Guardians Of Ga'hoole #8: The Outcast : The Outcast by Kathryn Lasky

Author:Kathryn Lasky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Legends, Children: Grades 4-6, Fiction, Myths, Animals, Good and evil, Fables, Juvenile Science Fiction, Science Fiction, Ages 9-12 Fiction, Short Stories, Magic, Animals - Birds, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Owls, & Magic, Action & Adventure - General, Action & Adventure, Children's Books, General, Fantasy, Birds
ISBN: 9780439739511
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 2005-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Treating With the MacHeaths

With each step the wolves took and each wing beat of his own, Coryn felt that he was coming closer and closer to his destiny. And he was deeply frightened. He thought he had been sent here to become a teacher for little Coryn, but now he was not so sure. He remembered so long ago when Gwyndor, the Rogue smith, had told him that he had free will. He did not have to do this. He could choose. Mist had said the same thing. He could turn around and fly away. But to where would he fly? Back to Mist? She would be so disappointed in him. Back to Kalo and little Coryn? The Great Ga’Hoole Tree? Oh, how he longed to go there, but he knew that he couldn’t. Not yet. Both Mist and the scroom had told him that there were tasks to be done. But what were the tasks? How did he have to prove himself before he went to the great tree, and why all of a sudden had his life become so bound up with Hamish’s? Was Hamish going to the Sacred Volcanoes because of Coryn? Or was Coryn going there because of Hamish? How had the Ember of Hoole bound them together? Hamish was to be its guardian but what was he, Coryn, supposed to be?

The land of the Sacred Volcanoes was in the farthest reaches of the Beyond. They were heading toward that precipice Coryn had imagined on his first night in the Beyond when he had seen the shimmering moon quiver on the edge of the horizon. For the wolves, the going was slow because there were great snowfields that had to be plowed through. Coryn had slowed his flight so as not to get too far ahead. Poor Hamish was always lagging behind with his lame leg. But Coryn noticed that the other wolves helped him more. Often they would let him eat first at a kill. It was obviously important to them that they deliver their gnaw wolf to his duty.

Hamish had told Coryn a little about the gnaw wolves’ lives at this far edge of the Beyond. They were never allowed to mate or have pups. Their lives were solely devoted to guarding the ember. It was not an easy place to live and there were many dangers.

“It is the harshest weather in all of the Beyond. And the hunting is difficult.”

“Hamish, how will you ever do it with your lame leg? You’ll die of starvation.”

“That is the curious part. All of the gnaw wolves who go there suffer some sort of defect either from birth or injury. My leg is crooked. Another might be missing an eye or a paw. But something happens to them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They grow stronger. If they are missing an eye, the vision in the other eye becomes sharper. Their hearing and their sense of smell are perhaps four times better than a normal wolf’s. A lame wolf

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