Chapter 18: Cowards Keep Receipts

The young wolf asked the Elders to call him only "the witness."

He sat in the Elders' hall at noon with a blanket around his shoulders.

A box of tissues sat in his lap.

I had put the box there myself.

I wrote it in the ledger, under Garrick: Tissues, one box, paid.

Garrick himself arrived last.

He walked in with six wolves behind him, in a good gray coat.

He sat in the visitors' chair and crossed his legs.

He saw the witness.

For one second, the whole hall saw his face.

Then it was gone, and he smiled.

"A cub," he said. "A runaway who cries. Is this your evidence, Elders?"

"It is a statement," said the eldest Elder. "Let him speak."

The witness stood up.

His hands were shaking so hard the tissue box rattled.

"Five years ago," he said, "I was the runner for Garrick's brothers."

A murmur went round the hall.

"I carried messages. I was young. They told me nothing, but I could read."

"One night they gave me a note to take to the pack's outpost."

"It said: the serpent grain cart crosses the ford at dawn, take it."

"A grain cart," said the eldest Elder.

"The Serpent Clan was sending grain to the border villages. Both sides' villages. It was a truce cart."

"Garrick's brothers led the raid," the witness said.

"The serpent guards fought back, and the brothers died in the ford."

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