Clanless (Nameless #2)(3)

The footsteps came closer, muted by the soggy earth. Eva moved from her knees to the balls of her feet, a compressed spring ready to fly into an attack. She adjusted her grip on her knives.

Hope fled. Zo couldn’t catch her breath. Tess. Joshua. Eva. The Nameless. Dying today under this tree meant the deaths of so many others as well. Gryphon’s sacrifice had been in vain.

Large boots stopped mere feet from Zo’s hiding place. Boots she’d recognize anywhere.

“Don’t,” she cried, trying to stop Eva before she attacked.

But her warning was too late.

Eva sprang, blades in hand, aimed at the intruder’s chest.





Chapter 2





Gryphon tensed when the manacles fell, but Zander didn’t give any indication that he’d heard the clanking metal over the pouring rain.

Behind Zander, Ajax met Gryphon’s eye.

He’d heard.

He’d likely been listening for the slightest sound of metal since he was the one to risk his life by giving Gryphon the key.

Gryphon had to remind himself to exhale and inhale at a normal rate, even though his heart thundered in his chest. Freeing his hands was only a small step on the path of not dying today.

When no one else seemed wise to Gryphon’s partial freedom, he focused on the next step toward escape: the ropes binding his ankles. The men in his mess sat too far away for Gryphon to easily steal a blade.

Ajax stared up into the branches of the tree above Gryphon’s head. He gave someone in the branches a subtle nod. Then, without bothering to keep his movements quiet, he abruptly stood and walked away from Gryphon and the others, drawing Zander’s attention for a fleeting moment before the mess captain realized Ajax only left to relieve himself.

But just as Zander looked away, a slight thump sounded next to Gryphon’s hands. At first he thought it might have been a pinecone loosed by the rain. He felt around with his unbound hands, careful to keep his movement to a minimum, and then his fingers grazed something hard and familiar—the hilt of a small dagger.

How was it possible? He forced himself not to look up into the dark branches. Hope he hadn’t dared feel surged through him. It must have been Zo’s friend, Gabe, though why the Wolf would linger to help him, he didn’t understand. He should have been running north to warn the Raven of the impending Ram attack.

Unless Zo put him up to it.

Ajax walked back to the mess and dared a glance up into the high branches of the tree over their heads. Rain pelted his face. He wiped it away before looking Gryphon in the eye. What his old friend tried to convey in that shared glance, Gryphon couldn’t be certain. But he had a feeling it was important.

Ajax frowned and looked down at his hands as he repositioned himself on the wet ground. He grit his teeth and grabbed hold of his pant legs. He seemed to flex every muscle in his body. Then he nodded, jaw tensed in anticipation. The familiar zipping sound of an arrow flew down from the tree. The arrow sank deep into Ajax’s thigh.

Ajax rolled and wailed, pointing in the opposite direction of the arrow. “Raven!” he half shouted, half growled.

“Link!” Zander called his men to order, as they all searched the trees in the opposite direction. Metal and wood scraped together as round shields were raised to form a perfect wall of defense.

I could kill Zander, thought Gryphon. I could end him like he ordered Ajax to kill Zo. He wanted to kill him as much as he wanted his freedom. But right now he couldn’t have both.

Gryphon took his chance. Using the dagger gifted to him by the hidden ally in the tree, he sliced through the tight ropes around his ankles in one fluid motion and jumped to his feet.

Gryphon leapt over a bush and raced around a tree. Then another. He didn’t get more than twenty strides before Zander shouted, “Stop him!”

Gryphon took off at a wild sprint into the dark forest. A spear shot past him within inches of his head. Arrows flew behind him, likely Gabe helping to cover his escape. Men shouted in pain. Gryphon didn’t turn around. He ran as hard as he’d ever run, pushing through the absolute darkness as if the wings of hell beat at his heels.

After a couple hundred yards, the earth fell out from beneath him and he plummeted, rolling down the sheer side of the mountain. Rocks bruised his body. Brush and foliage scratched wicked gashes into his skin. He used his arms to protect his head as he tumbled, end over end, into the belly of a rocky gorge.

He landed hard in a freezing stream of mountain water that came up to his waist. In the distance Zander wailed with frustration. The ghostly sound cut through the pouring rain and echoed off the walls of the gorge. It was no small miracle Gryphon survived the fall. Now Zander’s men would have to backtrack half a mile to a nearby ridge to get down into the ravine. He struggled to his feet then fell back into the water after his first step, clutching his head to clear away the dizzy spell that robbed him of precious time.

He lifted a hand to the back of his head and found a lump forming. He must have hit it in the fall, but didn’t remember.

He pushed himself up onto his battered hands and knees and crawled through the stream until the dizziness in his head cleared. Pulling himself out of the water, he collapsed on the black soil to catch a couple of breaths, then forced his weary body to stand. He kept his pace slow but consistent, heading northeast in the direction of the Raven settlement even though he wanted nothing more than to run back to the tree to see if Zo was alive and to check on Joshua and the others.