From her command position outside the yondos, Nyra squinted into the rising sun. The glare was ferocious. Not only did the sun burn, but two east-facing volcanoes, Dunmore and Morgan, had begun to erupt sporadically. The glare of the flames intensified. The battleground became quiet for the moment. “We shall hold off for now. We need to regain our strength and wait for reinforcements,” Nyra shouted to her troops.
Next to her the Striga perched. He leaned over and whispered to her, “Just eighteen more hours, and then, my dear…”
Nyra once again silently railed at the intimacy of the Striga’s tone. It had no place on a battlefield. “Yes, eighteen more hours until the great hatching. And you feel the first flight could come almost immediately?”
“Yes, I am certain.”
The hours of the day crept by slowly. In each camp the leaders, though exhausted, could not rest. Coryn was in deep discussion with his uncle and the rest of the Band.
“So,” Soren said, turning to Hamish. “As far as we know there’s been no news from the slink melf as to whether they arrived at the Ice Talons.”
“I doubt they would send any word back. The only way we would know is if someone spotted Namara and her clan of wolves swimming across the Everwinter Sea and up the straits.”
“So we must simply wait,” Digger said ominously.
A young lieutenant from the Frost Beaks appeared. It was a Scops Owl, tiny, with delicate talons. “A message from the enemy: They want to parley.”
“It could be a trick,” Otulissa said immediately.
“Could be, yes,” Coryn said. But he was anxious to hear what they had to say. Was it time for Operation Death Lure? He swiveled his head toward Hamish, who since the war had begun, had become an indispensable advisor because of his knowledge of the territory.
“We can send a wolf guard with you. I would advise meeting them on the high ridgeline just outside the Hot Gates,” Hamish said.
“No,” Coryn said. “I will take only my uncle, Soren.”
Coryn and Soren flew to the ridge. Nyra and the Striga faced them on another ridge.
“Listen to me,” Nyra shouted out. “Do not think that because we are outside the Hot Gates of the Sacred Ring we have retreated. Clever of you to polish those ice shields. But the dawn dies as the sun rises. And reinforcements come. By noon tomorrow your flame squadron, your Strix Struma Strikers, your Frost Beaks will be finished because our hagsfiends will blot out the sun and you will die.”
“Then we shall fight you in the shade!” Coryn replied.
“Be sensible. Lay down your weapons.” The Striga stepped forward on the perch.
“Come and get them,” Coryn said in a deadly voice that rang out. A wild cheer went up from the colliers of the Sacred Ring. “Our parley is over!”
As they flew back, Soren glanced at the shields. Nyra was right. This trick would only work at dawn, but he thought, Supposing we could form a phalanx of ice shields, overlapping ice shields that could be strategically moved? A mobile unit? The hagsfiends’ most powerful weapon was their fyngrot, the deadly yellow glare that streamed from their eyes, which induced an instant paralysis and caused its victims to go yeep. But what if the poisonous yellow glare could be turned back on the attackers?
“We need Otulissa!” Soren said. “I have an idea.”
The fighting resumed shortly after the parley, but there was enough time to arrange flying phalanx. It was composed of the largest owls and captained by the eagles Zan and Streak, who had accompanied the Ambalan owls to the front. The eagles were large enough to manipulate two shields each in their talons and another in their beaks. They would make up the center span of the phalanx. Gylfie flew as the coxswain, or steer bird. Her task was to call out the shifting positions in accordance with the hagsfiends’ movements and the wind. The flying ice shield would have to be navigated through the sky, and the tiny Elf Owl’s navigation skills were unequaled. She was precisely the owl for this job.
As the day dwindled into night, a short cease-fire was called and the moon rose, full shine in its cycle. This night would bring the eclipse. The tension among the animals increased. An unnerving silence settled on the battlefield, a sense of unreality as all waited for that moment when the earth’s shadow would creep across that of the moon, first just nibbling away at its luminous roundness, then gnawing great chunks from it, and finally swallowing it. Would those dark eggs in the ice nests begin to hatch? After a thousand years, would the hagsfiends slip back once more into the world of owls?
