Chapter 17: The Man With the Scarred Hand

The Moonstone yard sat behind the registry hall, a square of packed earth with a rope around it.

At its center stood a single gray stone, taller than a man.

Seventeen generations of Bloodmoon names were cut into its face.

Both packs came to watch.

The Bloodmoon wolves stood on the north side of the rope, and the Ashfang wolves stood on the south.

Between them stood the Council envoy, with her silver pin and a leather folder.

Warrick arrived last, in the gray suit, with the six hunters walking behind him.

He didn't look at me.

Nash pushed the nurse across the yard in a wheelchair.

She had a blanket over her knees and her white braid over one shoulder.

Hester walked beside her with one hand on the chair, and her chin up.

"State your name for the Council," the envoy said.

"I was never given one worth keeping," the nurse said. "Call me the clinic nurse. Everyone did."

"Say what you saw."

The old woman told it again, in her thin voice, and the whole yard went quiet to hear her.

She did not cry. She had cried it out years ago.

Warrick let her finish.

Then he stepped forward with a sad, patient face, and spread his hands to the Council.

"Madam envoy, I have nothing but respect for this lady's age," he said.

"But I've paid for her care for two years. She is confused, and she says what she's been fed."

"I am not confused," the nurse said.

"She can't even say what year it is."

"I know exactly what year it is, young man. I'm telling you what year it was."

Somebody on the Ashfang side laughed.

Warrick's smile thinned.

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