(GoG Book 07) The Hatchling (2 page)

The lives of owls were filled with ceremonies that marked important events from an owl’s hatching to its death and the Final ceremony. Nyroc had already performed many of these rites. He had gone through the First Meat ceremony, when an owlet eats something other than a worm or a bug for the first time. This had been quickly followed by the First Fur ceremony, when Nyroc first ate his fresh-killed meat with the fur still on it. Next was the First Bones ceremony, when the young hatchling had been deemed mature enough to eat his meat with the bones. Then came the all-important First Pellet ceremony. The fur and bones were packed into a tight little bundle in the gizzard of the owl and then it was “yarped” or expelled through the beak. Because of this neat way of ridding themselves of most of their waste materials, owls considered themselves to have the noblest digestive systems in the bird kingdom. They commonly referred to all other birds as wet poopers.

Today’s First Flight was one of the most important of all the ceremonies and because Nyroc had passed it with such astounding success, he would be permitted to go on to the next ceremony, First Prey, then finally the one that was mysteriously called the Special, or sometimes “Tupsi.”

Cries of “Perfect! Perfection!” rang out. “This is the most perfect example of what our young P.O. Youths should be.” The other young owls wilfed again as they heard their elders exclaiming over Nyroc’s performance.

But there was one, a small Sooty Owl, who did not wilf. Indeed, he seemed to experience quite the opposite reaction. He puffed up and appeared especially pleased with the hatchling’s performance. This owl was known as Dustytuft. In the rigid ordering that defined the Pure Ones’ society he occupied one of the lowest ranks.

Any owl who joined this odd Union of Barn Owls, who claimed to be the purest owls in the entire owl universe, soon learned that some Barn Owls were considered more pure than others. Of the many kinds of Barn Owls, the purest were thought to be the Tyto alba, the Barn Owls with the heart-shaped white faces like Nyroc, his mother, and Uglamore and Stryker. Beneath them in the social order of the Pure Ones were the Masked Owls whose heart-shaped faces were not pure white. Then came the Grass Owls, with even darker heart-shaped faces. Toward
the bottom of the rankings were the Greater Sooties, like Dustytuft, and lowest of all, beneath the Greater Sooties, were the Lesser Sooties.

Dustytuft, like all Greater Sooties, known more formally as Tyto tenebricosa, looked as if he’d been sprinkled with coal dust, leaving only a few white spots flecking his darker upper parts. His face was not precisely heart-shaped but looked a little more squashed.

It was Dustytuft’s particular misfortune in life to have been born into this second-lowest order of Tytos. Indeed, until the hatching of Nyroc, Dustytuft thought himself to be the most miserable owl in the world. He had never wanted to join the Union. It had been his father’s idea. After the great forest fire in Silverveil in which the rest of his family had perished, his father had gone a bit yoicks and felt their future lay with the powerful and mysterious group of owls known as the Pure Ones. His father had then gotten himself killed in his first battle, a minor skirmish with a small group of Ga’Hoolian owls.

It was not long after his father’s death that Dustytuft began to understand how truly awful it was to be a Sooty Owl within the Union of the Purest. His formal name might include the word Tyto, but it seemed to count for nothing. With no father and a lineage considered less pure, less noble than those Tytos who ranked above him, he had
been given all of the worst jobs. They would not even allow him to be called by his real name, which he had forgotten although he was certain it had been something quite distinguished. The Pure Ones had renamed him Dustytuft. All Sooties had similar dirty-sounding names, such as Muddy Wings or Ash Beak. Even now there was a Lesser Sooty named Smutty being held prisoner for supposed cowardice in the face of the enemy. Theirs was not an enviable lot. And if Dusty had said “it ain’t fair” once, he had said it a thousand times.

But all that had changed when the hatchling was born. It had seemed just short of miraculous at the time, how Dustytuft had been summoned to attend the hatching. And then ever since that momentous occasion when the earth slid between the moon and the sun, it was as if Dustytuft himself had slipped into a new, more exalted orbit within the solar system that was known as the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones. His fortunes had definitely changed. He was asked to attend to the young hatchling at every important ceremony. Indeed, he and Nyroc had become the best of friends.