The quiet thickened. “They will hatch. They will come!” a voice screeched. It was the Striga who spoke. The night grew blacker and blacker as the earth’s shadow slid on its inexorable path across the moon, and into the darkness he whispered, “And when the moon shines again, there will be a new order and I shall rule with my queen, Nyra, the supreme, all-powerful Empress of the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones.”
There was an enormous shree. Coryn recognized it as the voice of his mother, Nyra. She and the Striga were both drunk on the vision of their own impending omnipotence. Coryn thought, They are defying Glaux. They believe they are Glaux, and that is their fatal flaw!
While every creature on the field of battle tipped its head to watch the moon, Coryn slipped back to the armory. There were still stains of Quentin’s blood on the cave’s floor, though his body had been removed. Coryn dipped his beak into one of the countless buckets, extracted the Ember of Hoole, and, under the cover of the complete blackness of the eclipse, flew toward Hrath’ghar, the very same volcano from which he had taken the ember many moon cycles before. This, Coryn knew, was the most important mission of his life. Many thoughts streamed through his mind. His gizzard quivered with a storm of sensations. It seemed not that long ago that he had retrieved the ember. Now, Coryn thought, I am returning it. His greatness had begun with the ember. But what I do now is greater. This I know. And Coryn’s gizzard tingled with a joy that he had never before known. He remembered vividly that day when he had retrieved the ember. He had whistled out of Hrath’ghar’s crater with a blazing rainbow of sparks streaming from the ember. The cheers, the wild joy that swept through the air! Within a space of seconds, he had gone from outcast to hero, from the son of tyrants to king of the most noble owls on earth. But now Coryn knew that it was better to release than to retrieve, to yield rather than capture. He neared the rim of Hrath’ghar, then he was in the deep cauldron of its crater. He swooped and flew close to the leaping flames within the crater, which suddenly died down as if to welcome him. Bubbles of lava boiling to the surface popped open like dark mouths awaiting the gift they were about to receive. Coryn dropped the ember quietly, closed his eyes, and felt, despite the fierce heat of the volcano, a cool breeze. A profound relief swept through his gizzard. “At last,” he murmured. At last! But he did not linger. The fighting would resume as soon as the moon’s light returned. He would be ready.
At the same moment Coryn dropped the ember into the crater, the first contingent of the blue owls of the Danyar Division arrived. The horizon was touched with a strange blue tinge. So startling was the spectacle of the legions of iridescent owls that there was a lull in the fighting. All eyes were trained on the horizon to the far west. No one noticed Coryn flying over the volcano save one: Hamish, who scampered from a wolf hole dug near the front lines and walked almost casually in the direction Coryn was flying. He did not want to attract attention. But almost as soon as Coryn had taken the ember, Hamish had sensed it, for he had been a member of the Watch. It was like a distant call, a summoning. He felt his leg begin to grow crooked again and the limp return. But he felt his body grow stronger, as was the way with gnaw wolves of the Sacred Watch. His muscles and sinews swelled. Despite his limp, a litheness suffused his body. He was the new Fengo of the Sacred Watch. The keenest, most alert, most powerful wolf became the Fengo. He raised his snout. The she-winds, those winds unique to the Sacred Ring, had begun to blow. He climbed to the top of one of the towering mounds of gnaw bones. These mo
unds, or cairns, encircled the volcanoes of the Sacred Ring. When the ember lay buried in a volcano, atop each cairn a gnaw wolf sat its watch. Hamish looked. He saw his old teacher, Banquo, returning to the mound next to his, and then came Fleance, and Donalbain. They know! thought Hamish. Banquo gave him a slight nod as if to say, “‘Tis back.” His tilted green eyes sparkled as the moon emerged from earth’s shade. One minute passed, then another, then an hour, and yet there was nary a sign of a hagsfiend. But then in the glare of the full-shine moon, an alarm went out. Wolves, but not those of the Sacred Watch, began to howl.
Hamish was suddenly alert. His ears pricked forward. He tipped his head toward the sky, which was streaked with moonlight. But still no hagsfiends.
“Who is the traitor?” someone roared. Then the MacNamara clan stormed in. Namara had Cato MacHeath by the throat. She threw his body down. “They are coming. The Pure Ones. Hecate showed them the old caribou pass, round back of the yondos. They come now. See them.”
“But no hagsfiends?” Coryn had landed beside the wolf.
