Fearless (Nameless #3)(88)

“Surrender!” Gryphon growled. The wails of dying men punctured Gryphon’s very soul. He’d go mad if he had to watch more.

“I … surrender.” Barnabas dropped his head and fell to his knees. The horn that usually hung at the chief’s side was only a few feet away on the ground. Gryphon bent down and reached for the familiar horn. The Ram horns were sacred to his people. A symbol of power.

Gryphon pressed the horn to his lips and blew three times—maybe the first time a Ram horn was used to call surrender. It took a few minutes for the fighting to die down. Some Ram simply refused to throw down their weapons. Others knelt on the ground, raising their hands above their heads.

It was a huge victory that felt more like a rough stone lodged in the pit of Gryphon’s stomach.

Gryphon sheathed his sword and turned back to the white-faced Ram Chief. “Go join your men until I decide what to do with you.” He turned his back and marched toward the Valley of the Wolves. He had his dagger ready, anticipating an attack, even before Barnabas charged him from behind.

In one swift movement, Gryphon spun and dragged the blade across Barnabas’s throat. The chief’s eyes doubled in shock, his mouth agape, as he slid down the wall. Butter melting in a hot pan.

Gryphon didn’t want to celebrate with his men. He took almost no joy from the victory. Lost and numb, he walked toward the Valley of Wolves with no idea where to find Zo and Joshua.

He took three unbalanced steps out of the pass—out of view from his men—then fell to his knees and wept.





Chapter Thirty-Five





At the mouth of the canyon, Zo watched the Seer’s face turn reddish purple when Gryphon pulled the Ram horn to his lips and blew the Ram’s call of surrender. The Seer pulled her men back into a small niche tucked against the mountain wall.

Joshua lay face down in the dirt with hands bound behind his back, his cheek pressed to the ground. Both she and the boy were gagged; the foul smell of cloth in her mouth stirred her stomach in violent waves.

At least the boy was conscious and alive. For now.

Gryphon staggered out of the pass with hands bloody and chest rising and falling rapidly—hyperventilating, if Zo wasn’t mistaken.

Zo tried calling out to him, trying to use her tongue to force the cloth from her mouth.

Her voice didn’t carry through the gag, and a soldier’s hand clamped over her mouth, further blocking her efforts.

Move, Gryphon. Run.

But he didn’t run. Bent over as he was, he didn’t even see the Seer slip out of the niche behind him.

Zo bucked and fought, but her strength was nothing to the Ram holding her. Please, no. Please, no. Please, no. She tried pulling energy from the man holding her, but with hands bound, she barely grazed his skin with one fingertip. His skin under her finger went cold, the hands holding her shook, but Zo’s little weapon wouldn’t be enough.

The Seer pulled a dagger from her belt, the sound of her whisper-soft steps lost in the commotion from the pass.

Slamming down on the foot of her captor, Zo threw her head back in a wild rush of adrenaline. The Ram’s hand slipped from her mouth. She screamed Gryphon’s name just as the Seer sprang forward, driving her Ram blade into Gryphon’s back.

Gryphon collapsed face first into the ground, the hilt of the blade erect.

The Ram soldier firmed his grip on her again, but when Stone and a small band of Freeman bolted out of the canyon, he released his hold and ran.

“Don’t lose him,” Stone ordered.

The Seer cried out as Stone tackled her to the ground.

Zo sprinted with hands still bound behind her back toward Gryphon.

“Help!” she screamed. “Someone, help!” No. Please. Please, no. She dropped next to Gryphon in a slide. “Talk to me, Gryphon.”

A groan was all he managed. He lay on his stomach with eyes pinched shut in pain. Zo wormed up onto her knees, tugging at the ropes binding her wrists in panic.

“Hold still,” Chief Naat’s smooth voice sounded at her back. He cut the bindings on her wrists and Zo hissed as circulation flowed back into her arms.

“Gryphon,” she sobbed. She carefully pulled out the knife and pressed her palm over the wound while trying to listen to his heartbeat through his back. “Please. Please.”

Blood oozed from the wound, pooling around her palm and through the gaps of her fingers. Without hesitation, she pushed her healing energy into him, holding nothing back. One of her mother’s blessings flowed from her lips, helping the energy along to the beat of her chant.

Loving Gryphon was as natural and right as breathing, and the energy poured through her with abandon. Her hand heated from the contact, but the rest of her began to cool as the life force drained from her body.

Suddenly, a hand lifted one of hers from off of Gryphon’s wound. A gentle, brown hand lined with age and calloused from hardship.

“Chief Naat?” Zo found she could barely lift her head. Her body crumpled on top of Gryphon’s with one healing hand still pushing energy into Gryphon’s wound.

“Use me, child.”

“But—”

“My days are numbered. The creator beckons me. My ancestors are waiting. It is meant to be.”

Zo was drowning. Slipping under the surface of consciousness to a place beyond awakening.