Clanless Page 19

  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, especia
lly 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.”

  Chapter 24

  Gryphon drank from the stream but couldn’t slow his breathing enough to suck in the water. The ice-cold liquid numbed his chin. Blood rushed to his head as he leaned forward, causing his heart to beat in his temples.

  “Be honest,” Joshua said. “How much am I slowing you down?”

  Gryphon choked out a laugh and grabbed his cramped side. “I don’t know if I’ve ever covered so much ground in so little time. Even when I ran with the Raven.”

  Joshua gave him a pointed look.

  “Really, kid. At this rate we might actually catch them before sundown.” Gryphon hoped he wasn’t being too optimistic. He hated the idea of Zo spending one more night alone with those animals.

  After drinking all their stomachs could handle, they set off at a slow jog to give the water time to settle. They covered another mile before Joshua broke the silence.

  “What are you going to say to Zo when we find her?”

  Until now, Gryphon hadn’t thought about anything beyond just getting her back. “I’ll think of something,” he mumbled, suddenly consumed with thought.

  What would he say to her? How would she react to seeing him after all they’d survived over the past few weeks? He knew she cared for him to some degree. Joshua and Tess said she’d missed him and mourned him, but he didn’t even want to consider the possibility that she still might have feelings for Gabe.

  “What about a song?” Joshua snickered.

  Gryphon stopped running. “Not funny. Ram don’t sing, kid.”

  Joshua continued at his usual pace down the trail. Gryphon had to stretch his legs to catch up to the boy. “I’ve heard you humming when you think no one is listening. Zo has too.”

  “She has?” Gryphon’s heart beat faster. “When did she hear me?”

  Gryphon could almost sense the cocky smile plastered to Joshua’s smug face. “She told me you used to sing in the Medica when I was asleep and you thought you were alone.” They ran another hundred yards before he added, “She said you have a soothing tone.”

  Gryphon chewed on the inside of his lip. A song. The unsung melodies that had so often flitted through his mind—taking shape on the tip of his tongue—had disappeared of late. It was as though Zo’s presumed death had killed that part of him. Even now, with her life in so much in peril, the music existed just beyond his mental grasp.

  It didn’t matter. Sharing his music with Zo seemed grossly embarrassing and entirely too honest. He’d look the fool while exposing his most naked thoughts. Never.

  “It was just a suggestion,” said Joshua. “Relax.”

  Zo spent the night using the sharp end of a rock to slice the monkshood into a pulpy mound. When finished, she coaxed the liquid into a bottle and firmly secured the wooden stopper.

  Her fingers tingled with numbness from the residue of the plant as she rose to her feet.

  Boar fell fast asleep after dinner, but his men watched her every movement—some watched in a way that made her uncomfortable. When Zo stood to rinse her hands in the nearby river, a man in Boar’s inner circle asked, “What are you doing?” He carried himself like a Ram and Zo had to wonder if he had been banished from the city-dwelling warriors like Boar.

  “Just wanted to wash my hands,” said Zo.

  The man gave her a quick nod, but kept his eyes fastened to her every movement, like a starving predator ready to devour his next meal.

  Zo plunged her hands in the river and scrubbed. Boar’s guard approached her from the side, either to be certain she wouldn’t run or for some darker purpose. Both options seemed probable.

  Zo pulled her hands from the icy water and practically ran back to her place by the fire and Boar. As dangerous as the Clanless leader was, Zo had no doubt he served as a sort of protection to her among this camp of wild men.

  The following morning, while most of the men were packing up camp, Zo slipped the vial of monkshood in her pocket before rolling up her bed. One of the men at each of the three campfires tended a cook pot. Aside from Boar’s, one fire was shared by Boar’s inner circle, and the other by Ikatou and the rest of the Kodiak. Mostly they ate a stew-like concoction of broth and meat, with the occasional diced and boiled tuber. From the bland smell coming from the cook pots, this morning appeared no different.

  When she thought no one was looking, Zo uncorked the vial and poured some of the monkshood into her and Boar’s pot. When she looked up, she met Ikatou’s questioning face. Zo didn’t dare keep eye contact, but purposefully stared at the other cook pot. The one shared by Boar’s inner circle.

  How would they get the rest of the monkshood into that pot? How could she communicate her need for Ikatou’s help?

