. That is what confounded her, made her uneasy about her son.
“I was wondering if…maybe you would consider promoting Dustytuft? You know, not to a lieutenant or anything but maybe a sublieutenant.”
Nyra looked confused for a minute. Then her deep black eyes cleared and a sly sparkle lit them. “Yes, dear. That is a very good idea and actually I was planning that for your Special ceremony—a promotion of sorts.”
“Oh, Mum, this will be great. I can’t wait to tell him.”
“Don’t!” she squawked. “It’s to be a surprise. No one is supposed to know until the minute it happens. You keep your beak shut!”
“Oh, yes, Mum. I will,” he said.
“I mean it, Nyroc. One peep out of you and the ceremony is canceled.”
“Madam, I don’t mean to interrupt this important discussion with your son, but I have changed my mind,” Gwyndor said.
“C
hanged your mind? Changed your mind about what?”
“I shall stay on and make the fire claws,” Gwyndor said. As he spoke he flipped his head about so he would not have to look directly into Nyra’s eyes.
“We deeply appreciate this, Gwyndor,” she said. “What, might I ask, accounts for this change of mind?”
“I don’t know, madam.” He paused. “Sometimes one just feels that one must do something and is not sure why.”
“I’ll tell you why you changed your mind. You did it because you knew it was the right thing to do.”
Gwyndor blinked and then replied, “Yes, I think perhaps you could say that. It is the right thing to do.” When he spoke these words he was not looking at Nyra but at her son, Nyroc. He was staying for the hatchling’s sake and yet he did not know why. “But I must tell you, madam, I shall have to fly off for a brief time before I start the claws. I must collect the right metals and the right embers for this job. It requires special materials.” Even saying the word “special” made a shiver run through Gwyndor’s gizzard.
It was a lie of course. Gwyndor had all the materials he needed with him. His intention was to contact the nearest slipgizzle and find out all he could about this Special ceremony. Slipgizzles were the secret agents that informed the Guardians of Ga’Hoole of the doings in other kingdoms. Many Rogue smiths also happened to be slipgizzles. The fact was that Rogue smiths were known for being mavericks, slightly eccentric, usually without family ties, and not attached to any particular group—few gave out their true names. But Gwyndor had been raised in a very traditional family and was familiar with all of the customs and ceremonies of owl families and communities. Yet he had never in all his life and wanderings encountered anything called the Special ceremony. It worried him and he felt it was urgent that he learn more about the ceremony planned for Nyroc, which the Pure Ones kept shrouded in such secrecy. Therefore, he had decided to go to the nearest slipgizzle he could find. He had heard there was a new Rogue smith somewhere between the Shadow Forest and the Barrens. He would go search for that smith. He hoped the smith might be a slipgizzle. Slipgizzles knew just about everything. So one of them might know what this Special ceremony was all about.
As the grays of twilight gathered on the evening of that same day, Nyroc saw Gwyndor packing his kit to leave. “I thought you had already left,” Nyroc said as he lighted down on the ledge.
“Naw, too many crows around to fly off until it really gets dark.”
“I’ve heard about crows,” Nyroc said.
“And I’ll wager that everything you’ve heard about them is true. A frinkin’ awful lot they are. You don’t want to be caught out alone in daylight, believe me. There’ll be a mob of them on you ‘fore you can cry ‘Glaux help!’”
Nyroc was looking at the tools of Gwyndor’s trade. This Masked Owl, who could draw fire from a bucket and twist metal into odd shapes with his hammer and tongs, fascinated him. He peered now into the glowering bucket of coals.
“You like my little fellows in there, do you, lad?” Gwyndor said.
“Yes, I guess so.” Even though the coals had not ignited into flames, to Nyroc they seemed to breathe like living things and like living things they had stories, the shapes of which he could almost see deep within their radiant glow. When he had told his mother that he had been thinking about the color green, he had actually been thinking about the images he had glimpsed in the flames at the Marking and the story he felt the flames would reveal if he dared to look again. And yet there was a compulsion growing in Nyroc to know this story. The truth! Yes, he felt that this truth had something to do with his terrible uncle Soren. But he could not be sure. And then again what could be worse or more frightening than what the bones of a split spine had already revealed—the murderous rampage of Soren that had killed his father?
Once again, Gwyndor regarded him. A strange feeling tingled in the Masked Owl’s gizzard. What does this young’un see even now in the coals that have not yet sparked into flames?
CHAPTER SIX
Murder with a Cute Name
Gwyndor rose over the burnt land, spiraling higher and higher. The Rogue smith, the best slipgizzle he knew, had once lived in Silverveil and even forged some battle claws for the Pure Ones, but rumor had it that one of their lieutenants had roughed her up and she had left Silverveil and gone somewhere near the border of the Shadow Forest and the Barrens. But where? He would have to rely on his instincts. And Rogue smiths had very good instincts concerning where their fellow smiths might set up shop. There were certain kinds of landscape that suited them better than others. They liked caves, for one thing, caves in old-growth forests that grew close to new-growth ones. The new-growth forests provided them with brush and tinder for their fires. But the old-growth forests with their widely spaced trees allowed the smoke from their fires to clear out more quickly.
