The Spring Between Us

Chapter 29: Blood on the Sandstone

The warrior at the gate was named Sten and he had run all the way from the south fence with his jacket in his hand.

"Rogues," he said. "Luna. Six of them, maybe seven. They came over the south fence line at the old wash and they are in the creek bed. Berik is holding them at the narrow place with four warriors and he sent me for you."

"Are they Çöl?"

"No. They smell of nothing, Luna. They smell like the road." He wiped his face with his sleeve. "They came in fast and they have knives. Berik says they are not here for water."

I stood in the grey yard with my arm wrapped in linen and my wolf asleep in my chest, and I felt the whole pack house come awake behind me. Doors opening. Boots on the stairs. Tomas calling for his coat. Cal came out of the warriors' quarters pulling his shirt on over his head.

"Luna," he said. "I will get the horses."

"No." I went toward the gate. "Horses are no good in the creek bed. We go on foot and we go now."

"Luna, your arm." Cal caught up with me. "Mira told me. She told me what she put on the mark and she told me what it does. You cannot shift."

"I know what it does. I was there." I took my jacket off the hook by the gate and got it on over my linen wrapped arm. "I do not need to shift to give an order. Berik is holding the narrow place with four warriors and there are seven rogues in the creek bed. I want every warrior in this pack at the south fence in five minutes and I want them armed and I want them quiet."

They came. Nine warriors and Cal and Sten and old Tomas with his hip and a spear he could barely lift, and we went out the south gate at a run and down the long slope toward the creek bed. The sun was over the rim now and the canyon was full of gold light and the dust came up under our boots, and I could hear the fighting before I saw it: the clash of iron and a howl and somebody shouting a name.

We came over the last rise and the creek bed lay below us.

Berik was at the narrow place with three warriors behind him and one on the ground. The rogues were in the creek bed below them, and there were seven, and they were not in wolf form. They were men with knives and clubs and one of them had a length of chain wrapped around his fist, and they were working their way up the creek bed in a line, patient as men digging a ditch.

"Luna," Cal said. "The one on the ground."

I looked. It was a warrior named Halvard, and he was on his back with his hand pressed to his side and the sand under him was going dark.

"Get him out," I said. "Cal, you and Sten take him up the slope and put him behind the rocks and do not let him move. The rest of you come with me."

We went down into the creek bed. Berik saw us coming and did not cheer and did not wave, and I liked him better for it. He just set his feet and said, "Luna. They are not trying to break through. They are trying to hold us here."

"Hold us here for what?"

"I do not know." He wiped his mouth. "But they came in at the old wash and they did not go for the cistern and they did not go for the gate. They came for the narrow place and they have been pushing at it for half an hour."

I looked down the creek bed at the seven men. They had stopped when they saw the reinforcements and they were standing in a loose line with their knives down and their faces turned up toward us, and the one with the chain was smiling.

Then the howl came from the north.

It came from the direction of the mesa road, high and long, and it was answered by another, and another, and I turned and looked up at the north rim and saw them coming over the top of the ridge in a line, eight wolves and a man running in front of them.

Hank.

He came down the slope at a run with his coat off and his shirt open and his wolves behind him in a line, and they hit the creek bed at the bottom and spread out along the far wall, and the seven rogues turned around and found wolves on two sides of them.

The man with the chain said something to his men. Then he dropped the chain and put his hands up.

"Nobody move," Hank said. His voice carried the length of the creek bed. "You are on Kızıltaş land and you have shed Kızıltaş blood and if any of you runs I will let the wolves have him. Sit down in the sand and put your hands on your heads."

They sat down. All seven of them, in a line in the sand, with their hands on their heads. Hank walked past them without looking at them and came up the creek bed to me, and he stopped three paces away and his face was tight.

"Your arm," he said, low.

"The paste is on it." I kept my voice low too. "Three days. I cannot shift and I cannot have you near me, and you have just brought eight wolves onto my land."

"I know what I have done." He looked past me at Berik and the warriors. "Your scout came to my border at dawn and told me there were rogues in your creek bed. I did not stop to think about the paste. I thought about you in that creek bed with a linen bandage on your arm and no wolf in you." He turned his head. "Luna. There is a thing you should know before we go any further. Two of my scouts went up the old wash this morning and found a wagon with a canvas over it. There is a crate in that wagon with a Council seal on it and there is a man sitting beside it who says he is a Council clerk and he is waiting for orders."

"A Council clerk in a wagon at the old wash."

"Yes." Hank looked at me. "And the seven men in the sand are not rogues. I have smelled them. They are not from any pack in this canyon and they are not from the road. They smell like a town at the bottom of a hill and they have been eating company bread."

I looked down the creek bed at the seven men with their hands on their heads. The one with the chain had a company badge on his belt.

"Owen's men," I said.

"Not Owen's. The company's." Hank turned. "Derya. Silas sent them. He sent them to hold your warriors at the narrow place while a Council clerk sat in a wagon at the old wash. That is not a raid. That is a distraction."

I turned and looked up the long slope toward the pack house. The gate was open and the yard was full of wolves and the pack house stood with its long low walls and its water tower and the cistern behind it.

"Ruth," I said.

We went up the slope at a run. Hank and his wolves came with us and I did not tell them to go back. The yard was full of women and children and old wolves who had come out to see the fighting, and I went through them and up the steps and into the hall, and the hall was full and Ruth was standing at the near end of the table with her hands folded and a paper in front of her and Silas beside her with his hat in his hand.

"Luna," Silas said. "You are just in time. The clerk from the Council has brought the decision. It is to be read in the hall in front of the pack, as is proper." He picked up the paper. "The Council of Alphas has reviewed the matter of the Kızıltaş succession and has decided that the Luna's claim is disputed and that the seat shall be held in trust until the inquiry is complete." He looked at me. "In trust, Luna. By the Beta. That is what the paper says."

Ruth put her hand out and took the paper from him and held it up, and the hall was silent, and she said, "Derya. I am sorry. I did not ask for this."