Chapter 140: The Pack House Siege

The horn was Ravenscar and it came from the bottom of the square and it did not stop.

Callum had not gone to the coast. He had gone round the back of the town and come up the hill on the other side, and the twenty wolves he had brought in the night had been joined by forty more from the coast road.

They were in the streets.

Ilsa came down the steps of the northern seat at a run with her shawl slipping off her shoulders.

"Luna," she said. "They have taken the east quarter and the harbour and they are on the road to the house of the north."

"The house of the north," I said.

"Twelve children walked out of it last night and seven are still in it and there is a keeper on the door." Ilsa looked at me. "If Callum gets to that house before we do he will have seven children and a bargaining counter."

I turned round.

"Ronan."

"I heard." He was already moving. "Oisin. Get the twelve out of the house at the bottom of the hill and bring them to the northern seat. Colm. Get every Council guard in this building and put them on the north door."

"Ronan," I said. "The house of the north is a mile up the hill and there are sixty wolves between us and it."

"Then we go round them."

"There is no round. The east quarter is taken and the harbour is taken and the only road to the house of the north goes through the market."

Ronan stopped in the middle of the square.

"Then we hold the northern seat," he said. "And we send word to the house and we tell the keeper on the door to bar it and not open it for anyone."

"The keeper on the door is a keeper," I said. "He has been on that door for twenty years and he is not going to take an order from a founder."

The square was full of wolves running and shouting and the bell was still going and there was smoke coming up from the east quarter.

And then the priestess came down the steps.

"Luna," she said. "There is a thing in the old books about the house of the north."

"Tell me."

"The house was built on the spring," she said. "It is the oldest building in the north and it was built before the Council and it has a door that is not a door and a stair that is not a stair."

"What does that mean?"

"It means there is a way into that house that is not the front door and it is in the old book and I read it when I was a girl." The priestess put her staff on the ground. "Luna. I can get you into that house."

"How?"

"There is a passage under the hill that comes up in the cellar of the house of the north. It was built for the keepers to move children without being seen on the road." She looked at me. "It has not been used in fifty years and it will be full of water and it will be dark and it will be a mile long."

I looked at her.

"Then we go," I said.

"Fiadh," Ronan said. "I am not letting you go up a passage under a hill with sixty wolves in the town."

"You are not letting me. I am telling you." I turned round. "Ronan. You hold the northern seat. You have Ilsa and the Council guard and the twelve and the whole of the square. And I take the priestess and Oisin and four wolves and we go up the passage and we get to that house before Callum does."

Ronan looked at me.

"You are going to be in a passage under a hill with a priestess and a smuggler while I am in a building with a Council," he said.

"Yes."

"And if Callum gets to that house first?"

"Then I will be in the cellar of it and he will be at the door and there will be a fight in a house full of children." I put my hand on his face. "Ronan. There are seven children in that house and there is a woman in a room at the top who has been there for seventy years and she is my grandmother."

Ronan put his hand over mine.

"Go," he said.

We went.

The passage under the hill came up out of the floor of a cellar on the east side of the town and it was dark and it was wet and it was a mile long. The priestess went first with her staff and a lantern and Oisin went second and I went third and four Council wolves came behind.

It took two hours.

The water was up to my knees for most of it and up to my chest in two places where the roof had come down, and the priestess went through it without a word. She was seventy six years old and she went through it like a wolf half her age. Oisin carried the lantern and the four Council wolves came behind with their spears over their shoulders and nobody said anything at all.

We came up in the cellar of the house of the north at dusk.

It was a stone cellar with a low roof and a floor of packed earth and there were shelves on the walls with jars on them and there was a stair at the end of it going up.

There was a door at the top of the cellar stair and it was shut and there was a lamp behind it.

I went up the stair and put my hand on the door.

And from the other side of it, a voice said, "If you are the founder, come in. If you are Ravenscar, I have a knife and I have been on this door for twenty years and I am not moving."

I opened the door.

The keeper on the door was old and thin and he had a knife in his hand and he was standing in front of a corridor with his feet apart.

"I am the founder," I said.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"You are the gold wolf," he said.

"I am."

"Then come in." He lowered the knife. "There are seven children in the room at the end of the corridor and there is a woman in the room at the top of the house and there are wolves at the front door."

"How many?"

"Twenty. They came up the hill an hour ago and they have been at the door since." He looked at me. "Luna. They have a ram."