So while other young owls wilfed at Nyroc’s flawless performances in every task required to prove himself a fearless and worthy member of the Tytonic Union, Dustytuft rejoiced in his companion’s accomplishments.
He himself would never be tested in this way. He would never be permitted to even dream of being a member of the most elite forces like the scouts or the Fire Talons. He would never be measured for a pair of battle claws to be made by a Rogue smith. But now it didn’t matter. He was the companion and best friend to Nyroc, future leader of the Pure Ones, heir to the most feared title in the owl kingdom—High Tyto!

Y
ou what?” Nyra screeched.

Uh-oh!
thought Nyroc.

“You dare question me about why that Lesser Sooty is a prisoner?”

“I’m sorry, General Mam. I…I…thought…”

“You
didn’t
think. When I say someone is a coward, he is a coward. And that is exactly what Smutty is—a coward. Not only that, he violated the code of spronk.”

“You mean he said something about the Great Ga’Hoole Tree?”

Nyra flinched as Nyroc said the words. “Yes,” she hissed.

“That’s awful, Mum.”

Ever since Nyroc remembered, talk of the Great Tree, except in the most scathing and derogatory terms, was absolutely forbidden. His mother had drummed this lesson into him so completely that whenever the word “Ga’Hoole” was mentioned Nyroc’s ear slits automatically sealed.

This blistering reprimand occurred minutes after Nyroc completed his flawless First Flight ceremony when mother and son were alone in the stone hollow they shared in the cleft of a high cliff. It had been stupid of him to question her. He was never supposed to question his mum.

Although he was barely two months old, Nyroc the hatchling knew that his mother’s moods were unpredictable. One minute he could be basking in the warm glow of her pride and the next minute he was scorched by her anger. Dustytuft had tried to explain it to him many times. “It’s because she loves you so much, Nyroc. And there are things about you that remind her so much of your dear dead da. It must be hard for her. She has great expectations and you know, well…sometimes she just gets a little intense.”

“What’s intense?” Nyroc asked. Dustytuft was older than Nyroc and knew a lot more.

“Well, it just means she gets kind of desperate. She’s proud of you. She really is.”

Dustytuft always made Nyroc feel better. Nyroc didn’t know what he would do without him. For one thing, his life would be very lonely, for none of the other young owls who had been recruited into the Pure Ones seemed to like Nyroc. He sensed their resentment. For the most part he didn’t care. He just wanted to be the best Pure One he
could be. He wanted to be exactly like his da. Even though his da had been killed before he was born, after all the wonderful stories his mother had told him of his father’s greatness, he felt as if he knew him. His only real desire in life was to be as great a leader as Kludd. He felt it was his destiny, although he was not quite sure exactly what that strange word—destiny—meant.

Nyroc was not only an expert flier for such a young owl but he was an expert at something else—erasing unpleasant thoughts from his mind. It was probably this more than anything else that made him a model young owl in the small but growing cadre of young owls being trained to restore the glory of the Union. So that is exactly what he did now: He erased Nyra’s anger by basking in the glow of his recent achievement.

His mother was a stern and unforgiving flight instructor. But how he loved her for that now. He churred softly to himself when he thought of those first lessons. Since the Battle of The Burning the primary element that owls used in their First Flight exercises was missing—trees. Young chicks, unless they had been hatched in the desert, usually began their flying lessons by “branching” or hopping from branch to branch. But since that last battle, the trees of the canyonlands—which had been sparse to begin with—were reduced to charred, jagged stumps. So
there was no hopping from limb to limb for Nyroc but from rock to rock or ledge to ledge. It had not been a problem for him. Within a day he was managing short flights between rock ledges. But his mum was always demanding that he fly faster, and criticized his turns, which she said were messy, not worthy of a “drunk pigeon.”

He gave another churr, the owl form of laughter, when he recalled this. He hadn’t minded flying faster but it made so much noise when he did it. The soft fringe feathers, unique to most owls, were responsible for the lovely silent flight at slower speeds, which he so enjoyed. But his mother insisted that he fly silently at ever greater speeds. Nyra herself was a very noisy flier although she thought she was quite silent. Nyroc could hear her coming in from a league away. She flapped in as noisily as a duck. But not Nyroc. He finally mastered the art of flying fast and silently. That was another bit of praise he had heard from the elders at the ceremony. “So fast! So quiet! Unbelievably gifted!” And another exclaimed, “Swift as an eagle. Silent as an owl. Truly brilliant. Just what we need to rebuild the empire.”

