Chapter 27: The Luna's Work

The first truck came home from the Ash Line nine days after the Moon Court.

I was at the bottom of the Great House drive when it pulled in.

So was half the valley.

The tailgate came down, and wolves climbed out stiff from ten hours on a bench.

Bunkhouse one.

Not all of them.

Half had stayed to hold the wall until the volunteers came down to relieve them.

The half who came were thin and gray with ash, and they stood at the bottom of the drive looking up at the pines like they didn't trust them.

A woman came out of a lodge house at a run.

She was still holding a dish towel.

She threw her arms around the third wolf off the truck and didn't let go.

Then another door opened.

And another.

I stood back by the gate and let them have it.

The last wolf off the tailgate was a heavy, bald man with a burned forearm.

I'd never once heard him speak in the mess.

He came over to me and stood there.

"Sergeant Vardy," he said.

"Luna, now," said the youngest, behind me.

"Sergeant Vardy," he said again, firmly, and held out his hand.

I shook it.

He didn't say anything else.

He didn't need to.

The elder wrote the names into the Greyhollow roll that week.

All ten of mine first.

He did it at a table in front of the round hall, outside, in daylight, so anybody could watch.

The twins went up together.

The elder asked their names for the book.

They told him.

He wrote them in, and turned the book around so they could see.

The left twin read it twice.

The right twin said, "He spelled it right," like he'd expected otherwise his whole life.

Then they walked back down the steps very fast, so nobody would see their faces.

The cook went up last.

He'd been a rogue once, before Alder's father let him in.

He'd never been on the roll at all.

The elder wrote him in.

The cook looked at his own name in the book for a long time.

"Well," he said finally. "Now somebody has to feed me."

Cale gave the squad the river meadow beside the Vardy land.

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