Clanless (17 page)

There was no justification for trading your humanity. Whoever these men were, they were the darkest kind of evil. Zo had never heard of the Clanless banding together in large groups. How many of them were there? Enough to terrorize this group all the way to the Allies?

“I’ve heard that the Clanless like to barter. Could we make a trade?” she said.

Boar studied her and then looked over at Stone. “S’possible. Depends on what you’re willing to part with.” Boar licked his lips, as if the idea gave him pleasure.

Stone crouched in front of Boar and jabbed his knife into a patch of grass at the bound man’s feet. “Let’s make this happen. How do we arrange a trade?”

Gryphon, Sani, and the rest of the Raven warriors slid down from their hiding place in the trees to cross the Ram’s barbaric bridge. They kept to the shadows, their fluid movements swallowed up by the echo of crashing waves below and the destruction of Raven homes behind them.

It wouldn’t be long before Barnabas’s men discovered the island empty and the grain stores wasted.

At the head of each felled tree bridge stood a Ram sentry, left to ensure no one escaped—a tactical mistake on Barnabas’ part. One mess unit should have been left behind, not single men spread apart without the protection of a phalanx. It wasn’t like Barnabas to be so careless guarding his rear.

The Raven at Gryphon’s side stretched their bows and each took aim at a different sentry. Gryphon searched wildly through the thick foliage for any sign of danger. “Something’s not right,” he whispered to Sani.

On some unspoken cue the arrows flew, hitting their marks with deadly precision. Before the sentries’ bodies hit the ground, the Raven, with Gryphon and Sani, flew toward the tree bridges at a dead sprint. Sani wasn’t as fast as the other men, and Gryphon matched his pace to ensure the boy made it to the trees.

From behind them, a spear flew, striking the Raven in front of Gryphon. He reached for his shield to protect him and Sani from the next attack, but of course it wasn’t there.

Gryphon swore. The first Raven men reached the tree, gaining added cover from the branches. If they could just make it that far, they’d have a chance.

“We beat your healer whore before she died!” a familiar voice shouted behind Gryphon.

His legs stopped working and, trembling with rage, he turned to face Zander.

“She begged us to stop, begged for mercy. But we bruised her, cut her, bled her, until her face looked like ravaged meat. She wasn’t pretty in death,” Zander’s voice trembled with hate. He stood—chest heaving—flanked by a handful of his mess brothers, including Ajax, whose face was a blank slate.

Sani tugged on the back of Gryphon’s shirt, trying to pull him away from Zander, but Gryphon ignored him. The frame of Gryphon’s vision turned red. His fingers ached to grasp his spear. He needed to make Zander hurt the way he did. He couldn’t imagine a greater pain than the one Zander’s words inflicted. He reached for his dagger—the only weapon in his possession—and flung it at Zander’s head.

The knife sunk into the wood of Zander’s shield. The lazy smile on the mess leader’s face brought Gryphon back to the reality of the situation. He looked down at Sani, still tugging at the back of his shirt, and gaped at the magnitude of his mistake. The rest of the Raven were in the tree, crossing to the mainland.

“Kill the boy and bind Gryphon,” said Zander.

Every instinct in his body screamed to charge Zander and break his neck. But Gryphon pulled Sani behind his back and together they inched toward the fallen tree. He would avenge Zo’s murderer, but not at the risk of Sani’s life.

Gryphon’s mess brothers formed a half circle around him, preparing to tackle him as a group. Sani muttered a chant in the Raven’s strange language, his head buried into Gryphon’s back. Gryphon met eyes with Ajax, and his old friend frowned in misery. Ajax had a family. He followed Zander’s orders for the sake of his wife and child. Even when those orders included killing innocents—killing friends—Sara and the baby came first.

Arrows flew over Gryphon and Sani’s heads. Zander called for his men to link, but two of Gryphon’s mess brothers went down before the wall of shields could save them.

Gryphon practically threw Sani onto the fallen tree bridge and barreled after him with the frustrated shouts of Zander nipping at their heels. When they reached the halfway point on the tree-bridge, a Ram horn sounded.

“Move!” Gryphon hissed. “Quickly.” The other Raven warriors positioned on branches of the tree stowed their bows and ran.

Sani jumped up and grabbed hold of a tree branch, his lithe form swinging through the air only to grab another. The other Raven traveled in similar fashion, quickly outpacing Gryphon, as if the laws of gravity had no hold on them. Behind him, the
thunk
of spears connected with wood. When his feet finally hit solid ground, Sani and the rest of the Raven were at least fifty paces ahead of him.

Gryphon put his head down and sprinted as fast as he could into the forest away from the cliff. Ram shouts behind him pushed him faster. He caught up to Sani and took hold of his arm, pulling him along.

Eventually their pace ebbed, but death was too close to their heels to stop running. The Raven took turns casting hate-filled glances at Gryphon. He’d almost gotten their chief’s son killed. They were right to be angry with him. But Gryphon couldn’t be moved to care about anything beyond his hatred toward Zander.

