The Spring Between Us

Chapter 90: Back to My Pack

We rode out of the capital at midnight with the whole of the autumn gathering behind us.

The Chancellor sent four soldiers and a wagon and the clerk and the Council healer, and the packs came and the town came and the merchants came because there was nothing left to argue about in the capital and because the whole of the autumn gathering had heard what the Chancellor had said in the hall. We went up the north road and then cut across the company road and then down the long trail to the canyon, and the moon went down and the stars came out and nobody spoke much.

I rode at the front with Hank beside me and Nora on my other side and the law book and the box of rulings in my saddlebag, and at the top of the last ridge before the canyon I stopped the horse.

The canyon was below us in the dark. There was no water in it. I could smell the dust from the ridge and the dry stone and the dead grass, and where the creek had been running for three weeks there was only a dry bed and the shine of the moon on the stones.

"The spring house," I said. "The cistern. The town."

"The town is dry," Owen said from behind me. "The cask went empty two days ago. The men are hauling from Green River and it is a day's ride each way and they cannot keep it up."

We went down the ridge in the dark and came into the pack house yard and the yard was full of the pack.

They had heard us coming. The gate was open and there were lanterns and the whole of the Kızıltaş pack was in the yard, the eighteen who had stayed and the twenty two who had left, and they were standing together and they were looking at me.

Sten came out of the hall.

"Luna," he said. "The pack has been waiting. The water is gone. The creek stopped two nights ago and the spring house is dry and the cistern is dry and we have been hauling from Green River and it is not enough." He looked past me at the Council soldiers and the wagon and the whole of the autumn gathering coming down the road. "What is this?"

"The Chancellor," I said. "The autumn gathering. The Council has ruled and the spring is sacred ground and the pair guards it and the Council has no claim on the water." I got down off my horse. "And the spring is dry because the pair was not here to guard it."

The yard was silent.

Inge came forward out of the crowd. She was still wearing her apron and her hands were folded and her face was grey.

"Luna," she said. "I took eleven wolves out of this pack. I went down the mesa road and I told the town that the pack did not stand with you and I told the Council that the pack wanted a trustee." She looked at the ground and then at me. "And then the water stopped and the town stopped and the Council in the capital did not send a wolf and the trustee did not come and we were alone in a dry canyon with no water and no Luna." She lifted her chin. "I have been wrong. The whole pack has been wrong. And I am not going to stand here and say the pack should have you back. I am going to ask you. Will you take the seat again?"

I stood in the yard with the whole of the pack looking at me.

"The Council has stripped me," I said. "I am not the Luna. Not until the Chancellor rules in the open hall at dawn."

"The Chancellor is here," Inge said. "The Chancellor is in this yard. Rule now."

The Chancellor came forward out of the crowd. She was in a travelling coat and she had her hood up and her square jaw was set, and she looked at the whole of the pack and at the dry cistern and at the lanterns.

"The Council will rule now," she said. "The Council of Alphas declares that the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack is the lawful Luna and that her seat is restored. The Council declares that the pair is lawful and that the bond is lawful and that the pair shall be declared in the open hall at dawn." She looked at me. "Luna. The Council has ruled. Will you take the seat?"

I looked at the pack. Eighteen had stayed and twenty two had left and every one of them was in that yard now, and they were looking at me and their faces were not the faces of wolves who had voted against me. They were the faces of wolves who had been thirsty for a month.

"I will take the seat," I said. "But I am not going to take it alone. The pair holds it. The Alpha of the Çöl pack and I hold it together and the canyon is one people under the pair and there will be no more Kızıltaş water and Çöl water. There will be canyon water and it will be shared."

The yard stirred. Sten said, "Luna. The Çöl pack is a rival pack. My father was killed at that border."

"Your father was killed at that border because a Council man wanted him killed at that border," I said. "The pack that killed him was the pack that was told to kill him. And the Alpha of that pack has been in a mine tunnel with his mouth on a Kızıltaş boy's mouth and his hands on his chest. And the whole of this canyon has seen it." I looked at Sten. "So I am going to ask you a thing and I want you to think about it. The pact says the pair is one wolf and one wolf holds both packs. So are you going to stand in this yard and tell me you will not have a Çöl wolf in your hall? Or are you going to stand in this yard and tell me you will have water?"

Sten looked at me for a long moment.

"Water," he said.

"Then go and get the horses," I said. "We are going to the spring house tonight and the whole of the canyon is coming with us."

We went up the mesa road at three in the morning with the whole of the canyon behind us.

The spring house was dark and the door was open and the basin was dry. The welling hole was a dry mouth in the stone and there was dust in the bottom of it and the pipe was dry and the floor was dry and the whole of it smelled of stone and nothing else.

I stood at the basin with Hank beside me and Nora on my other side and the Chancellor behind us and the whole of the canyon in the door and in the road outside.

"The pact says the pair may call the spring at any time of need," I said. "So we call it."

I put my hand in Hank's hand and the mark on my arm came up bright and warm and his mark came up with it and the two of them lit the dark spring house.

And then I said the words of the pact. Not all of it. The old words. The words the first pair would have said at the spring at the change of the moon.

"The spring is the heart of the canyon. The water belongs to the land and the packs and to no one else. The pair guards it and the pair calls it. We are the pair and we are here and we call it."

The spring house was silent.

Then the welling hole made a sound.

It was a small sound. It was a sound like a stone being pulled out of wet mud, and then there was water in the bottom of the welling hole and it was coming up slow and steady and cold and it ran over the lip of the hole and into the basin and across the dry stone floor.

The whole of the canyon made a sound.

And out on the road in the dark a horse came up at a gallop and a rider pulled up in the yard and shouted, "Luna. There is a wolf on the mesa road. It is the Beta. Ruth has escaped from the wagon and she is coming up the mesa road and she has taken a horse and a knife and she is asking for you."

The water ran over the floor of the spring house. The whole of the canyon was in the road.

"Let her come," I said.