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Chapter 102: The Pack Splinters
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2026-10-26 00:17:16The Council chamber was round and it had a dome and the dome had a skylight in it and the light came down through the skylight in a long white shaft and landed on the floor in the middle of the room.
There were forty chairs in a ring around the floor and thirty-three of them were filled.
The seven Alphas who had sat on the tribunal were not in their chairs. They were standing at the back of the chamber with Ada Kessler in her chair and the Riverside wolves behind them and they had been told to wait outside and they had not waited.
And in the middle of the room, in the light, there was a table with a register on it and a man standing behind the table.
It was the chief clerk.
He was old and his hair was white and he had a folder in his hand and he was smiling.
“Beta,” he said. “You are late.”
“I am not late,” I said. “I am the last to arrive and that is not the same thing.”
The thirty-three Alphas turned and looked at me.
I walked into the middle of the chamber with the crates and the stones and the photograph and the page and I put them on the table in front of the chief clerk and I did not sit down.
“I am Wren Halloran,” I said. “I am the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack and I am the fourth daughter’s line and I am here to make a claim of blood in front of the full Council of Alphas.”
The chamber was silent.
The chief clerk looked at the crates.
“A claim of blood,” he said. “That is a serious thing. It requires proof and it requires a witness and it requires a hearing.”
“I have all three,” I said.
“You have a story,” the chief clerk said. “And a story is not proof.” He opened his folder. “The Council has a motion before it this morning. It is the motion to remove the seven Alphas who sat on a tribunal in the Palouse territory and it is the motion to arrest the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack for claiming a territory without a lawful deed.” He put the folder down. “I am going to ask the Council to vote on that motion first.”
And then Ruth of the Riverside pack stepped forward.
“Chief clerk,” she said. “I am the Alpha of the Riverside pack and I am the fourth Ruth and I am the fourth daughter’s line. I have forty wolves outside this chamber and I have a claim of my own.” She put a paper on the table. “The Riverside pack has been in the Council’s register since 1902 and the register says the pack was formed in 1894 by a wolf named Ruth who came out of the east with a child and a box. The register does not say where she came from. I am telling this Council where she came from. She came from Walla Walla and she was the Luna’s daughter and she was the fourth daughter and she was supposed to have died in 1896 and she did not die.”
The chamber moved.
The chief clerk looked at her.
“That is a story,” he said.
“It is a story with a register,” Ruth said. “And the register is in this room and it has been in this room since 1902 and it has never been read out loud.” She put her hand on the crates. “And these crates have four hundred and six names in them and every one of them is a Luna the Council took with a forged claim.”
And then the chamber door opened and a wolf came in.
He was old and he was heavy and he had a Council coat and he came up the aisle and stopped in front of the table.
It was the warden of the eastern district.
“Alphas,” he said. “I am the warden of the eastern district and I have a report.” He put a paper on the table. “On the night of the twenty-sixth of September I was sent to the Kessler pack with a warrant for the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack and twelve men. The warrant was signed by the chief clerk and it said the Beta was to be taken to Boise for questioning. I did not take her. I went back to Walla Walla and I wrote this report.”
The chamber was silent.
“And there is a thing in my report that the Alphas should hear,” the warden said. “The warrant I was given was not in the register. I checked. I have been a warden for twenty years and I have never been given a warrant that was not in the register and I checked the register in Walla Walla and there was no number for that warrant.” He looked at the chief clerk. “The warrant was a forgery and it was signed by the chief clerk.”
The chamber broke into noise.
And then the chief clerk picked up the register from the table and held it up.
“Alphas,” he said. “I have been the chief clerk of this Council for forty years. I have signed every warrant and every claim and every order that has come out of this chamber and I have never once been questioned. And now a Gamma from a wheat pack and a warden from Walla Walla and a woman from the mountains are going to stand in this chamber and tell you that I am a forger.” He put the register down. “I am not going to argue with them. I am going to do a thing I have never done in forty years. I am going to resign.”
The chamber went silent.
“I am going to resign my position,” the chief clerk said, “and I am going to give this Council the whole of my file. Every claim and every warrant and every order and every letter I have ever signed. It is in the archive and it is in the vault and it is on my desk and it is in my house. I am going to give it to the Alphas and I am going to let them read it.”
He picked up his folder and turned to go.
And then June stood up.
She had been standing at the back of the chamber with the crates and the stones and she had not said a word and now she stood up and her face was white and her hands were shaking.
“He is lying,” she said.
Everybody turned.
“He is lying,” June said again. “He is not resigning. He is going to walk out of this chamber and he is going to go to the archive and he is going to burn the file before the Alphas can read it.” She looked at me. “Wren, he has a man in the archive. He has had a man in the archive since Tuesday.”
The chief clerk stopped at the door.
And then the dome above us went dark.
It was not a cloud. The light came through the skylight in a shaft and the shaft went out and the chamber was in shadow and there was a sound from the roof.
It was boots. A lot of boots.
And then a voice came down through the skylight and it was a voice I knew.
“Alphas,” Dale said. “This chamber is surrounded. I have forty wolves and they are not the Luna’s line and they are not the Council’s. They are the wolves who have been lied to for eighty-five years and they have come to take the Council apart.”
The chamber went silent.
I looked up at the skylight.
Dale was standing on the roof of the Council chamber with a rifle in his hand and forty wolves behind him.
“Dale,” I said.
“Beta,” he said. “I told you the Council was not finished with you. And I told you there were wolves in this territory who would stand with you.” He looked down at the thirty-three Alphas. “I did not tell you that some of them would follow me instead.”
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