Nyra, too, had heard this last remark and it pleased her. Not counting the new untrained recruits, there were barely twenty Pure Ones left since the last battle, but it was from these remnants that Nyra hoped to rebuild that empire of
greatness, the Tytonic Union, that she and Kludd had ruled. Their past victories had been magnificent. They had invaded and ruled St. Aggie’s, the small but powerful stronghold to the south of where they now were, that possessed an important natural resource—flecks—which could be used to control the minds and gizzards of other owls. But at the last battle with the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, St. Aggie’s had been lost and those flecks had somehow been rendered powerless by the raging fires.

Nyra had flown out on an errand after reprimanding Nyroc and was now back at the hollow in the cleft. She had completely forgotten about her son’s insolent question. She was telling him how all the elders were raving about his performance. “They cannot believe your elegance and speed, my dear. You are perfection, but even perfection can be improved. Those new recruits who have been flying longer than you wish they were nearly as good.”

“Really, Mum?”

“Oh, yes, really. You should be so proud.”

Nyroc thought about this for a moment. Then he nodded. “If I am like you and if I am like my da, yes, then I am proud.” It was the perfect answer. Nyra beamed.

Nyroc often wondered if other owlets’ mothers were like his. Maybe not. But then again other owlets were not destined to become great leaders as he was.

“You see,” his mum continued, “it is very important that you do everything just as I say, because soon your Special ceremony will be coming up. Your Tupsi.”

Nyroc was not exactly sure what Tupsi was. He thought it might be connected to something with the prisoner, Smutty, but he certainly didn’t want to bring that Lesser Sooty up again, for that was what had caused his mum’s violent outburst. “What exactly is the Special ceremony, Mum? And why do they call it Tupsi?”

“When I think you are ready, I’ll tell you all about it and after that ceremony you shall become an officer in the army of the Pure Ones. Oh, your father would have been so proud.” She sighed. “But before that we shall have the Marking, the Final ceremony for your father.”

“When will that be, Mum?”

“As soon as Uglamore and Wortmore can find a Rogue smith.”

“You mean, for fire?” Nyroc said excitedly.

“Yes, my dear. Your father’s bones are all that is left now, and they must be burned because the Final ceremonies of great leaders require fire. It is called the Marking.”

Nyroc felt a tremor of excitement in his gizzard. The Pure Ones did not know how to make fire themselves. They relied entirely on lightning strikes and Rogue smiths. Rogue smiths not only knew how to make fires
that could be controlled but they made hotter fires in which weapons such as battle claws could be made. Although this land in which Nyroc had hatched had been scorched and made treeless and ugly by fire, he was fascinated with the notion that an owl could make fire—small fires with which useful things could be fashioned. He knew that the evil owls of Ga’Hoole were able to make their own weapons and much more with their fires. Nyroc had never even seen a real fire. He had seen only the blackened landscape it had left behind.

Almost as much as he wished to see fire, Nyroc wanted to see a tree, a real tree that was growing and not a charred stump. He had heard rumors of trees with leaves and hollows in which owls could live, hollows that were lined with soft moss. There was no moss in these canyonlands since The Burning. Dustytuft had often tried to describe moss to him, its softness and its colors, which were all shades of green. There was one so soft it was called rabbit’s ear moss. But Nyroc did not even know what the color green was. There was much to ponder in this life—the color green, fire, the rumor of trees in distant places, the softness of moss, and the meaning of the word “destiny.”

T
wenty owls swooped down into the narrow canyon. Nyra was in the lead with Nyroc and Uglamore just behind her. Dustytuft flew next to Nyroc. Once again, Dustytuft was amazed at his exalted position in this group of top lieutenants from the old elite forces for this solemn ceremony—the Marking, the Final ceremony for fallen leaders. That is, Dustytuft thought, fallen leaders whose bodies could be recovered. Too often the vultures got to the dead soldiers first, or if an owl was fatally wounded over the Hoolemere Sea, the body was never found.