“She wasn’t pretty in death.”

Gryphon had been so careful not to allow himself to wallow in the possible details of Zo’s death. But hearing Zander taunt him with her pain had been too much. Gryphon sprinted away from Zander to save his life, but it felt as though he moved in the wrong direction. For the hundredth time, he vowed to kill Zander.

“You will stay back with the rest of the women,” Stone said to Eva.

“But Zo’s going with you!” she protested.

“Boar trusts her and insisted she be there when the trade is made.”

Morning brought with it the chaos of people working together to pack up camp. Fire pits smoked, finally resting from a long vigil to protect the people as they slept.

“Zo has some experience with these savages. She must go. You,” he cupped Eva’s cheeks and kissed her forehead, “will stay with the rest of the camp, under the protection of armed men.”

Eva produced two daggers in the time it took Zo to blink. One pressed into her lover’s side. “If anything, I will be protecting them.” She smiled and pressed her full lips to Stone’s neck then sauntered away, leaving Stone to gape after her.

“I love that woman.” A grin as broad as a Ram’s shoulders stretched across his face. He shook his head, as if to clear his mind, and turned back to the small band of men who’d volunteered to meet with the Clanless.

“Everyone ready?” he asked.

They had released Boar early that morning after he promised to deliver Stone’s message that the “Freemen” would make a trade in exchange for the people stolen by the Clanless. Boar seemed convinced that his leader would agree to meet them if Stone came prepared to give his band something of equal value.

While the Nameless couldn’t offer them food, they did have an impressive collection of weapons stolen from the Ram. Short swords, bows, spears, and even a few of the coveted round shields. Any group of people trying to survive this uncivilized region would be desperate for such an offering.

Zo scanned their surroundings as they marched out of camp and into the forest. Light filtered through the trees, casting life in either brilliant sunshine or harsh shadow. She tightened her grip on a knife she carried—one of Eva’s—and tried to relax.

Cannibals. They were on their way to meet cannibals. She’d let Tess administer to a man who chose to eat other people instead of starve. She shook her head, still overwhelmed with disgust as they approached a massive boulder that served as their meeting place.

Stone had told Boar to have his leader and the Nameless prisoners meet an hour past sunrise, but no one waited for them as they approached the boulder.

“They could just be late,” offered Zo. “He might not have found them in time to meet.” They had only released Boar a few hours ago. His people could be anywhere.

“I’ll kill him,” Stone growled. He turned a full, impatient circle. “We shouldn’t have placed our trust in a—”

“Clanless?” Boar and a ragged group of men emerged from clever hiding places around the boulder, effectively surrounding Stone, Zo, and the rest of their little company. They, like Boar, wore rags for clothing and had twigs and leaves sticking out from all angles to help them blend into their surroundings. “You are late,
Nameless
. We have been here for some time.”

The fact that Boar called Stone a Nameless wasn’t lost on anyone. Clearly, Zo hadn’t been the only one questioning captives last night.

“You failed to mention that you escaped Ram’s Gate,” said Boar. The men of his company crowded behind him, marking Boar as their leader.

“And you failed to mention that
you
were the leader of your Clanless band,” said Stone.

Boar’s men dragged three Nameless to his side. They each had their hands bound, but otherwise appeared unharmed. “You said last night you wanted to make a trade, healer.” Boar sought her out amid the crowd of Nameless. “What can you offer me?” His eyes brightened, his brows jumped up and down as he scanned her body.

Stone stepped in front of Zo, blocking her view of Boar. “We have weapons.” He instructed the five men who carried sacks over their shoulders to open them. Several blades
clinked
against each other in the process. Two others dropped a pair of Ram shields into the offering pile. Circular shields framed in valuable metal and inlaid with impenetrable snakewood, ensuring a beautiful death to any that went up against it.

The shields alone made a generous deal for the Clanless.

Boar picked up a blade and stared down the length of the sword, checking for balance. He tested the weight of it in his hands. “There really is nothing quite like a Ram sword.” His gaze locked on the shields and he seemed to salivate. “I once owned a shield like this.” He reached for the leather straps secured to the back of the shield. “Barnabas took it from me before my banishment.”

All of these men—these Clanless—once belonged to one of the four clans. Many, judging by their looks, were Kodiak, but there were a few who could have been Raven or even Wolf.

Stone gestured to the pile. “These blades are yours in exchange for my people. The shields,” he said, “are insurance that your men won’t come near our camp again.”

Boar smiled and casually tossed the shield down into the pile of weapons. Zo flinched at the sound of metal hitting metal. “No deal.”

“What?” Stone balked. “I’ve offered you a generous trade. What more can you want?”

Boar’s wild gazed zeroed in on Zo. “I want her.”

Gryphon traveled at the rear of the flock of Raven with Sani just ahead of him. He couldn’t decide if the Raven warriors ran so fast out of fear of the pursuing Ram, or because they meant to lose Gryphon. Either option seemed equally probable.