(GoG Book 07) The Hatchling Read Online Free PDF Page B

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. Theforge 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. SoGwyndor 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