Chapter 175: The Council's Last Stand

We went up the hill at noon with the whole of the north behind us.

It was not a march. There was no order to it and no column and no banner at the front. There were Blackthorn wolves and rogues and highland wolves and Council guards and wolves from every pack on the coast who had come in for the trial and stayed. There were wolves who had been bound and wolves who had lost a mother to a binding and wolves who had never seen the house of the north in their lives and had come because the whole of the north had come.

And at the front of them there was a wolf with white hair and a mate beside her and an old healer with a stick.

We came up the hill road to the house of the north.

And there were wolves at the gate.

They were in grey coats and they had spears and there were forty of them and they were standing in a line across the road.

Lorcan was in front of them.

"Luna," he called. "You will not come up this road."

I stopped.

"Lorcan," I said. "You are the only elder left in the north and you have been holding that Council together for a fortnight and you have been in a chamber this morning and heard the whole of it."

"I heard the whole of it." Lorcan came down the road. "And I am standing on this road with forty wolves because there is a thing in that cellar that has been there for two hundred years and I do not know what it will do if it gets out."

"Then stand aside and let me close it."

"That is not a thing I can do."

I looked at him.

"Lorcan," I said. "You have been an envoy for twenty years and you have written down everything the Council told you to write and you signed thirty one orders and you have been a coward for twenty years. And in the summer you stood in a room in a Council town and told me that Soren was sitting in a chair under the northern seat and you told me because you were tired and because you were a coward and because you wanted to be something else before you retired."

Lorcan stood in the road.

"I remember," he said.

"Then be something else."

Lorcan looked at me for a long moment.

And then he turned round.

"Stand aside," he said.

The forty wolves stood aside.

We went up the road.

The house of the north was standing at the top of the hill with the door open and the twelve in the room at the bottom of the house and the seven above them and there was a lamp burning in the corridor.

We went in.

The corridor was empty and the stairs were empty and the room at the top of the house was empty and there was a bed in it and a chair and a window that did not open.

I stood in the middle of the room.

"Padraig," I said. "The stone."

Padraig put the stone in my hand.

"Ronan," I said. "Lie down."

Ronan lay down on the bed.

"Fiadh," he said. "There is a thing I have to say and I am going to say it now because at noon there is no time."

"Say it."

"Whatever happens in this room," he said, "I want you to know that I would have taken the three months and the debt and the ugly contract and the whole of it again."

"I know," I said. "You said it in the northern seat."

"I am saying it again."

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Right then," I said.

And then the window that did not open came in.

It came in in a shower of glass and wood and there were four wolves in the room and they were in grey coats and they had spears and one of them had a knife in his hand and the knife had a grey blade.

Silver.

Bran came up the stairs behind them.

He came up the stairs with his mended coat and his scarred ear and a sword in his hand that was not a sword any wolf on this coast had ever carried, and he put himself between the four and the bed.

"Luna," he said. "Get the mark made."

"Bran."

"Get the mark made." He looked at me over his shoulder. "I have been a rogue for thirty years and I have been buying wolves and boats and I have been waiting for a seat. And I am standing in a room at the top of a house in the north and I am holding a door."

I put my hand on Ronan's chest.

And Bran went into the four wolves.

I do not know how to describe it. There was a wolf with a scarred ear and a sword in a room at the top of a house and there were four Council guards with spears and a knife. And I sat on the edge of the bed with my hand on my mate's chest and I made the mark.

I put the stone on his chest and I put my hand over it and I said my own name and my mother's name and my grandmother's name and the name of the first of the old blood.

And the mark came up out of the stone and into my hand.

It was warm. It was warmer than the stone had ever been and it went up my arm and into my chest and it was not a cold thing and it was not a grey thing. It was gold.

And behind me, in the room, Bran fell.

I heard it. I heard the sword go down on the floor and I heard a wolf go down after it and I heard one of the four say something and then there was no more fighting.

I did not turn round.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my hand on my mate's chest and I made the mark and I did not let go.

And when it was done I turned round.

Bran was on the floor of the room at the top of the house with his coat open and a wound in his chest and his eyes open.

I got down on the floor beside him.

"Bran," I said.

"Luna." His voice was a scrape. "Did you make it?"

"I made it."

"Then I have held a door," he said. "And I have been a rogue for thirty years and I have been buying wolves and boats and I have been waiting for a seat. And I have held a door."

"You have held a door."

Bran looked at the ceiling.

"Tell them on the coast," he said. "Tell them the rogue king held a door."

And then he died.

And down in the square, a horn sounded.