The Spring Between Us

Chapter 93: Cal Bleeds for Me

I walked into the middle of the yard and the wolves around Wren went quiet.

Wren turned and looked at me with her chin up and her grey jacket on and said, "Luna. I was only saying what every wolf in this yard has been thinking."

"You were saying the mark on my arm is a brand," I said. "Say it to my face."

"I did not say it was a brand. I said there were wolves who were asking whether a mark could be put on a wolf by a hand." Wren's voice was steady and it was not loud and it carried. "And there are. I have heard three wolves this morning saying the same thing. And I think the pack deserves to know the truth about the mark before the Chancellor declares the pair in the open hall and puts this whole canyon under a bond that may be a lie."

I held up my arm and pushed the sleeve back.

"Here is the mark," I said. "Look at it. It is silver and it is under the skin and it has grown from a scratch to a crescent over a month and it has been seen by two healers and the Council healer and the clerk and the whole of the autumn gathering. A brand is a burn. It sits on the skin and it scabs and it scars. This is not a burn. This is a bond mark and it answers to the bond. When the Alpha is near it goes warm. When the Alpha is far it goes cold. When the pair is declared it goes bright enough to read by." I pulled my sleeve down. "So if there is a wolf in this yard who wants to say it is a brand, let him say it to my face and let him say it in front of the two healers who have examined it."

Nobody said anything.

Wren's face did not change.

"Then there is nothing more to say," she said. "I will go and pack my things. I am not wanted in this canyon."

She turned and walked toward the gate.

"Wren," I said. "You are not going anywhere. You are the wolf who has been in Ruth's quarters and at the gate with the soldiers and who stood in the Council hall and was named by Inge. You are going to the capital with the autumn gathering and you are going to answer for it there."

Wren stopped at the gate.

"I am going to the capital," she said. "But not with the autumn gathering. I am going tonight and I am going by the creek bed and I am going to be in the capital before the Chancellor and I am going to say a thing to the Council that will make the Chancellor's ruling look very small." She turned around. "The Council in the capital does not want the pair. The Council in the capital wants the canyon and it has been waiting for a Chancellor to give it away and it will be very glad to hear that the Chancellor has been ruling on the word of a girl with a brand on her arm and a book she found in a hole."

Sten was at the gate before she finished. He took her by the arm and she did not resist and he walked her to the hall and put her in the record room with two warriors on the door.

And then the pack went back to its work and I went up to my mother's room and sat down on the bed and put my face in my hands.

Cal came in at noon.

"Luna," he said. "I have been thinking about what Ruth said at the gate. About the wolves who will use me to get to you." He stood in the doorway with his hat in his hands. "And I have been thinking that Wren said a thing to me in the dark and I brought it to you and you had to stand in the yard and answer it. So she used me. She used me exactly the way Ruth said she would."

"Cal."

"I want to do something," he said. "Something that is not standing in a yard with my mouth open. I want to go to the border and check the fence line and the old wash and the creek bed and make sure there are no soldiers on the road and no rogues in the rocks. I want to do a thing that matters and I want to do it alone."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"Take Berik," I said.

"Berik is on the hall door. Take two warriors with me and I will not be alone and I will not be used and I will come back before dark." He put his hat on. "Luna. Please."

"Go," I said. "Take two warriors and check the south fence and the old wash and be back before dark. And Cal. If you see a soldier on the road or a rogue in the rocks, you do not go near them. You come back and you tell me."

He went. He took two warriors and went out the south gate at noon, and I watched him go from my mother's window and then I went down to the hall and sat with the Chancellor and the clerk and went through the rulings again.

He was not back before dark.

I was in the hall when Sten came in at dusk with his face grey.

"Luna," he said. "There is a rider come up the creek bed. It is one of the warriors who went with Cal. He is hurt and he is on a horse and he is shouting."

I was out of the hall before he finished. The yard was full and the gate was open and a horse came through it with a warrior on its back who was holding his side and there was blood on his hands and on the saddle.

"Luna," he said. "The old wash. There were four of them and they came out of the rocks and they had clubs and they were not soldiers and they were not rogues. They went for the boy. They went for Cal and they did not touch us and they did not take anything and they left us on the ground and they took him."

"Where?"

"The old wash. They went west along the creek bed toward the company road."

I was on my horse before Sten had the gate open. The whole of the pack came behind me and Hank came out of the Çöl road with his wolves and we went down the creek bed at a gallop with the lanterns swinging and the moon coming up over the eastern rim.

We found him at the old wash.

He was lying on his side in the sand with his hands tied behind his back and his face in the dirt and there was blood on his shirt and on the sand around him, and there was a paper pinned to his shoulder with a knife.

I got down off my horse and turned him over.

He was breathing. His eyes were open and they found mine and he said, "Luna. They said a thing. They said to tell you the Council in the capital has the old clerk's report and the report says the pair is a fraud and the Chancellor is going to be recalled."

"Cal."

"And they said the mark on your arm is a brand." His hand came up and caught my sleeve. "They said the Alpha put it on you and that he has been meeting with the Council healer in secret and that the healer has a paper that says so. And I told them they were liars and they hit me."

I got the paper off his shoulder and opened it.

It was a single line in a hand I did not know.

The Council has the report. The pair is done. The Chancellor will be recalled before the autumn gathering and the canyon will have a trustee by the winter.

I sat in the sand at the old wash with Cal's blood on my hands and the paper in my fingers and the whole of the canyon behind me.

"Sten," I said. "Get the stretcher. We are taking him home."

I carried him up the creek bed on the stretcher myself with Sten on the other end and the whole of the canyon around us, and the pack was in the yard when we came in and Mira was at the gate with her bag.

She looked at Cal and then at me.

"Luna," she said. "Your hands."

I looked down. They were red to the wrist.

"It is not my blood," I said.

Mira took Cal into her hut and shut the door. The yard was full and the whole of the pack was standing in it and nobody went to their quarters and nobody spoke.

Hank came and stood beside me.

"Derya," he said. "The paper."

I gave it to him.

"The Council has the report," he said. "The old clerk's report. The one that says the first volume is a forgery. It has been in the Council vault for forty years and the Council in the capital has it and they are going to use it to recall the Chancellor."

"Then we go to the capital," I said.

"The Chancellor goes to the capital in the morning. She has to. If she does not answer the recall, the Council will rule against her and the canyon with her."

"Then we go with her." I looked at the hall. "All of us. The packs and the town and the clerk and the healers and the law book and the box of rulings and the first volume and the stone and the rings. The whole of the canyon goes to the capital and stands in the open hall and we do not leave until the Council has heard the whole of it."

Hank looked at me for a long moment.

"Then we go at dawn," he said.