Chapter 20: The South Bridge

I shifted at the cellar door and ran.

The tunnel was narrow and black, and it smelled of old stone and wet iron.

I heard paws behind me, dozens of them.

Wystan could not run yet, so he sent his best wolves, and they came in a silver and brown stream at my heels.

Behind them came the rogues.

Nobody had called them.

They had no cords now, only ash on their wrists, and they ran in the pack because they had nowhere else to go.

The tunnel opened onto the south road.

A cold wind hit my face, and the river roared below.

The south bridge stood a hundred yards ahead, pale in the moonlight.

I knew that bridge.

Wystan had waited beside it for six years.

My mother had died on it.

Two figures were on the stone span.

One was a man with a gray beard and a crooked back, backing across the planks with a silver knife in his hand.

The other was a lean gray wolf with golden eyes, standing in front of him.

Joran.

He was alone and bleeding from the shoulder, and half the size Osric had been used to seeing him.

He stood in the middle of the bridge and did not give an inch.

"Out of my way, boy," Osric said. "You have no seat. You have no pack. You have nothing."

Joran lowered his head and growled.

"You gave it away in front of everyone." Osric laughed, high and brittle. "I did not even have to ask twice."

I slowed.

I wanted to run in, and I made myself hold still.

*Let him,* my wolf said. *Let him do it. It is his.*

Osric lunged.

He had been a fighter once, long ago, and he was quick.

The silver knife went in under Joran's ribs.

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