Nameless (3 page)

No. Tonight he would hide behind the walls of his inheritance like a child hides behind his mother’s skirt.

The brick-and-plaster house sat back on a five-acre plot. It was one of the furthest family plots from the main gate and the center of town. A red sun dipped behind the towering wall of Ram’s Gate, casting an ominous glow around the house as Gryphon climbed the dirt path. The solid oak door whined with complaint as he nudged it open.

“Who’s there?” Gryphon’s mother reached the entry with her arms and hands covered in white flour and her graying bun sitting at an angle on her head. She studied Gryphon and the corners of her mouth sank into the frown he’d come to associate with his childhood.

“Wash the blood off your hands.” She retreated back to the kitchen without another word.

Gryphon leaned his long spear and shield against the wall and sloughed off his pack. He turned and noticed the rusted metal shield mounted above the hearth. His cheeks colored in shame. He looked away, but it didn’t stop the boiling wave of anger that always came when he looked at his father’s shield. The symbol of his family’s disgrace.

Despite Gryphon’s countless protests, his mother refused to take it down. “It’s good to remember,” she would say. Then she’d go out into the forest where she thought no one could hear her and cry, rocking back and forth with her hands wrapped firmly about her stomach. As if she’d fall apart if she didn’t hold herself together.

No matter how hard he worked in the training field, that shield would always hang over his head. Always.

In the kitchen, Gryphon plunged his hands into a basin of water. As he scrubbed, the water turned the color of salmon flesh.

His mother kneaded her palm into a batch of dough with more force than necessary. She used her forearm to push aside a clump of silver hair that fell into her face. “How many?” she asked with her back to him.

Gryphon couldn’t scrub his hands hard enough. “One. We were ambushed.” His excursions used to be so boring. They used to go weeks without running into another clan, but lately …

“Who?” His mother stood up straight, prepared to take the news like a strong Ram woman was meant to.

“Joshua.” Gryphon felt his control slip. He chewed on his tongue until he could steel his emotions. “Spear,” was all he trusted himself to say.

Joshua wasn’t a member of a mess unit yet. The System didn’t allow thirteen-year-olds to join. He had still been in training, but he’d begged to go, and Gryphon—his mentor—didn’t have the heart to turn him down.

“Will he live?” she asked, kneading the dough again.

“I … ” Gryphon cleared his constricting throat, thinking of the dirty Nameless girl they’d let work on Joshua in the cave. “I don’t think he will.”

Darkness. The room was quiet except for the dissonant sound of dripping water. Zo sat up from the stone floor and put a hand to her throbbing head. Her eyes burned. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, giving a papery quality to the rotting smell of the cave.

Tess!

Zo crawled around, seeing mostly with her shaking hands. When she found another body beside her she choked on a sob of relief.

“Tess, are you all right?”

Zo moved her hand up to Tess’ face only to have it batted away.

“My name is not Tess,” a boy said, his voice weak, yet strangely hard.

“There was a girl with me. Do you know where she is?” Zo could hear the hysteria in her own words. The thought of Tess alone in this monstrous place was too much to bear.

“Please!” she persisted.

The boy might have fallen back asleep. Zo couldn’t tell. She crawled until she felt another blanket and tried to wake a sleeping man. He wouldn’t stir. She moved to another. Then another. Tess wasn’t here. The words of the Gate Master rang in Zo’s ears.

“We don’t allow Wolves
…
Ever.”

No clan could afford to refuse a healer, not even the Ram. But a healer’s little sister? Would they kill her? She forced the thought away and kept searching until every inch of the cavernous room was accounted for.

It didn’t take long to realize that Tess wasn’t among the sour-smelling men asleep on the floor. Zo crawled back to her blanket and hugged her legs to her chest. Resting her head on her knees, she tried to imagine her mother’s arms wrapped around her. Squeezing the despair away and leaving behind a blanket of gray unfeeling. A safe place where the demons of doubt couldn’t find her.

“Your voice. It’s familiar.” The boy’s words sliced through the darkness.

Zo startled at the sound. “Who are you?” she asked, choking on the heavy stench of the room.

“I know who I am,” said the boy. “Who are you?” He spoke with an edge of arrogance uncommon for one so young.

“My name is Zo.” She inched to his side. Her eyes had adjusted enough for her to make out the outline of the boy.

“That is a strange name. You’re a … a Nameless, aren’t you?” he whispered.

Zo reached out to him, gently feeling for the bandage around his waist to confirm her suspicions that he was redheaded boy she’d healed. “How are you feeling?” She pressed her hand to his brow. The boy didn’t flinch beneath her touch, but Zo could sense his unease. Commander Laden told her the Ram didn’t usually trust Nameless slaves as healers.

“But you’re a—”

“Yes, boy. A Nameless saved you.” She did her best to keep the contempt from her voice. The clan wars weren’t his fault.

She split the thin cotton cloth that was her blanket into long strips for new dressing. The boy didn’t make a sound as she rolled him over to change the bandage, though he trembled from pain.

His bravery triggered a memory from Zo’s childhood.

A foreign soldier beaten beyond human recognition. Her clan took him in. His defiant, black eyes followed her as she helped her mother clean, sew, and essentially piece him back together. He never screamed. Never cried to an unseen god for mercy. He had just stared at Zo without ever truly seeing past the thick haze of pain. Suffering in silence.

