Clanless (27 page)

Joshua nodded and the skin around his neck flamed red. He was bothered by something, but Gryphon couldn’t imagine what. Together they walked in silence. Was Joshua jealous of Sani? Did he feel replaced because of the handful of days he’d spent with the Raven boy? The idea was beyond ridiculous.

When he wasn’t talking, Joshua tracked almost as well as he did, noticing irregular bends and breaks of the plants and the unsettling of leaves and grass. Boar’s men left humongous footprints. Every time Gryphon singled out Zo’s small tracks, painful hope exploded in his chest. She was still alive, or had been when they passed through this part of the mountain.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Boar leaned against a tree while Zo spooned broth into his mouth. “No more,” he said, pushing her hand away. “All that salt is likely masking poison.”

Zo rested the bowl on the ground by his feet and shrugged. “The broth is salted to help your body replenish the blood you’ve lost. You need the fluids.”

Boar squinted, his animal eyes calculating in the flashes of light from the fire crackling at Zo’s back. “You fell on purpose. You tried to escape.”

Zo held her chin high and rummaged through her medical kit. She was low on several herbs. Constantly running for her life left little time to replenish her stock.

“You would have died in that river if I hadn’t saved you,” said Boar.

“Then I would have died on my terms. Not Barnabas’s.”

Boar frowned. His brow rolled into deep folds and he winced from the pressure on his fresh stitches. “Curse these!” He held his hands up to his forehead as though he’d like nothing better than to rip them out. Then he directed his anger at Zo. “Why heal me then? Why bother?”

Instead of answering, she turned back to her kit, ignoring the question.

“Ask something of me.”

Zo lifted her head. “What?”

Boar growled, “Ask something of me.”

“W-why?”

Boar narrowed his eyes, and spat, “I don’t like feeling like I owe you anything, Healer. Ask something of me.”

“Let me go back to my sister.” Zo held her breath, afraid to even hope that it could be that simple.

Boar shook his head. “I can’t give you that. Something else. Something reasonable.”

“Wanting my life isn’t reasonable?” Zo crossed her arms in front of her chest and turned away from Boar to stare at the hypnotic flames of the fire. Most of the men turned to look in her direction, but then quickly looked away—likely stunned that she had contradicted Boar and afraid of Boar’s wrath if he caught them watching.

“Never mind,” Boar’s gravelly voice rolled.

“What about their lives?” Zo glared at Boar. “Have you been honest with them? Do they know what will happen to them when they’ve passed through the Gate?”

The back of Boar’s hand flew through the air and
cracked
against her cheek, knocking her flat on the ground. Hot pain pulsed where his hand connected with her face. She blinked away tears as her vision tilted to the right, then the left. A sob welled in her throat, but she refused to release it.

“Why do you make me do this to you?” Boar took her by the arm and helped her off the ground so she sat in front of him again. She tried to pull out of his grasp but he only squeezed her arm harder. He reached out and rested his hand on her pulsing cheek. A lover’s touch conflicting with his brutality.

Zo’s stomach flipped with nausea. Her only rebellion was to stare at the ground.

When he finally released her, she scurried backwards, putting as much space between them as she dared. Her cheek swelled to the point of pinching her eye closed and obstructing her vision. She rubbed her arm and wiped another tear.

To think she’d healed the man!

With a shaking hand, Zo took a sip of her own broth, wincing at the heavy salt. She almost wished it were poisoned. The anticipation of facing Barnabas’s soldiers in some interrogation room had to be worse than one swallow of poison.

Zo’s head snapped up as an idea struck her. It was crazy. But if there was one thing she’d learned inside Ram’s Gate it was that giving up guaranteed defeat.

“Herbs,” said Zo, turning back to Boar. “If you want to thank me for healing you, I’d like permission to collect more herbs for my kit.”

Boar frowned again, this time remembering not to scrunch up his forehead. “Why herbs? They won’t serve you inside the Gate.”

Zo nodded and fiddled with a band of leather tied around her wrist. Gabe had given it to her months ago.
A present, just because,
he’d said.

“It’s what I love the most, Boar. If you want to thank me, that is how you can do it.” She turned back to the fire and her salty broth, mentally begging him to say yes.

The fire snapped and whizzed. Zo hugged her knees. Ikatou walked over and added wood to the hungry flames.

“Bear,” Boar said to Ikatou. “Take the healer to collect her herbs. Bring her back before the sun sets or our band will hunt you down and kill you.”

“I understand, sir.”

Zo suppressed a smile and mumbled thanks as she gained her feet. Her head still throbbed from Boar’s attack.

“Don’t wander far, Ikatou, if you want to see your family again.”

Ikatou’s nod was solemn. He lifted a hand, gesturing for Zo to lead the way.

Boar couldn’t have assigned her a better escort. When they put a safe enough distance between them and the camp, Zo said, “I’m so glad he sent you.”

Ikatou held a finger to his lips as he scanned the forest then whispered, “I am not in Boar’s inner circle. It isn’t normal for him to give me such responsibility. This is a test. Others will follow us, so watch you words.”

Zo nodded and turned her focus back to the ground. Occasionally, she let her gaze wander back to Ikatou. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. His hand never once left the hilt of the broad sword sheathed at his belt.

“How long since you’ve seen your family?” asked Zo, as she bent down to clip a stem of slippery elm using a small pair of shears she carried in her kit.

“Just over a year,” said Ikatou. He tucked his thumbs into his belt.

Zo moved on from the patch of slippery elm in search of her real quarry. She only had an hour to find the flower. “I’m sorry for your loss. The raids affected many.” She forced a lump down her throat and kept moving. She wanted to ask him why he’d ever want to become a Ram. Zo assumed it was less about belonging to a clan and a great deal more about reuniting with his family. People didn’t behave rationally when it came to protecting those they loved—the last year of Zo’s life proved as much.

