Clanless Page 18

  Gryphon nodded. “Go on.”

  “They are not threatened by others knowing their location or they aren’t used to traveling outside of a clan and don’t know any better.”

  “Which is more likely?”

  Joshua answered, “They’re not afraid.”

  “Which means?”

  “They’re strong. Probably stronger than us.”

  Gryphon smiled though Joshua couldn’t see it from his position in front of him.

  Joshua whispered, “But overconfidence is also a form of weakness. It will be harder for them to spot us, and their fire will help us see them clearly.”

  “Excellent, kid.”

  Gryphon knew he wasn’t perfect, but the idea of someone else training Joshua in the ways of manhood made him ill. They belonged together, and somehow, once they rescued Zo and got back to the Allies, Gryphon would find a way to convince Commander Laden to let him stay. With Zo, Tess, Joshua …

  And Gabe.

  Gryphon swallowed the acrid anger rolling up his throat. Gabe. Zo cared for the lying Wolf. Gryphon had seen her love for him when he and Gabe fought each other in the ring. He’d even spared Gabe’s life for Zo’s sake. Now he wanted nothing more than to take it away.

  As they approached the camp, the deep tones of male voices made him pause. Gryphon held up a fist. “With me,” he whispered.

  Joshua had the wild look he sometimes got when he wanted to argue. Standard practice would be to split up, Gryphon circling the perimeter in one direction and Joshua the other. But Gryphon wasn’t ready to split up. The boy’s life was worth a great deal more than any information they could gather from separating.

  Gryphon inched forward, careful with his steps. Joshua shadowed him so closely he trod on the heel of Gryphon’s boot. One glance at the boy was all the scolding he needed. A few more steps and the foliage divided enough to offer a decent view of the camp.

  What Gryphon saw made him flex his hands around a nearby branch.

  Joshua gasped and then covered his mouth with both hands as Gryphon pushed his head down to duck beneath thicker foliage.

  One of the men in the camp turned his head in their direction, but after a few moments seemed to give up on the notion that he’d heard anything.

  Gryphon raised his head enough to survey the camp, practically shaking with the need to launch his spear into Zander’s gut. All of his mess brothers gathered around a fire. Their once clean-shaven faces now bore weeks of growth. Zander sharpened the metal tip of his spear while others mumbled conversation too quiet for Gryphon to hear. Just seeing their round shields and their familiar faces made Gryphon want to waltz into the camp and put an arm around his brothers and at the same time break every one of their necks. When you belonged to a mess, you put your life in your brothers’ hands almost every single day. Those bonds ran deep. Maybe even deeper than blood. And even if they hadn’t liked it, they had all betrayed him on Barnabas’s order.

  Ajax sat apart from the rest of his mess brothers. He held his head in his hands with elbows resting heavily on knees. Was he thinking about his young family? Sara, his wife, must be frantic with the task of keeping their new baby safe from the Seer. Ajax’s baby was born with a deformity of the lip. Zo said she could help him with surgery, but a baby born outside of perfection in the Gate was not given such opportunities at life.

  Gryphon wished he could talk to Ajax. Comfort him. Thank him for not killing Zo like he’d been ordered. He’d proven himself a true friend. More loyal to Gryphon than even his own clan.

  Zander was a different case.

  “Are they still after you?” Joshua’s whisper barely reached even Gryphon’s ears.

  Gryphon nodded but put a fist to the ground. Now wasn’t the time for talking.

  “The Nameless tracks lead south,” said Lincoln—one of Gryphon’s mess brothers—as he entered the clearing from the other direction. Lincoln was known for his knowledge of the region as the mess unit’s navigator. “But there is another set of tracks that leads north. Smaller in number. Probably a Clanless group.”

  Gryphon held his breath, shaken by how close they had come to being discovered.

  Zander nodded. “For now we follow the Nameless. Gryphon and his little flock of Raven will head in that direction. They’ll have decided on a place to meet up with the rest of the Birds.”

