All Chapters of Bound to a Dying Man: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

The ram hit the front door at dusk and the whole house shook.I was in the corridor with the keeper and the priestess and Oisin and the four Council wolves, and the seven children were in the room at the end of it with a woman of fifty who had been their keeper since they were small, and every one of them was crying.The door held.It was a good door. It was older than the Council and it was oak and iron and it had been built to keep wolves out.But it would not hold forever."Oisin," I said. "The window at the back of the room at the top. Can a wolf get out of it?""It is barred," the keeper said. "It has been barred since I came on this door.""Then get the bars off."The ram hit the door again and a hinge squealed.We went up.The house of the north was four floors and a cellar and we went up the stairs two at a time with the keeper in front and the priestess behind me and Oisin at the back.The room at the top of the house was small. It had a bed and a chair and a window that did

We went down to the cell under the chamber at five in the morning.It was not the room of the north. It was a small stone room off the keeper's stair with a door of iron bars and a bench and a bucket and a lamp on the wall, and Soren was sitting on the bench with his hands in his lap.He looked very old. He had looked old in the chamber under the seat and he had looked old in the square but this was different. He had been ninety four years old and in a chair and then he had been ninety four years old and standing on the steps of the northern seat, and now he was ninety four years old and in a cell and he looked like a thing that had been left out in the rain.The pack was there.That is what he had asked for and that is what Ilsa had done. The fourteen who had stood on the harbour wall and the eight who had turned their backs and Maeve in the corner with a guard on either side and Colm and Nessa and Padraig and Oisin and the twelve children who had walked out of the house of the north

The horn was a Council horn and it came from the northern seat.We went up the hill with the nine and the fourteen and the seven and the twelve and the whole of the harbour behind us, and the square was full again by the time we got to the top of it.Ilsa was on the steps."Luna," she said. "The Council has been in session since dawn and there is a thing it has voted on and it is not a thing any of us wanted.""Say it.""The Council will confirm the truce with Ravenscar and it will confirm the coast trade and it will confirm the Blackthorn Pack in its territory." Ilsa's old face was grey. "But it will not confirm a rogue Alpha and it will not confirm a founder who broke the chain without a vote. There is a price and it is two things."The square was silent."Say them," I said."The Luna will stand trial again before a full Council for the breaking of the chain and the deaths that came of it." Ilsa looked at me. "And she will surrender her bloodline claim to the custody of the Council

I went down to the cellar myself.The door was open and the guard was on the floor with a lump on his head the size of an egg and there was a rope in the corner that had been cut and a bar on the window that had been taken out."Two Ravenscar wolves," the guard said, from the floor. "They came in through the window and they had a bar and a rope and they cut the rope and they took her out the same way.""Did she say anything?""She said a thing to the wolf in front of her." The guard put his hand on his head. "She said, take me to the seat. And he said, the old man is in a cell. And she said, not that seat. The other one."I stood in the cellar."Ronan," I said. "The house of the north.""He has gone there," Ronan said. "Maeve has gone to the house of the north and she has gone to the cellar and she has gone to the place where the pact is signed."I went up the cellar stair two at a time."How long?" I said."An hour. Maybe two.""Then we go now."We went out of the northern seat at ni

The horn was a Blackthorn horn and it came from the south road.We went down the hill with my grandmother's body in a cart and the whole of the north behind us, and at the bottom of the hill there was a rider on a lathered horse.He was one of the fourteen. His name was Colm's brother and he had ridden four days to find us and he could barely stand."Luna," he said. "The coast is burning."I got down off the cart."Say that properly," I said."There was a fire on the north ridge four days ago and it went through the heather and down into the pine wood and it has been burning ever since." He wiped his face. "It has taken the wood and the north pasture and it is on the ridge above the pack house. The pack has been fighting it for four days and there are eleven wolves burned and the roof of the pack house has gone again."Ronan was beside me."The pack house," he said."The pack house is standing but the roof has gone and the north wall is scorched and there are nine wolves in the cellar