Clanless (21 page)

Talon stepped in front of Raca. “You will not touch my sister in such a way, Sheep.”

Gryphon backed away. He hadn’t meant to scare the girl.

“Stop playing guard dog, brother.” Raca gently pushed her brother away then said to Gryphon, “We met them a few days ago. They said they were tracking the Nameless refugees to the Allied Camp. But … ” Talon glanced at his sister and frowned. “These are dangerous mountains, Gryphon. We’ve heard a wild man has rallied the Clanless in the area. A banished Ram named Boar.”

“What does that have to do with my friends?” said Gryphon.

“Nothing, only we’ve heard from several wandering Clanless that Barnabas has offered a mighty reward for the person who brings him you and a Wolf healer called Zo. I didn’t want Raca to mention the boy only because I didn’t want to raise your hopes that your friends were still safe.”

“What are you saying?” Gryphon remembered hearing the name Boar several years ago while he was still training for the opportunity to join a mess. A man by that name was banished for gruesome crimes committed against his own wife.

“The Clanless man we met says Boar is completely crazy. He’s bullied many of the Clanless into following him, creating something of a small army in these mountains.”

“An army of desperate men.”

Talon nodded.

“I worry for your friends, especially the Wolf. I’d imagine Boar would do anything for enough leverage to reinstate his citizenship with the Ram.”

“I doubt Boar would be interested in Tess. He’ll know that bringing an innocent little girl back to the Gate won’t buy him anything.”

Both Raca and Talon wrinkled their noses in exactly the same way and at exactly the same time. “Tess?” Raca asked. Then her expression cleared. “No, we’re talking about the other girl. The older Wolf. The healer.”

Gryphon held his breath. The Raven woman had to be confused.

“Zo,” said Talon. “The one Joshua claimed you were in love with. The one Boar is hunting.”

Gryphon shook his head and momentarily closed his eyes against the aching hope. “You’re wrong. She died outside Ram’s Gate.” He paced the ground in front of them. “This girl. What did she look like?”

“Tall. Brownish-black hair. Stunning blue eyes … ”

“It’s not possible.” Gryphon sank to his knees. He gasped, remembering to breathe. “What did you say to her? How did she answer?” He found himself repeating, “It can’t be” over and over.

A soft hand touched his shoulder. Raca’s concerned eyes met his. “She was kind to us. Invited us to sit at her fire and warned us of the Ram invasion. Unless there is another Wolf healer named Zo crossing this mountain, your friend is still alive,” said Raca.

Gryphon gasped and jumped up, scooping Raca and Talon into one gigantic hug. “I could kiss you both.”

“Please don’t,” said Talon.

Zo was alive.

Torches staked around the perimeter of the camp flickered in the wind. They lit the rim of the charred and blackened forest more than the Nameless camped in the clearing. If fear had a taste, it was burnt and bitter. Zo watched as the torches cast only half of the naked trees in light. They were gnarled fingers of wood that seemed to reach out at them. Zo couldn’t look away from their reaching fingers as she muscled down the badger stew concoction Joshua and Tess made for dinner.

“Do you like it?” Tess asked. She’d taken a hand to “spicing” their meals with different kinds of plants and flowers she picked along the trail. The previous night, she’d almost poisoned them by adding wild foxglove to the cooking pot, before Zo had stopped her.

Zo chewed and chewed on a stringy leaf that, even boiled, didn’t want to be broken down. “Delicious.”

Joshua sat down next to them after meeting with Stone and the other men in camp. Zo felt like the term “man” was used a little generously in Joshua’s case, but didn’t want to argue with him anymore.

“What did Stone say?” Tess asked before Zo had the chance.

Joshua picked up his wooden bowl and served himself a big helping of stew, wrinkling his nose a bit at the smell. “He’s divided us into five groups with ten men to a group. Each group has a leader and the leader will report to Stone.”

“Smart,” said Tess as she chewed.

There was a lot of chewing going on around their little cook fire.

“I’m not a unit leader,” said Joshua, “but the men in my unit are happy to have me at their side. Said at least they had someone who knew how to fight.” Joshua’s grin turned goofy, revealing his age, until it rested on Zo. He dropped his gaze to his humble meal and chewed.

He was happy. Validated. And he couldn’t share his excitement with Zo because she had made him feel weak when he wanted to be strong. Tess reached her little hand out to touch Joshua’s leg. He flinched at first but Tess wouldn’t be avoided. She scooted next to him, this time touching his arm.

After whispering a blessing of comfort Zo had taught her, Tess said, “You can be brave and miss him too.” She dropped her hand and went back to focusing on her food.

That night, Zo only asked Joshua once if he would give up his watch. “I could talk to Stone. He’d release you from your position. No one would think less of you for it.” The idea of him sitting on the perimeter of the camp—with Boar’s men waiting to strike—made her ill.

But Joshua shook his head and walked away from Zo and their dying fire to take up his watch.

Eva also took a watch shift, much to Stone’s grumblings. She clutched her two favorite daggers and calmly waited for the Clanless like one might wait for a pie to bake.

Every moment of Joshua’s watch was agony for Zo. She kept seeing Boar carelessly order one of his men to drag a knife across that Nameless woman’s throat. And worse still, she kept imagining men wild and hungry enough to eat another human being. The Ram had some savage customs, but even
they
didn’t resort to that level of inhumanity. And Joshua was out there on the fringe of the camp with only a makeshift spear for protection.