  What would happen if Zander and the rest of his mess followed the Nameless tracks all the way to the Allied Camp? His brothers were strong, but one mess unit couldn’t withstand the might of the entire Allied resistance. They were walking to their deaths. His fear for their wellbeing mingled with his hatred. Strange that love and hate could be felt at the same time for the same people. He’d felt that for Zo when he first learned of her betrayal in sending bottles downriver to his enemies. He felt it for his father every day of his life.

  Regardless of his confused emotions, Gryphon couldn’t let them reach the Allies. If they weren’t spotted, they’d learn Commander Laden’s location and would surely deliver that information to Barnabas.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  Gryphon grimaced and gave the signal for them to leave. There was no sense in fighting them with Joshua present. Zo was their first priority now. He would have to decide what to do about his brothers later. For now, he needed to get as far away from them as possible.

  The only time Boar released Zo’s hand was to drink from his water skin or point orders to his band of men. And as soon as he finished, he greedily took it again, like she was his oxygen, the only thing keeping him alive. Whether out of perverse affection or fear that she’d escape, she didn’t know. Even though his touch made her ill, Zo always accepted his hand. She’d save her rebellion. Bottle it up and strike when opportunity provided a real chance for escape.

  The same eight men surrounded her and Boar as they trekked north, leaving a contingent of men to walk at the tail of the group, Ikatou and his Kodiak friends among them.

  Boar practically hissed if any of the men so much as looked at Zo. A viper protecting its prey. She might have felt safe with the man if he weren’t carefully leading her to her death.

  They approached a small river crossing; a high plank of timber ran from bank to bank above the water. “The wood is only strong enough for one,” Boar explained to Zo in a voice one might use with a small child.

  Zo fought the urge to roll her eyes. A few of Boar’s men walked ahead over the makeshift bridge. When it was Zo’s turn, Boar released his grip on her hand. “I’ll carry your satchel.” He held out his hand for Zo’s medical kit.

  “I can manage,” said Zo.

  Boar’s lips pressed into a firm line and his nostrils flared, reminding Zo exactly how dangerous the man could be. She didn’t want his grubby hands touching something that belonged to her mother, but instinct insisted she hand it over before his fiery temper flared.

  “Fine.” She lifted the leather strap off her shoulder and reluctantly gave him her most prized physical possession. Wiping the sweat of his touch off on her pants, she stepped onto the plank.

  “Hold the other end steady,” shouted Boar. His men fell over themselves to obey, one even going so far as to climb down the steep bank and brace the board in ankle-deep water.

  Zo stretched her arms out wide for balance and walked toward the center of the plank, the river rushing beneath her.

  A dangerous idea came to her as she reached the deepest part of the river. She looked down at the water then back at Boar and the rest of the men crowded behind him, waiting for their turn to cross.

  Boar waved her onward as he paced the riverbank. “Just keep going. You’re nearly there.” The breeze coming off the water made his dark hair fly around his grizzled face.

  Zo wasn’t the strongest swimmer, and the chance of her plan actually working was slim at best. But a slim chance was better than any other option available to her. If she didn’t escape these men before they reached Ram territory s
he was as good as dead anyway.

  She took a teetering step forward and flailed her arms, pretending to try and save her balance.

  Boar shouted something in panic and lunged after her onto plank, but didn’t make it two steps before Zo hit the water. The water came over her head, so cold that she bit through her tongue. Her body cartwheeled in the strong current. Rocks jabbed her on all sides. When her feet finally found purchase on the muddy floor, she pushed off and was rewarded with a breath of air before the river pulled her back down. Her back connected with a large rock and the spinning cycle of chaos ensued once more before she managed another breath, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy her burning lungs.

  I don’t want to die, she thought as she spun through the rapid-moving water. I don’t want to die!

  As if in response to her mental plea, someone grabbed her arm and then her waist. Together Zo and the man holding her pushed off the ground for air. “Swim to the side!” came the strangled voice of Boar, her rescuer.

  Zo closed her eyes, kicked her legs, and allowed herself to be grateful to leave the river, even at the hands of her enemy.

  The current was less violent near the bank. Zo’s feet found purchase on the rocky floor. She reached to accept the hand of one of Boar’s men, who yanked her from what could have been a watery grave.