  Ikatou turned away from her and went about his business. Clearly, he hadn’t understood her need. Zo would have to find a way to poison the other pot without his help and without drawing the attention of the rest of the camp.

  Boar nudged her with a steaming bowl of stew, a ladle still dripping in his other hand. “Eat. We have to leave soon.”

  Zo tried to hide a tremor of fear as she accepted the bowl of deadly stew. Killing Boar wouldn’t be enough. She needed to kill his inner circle as well if she wanted any hope of escaping this motley clan with her life.

  Boar ladled his own food and together they sat on their folded bedrolls to eat. Steam curled off Boar’s stew as he blew across its surface. “The swelling on my forehead is down, but I still have a bad headache,” he said, conversationally. Then he took his first bite.

  “That’s natural. You lost a lot of blood. Fluids will help.” She held her own bowl to her lips and pretended to drink.

  The instant the broth touched her lips, the skin around her mouth tingled with a hint of numbness. She didn’t let a drop in her mouth.

  If Boar felt the effects of his stew too quickly—before the other men had a chance to eat—she was dead.

  Behind them, someone shouted a curse and the camp turned to pandemonium.

  Zo spun around to see Ikatou and a member of Boar’s inner circle shoving each other. Ikatou ducked to avoid the other man’s fist and answered with an uppercut of his own.

  Boar set down his bowl, and as if he were excusing rowdy children said, “They get like this from time to time.” He stumbled a little as he stood, and cleared his throat a few times as he moved toward what had become a full-fledged battle between Ikatou and his opponent. The other men formed a ring around the combatants and Zo didn’t squander the opportunity.

  She inched toward the other fire and fumbled with the vial of monkshood. She twisted the cork while it was still in her pocket, careful to keep it upright when the cork came free of the bottle.

  Boar shouted, “That’s enough,” and a few of the men helped to pull the two apart.

  But Zo still hadn’t reached the other cook fire. She sprinted the rest of the way to the fire and instead of pouring the uncorked vial into the cook pot, she threw it into the stew, vial and all.

  “We leave in five minutes if we want to reach the Gate and your new clan by nightfall,” Boar ordered. He cleared
his throat a few times, shook his head, and staggered toward Zo. “You look like you’ve never seen two men fight before,” he said. He put his hand to his head and moaned, but didn’t complain further as they sat back down on their bedrolls and picked up their bowls again. He lifted a shaking spoon to his lips.

  Around them, other bowls were filled and the camp divided back to their own fires. The men of Boar’s inner circle ate their stew as they talked while at Ikatou’s fire, the men ate with shifting glances.

  Zo looked back to find Boar lying on his side, the bowl of stew spilled and forgotten. He tried to clear his throat a few times. “What’s … wrong with … me?”

  Across the camp, one of Boar’s men shouted, “What’s this?” as he held up the empty vial. He examined it for a moment then looked directly at Zo. A few men cleared their throats; some scratched at their necks, as if that would bring some feeling to the numbness spreading throughout their bodies.

  Boar tried to crawl toward Zo, but didn’t seem to have the strength to push his body off the ground. “You … ” A gargling gasp escaped his swollen lips. Drool rolled down the side of his face.

  Boar’s eyes rolled back and with a sickening thud, his head connected with the earth. A sound she knew would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

  She snatched up her medical kit and bedroll as the man holding her vial threw it into the fire. “Poison,” the Clanless man wailed.

  Bowls clattered to the rocky ground and every wild and haggard man from Boar’s inner circle turned to Zo. She could tell they were feeling the initial effects of the monkshood, but it would take another minute or two to circulate through their bloodstream. Too much time.

  Zo dove at Boar, pulling a long knife from the dead man’s belt. Rolling onto her back, she fumbled with the blade as one of Boar’s men ran toward her, his face twisted in rage.

  Zo backed into Boar’s corpse, her hand unwittingly planted against his lifeless face, and she screamed. It was as though time decelerated and hours passed in the moments that led up to her impending death by the hands of Boar’s men. How could she let this happen? To come so achingly close to freedom just to have it ripped from her fingertips. Tess. Joshua. Her arms throbbed with the need to hold them, almost as much as they ached to hold Gryphon one last time.