Chapter 7: The Border

Dessa's POV

Lucan had put the biscuit tin on Kari's kitchen table that morning and said nothing for a full minute.

I had gone through every sheet, all fifty of them.

When I got to the bottom I told him the council would hear it at dusk, and he said, "Yes," in a voice I didn't know.

So at dusk the whole pack was crammed into the hall again, and the tin sat in the middle of the council table with its lid off.

Ilse's seat was empty.

"Where is she?" the woman who ran the council asked.

"At the clinic," Kari said. "I checked."

"Then send for her."

A runner had barely reached the door when the horn went off.

It was the old war horn on the south tower, one long note, then another.

Every wolf in the hall was on its feet.

"South ridge," a patrol captain shouted from the doorway. "Red Creek. They're over the line."

"How many?" Lucan said.

"Twenty. Maybe more."

Lucan was already moving.

I went out into the dusk behind him, and the cold air hit me, and I could smell them from the gravel.

Twenty wolves had come over the south ridge and spread out along the tree line, grey and brown and black, with their heads low.

Cold Ridge's patrol had fourteen.

The pack was streaming out of the hall behind us, mothers pulling toddlers, old men with their sticks, and the line of wolves we had was thin.

Corwin Haskell walked out of the trees in human skin, with his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Evening, Ferris," he called. "I'd have knocked, but I thought you'd be busy."

"You crossed my line," Lucan said.

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