  Panting and soaked to the bone, Zo collapsed onto the ground with her cheek pressed into the dirt. The Clanless pulled Boar out of the water next. His hair and clothes hung from his trim frame like matted fur on a wet dog. A long cut stretched across his forehead like a misplaced frown. Blood gushed down his face and into his eyes like red tears. Every muscle in his shoulders and arms flexed as he stomped toward Zo.

  He fell before he reached her.

  A few of his men rushed to his side. Another thrust Zo’s medical satchel at her and ordered, “Help him.”

  Zo’s icy hands hugged her mother’s satchel to her chest. “No,” she said, scrambling backward. She bumped into the chest of another of Boar’s men. She looked over at Boar sprawled out on the ground then down at the satchel in her arms. A clear memory of her mother sprang to the forefront of her mind.

  Zo was young, maybe eight or nine years old. Her family had a few sheep that they used for wool and milk. Zo remembered them well because it was her job to care for them. They followed her around whenever she entered their pen. If she turned left, they turned left. If she ran, they ran. It was one of her favorite forms of entertainment.

  Until they were slaughtered in a raid.

  One of the men who committed the crime was injured and Zo’s mother called for him to be brought to her healing tent. Zo cried and cried over the loss of her sheep and when she learned what her mother had done, she stormed into her mother’s healing tent and yelled, “Don’t heal him, Mama! He killed my sheep.”

  Zo would never forget the disappointment she saw on her mother’s face that day.

  “I am not this man’s executioner, Zo,” she said. “I am a healer. If I do nothing I am as guilty as he is.”

  Even as a child, Zo didn’t have her mother’s humanity. Her incomprehensible ability to love and forgive. Besides, this wasn’t about revenge over sheep, it was about self-preservation. Boar’s injury might be the key to her escape.

  Zo fought a niggling voice in her head that wouldn’t be dismissed. “Heal him.” It was absurd and utterly foolish, but as those two words gently penetrated her consciousness, a blanket of warmth spread over her body. “Heal him.” It was her mother’s voice. She’d forgotten just how soothing it could be. Deep and smooth and achingly beautiful. Zo clasped her hands and pressed them to her chest. Remembering brought so much pain, but strangely, comfort too.

  Zo raised her head to the heavens, wiped at a tear, and sighed. This is for you, Mother.

  “Step away from him,” she ordered. The men parted to give her space. “Someone build a fire. I need boiling water. And you might as well set up camp. We’re done traveling for the day.”

  Zo tuned out the clamor of men at work around her and gave Boar her full attention. Placing clean linen from her satchel on his forehead, she leaned over him to apply pressure and said, “I going to try to help you. But something inside me is broken and I have no love for you.” Blood soaked the cloth. She pressed harder. “It will be difficult.”

  She knew her words likely didn’t make much sense to Boar. He closed his eyes at her touch and said, “I’m still taking you to the Ram.”

  Zo used her free hand to rummage through her kit. “I know.”

  Chapter 23

  Gryphon divided his time between watching their backs and answering Joshua’s endless questions about his time spent in the Nest. Several times he had to remind the boy to keep his voice down. This was especially true when Gryphon told Joshua about Sani.

  “What?” He practically shouted, earning him a stern look from Gryphon.

  He pressed both hands over his own mouth, his cheeks reddening in chagrin. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But you’re telling me a kid my age thinks he’s responsible for protecting you?”

  Gryphon nodded, and then scanned the woods once more. They were too quiet for his liking, but then that might have been Joshua’s fault. “He calls himself my ‘Atiin and claims that until he saves my life, he is honor bound to guard me.”

  “Guard you?” Joshua shook his head like the idea was ridiculous, and then paused to add, “Is he bigger than me?” His chest inflated and he stood up tall, as if to remind Gryphon how much he’d grown over the past year.

  “He’s actually pretty small. But he’s fast and really good with a bow. He also sounds and acts much older than he looks. Quiet. Dignified. A chief’s son.” Gryphon shrugged.

  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.”