The Coming of Hoole Read Online Free PDF

shreds! She had to be alert and pulled together and keen for anything she might hear—not just these aching songs.
    She flew onto another perch. Here, gadfeathers were swooping through the air doing one of their jigs while aGreat Horned Owl belted out another song full of hurt and anger, bad weather, and teardrops that froze feathers.
    Enough of this! thought Siv. She flew off to where a group of owls were picking over a pile of herring that some Fish Owls had delivered. She sidled up to a small clutch of gadfeathers who were busily eating and talking.
    “They say the fighting’s moved back to the H’rathghar glacier. Lord Arrin, you know.”
    “Yeah, the last of H’rath’s guard tried holding him off.”
    “Well, if they’ve moved to the glacier, that’ll free up the Firth of Fangs for a bit of sport flying this summer. Nothing like them smee holes up there.”
    “Yeah, but there be kraals, too.”
    Kraals, Siv thought. What exactly were kraals? She had heard King H’rath speak of them once. She had thought they were some kind of gadfeather, but these owls were speaking as if they were something else entirely.
    “They say that old Screech who used to fly with us went kraal last summer.”
    “They be a nasty lot.”
    “I heard they were settling down somewhere on the glacier.”
    “Naw, you got it mixed up. It’s them Glauxian Brothers who are on the glacier.”
    “No, Mac, them brothers picked up and flew off. Started a retreat somewhere, like the sisters have.”
    This was news to Siv. She knew for a fact that the brothers had lived in the scattered holes on the glacier. Indeed, the brothers had often visited the Glacier Palace during the periods when they were permitted to speak. Throughout the year the brothers kept long periods of silence. And even during the rest of the year, each day had certain hours in which they kept the rule of silence. They had always been welcome at the palace, for both Siv and H’rath had enjoyed them greatly. They were most learned owls, and it had been Siv’s hope that if she and H’rath ever did have a chick, one of the brothers might be convinced to come and tutor it. She had often heard them speak of their longing to have a retreat, a place where they could all live together in what they called a community of learning instead of living scattered. They dreamed of starting a library in which they could keep records of all they had learned. So, it seemed at last they had done this.
    “It’s peaceful over there in the Bitter Sea. Hasn’t been touched by the wars. That’s probably where they’ve gone.”
    “Not much to fight for over there. Not like around here. I heard tell the hagsfiend Ygryk had been spotted not ten leagues from here.”
    Ygryk! Siv’s gizzard froze. Ygryk near here? The thought was too terrible. She would have to be extra careful. She would need more gadfeatherish bits and pieces to tuck in. Nearby was a pile of reindeer moss. She had noticed one gadfeather had swathed some around her head, lending her a rakish air but also obscuring her face. She went to the pile and plucked some up and while arranging it, continued to listen to the two gadfeathers that had been talking.
    “Bitter Sea never freezes up. You ain’t gonna get Lord Arrin over there now that he’s cozied up with the hagsfiends. Too much open water. Salt water. Odd how it be only salt water that gets them hagsfiends, and not rainwater so much.”
    “Lose their half-hags from the salt. Salt usually makes things melt. But when it gets mixed with that poison of the half-hags it makes them freeze up, then the feathers of the hagsfiends start to freeze and down they go. No oil in their feathers, either, like the rest of us, which helps us shed salt water.”
    The terrible half-hags! Siv remembered them vividly. They had never reached her for she had successfully blocked the fyngrot. However, she would never forget the image of them swarming over her mate as he fought Lord Arrin.