Clanless Page 15

  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.

  Chapter 18

  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.

  Gryphon gasped as realization dawned.

  He’d almost walked away from Joshua forever. All because Gabe wanted Zo for himself.

  “He’s a dead man,” Gryphon growled. But his anger was still overshadowed by the plain truth that Zo was alive, or at least had been when she left the hiding tree outside Ram’s Gate.

  “Who’s a dead man?” asked Talon.

  Gryphon gathered his pack. “Never mind. Let’s cover some ground.”

  They hadn’t gone more than a mile when they heard the moans of what might have been a wounded animal. Talon darted off the game trail and after a few minutes called for Gryphon and Raca. “It’s a woman,” he said.

  Soggy leaves and long grass made a bed for a creature so small she might have been a child were it not for her withered hands and white hair. Gryphon dropped his pack and knelt beside the old woman, taking her icy cold hands in his. She had no blanket and no supplies. She appeared to have lain down in this soft patch of earth to die.

  “Who’s there?” Her weak voice was rough and parched of water. She rolled over to face Gryphon.

  He jumped at the sight of the Historian. She was little more than a skeleton and one of her eyes was missing, with blood dried and crusted around the swollen socket. “Troy’s son? Is it really you?”

  “Yes,” he choked. “I’m here. I’ll help you.” Though she looked far beyond his help.

  The Historian was Barnabas’s grandmother and the former Seer of Ram’s Gate. She had betrayed Barnabas by helping foster the Nameless insurrection. The last time Gryphon saw her she had helped him and his friends escape the Gate.

  “The Raven. Did you warn them?” she asked.

  Gryphon might have grinned at her knowledge of his dealings. She always seemed to know what he was about. But after seeing her like this … he couldn’t muster a smile.

  “They escaped before the Ram had a chance to reach them.”

  Her features lightened in obvious relief. “Joshua … ” she smacked her wrinkled lips together, “the Wolf healer and her sister?”

  “All fine and traveling with the Nameless refugees.” He hoped.

  “Barnabas wants you, Troy. He’ll do anything to have you.” He accepted her icy hand, her skin translucent and frail.

 
Gryphon didn’t bother correcting her misuse of his name. Troy was his father. “I can’t believe Barnabas banished you. Did he discover your work with the Nameless?”

  The Historian nodded. “Told me I saw too much.” She lifted a bent and bony finger to her gnarled eye socket.

  How could he do such a thing to his own grandmother?

  “He knows about the Allies. He knows Troy. The Ram will march … ” The Historian coughed. “Preparations … for the Great Move are … ”

  Gryphon lifted the back of her head and poured water onto her dry tongue. “Try not to speak.”

  “Help me die, Troy. Please. I’m in … so much pain,” she wheezed as Gryphon wiped water from her chin.

  “I … I’m not brave enough.” If only Zo were here. She’d know just what to do to keep this woman comfortable until she passed away peacefully.

  Raca knelt down on the other side of the Historian. “I will help you pass, old one.” She looked up at Gryphon, searching his face for permission.

  “I … no. You can’t—”

  The Historian used what remained of her energy to reach up and press her palm to Gryphon’s cheek. “You’re like him. I’ve always thought so.” She coughed again. “When you see him. Tell him … how proud … ” her hand fell and her one eye shut.

  Gryphon felt for a pulse at her neck. It came, then seconds passed before it beat again.

  For the last time.

  Gryphon rested his forehead against the Historian’s shoulder and whispered, “Great men are mighty in life and in death.” A common Ram prayer spoken over the dead as they pass from this life. Strange that it triggered a buried sense pride for a clan he had betrayed. For a people who no longer claimed him as their son. “Rest in peace, old friend. Thank you for everything.”

  Raca and Talon retreated a good distance from the Historian’s lifeless body. He assumed they didn’t want to have the old woman’s spirit haunting them for the rest of their lives, or something ridiculous like that. Shaking his head, Gryphon searched the ground until he found a good-sized rock with a point strong enough to cut into the dirt. He knelt next to his unlikely mentor and dug into the ground, thinking about the Historian’s final words.

  The Great Move was something whispered about among the ranks of Ram mess units. It would be his people’s most extreme effort to secure a bountiful future for the Ram and their posterity. Gryphon couldn’t imagine his people leaving behind their mighty city and the towering Gate that defined them. But then he also couldn’t imagine Barnabas exiling his aged grandmother—a woman upon whom he’d doted.

  Muscles burning and mind reeling, Gryphon set his rock aside. Only then did he notice the cuts and calluses from using only a rock and his bare hands to dig the shallow grave. His minor injuries were nothing compared to the fate of so many people around him—people he hadn’t been able to protect.

  Afraid he’d break her, Gryphon tenderly lifted the Historian into his arms and then laid her in the earth to rest forever.

  At first, Zo thought the fire catapulting across the sky was another nightmare. Only when one of the balls of woven brambles and flame crashed near them—shattering on the ground around the sleeping families—did she realize it was real. The Nameless cried out as they fought the flames. Bedrolls, packs, and the clothes upon their backs caught fire. The men stationed along the outer edge of the camp couldn’t attack the demons in the woods and help their families douse the flames at the same time.

  Beyond the perimeter, Zo saw Clanless clutch balls of woven wood, light it ablaze, and launch it into the camp before Stone’s men could get to them.