Rogue smiths liked the ruins of old castles and churches from the time of the Others in particular. The Rogue smith of Silverveil had set up in a prime spot when she had worked there. He wondered if someone else had taken it over. It wasn’t that much out of his way to fly there and take a look. Glaux, if no one had claimed the spot he might set up there himself once he left the Pure Ones for good—which couldn’t be soon enough. The higher he flew and the farther away he went, the better he felt. But something had gotten to him about that little hatchling—Nyroc. He knew he had to come back before that Special ceremony took place. But he would be useless if he came back without knowing what it was about. He hoped he could find out. He supposed if he couldn’t find the Rogue smith he was looking for he could fly back to Ambala and seek out Mist again. She might know. But the winds this time of year were not favorable for flying to Ambala. It would take too much time beating against those easterlies.
By the time the constellation of the Golden Talons was rising in the eastern sky, Gwyndor was flying over Silverveil on a direct course for the old ruins where the Rogue smith had once set up her shop. “By Glaux!” the Masked Owl muttered as he saw tendrils of smoke rising in the night. “Someone has already claimed it!” Then as if to confirm the fact, he heard the sound of hammer on anvil ringing out into the night.
He began a banking turn as he prepared to fly in. The forge was going full blast, and he could see the owl busily at work with hammer and tongs. It was not good to interrupt a smith in the midst of work. It could even be dangerous. So Gwyndor lighted down on a stone wall that had once enclosed a walled rose garden and waited patiently until the smith turned from the work.
The smith was making what looked like a rather elaborate decorative piece of some sort. Gwyndor supposed that since the defeat of the Pure Ones, there had not been much call for battle claws. He watched as the smith dipped the red-hot piece into a stone basin of water and then turned around. The Masked Owl blinked in amazement. It was she—the old Rogue smith of the Silverveil.
“Thought someone was here,” she said. The Snowy Owl’s pure white plumage was sooty with ash.
“You came back!” Gwyndor exclaimed.
“So I did. It’s the best place for a smithy in the Southern Kingdoms. I didn’t want to give it up because of those bullies. Only the ragtag ends of them left now, and I understand they are down in the canyonlands somewhere.”
“That they are,” Gwyndor replied. The Snowy looked up with interest.
“You say that as if you know for sure.”
“I do. That’s why I’m here.”
“Don’t ask me to make anything for them numbskull owls. The war’s over. I’m finished with war, as a matter of fact. I’m into”—she paused for dramatic effect—“more artistic things.” She held the tongs up in the air. There was an oddly twisted thing pinched between the two parts of the tongs.
“What’s that?”
“It’s free-form, abstract. You know, I come from a very artistic family.” Gwyndor had heard something of this. It was said that this Snowy’s sister was the famous singer of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.
?
??What does it do?”
“It pleases me,” the Snowy said simply.
“It pleases you?”
“That’s reason enough to make something. Not everything has to be useful.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Gwyndor replied, but he had not come here to be lectured by an artistic blacksmith. “Look, the reason I came—well, it’s hard to explain.”
“Start by explaining why you were mucking around with those frinkin’ owls.”
Gwyndor was relieved. This sounded like the old Rogue smith he knew. She was known for her salty language. So Gwyndor explained as best he could and when he finished the Snowy stared at him for several seconds before speaking.
“Let me get this straight—you went there because you felt that Mist somehow sent you, without ever saying to do it?” Gwyndor nodded. The Snowy continued. “She has a way of doing that, I know. And you say you think this hatchling might have fire sight, could be a flame reader?” Again Gwyndor nodded. “Well, my friend, other than Orf, there hasn’t been a flame reader in more than one hundred years. They are extremely rare. But go on. You haven’t gotten to your very important question.”
“Yes,” Gwyndor sighed. “You see, this little fellow…They call him Nyroc.”
“Figures,” the Snowy said disdainfully. “Mum’s name is Nyra, right?”
“Yes. And let’s hope this one doesn’t grow up to be like his mum—or his da. But as I was saying, Nyroc has gone through all the usual ceremonies a young owlet has to do by now. Just had his First Prey ceremony. He got himself a nice plump little chipmunk.”
“Never cared for them myself,” the Snowy said. “They give me gas.”
“Well, the next ceremony is one I have never heard of.”
“What do you mean, never heard of? The next ceremony after First Prey should be First Moss. That’s always a fun one—going out looking for all the softest mosses for the hollow.”
“Well, there’s no moss now in the canyonlands. So maybe they have to substitute something. I don’t know.”
“What do they call it?” she asked.