The War of the Ember Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gyllbane.
    “Well…well, let her know I’m here. But I’ve got to see her immediately.”
    The wolf now drew herself up to her full height. The sun was setting, washing the land with a soft pink-orange light. Her silvery fur seemed to shimmer. “My name is Blair. How do ye call yourself?”
    “Sveep.”
    “Ah!” she replied. She nodded her head slightly.
    “You know me?”
    “I know of ye. I know that you are the bear that Namara, when she was still Gyllbane, shared a cave with somewhere far north of here. It was the time when she be sick with grief for her son, Cody. I know you were a great comfort to her and that she done poured out her grief until she was left so weak she could not eat and that you fed her some of the milk from your own teats. Milk that was for your cubs.”
    “Oh, my cubs were fat. I had milk to spare.”
    “She might have died had you not.” She sighed. “But she did not tell you of our peculiar ways, I suppose. You saw what I did—” She paused. “—And what my son did not do—when I first came up to you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I made the gestures a wolf would make to one of higher rank.” She then turned to her pup, who was still groveling on the ground. “And until this young’un learns, he shall not go on any byrrgis.” A little whine came from the pile of fur. The pup had hidden his eyes behind his paws in shame. Only the pink of his nose could be seen. Blair continued in her lilting voice. “We have our codes of conduct. The Gaddernock we call it; the way of the dire wolf clans. Now follow me and I will take you to the Gadderheal, our ceremonial cave.”
    “But I just want to see Gyll…I mean, Namara, in her own den. This need not be so…so formal.”
    “Oh, it’s not a matter of formality.”
    “What is it, then?”
    “It’s the only place you’ll fit.”

CHAPTER SIX
Namara Howls
    Y ou say the puffin said something about hagsfiends.” Namara’s eyes glistened like resplendent twin emeralds in the dark gloom of the cave. Outside, tree limbs creaked in a sudden wind. Sveep nodded. “And then you say the other owl, the blue one, said something about the Ember of Hoole?”
    “Not exactly in that order,” Sveep replied. “First, the blue owl said that he knew all about the ember. And then the other owl said something about hagsfiends.”
    Namara’s eyes became green slits. Her hackles rose stiffly, and her ears stood up straight. She began padding about the cave in a tight circle. “This is bad…very bad.”
    “I know nothing about the ember or hagsfiends,” Sveep said. “This is all owl business, isn’t it?”
    “Yes…” Then Namara stopped and peered at her old friend, who had been so helpful to her in the time of her overwhelming grief. “But it is our business, as well.All of us.” She paused again. “Cody.” Her voice broke as she spoke her son’s name, remembering that last image of him dead atop the Book of Kreeth, his throat slashed. “Cody died trying to save the world from hagsfiends.”
    “But I thought they were just creatures of legends, very old legends, and as the owl said, have been gone for a thousand years.” There was a desperate note in Sveep’s voice as if she were grasping for some small thread of hope.
    “I thought that, too, but Coryn told me that the legends, are not mere legends. This book, the one they called the Book of Kreeth, was an ancient tome that had belonged to an arch hagsfiend. It was thought to have formulas and designs for all sorts of haggish inventions and creations. That is why the Guardians fought so hard in the Beyond, to keep it from Nyra and the Pure Ones, and why we helped them.”
    Sveep knew that Gyllbane and Coryn were about as close as a wolf and an owl could be. It was Gyllbane who had been there when Coryn had retrieved the Ember of Hoole. “And tell me, Sveep,” the wolf continued, “the other owl—what did the puffin say it looked like?”
    “Terrible. The puffin said he wasn’t sure if