When he returned to sit on the blanket to remove his shoes for bed, Zo pretended to be asleep.

“I know you’re up. You don’t have a watch shift, Zo. You should be sleeping.”

She kept her eyes closed and mumbled what she hoped was a convincing, “I am.”

“Liar.” He didn’t sound mad. Just tired.

Before Zo could properly apologize for hurting the boy’s feelings, a number of the torches surrounding the camp went out at exactly the same time. Dark figures retreated back into the woods.

Men shouted and a cry sliced through the night like a dagger. Then other cries joined the first and chaos broke out in the camp.

“Please, heaven. Not again!” cried Zo.

Joshua sprinted toward the perimeter of the small encampment barefooted. Zo moved to follow him when a pair of hands clamped on her shoulders. “You’re no fighter, healer,” said Eva. “You’re too valuable to go and get yourself captured.”

“But these people. I should help them.” In a twisted sort of way, it was her fault the Nameless suffered tonight. How many families would be ruined before Boar left them alone? How valuable could one person be?

I’m not even a real healer anymore.

With the torches extinguished, it was impossible to tell by the shouts and clamoring of weapons exactly how deadly the attack was. With every clang and cry, Zo held Tess more fiercely to her. After the initial attack, others followed. They never engaged the Nameless for more than a few minutes before pulling back again. Fear and anticipation, their greatest weapon; darkness, their battle color.

Helpless whimpers of children and worried mothers filled the camp throughout the night. Zo wanted to grab Tess and Joshua and run, but he hadn’t come back yet. And even if he had, the fight was on the perimeter, and leaving the protection of the circle meant capture, if not death.

“Why are they doing this?” Tess whimpered in between attacks. “What do they want?”

Zo kissed the top of her head, but couldn’t find a voice to answer.

This madness had to end. The Nameless had endured too much already. But could Zo tear what remained of her little family apart again? Could she do that to Tess and Joshua?

Did peace always demand sacrifice?

Dawn came with the charcoal smoke of dead fires blended with the haze of fog. Joshua’s wiry form cut through the morning veil and only Tess asleep in Zo’s arms kept Zo from jumping up to embrace him.

He slumped wordlessly into an exhausted heap at her side and curled into a ball. The cries of the Nameless were a white noise to Zo’s ears—no more noticeable than the wind brushing past her ears in subtle gusts.

Tess stirred in her arms. “Joshua?” she asked, as though her little spirit could sense his.

Letting her sister slide from her hands, Zo said, “Help me, Tess.” They rolled him onto his back so they could look after his wounds. “I’ll stoke the fire, if you’ll start on these scratches.” Zo pointed to a few shallow scrapes on his arms that were practically nothing.

A startling thought hit Zo like a knife to the gut: others would be hurt. Others would want her, a healer, to come and tend to them. Stone had said she was valuable. But what if he discovered her gift was waning? Would he be angry?

She couldn’t give herself over to Boar, but she also couldn’t stay here knowing she had the ability to end these people’s suffering.

Zo stood up and let her medical satchel fall next to Tess. “Look after him, bug. I’m going to talk to Stone.”

Boar and his band stole three more people from the Nameless and wounded half a dozen others. Zo spent the better part of the day begging Stone to give in to Boar’s demands, but he wouldn’t listen. After another long day of hiking, Zo sat in the dirt with the rest of the Nameless refugees. Tess slept in a ball on the ground at Zo’s side. Beside her, a young child wept into her mother’s bosom. “I don’t want to fall asleep, Mama. The bad men will come again.”

Looking around at the frightened faces of the camp, Zo wondered what the Nameless would think if they discovered she was responsible for their fears? That their nightmares would end the moment they handed her over to Boar?

Zo brushed her fingers through Tess’s hair. She should run dead into the woods and shout for Boar to take her in exchange for the stolen Nameless, but how could she leave her sister and Joshua? Two orphans who considered her their only family in this world.

One by one, the stars came out. Men and boys stood surrounding the perimeter of the camp, too tired to be truly effective. At some point, these men had to sleep. Joshua included. Men took their meals on foot, always carrying a weapon in their free hand. No one in the camp spoke.

The twilight hour passed. The forest was still, save for a light wind rustling the leaves and the occasional call from the crows that seemed to follow them. Zo and the rest of the Nameless waited for an attack. But it never came. Eventually, the women and children around the camp relaxed into sleep. A few men leaned on their spears, their eyes fluttering between worlds.

Joshua walked wearily toward Zo and Tess and their low-burning fire. “Stone-made-me-rest.” His words slurred with exhaustion. He dropped to his knees beside Tess and fell forward. Only when his breathing dropped into a sleeping pattern did Zo close her eyes. Maybe Boar decided she wasn’t worth the fight. Maybe he’d moved on.

She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.

Gryphon repeated the words over and over again in his mind. He could barely slow his brain down enough to process anything else as he, Raca, and Talon raced across the mountainous terrain.

If Zo was alive, that meant Ajax had risked everything to spare her. It also meant Gabe had lied.

Gryphon thought back on his time with Gabe. Had the Wolf ever come out and said Zo was dead? It had definitely been inferred, but had he said the actual words?

Gryphon decided it didn’t matter. Gabe lied by letting him believe she was gone. The snake must have seen the way he’d suffered over the past weeks. With a few simple words he could have ended Gryphon’s torment.

But he hadn’t. He’d even convinced Gryphon that not returning to the Allies for Joshua was the noble thing to do.