“I knew several Kodiak who, when the Ram took everything from them, pledged servitude to the Ram to save their fatherless children,” said Zo.

But Ikatou’s children had a father. Had he been banished? Is that why he ran with Boar and the others? These were all questions she didn’t dare ask. She tried to change the subject. “Did you know Stone, the leader of the Nameless rebellion, is a Kodiak man born inside Ram’s Gate? He’s been a slave his whole life.”

When Ikatou didn’t respond, she worried she’d offended the man. He probably didn’t appreciate Zo dredging up difficult memories of his past. “I’m sorry.” She crouched to examine the leaves of another plant.

“I wasn’t banished, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Ikatou, his voice barely over a whisper as he searched the tree surrounding them. “My wife, my daughters, they were all taken from me in the raid. Stolen like sacks of grain.”

Zo didn’t move, didn’t breathe, for fear Ikatou would stop talking.

“We were out hunting, me and a small group of men. We didn’t know they were gone until we came back.” Emotion made Ikatou’s speech thick and trembling. “I didn’t have a chance to die for them. Didn’t have a chance to fight.” He coughed and looked away. “The cowards attacked us at our weakest possible moment.”

He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t there for my little girls. For my wife. Helping Boar is the only way I can get inside the Gate to save them.”

The hillside took on a steeper upward grade and Zo slipped, jamming her knee on a rock. She crawled to a sturdier game trail. While Ikatou followed, Zo made a show of clipping a useless weed from the ground and adding the unhelpful stems to her slow-growing pile.

The sun was close to setting and Ikatou grew restless. “We need to start heading back,” he said.

But Zo hadn’t found what she needed. “Only a little longer.”

Ikatou shook his head. “Your plants are not worth risking my chances of seeing my family again.”

“Please. Five more minutes.” Zo had been lucky to get away from Boar for even a little while. If she didn’t find that flower, any chance of escape—as small as it was—would be lost forever.

She whispered, “There is a better way to help your family, Ikatou. I know people who can help you and all of the Nameless still living inside Ram’s Gate.”

Ikatou shifted from one foot to the other.

“Please. I just need five minutes.” She poured every ounce of her desperation into the plea. If only her healing instincts weren’t broken. She might have persuaded him to let go of his fear of Boar with her touch.

Ikatou glanced up at the setting sun then back at her panicked face. His sigh rolled like a growl. “Five minutes. But we head back in the direction of camp.”

Zo could have kissed him.

She practically threw herself to the ground in search of the flower that might be her last chance of escaping Boar and his men. From the corner of her eye, she caught the distant rustling of leaves. Clanless. Following them. Making sure Boar’s ticket back into the Ram didn’t wander too far.

Some of Boar’s men were like their leader. Wild. Stripped of humanity. But Ikatou and several of the other Kodiak were different, ruled by desperation rather than selfishness. Zo had to wonder if Ikatou and the others would turn on Boar if given a better offer—a chance to fight the men who took their homes and families.

“Ikatou,” she whispered, still scanning the ground. “I can help you.” Zo hoped her voice was low enough for only the Kodiak to hear.

Ikatou didn’t answer, and she interpreted his silence as if it were an invitation. He would hear her out.

“I belong to a group of people, an allied force training and growing in number.” She paused for effect. “Their whole purpose is to overthrow the Ram. They will free the Nameless.” Zo didn’t know if it was wise to assume Commander Laden planned to do any such thing, but it seemed like an obvious consequence of winning the war against the Ram. And if it meant gaining Ikatou and a few of his friends as allies, it was worth the risk.

“I know where they are camped. I am like a daughter to their commander. I can help you find a place with them. Get your families back by fighting the people who tore you all apart, not by helping them.”

Then Zo spotted it. Thin stems held up clusters of the unique blue flowers of the monkshood. Though they appeared harmless, they were highly poisonous if ingested.

She nearly wept as she knelt next to the little plant that held within its veins great power.
Just like Tess.
She silently laughed as she clipped the precious stems. She’d almost forgotten Ikatou was there until he pulled her up by the elbow and dragged her toward the camp.

“We have to hurry,” he said.

Zo juggled her kit and freshly cut herbs, fighting not to drop so much as a leaf in their flight back to Boar.

“Can they defeat the Ram? It seems impossible,” said Ikatou under his breath.

Zo thought of the Allied Camp filled with people like herself. People who had lost homes, loved ones, and pride, or who simply didn’t want to stand by and wait for it to happen. “If anyone can lead a group against Barnabas, it’s Commander Laden.”

“I heard you tell Boar about your little sister,” he grunted as they moved. The camp was in sight, but the men shepherding them from behind were still far enough away to allow whispered conversation. “Do you swear upon her head that your Commander will help free the rest of the Nameless? Would you swear it in your own blood?”

Zo had never lived among the Kodiak Clan, but most people had heard rumors about the clan’s archaic customs, especially when it came to keeping promises. If a Kodiak promised something and didn’t deliver, he was expected to make a drastic sacrifice—like chopping off a body part or roasting a hand over a hot fire. The bigger the grievance, the more drastic the consequence.

Zo had a feeling Ikatou would hold her to her word.

Will you swear it in your own blood?
What did that mean to him exactly?

Time was up. The sun was setting. In a bold move Zo blurted, “I swear, and if you help me escape, I’ll take you to him. You will see your families again.”

Ikatou nodded and their pact was sealed. Zo hugged the flowers to her chest and walked into camp, directly to her former place by Boar’s fire.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” the Clanless leader grunted, the thread of his stitches lost in the bulge of his swollen skin.

Zo nodded. “Yes, I believe so.”