Clanless (Nameless #2)(47)

A startling thought hit Zo like a knife to the gut: others would be hurt. Others would want her, a healer, to come and tend to them. Stone had said she was valuable. But what if he discovered her gift was waning? Would he be angry?

She couldn’t give herself over to Boar, but she also couldn’t stay here knowing she had the ability to end these people’s suffering.

Zo stood up and let her medical satchel fall next to Tess. “Look after him, bug. I’m going to talk to Stone.”

Boar and his band stole three more people from the Nameless and wounded half a dozen others. Zo spent the better part of the day begging Stone to give in to Boar’s demands, but he wouldn’t listen. After another long day of hiking, Zo sat in the dirt with the rest of the Nameless refugees. Tess slept in a ball on the ground at Zo’s side. Beside her, a young child wept into her mother’s bosom. “I don’t want to fall asleep, Mama. The bad men will come again.”

Looking around at the frightened faces of the camp, Zo wondered what the Nameless would think if they discovered she was responsible for their fears? That their nightmares would end the moment they handed her over to Boar?

Zo brushed her fingers through Tess’s hair. She should run dead into the woods and shout for Boar to take her in exchange for the stolen Nameless, but how could she leave her sister and Joshua? Two orphans who considered her their only family in this world.

One by one, the stars came out. Men and boys stood surrounding the perimeter of the camp, too tired to be truly effective. At some point, these men had to sleep. Joshua included. Men took their meals on foot, always carrying a weapon in their free hand. No one in the camp spoke.

The twilight hour passed. The forest was still, save for a light wind rustling the leaves and the occasional call from the crows that seemed to follow them. Zo and the rest of the Nameless waited for an attack. But it never came. Eventually, the women and children around the camp relaxed into sleep. A few men leaned on their spears, their eyes fluttering between worlds.

Joshua walked wearily toward Zo and Tess and their low-burning fire. “Stone-made-me-rest.” His words slurred with exhaustion. He dropped to his knees beside Tess and fell forward. Only when his breathing dropped into a sleeping pattern did Zo close her eyes. Maybe Boar decided she wasn’t worth the fight. Maybe he’d moved on.





Chapter 18





She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.

Gryphon repeated the words over and over again in his mind. He could barely slow his brain down enough to process anything else as he, Raca, and Talon raced across the mountainous terrain.

If Zo was alive, that meant Ajax had risked everything to spare her. It also meant Gabe had lied.

Gryphon thought back on his time with Gabe. Had the Wolf ever come out and said Zo was dead? It had definitely been inferred, but had he said the actual words?

Gryphon decided it didn’t matter. Gabe lied by letting him believe she was gone. The snake must have seen the way he’d suffered over the past weeks. With a few simple words he could have ended Gryphon’s torment.

But he hadn’t. He’d even convinced Gryphon that not returning to the Allies for Joshua was the noble thing to do.

Gryphon gasped as realization dawned.

He’d almost walked away from Joshua forever. All because Gabe wanted Zo for himself.

“He’s a dead man,” Gryphon growled. But his anger was still overshadowed by the plain truth that Zo was alive, or at least had been when she left the hiding tree outside Ram’s Gate.

“Who’s a dead man?” asked Talon.

Gryphon gathered his pack. “Never mind. Let’s cover some ground.”

They hadn’t gone more than a mile when they heard the moans of what might have been a wounded animal. Talon darted off the game trail and after a few minutes called for Gryphon and Raca. “It’s a woman,” he said.

Soggy leaves and long grass made a bed for a creature so small she might have been a child were it not for her withered hands and white hair. Gryphon dropped his pack and knelt beside the old woman, taking her icy cold hands in his. She had no blanket and no supplies. She appeared to have lain down in this soft patch of earth to die.

“Who’s there?” Her weak voice was rough and parched of water. She rolled over to face Gryphon.

He jumped at the sight of the Historian. She was little more than a skeleton and one of her eyes was missing, with blood dried and crusted around the swollen socket. “Troy’s son? Is it really you?”

“Yes,” he choked. “I’m here. I’ll help you.” Though she looked far beyond his help.

The Historian was Barnabas’s grandmother and the former Seer of Ram’s Gate. She had betrayed Barnabas by helping foster the Nameless insurrection. The last time Gryphon saw her she had helped him and his friends escape the Gate.

“The Raven. Did you warn them?” she asked.

Gryphon might have grinned at her knowledge of his dealings. She always seemed to know what he was about. But after seeing her like this … he couldn’t muster a smile.

“They escaped before the Ram had a chance to reach them.”

Her features lightened in obvious relief. “Joshua … ” she smacked her wrinkled lips together, “the Wolf healer and her sister?”

“All fine and traveling with the Nameless refugees.” He hoped.