  Zo turned to find Joshua shielding Tess like a mother bird protecting her chick in the fold of her wings. Beside them, a little girl screamed as her mother rolled around on the ground, desperate to suffocate the flames eating her shirt.

  Zo grabbed her blanket and jumped on the woman. When the fire was completely out, Zo pulled the woman and her child under a lone cedar tree in the center of camp. Joshua and Tess followed.

  The light of the flames surrounding them was bright enough to see the exposed, melted skin on the woman’s back. Her cry was barely audible over the commotion of the camp—a deep, throaty sound that bespoke a lifetime of hopeless suffering.

  The fires around the camp diminished. The skies cleared, and the stars became visible to witness the suffering of those burned and the loved ones who had to stand by and watch their pain.

  Zo hooked her arm around the lowest branch of the tree and pulled herself up to get a better vantage. “Bring us your injured,” she called out. Jumping down, she unrolled her charred blanket on the ground. “Joshua, my kit. Tess, I’m going to need your help with—”

  “The blessings,” Tess interrupted. “I know.” They locked eyes for a moment and a hundred small messages passed between them. Zo’s apology for not telling her sister about her broken ability. Tess’s forgiveness and confidence that Zo would recover.

  The burned and wounded formed a line before Zo and Tess and, one by one, their wounds were tended and blessings given. By the time they finished, the first light of day crested the eastern horizon. All the color left Tess’s face as she crumpled into Joshua’s lap like a kitten. “Will you stay with her for a while?” Zo asked Joshua. The boy nodded—the freckles of his nose hidden under a layer of ash—and leaned his head back against the cedar tree, halfway lost to sleep already.

  “I’m going to speak with Stone,” said Zo. When she closed her eyes all she could see was the charred, melted skin of the innocent. People—children—paying the price for her freedom. What had happened last night would never happen again.

  “No.” Stone folded his arms over his muscled chest.

  “But you lost another five men last night. And the injured … ” Zo worked to control a tremor in her voice. “Do you not hear the cries of the Nameless? One person is not worth the lives of so many.” Zo sighed. “Your only choice is to give me over to Boar. I can defend myself against him.”

  Stone barked a “Ha!” and resumed his pacing. “You’re just a girl. Practically a child.”

  “Commander Laden entrusted me with the task of spying inside Ram’s Gate,” said Zo. “I’ll handle Boar.” Somehow. The Clanless leader had proven himself to be much more clever than they’d originally thought.

  Zo cleared her throat to purge another tremor of fear from her voice. “And besides, you don’t need me anymore. You know how to get to the Allies without me.”

  Stone grumbled and paced some more while Eva studied Zo, her ever-present daggers in hand. She tilted her head to the side and said, “I think Zo is right. If she is willing to go, it isn’t cruel to let her.” She walked over to Zo and offered a military nod. “Let her take the honorable path.”

  Zo didn’t know whether or not to be grateful to Eva.

  Stone growled and continued making tracks in the dirt.

  “This is your only option, Stone. Stop pretending like it isn’t. These people you’re leading aren’t fighters. They’re farmers. If you don’t give in to Boar, you won’t have anyone left to save.”

  Before the Nameless set out for another day of hiking, Stone called a meeting with his little army of men, leaving Zo and Tess to organize their packs and bedrolls. Zo did her best not to stare at her little sister. She wanted to memorize every angle of her face, every shade of blond in her hair. When they finished, Tess asked if she could play with some of the children in the camp until it was time to leave.

  “Stick to the center of the circle,” said Zo.

  “I will. I will.” Tess shot away like a stone from Joshua’s sling.

  Zo dipped her hand into a familiar pocket of her medical satchel and found a short piece of graphite and paper. The same paper and graphite she’d used to write messages to the Allies while serving as a spy inside Ram’s Gate.

  If she was going to give herself over to Boar and his band of Clanless, she needed to make certain Tess and Joshua wou
ld be cared for. She had a feeling Boar would come soon to see if Stone had changed his mind about making the trade and wanted to be ready. Her cold hand shook as she wrote.

  Commander Laden,

  I write to you not as your spy, but as your adopted ward and friend. I have been ransomed to the Clanless leader, Boar, in exchange for the lives of many Nameless. I chose to do this against Stone’s will. Please accept these people—these freemen who once bore the title “Nameless.” They have risked everything to join you and have more reason to fight for our cause than most, though they lack the skill. Feed them. Clothe them. But most of all, respect them.

  I’ve told Tess and our good friend, Joshua, that I’ve gone ahead without them. They will be very upset to know that I’ve lied to them when they arrive at the Allied Camp and discover I’m not there. They are my family. If I don’t find a way to return to the Allies, I need you to look after them for me. They have no one else.

  For the cause of freedom,

  Zo

  Zo dropped the piece of graphite and massaged her hands into her face. How could she do this to them? How could she leave? Zo folded the letter and tucked it into a hidden pocket of her shirt.

  “What is that?” Joshua said, startling her.

  “A letter for the Commander Laden of the Allies,” said Zo. “Stone’s asked that I go ahead with a few of the men to ask for help against the Clanless.”

  “Why you?” Joshua scrunched his freckled nose.

  “I’m the only one Laden will listen to, and I know where I’m going.”

  Joshua folded his arms. “I’m going with you.”

  Zo knew he wouldn’t accept her lie without a fight. “Who will look after Tess if you come with me?”

  “She can come too.”

  Zo whispered. “People are dying, Joshua. I am planning to run the entire way. Tess will slow me down. She can’t come.”