“No.” Namara immediately prostrated herself before her commander, in the position of submission. “There are no hagsfiends. Nor will there be. Eggs destroyed. Mission accomplished, Your Majesty.” Alighting next to her were two owls, Braithe, a Whiskered Screech from Ambala, and his mate, Fiona. Braithe now stepped forward. “The wolves of Namara fought splendidly, sir.”
The world resolved itself into a velvety darkness. The she-winds died to a whisper and all that could be heard was the crackling of lava bubbles in the volcanoes’ craters. There was a sudden beating of wings. And a shrill cry from Nyra, “Two thousand strong we are now. Surrender the ember and we shall go in peace.”
“Never!” Coryn shouted back.
Why doesn’t he say that the ember is gone? That it is deep in the crater? Hamish wondered. What is he trying to do? And then it struck Hamish. Coryn wanted to use it as the lure. The ember might be buried, but Coryn had unfinished business. And this was, in a sense, the ember’s last glow. And, Hamish thought as the reality dawned on him, Coryn will never rest until he knows Nyra is dead.
“Lay down the ember!” Nyra cried out.
And this time he replied, “Come and get it.”
Coryn quickly seized a bonk coal. Where it came from, Hamish was not sure. Perhaps he had been carrying it all along. Hamish slid his green eyes toward the other gnaw wolves of the watch. They know, he thought. They know. Coryn might be able to fool Nyra, fool all the animals who had gathered, but not the wolves of the Watch. They knew that this ember that Coryn now held in his talon was not the Ember of Hoole.
“The moon shines bright! There are no hagsfiends. Dispatch the ice phalanx.” Coryn whispered the command. In the meantime, there were the gusty sounds of the lethal Breaths of Qui as the first Danyar legions began their rout of entire squads of Pure Ones.
There was a small blur as Gylfie whizzed through the air and took up her position. “We shall capture the moon!” she cried out. There was a roar of approval as the flying phalanx took wing and suddenly the night was bright as the overlapping ice shields caught the light from the moon and flung it back into the eyes of the assaulting troops.
Ice missiles sliced the dark while the seagulls led by Doc Finebeak strafed the air just above the Pure Ones with round after round of splat. The enemy was confused and blinded by glaring light and seagull poop. It took three Pure Ones to give chase to one Hoolian owl. Bubo had taken over the position of the fallen quartermaster and was quickly issuing black ice goggles to protect the eyes of Hoolian owls from the glare. Fritha was overseeing ignition stations for the owls that fought with fire. Trees of lightning spread their crackling limbs in the dark sky as an electrical storm shattered the night and thunderbolts stabbed the darkness.
Coryn, meanwhile, was luring Nyra closer and closer with the ember. Twilight and Soren were trying to protect him, serving as a flanking guard, but Coryn was so quick it was hard to keep up with him or anticipate where he might dart next. With the ember in his beak, a burning branch in his port talon, and an ice scimitar in his starboard one, he was a fearsome sight. But no more fearsome than Nyra.
Twilight’s gizzard seized as he saw a yellow light begin to seep from her eyes. “Great Glaux,” he whispered. “Is she…?” He dared not complete the thought.
Yes. She was becoming a hagsfiend before their very eyes. The yellow glare grew stronger. Soren saw that Coryn had begun to fly unevenly. “It’s the fyngrot!” Did he shout that or did someone else?
Coryn realized what was happening. He was more frightened than he had ever been before. He could taste the bile of his fear. He could feel his muscles locking. He began to stagger in flight. But when he was the most frightened, he stilled his thoughts, reached deep inside himself to the bottom of his gizzard, and from it he extracted the “ore” of his raw fear. I shall smelt this into courage. I will fight on with my eyes closed if I have to.
At the same time, Coryn had another realization: that although the ember was hidden away and the world was safer, he still had not accomplished all he had set out to do. And if he did not live to be part of that new safer world…well, was not his life a small price to pay for this peace? He knew that he was staring death in the face. And that face was the face of his mother. She had reverted to her true nature. And although his mother’s blood might run through his veins, her nature was not his. He had found his true self in this War of the Ember.