The boy’s voice brought her back to present. “I might know how to find the girl, but first we need to get out of here.”

“Do you know where we are?” she asked.

A violent shudder ran through his body. Zo tried to cover him with the scraps of her blanket but he pushed them away. “I think we’re in the Waiting Room,” he said.

Zo sat back. “Waiting room?”

The boy rolled onto his knees, fighting back a sob as he struggled to his feet. “A place to wait for death.”

Zo looked around and suddenly understood the stench of decay. Everyone in the Waiting Room was close enough to death that they couldn’t leave on their own. Left to rot and die alone. Zo fought the bile rising up her throat. “Why would they do this to you? You need a clean bed and time to heal.”

“This is a test. I must earn the right to rejoin my people.” He grunted as he gathered his feet to stand. “Prove my strength.”

“You can’t just walk out of here,” she said, “not with that wound in your side.” She grabbed his arm, but he shook her off. “At least let me help you.”

“I have to walk away from my own death.” He took a pained step into the darkness. “No one can do that for me. Not even you, healer.”

Gryphon and his mess had been scouting the rocky terrain outside the Gate for over a week. It was rumored the Raven, a rival clan, had stockpiles of grain hidden somewhere in the mountain range. Food the Ram needed if their crops didn’t produce higher yields than last year.

Food hadn’t always been a problem for the Ram. Several hundred years ago the Ram had fought a major war, forcing other clans out of the most fertile areas in the region. A mighty tiger clearing the vast forest so she could stretch her legs. The wall of Ram’s Gate was built by thousands of captured slaves. Ram military forces defended their lands with absolute aggression. Its people enjoyed full stomachs while lesser clans struggled on the crusts of Ram society.

Over the years, as the greedy fingers of winter stretched longer and the growing season shortened, many of the lesser clans migrated south. Over time, the Ram region, with its exhausted, frozen soils, needed food more than protection. But the traditions of war died hard, and the proud Ram refused to leave the legendary fortifications of Ram’s Gate.

And so the raids began.

The Ram would do whatever it took to get food, even if it meant sentencing lesser clans like the Raven and Kodiak to starvation. Fate favored the assertive. It was just the natural order of things.

Zander held up a fist to call a halt and staked his long spear into the ground. With only twenty years behind him, Gryphon was one of the youngest in the mess company huddled around their leader. Zander stood with quiet confidence, eyeing every man who entered his circle. His gaze penetrated deeper than most. Hands flexing in fists at his sides accentuated the thick bands of muscle along his arms “We’ll cross the gorge in alpha formation. Rotate on my call. Watch for Birds this time.”

Gryphon distractedly adjusted the shield on his back. He buried his mourning for Joshua long enough to raise his head and meet Zander’s stare.

“You have a favor to return, Gryph. The Birds need a message to carry home.” Zander drove a finger into his chest. “
You,
Striker, will make sure they get it.”

Everyone in the circle exchanged looks of surprise. Gryphon’s best friend, Ajax, smiled and rocked onto the tips of his toes. Gryphon tightened his grip around his long spear. “Yes, sir.” He hadn’t expected the honor of making Striker. Usually the position went to someone with more experience. Second-in-command. It was a dangerous gift.

Zander gave a nod and the mess readied their shields for a deadly stroll through the rocky gorge without the cover of trees for protection.

Gryphon tightened the fastenings of his shield before taking his place as Striker in the back-center of alpha formation. The mess marched out in two staggered lines. The men in front held shields at their chests while the men in the rear carried shields at their sides, ready to defend the rear if they were attacked from behind.

“How’s the boy?” whispered Ajax. His dark-skinned mess brother was the only one who understood Gryphon’s affection for Joshua. As young as Gryphon was, his interest in Joshua had grown into something paternal. The boy’s father had died before Joshua was even born. Gryphon understood what it was like not to have a man around growing up.

He cleared his constricting throat. “Zander wouldn’t let me check on him before we left. But … ” For a moment, Gryphon took his eyes off of the dangerous boulders and surrounding hills. “He’s gone, Jax. I know he is.”

Ajax had the decency not to hammer false hope. He resumed his watch before saying, “He died on his shield.”

In truth, the kid hadn’t earned his shield yet, but Ajax was right. The boy was a brave little pip, wounded in combat defending Gryphon’s own sorry back. If only he hadn’t let him come on the scouting trip. If only …

Gryphon’s sensitive ears heard hundreds of bowstrings stretch. “Link!” It wasn’t his order to give, but Gryphon didn’t care. The lives of his brothers were more valuable than Zander’s pride. The arrows came like a wave of water. The phalanx tightened into a wall of shields, every angle protected. Arrows
thumped
like a deadly hailstorm. The earth beneath Gryphon vibrated as arrows sunk into the ground around their feet.

The attack came from two sides, and was over as quickly as it began. Zander didn’t have to yell his orders. “Hold till the next wave. Full advance to the left. Guard our backs, Gryph.”

Another volley of arrows embedded like porcupine quills into their shields.

The mess charged left until Zander called, “Halt!” and the formation linked back into a defensive huddle. More arrows beat down upon them. The timing of Zander’s orders was the difference between life and an arrow through the chest.

After another volley, the mess charged left again until they reached the side of the gorge. Gryphon and the rest of the secondary covered from behind. The enemy line weakened as Raven abandoned their bows in retreat. Cowards.