Clanless (Nameless #2)(35)

“Wake him,” said Zo.

Stone grabbed the man’s bound hands and pulled him up so he sat on his knees. Then Stone took a handful of the prisoner’s tattered shirt. He curled a fist like he might strike him, but he turned back to Zo, waiting for instruction.

“What is your name?” Zo stood next to Stone and the Clanless man.

He grunted something unintelligible. His hair and beard were so full she had trouble finding his face beneath the mess. No wonder the rest of the Nameless thought he was an animal.

“Answer me,” said Zo.

The man looked straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact.

Stone threw his fist into his face. “You will speak to her or you will die. Choose wisely.”

Zo shook her head and noticed something on the man’s face. She nudged Stone out of the way. “Someone bring me a torch.”

With more light, Zo saw a cut on the man’s cheek that had been reopened by Stone’s fist. The wound was red around the edges and oozed pus. “My kit,” Zo called over her shoulder to Joshua. The boy sprinted off into the darkness while Tess inched closer to the wounded man. “It’s infected, isn’t it?” she said.

At the sound of Tess’s small voice, the animalistic man turned his head.

“Yes, kid. How would you treat this?” Zo asked, all the while studying the man, who seemed to relax in Tess’s presence.

Tess rattled off her list as though she was back in the Allied Camp, reciting one of her daily lessons in the Healer’s Tent. “Clean it. Pack it with wool soaked in witch-hazel and garlic. And a blessing of purification.”

“Very good,” said Zo.

“Healers,” the man said in a raspy voice. His Ram accent was so heavy Zo could barely make out the word.

He looked over at Zo and smiled. “Pretty healers.”

Stone stepped in to strike the man again, but Zo held him back. “Please. Give us some space.”

“Pain,” said Stone over Zo. “I’ve lived with the Ram long enough to know how to make you wish you were dead, Clanless.”

Zo sighed. They wouldn’t get anywhere with Stone spouting threats every other second.

“Do you want to treat him?” Zo said, ignoring both men and giving her attention to Tess, “Or should I?” She wouldn’t be able to manage the blessing, but the herbs would help him well enough.

Tess was usually overeager to practice her budding skills as a healer, but this man, with all his hair and filth, made her pause. She finally tilted her head to one side and asked him, “What’s your name?”

The man squinted at her through the curtain of his wild and matted hair as if deciding whether answering the child would cost him. He finally grunted and said, “Name’s Boar.” His voice sounded like rocks rubbed against each other.

“Will you hurt me, Boar?” asked Tess.

It was such an honest question, some of the fight in the man’s body visibly slipped away. His mouth fell open a fraction of an inch and, when Boar’s gaze dropped to the ground, Zo knew the man had met his match with Tess.

Unless this was all an act.

“I—” the man struggled to clear his throat, “I won’t harm you, child.”

Stone made to protest, but Zo silenced him with a look.

“I found it!” Joshua said. His red hair matched the torch’s flame as he approached carrying Zo’s medical satchel.

Zo rested it on the floor in front of her little sister and stepped back.

“I’ll need hot water,” said Tess, as she bravely crouched in front of Boar.

Healing was a difficult skill to master. Not just anyone could do it. There were, of course, certain things that could be taught. Zo’s mother had written down all of her recipes for various remedies, powders, oils, and concoctions. But healing wasn’t like baking. So much of a person’s ability to heal came from their ability to find love and compassion for those they treated. One also had to tap into a spiritual energy that very few had the ability to control. The skill was hereditary, which is why most healers learned the art from a parent.

Tess didn’t see the hard set to Joshua’s shoulders as he hovered behind her. A pot of steaming hot water was set at her side. She took a deep breath, dipped a clean swath of cotton into the water, and lifted it to the man’s cheek. “How did you cut yourself?” she asked.

The man flinched under her ministrations. “Knife.”

As usual, Tess bit her bottom lip while she worked. “Were you running with it?”

Boar snorted, making Tess flinch until she saw the man’s yellow smile. “Wasn’t my knife what done it,” he said.

Tess tossed the soiled cotton aside and searched Zo’s kit for what she needed. She sighed. “I’m so tired of people fighting. Why do people have to hurt each other?”

“Food,” said Boar, wincing this time as Tess applied her medicines.

“Were you fighting over food when you got this?” asked Tess.

Zo had trained her sister to keep her patients talking as a way of distracting them from pain, but she’d never expected her sister to feel so at ease with someone like Boar. It reminded her of their mother. She never cared who it was she was healing, only that the job was done well.

“Is that what you’re after? Food?” Zo sat next to her sister with her legs tucked underneath her.