All of his fears dissolved. He was prepared to fly into the wings of death. He had no links to life, no mate, no offspring. But he still had life itself and that he would give gladly, to ensure that Nyra never again tyrannized the world of owls. There would be no peace until she was destroyed. She would never give up. She would always be a threat. This must be the last fight. It must end here, he thought. He felt his gizzard throbbing now, not with pain or anxiety but excitement. He was over the crater of Hrath’ghar from where he had first retrieved the ember.
Soren watched as Coryn, who a minute before had been at his side, suddenly veered off. What is he doing? Soren wondered in alarm as he saw Coryn make a wild dash to the crater’s edge. He was waving the ember, beckoning to Nyra. The rims of craters were notoriously dangerous. She-winds could erupt violently around them as cool air collided with the volcano’s heat to create lethal shears and downdrafts. Was Coryn going to fight his mother at the crater’s edge in the maelstrom of a she-wind? Soren saw Nyra fly directly toward Coryn. The young king was alone now. Twilight had flown off to another skirmish, where his two brothers were outnumbered. Coryn had no one to fight alongside him. Soren had no choice. He hurled himself toward Coryn in the wake of Nyra. If he could only catch up with the vile owl and finish her off! But she’d already reached the rim. He saw Coryn parry and then dive into a gap in the flames of the volcano. Soren blinked. It was an insanely perilous maneuver that Coryn had just executed. But it allowed Soren to slide into a flanking position close to his nephew’s starboard wing.
“You shouldn’t be here, Uncle.”
“I can think of no better place than at your side.” Before they knew it, Nyra had flown into the same space. They began circling one another. It was two against one. Still, it was difficult. The winds were strong, tumultuous. Blessedly, the she-winds had not started to blow. The volcano itself, however, was in a phase of active eruption. Sheets of flames rose like dancing curtains, a labyrinth of fire. And Coryn was leading Nyra deeper and deeper into the maze. Soren was gripped with a fear he had never known, even as a collier diving into forest fires. These flames were different. But he thought, We are colliers, Coryn and I. Nyra is not! We can do this! Deeper and deeper they flew into the very heart of the eruption, skimming the boiling red-black sea of the crater. Not only did they have to dodge flames but crashing waves of molten lava. Why in the name of Glaux has Coryn lured Nyra to this location? Then it suddenly dawned on Soren. He thinks no enemy troops will follow.
They arrived at a clear space where the tunne
ls of flames opened. And just at that same moment, there was a smear of blue. The Striga! The blue owl appeared suddenly through a gap in the wall of flames. He flew to Nyra’s side. Nyra swelled in his presence. Soren saw her eyes brighten. Great Glaux! Yellow poured from her eyes for a second time during this long battle. Could she control it or did it happen without her willing it?
At that moment, Coryn flew toward both the owls, then went into a hover a short distance from his mortal enemies, his mother and the Striga. Soren felt his gizzard lock. Was he snagged in the fyngrot? He saw his nephew slowly extend his talon with the ember almost like an offering as he dipped down in obeisance. The she-winds started to blow and, like maverick tendrils shorn from the main body of the wind, gusts began to seep through the fissures between the flames, disturbing the already confusing air currents. In another two seconds, it would be nearly impossible to fly. Coryn knew he had to act now. He moved in on the two owls.
Tucked under his port wing, Soren carried an ice splinter. He watched carefully, hoping that Coryn could maneuver the owls so he could get a clear shot at either Nyra or the Striga. Suddenly, Soren realized that the ember Coryn held out was a counterfeit, and that the Striga and Nyra did not know this. They were transfixed by the ember. Nyra came closer and closer. If she will only turn just a bit, Soren thought, I will have a clear shot at her.
“At last, an obedient son,” Nyra hissed as she flew closer, extending her own fire-clawed talon. And just as she took the ember, to draw her attention Soren shouted, “It’s fake!” Her eyes opened in horror as she turned toward him, her chest exposed. Now or never! Soren launched the ice splinter directly at her chest. There was a small spurt of blood, then a gush. The splinter had buried itself deep in her heart. She looked again in horror, first at Soren and then Coryn. For a moment she seemed suspended between two columns of flames, and then she said, “You cheated me, your own mother.”
“You dare call yourself my mother?” Coryn said evenly.
The War of the Ember Page 14