Clanless (Nameless #2)(44)
Raca smacked her brother upside the head. “Quiet, Talon.” And then to Gryphon she said, “Forgive him. He needs to get back to his wife.”
Gryphon smiled and tried not to think about the fact that only a few months ago he considered Raven, and others outside the Ram, less than human. The thought brought him so much shame it was hard to swallow the final sip of water from his water skin. He climbed to his feet and dusted off his backside. “I should be going,” he said. If he didn’t get back to Ram’s Gate soon, he’d lose his chance at killing Zander and Ajax before they went back inside the Gate.
“What about the redheaded boy?” Raca blurted. “He claimed you were his mentor. Will you abandon him?”
Gryphon froze halfway through the motion of putting on his pack. “What did you just say?”
“The boy.” Raca bit her lip, no longer looking at Gryphon, but instead reading Talon’s silent cues to stop talking.
“How do you know about Joshua?” Gryphon said each word carefully. This young woman’s answer was so fragile to him.
“We shared his fire two nights ago. He keeps interesting company.”
The Nameless covered an impressive amount of ground before setting up camp for the night in a large clearing. Children used to working fields aren’t strangers to endurance, but by the time Stone and Eva settled on a stopping place, most of the small ones hung on the thin coats of their weary parents if they weren’t already resting on their mother’s hip or their father’s shoulders.
Zo recognized this portion of the mountain because the trees were blackened and bare and the ground scorched from a fire that must have happened in the last year. Zo remembered traveling through this part of the mountain with Gabe when she was on her way to deliver herself up as a Nameless spy for the Allies. It was hard to imagine Tess traveling these woods behind them. They had taken two full weeks to get to Ram’s Gate, traveling at a much slower pace, but still, the fact that she had managed to stay hidden, that her short legs had carried her so far, was a miracle.
Needing the comfort of her touch and the reassurance she was still alive, Zo tugged Tess closer to her side before the girl wiggled free and ran to say something to Joshua.
Stone hopped up onto a fallen tree trunk and the Nameless went quiet. “The Clanless will come back and try to take more of our people. We must be ready to defend ourselves tonight.” Tight whispers scattered across the camp, but died when Stone continued. “Gather your firewood in pairs. Men, build your campfires, arm your women, then report to me in twenty minutes with a torch in hand.”
Stone shouldn’t have any doubts that the Clanless knew their location. A toddler could follow the tracks of a group this size. They were less like tracks and more like a trampling of the earth.
Joshua hopped over to Zo and dropped a dead badger that he’d caught earlier that day at her feet. “Stay here with Tess. I’ll get the wood!” He sprinted away, not yielding to Zo’s calls for him to come back.
“You stay here,” Zo said to Tess. “I’m going to go kill that boy. I’ll be right back.”
Tess wrinkled her nose with a smile. She knelt and scanned the ground for more rocks—something of a nightly tradition.
Zo knew it wasn’t smart to set out into the woods alone, but she couldn’t let Joshua go without her. That boy! He was so excited about taking care of Zo and Tess that he forgot his own age. Sure, he was a decent fighter, especially for a thirteen-year-old, but he was still just a boy.
A boy Zo couldn’t bear to lose.
The evening brought with it new shadows that shifted as she walked through the woods, away from camp. A large bird cawed from its perch in the trees. Curious, Zo approached it and the bird pushed off from the thin branch, using its powerful black wings to ascend into the darkening night.
Where are you, Ginger?
A dead branch snapped, but the sound echoed around Zo, making it impossible to tell from which direction it came. She wanted to call out for Joshua, but didn’t dare alert her enemies to her whereabouts if they lurked in these blackened woods that offered so little cover.
“Zo!” Joshua called from the direction of the camp. He didn’t know how foolish it was to announce that she was missing. He and the rest of the camp didn’t realize she was the reason they had to fear the woods. She was the reason that Nameless woman was killed this morning and that two other men were somewhere—hopefully alive—with Boar and his Clanless band of savages.
“Zo!” he called again.
Zo sprinted toward the clearing and practically tackled Joshua when she found him at the edge of the forest, carrying so much firewood she couldn’t even see his face over the pile.
“You are in so much trouble right now.” Zo kissed his cheek, killing the power of her threat, but too relieved to care. “Pairs, Joshua. You’re supposed to go in pairs. Didn’t you hear Stone?”
Only then did Zo notice the lanky Nameless young man at Joshua’s side, carrying his own large pile.
“Oh. I didn’t realize … ”
The little Zo saw of Joshua’s face turned red as his flaming hair with the embarrassment of being reprimanded in front of another boy. “See you at the meeting, Ruff,” said Joshua, striding away on his long, awkward legs.
Zo jogged to keep pace with him. “I’m sorry for embarrassing you. I’m responsible for you, Joshua. I don’t want you hurt.”