Chapter 126: The Pack Watches

I stood in the square with the whole of the pack behind me and the archivist in the road in front of me and I did not say anything for a long time.

“Four thousand wolves,” I said.

“Four thousand wolves,” the archivist said. “The eleven Alphas of the north have called in every pack in the north and every pack in the east and they will be on this road by the full moon.”

“And you have forty.”

“I have forty and the fourth stone.” He held up his hand and a wolf behind him brought a box and opened it and there was a stone in it and the stone was gray and it was flat and it had a line in it. “The fourth stone is the last piece of the old heart and it has been in the chief clerk’s desk for forty years. Give me the circle and the land and I will give you the stone and the north will stand down.”

The square was silent.

“And the pack?” I said.

“The pack stays,” the archivist said. “The pack keeps its farms and its houses and its co-op and the whole of it. The north does not want the wheat. The north wants the circle.”

I looked at the stone in the box.

“And Elias?” I said.

The archivist was quiet for a moment.

“The keeper is a matter for the Alphas of the north,” he said. “He is the cursed wolf and the curse is in the pack and the north does not want a cursed wolf in a territory that it holds.”

“So you want him.”

“I want him in a cell in the north where he cannot be a keeper and cannot hold a circle and cannot give the land anything.”

I stood in the square.

And then I said, “No.”

The archivist looked at me.

“Alpha,” he said.

“No,” I said again. “I am not going to give you the circle and I am not going to give you the land and I am not going to give you the keeper. The circle belongs to the pack and the land belongs to the pack and the keeper is mine.” I stepped forward. “And there is a thing you should know about the four thousand wolves. There are not four thousand wolves in the north. There are four hundred and the rest of it is paper and a story and a herald with a white flag.”

The archivist’s face did not change.

“There are four thousand,” he said.

“There are four hundred,” I said. “And there are two hundred wolves in this territory and nine hundred in the Coeur d’Alene pack and eleven thousand in the territories that voted against the chief clerk. And the eleven Alphas of the north have been lying to the Council for forty years and the Council has been believing it because it was easier than asking.” I looked at the whole of the pack. “So go back to the north and tell them that the Luna is standing in the square and the pack is standing with her and the circle is open and the whole of it is going to be decided at the full moon.”

The archivist stood in the road.

And then he turned and looked at the eleven Alphas of the north who were standing at the back of the square with the keeper beside them.

“Alphas,” he said. “You have heard her. She is going to hold the circle and she is going to hold the keeper and she is going to hold the land. And the north is going to come down this road at the full moon and it is going to take the whole of it.”

The eleven Alphas of the north did not move.

And then one of them came forward.

He was old and he had a white beard and he had a face I did not know and he stopped in the middle of the square.

“I am the Alpha of the Kootenai pack,” he said. “And I have been one of the eleven Alphas of the north for thirty years and I have signed the paper that the chief clerk put in front of me and I have never read a page of it.” He looked at the archivist. “And I am not going to sign another one.”

The archivist turned.

“Kootenai,” he said.

“The Luna is right,” the Kootenai Alpha said. “There are not four thousand wolves. There are four hundred and half of them are farmers who have been told that a rogue pack in the Palouse is going to take their land.” He looked at the whole of the square. “I am not going to send farmers to fight a pack in its own territory over a circle that the north has been trying to find for eighty-five years.”

And then a second Alpha came forward.

“I am the Alpha of the Pend Oreille pack,” she said. “And I am not going to send my wolves either.”

And then a third.

And then a fourth.

And then the whole of the eleven Alphas of the north were standing in the middle of the square and only the archivist was in the road.

“You are all traitors,” the archivist said.

“We are not traitors,” the Kootenai Alpha said. “We are Alphas who have been lied to and we are not going to be lied to any more.” He looked at me. “Alpha. The eleven Alphas of the north withdraw the rogue declaration and the blood debt and the whole of it. And we are going to stand in that circle at the full moon and we are going to watch the curse break and the land go back to the pack.”

The square was silent.

“And the fourth stone?” I said.

The archivist put his hand in the box and took out the stone.

“The fourth stone is mine,” he said.

And then he turned and ran.

He ran down the co-op road with the stone in his hand and the whole of the square went after him.

But there was a wolf in front of him.

It was Elias. He was standing in the middle of the co-op road with his side wrapped and his face gray and his hands at his sides and he did not move.

The archivist stopped.

“Keeper,” he said.

“Archivist,” Elias said. “Give me the stone.”

The archivist looked at him for a long moment.

And then he put the stone in Elias’s hand.

Elias came back up the co-op road with the stone and put it in my hand and the whole of the square watched him do it.

“Alpha,” he said. “The fourth stone.”

I closed my hand around it.

It was warm.

And then June came out of the crowd.

“Wren,” she said. “The full moon is in three days. And there is a thing I have to tell you.”

“What thing?”

“The eleven Alphas of the north have withdrawn the rogue declaration and the blood debt and the whole of it,” she said. “But there is a thing in the code. A blood debt that has been withdrawn by the Alphas can still be called by the pack that holds the debt. And the pack that holds the debt is the pack of the Gamma of the north.”

The square was silent.

“And the Gamma of the north is in a cell in the pack house,” June said. “And his pack is on the ridge road with three hundred wolves and they are not the north. They are the Gamma’s pack and they are coming for the blood debt.”

I stood in the square.

“Then we have three days,” I said.