Nameless (4 page)

“Striker!” Zander called over the chaos. It was Gryphon’s cue to back away from the pack. The mess shifted into a diamond attack pattern in front of a grouping of giant boulders with Gryphon at the scorpion’s tail.

They didn’t need to kill all of the Raven. Just capture one to interrogate and kill a few more to remind them whom they were dealing with. Above, inhuman hoots and cries from the Raven sounded retreat.

Gryphon only had one chance to get this right.

“Strike!” Zander called.

Gryphon sprinted to his brothers. With spear ready, he jumped onto a knot of their interlocked arms. Their combined strength catapulted him up the boulder. Time slowed to a halt. Gryphon zeroed in on a target. A boy with a single feather strung around his neck clumsily tried to restring his bow. He couldn’t be much older than Joshua.

Fitting.

The boy looked up. In that split-second the image of Joshua burned Gryphon’s vision. He shouldn’t care. War doesn’t discriminate between the old and the young. But he couldn’t bring himself to kill the boy. He adjusted his aim just as the spear exploded from his hand.

Gryphon landed on the boulder and watched the boy scramble away with the rest of the retreating Raven Clan. Gryphon’s spear stood erect in the mud, still teetering from the impact.

When Zander pulled himself up next to Gryphon he looked down on the empty spear and swore. His whole body trembled in rage.

Together they watched the Raven retreat up the mountain, their traditional black feathers mocking as they passed outside the reach of Ram spears.

Just before crossing over the ridge, a man stopped and stared down at Gryphon with fearless eyes. He stood taller than the Raven around him. His hair and skin were lighter than theirs. A black crescent moon was tattooed on his muscled shoulder. He raised his hands to his mouth and let out a long, low howl.

Chills assaulted Gryphon’s skin. “Was that … ?”

Zander swore again and stalked away.

Until that day, Gryphon had never witnessed the call of a Wolf.

The boy led Zo upward through a seemingly endless tunnel of rock. He stumbled and she grabbed the back of his shirt to help him.

“Get off me.” He swatted her away without success.

His pride would kill him eventually. If not today, then ten years from now on some lonely battlefield.

Pride always killed the Ram.

“Let me help you or I swear I’ll slit your sorry, little throat.” Zo regretted her words immediately. A true Nameless would never speak to a Ram like that, even if he was just a boy.

Her vision had adjusted enough to make out his shock. “You just threatened me.” A slow smile spread across his face, reaching his eyes and lifting his ears. He chuckled, but grabbed his side from the pain. “I like you, healer.” He rested his arm on her shoulder and let her carry most of his weight. “You’ve got nerve.”

It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed his size. Only thirteen but still as tall as she was, maybe even taller. His wiry muscles would undoubtedly expand with the years of training ahead of him. According to Commander Laden, boys his age had already been through a barbaric amount of training. Beatings. Systematic starvation. All to ensure their dominance on the battlefield as adults.

“We’re almost to the entrance. Then you need to let me walk out alone.”

Zo began to protest, but he cut her off.

“I already told you. I have to walk away from my own death or else they’ll send me back. The Ram have no place for weaklings.” He looked Zo right in the eyes, clearly defending his people’s action to let him suffer and die in this dark, underground hell.

I will never, ever, understand these animals.

They reached a large wooden door glowing with gold light around the hinges. There was no handle. Zo ducked out from under the boy’s arm to let him support his own weight. She took a step behind him and tugged at her shirt, sticky with his fresh blood.

“Don’t speak unless spoken to. Keep your head down. I’ll do the rest,” he said.

Zo studied the boy, trying to weigh his intentions. No one was nice for nothing.

The boy pounded three times on the door. The booming sound chased past them, likely taunting the dying men at the bottom of the cave. The latch lifted free followed by a draft of fresh air and the slow creak of rusted hinges.

A single lantern swung on a knotted walking stick. An elderly man with hollow eyes studied them with a vacant expression. His back had rounded from too many years of heavy labor, leathery skin hung from jutting bones. The poor Nameless man stood alone, left to guard the dying. His arm shook as he lifted the ram horn from his neck and offered it to the boy. “You must call them.” His corroded voice cracked and wheezed from lack of use.

The boy pressed the horn to his lips and blew. The sound of the Ram ricocheted throughout the cave, pulsing deep into Zo’s very bones. She hated that sound. Back home it was known as the Call of Death. It meant another raid. Another scramble to get those she loved to safety behind the inner walls of the city. It meant hunger. Women crying through the night over the loss of a son or husband. Fear.

Always fear.

Minutes passed before the small group of healers in white robes came to gurney the boy away. He might live if he didn’t have to endure anymore of these ridiculous customs. The boy would grow up and become the enemy he was meant to be.

“The Nameless girl stays with me,” he ordered.

“She’s been summoned by the Gate Master,” said one of the Ram healers.

Zo shook her head. “I want to find my—”

The boy used the little energy he had left to strike her with the back of his hand. The force of the blow sent Zo to her knees. “Quiet, Nameless,” he said, though his reluctant tone didn’t quite match the words.

Zo looked down and swallowed the blood pooling in her mouth. The aftertaste served as a useful distraction, buying her much needed time to temper her emotions. Her hands shook with the need to strike back. An urge to kill those who’d done so much to her and her family gnawed at her chest. It was a monster begging for release. But lashing out now wouldn’t save her sister or her cause. Sweet revenge would surely come, just not today.

As they walked the rest of the way out of the cave the boy mouthed the word, “sorry.” She fingered her swelling cheek and walked into the blinding light of day, into a place different from anything she’d ever known.

The thick scent of cherry and cedar smoke filled the room. The smell might have been relaxing were Gryphon not kneeling before the Horn—a ten-foot table shaped like the curve of a giant ram horn.

It took a lot to secure an audience with Chief Barnabas. Gryphon always hoped his first encounter with the clan chief would be due to some heroic act of valor. Instead, he found himself shrinking under the weight of the chief’s stare as Zander explained the Wolf sighting.

“Yes, sir. We’re sure it was a Wolf.” Zander stood proud, with chin raised.

“Just one?” Barnabas had deep vertical wrinkles protecting his small mouth from encroaching round cheeks. His patronizing smile sat uncomfortably on his face.

Wolves never traveled alone. Everyone knew that.

Zander shuffled his feet. “We only saw one, sir. The Wolf stopped and howled at us mid-retreat. Taunting us, in a way.”

“Shameful,” muttered a female advisor seated at Barnabas’ right. The men in Gryphon’s mess called her the Seer. She was said to have a supernatural gift that allowed her to see everything that happened within the Gate with her black, beady eyes. Gryphon thought it more likely that she simply had an army of informants working for her.

She leaned over to Barnabas and whispered, “Didn’t you say the Wolves sent troops to help defend the Kodiak too? Maybe the rumors are—”

“Enough,” said Barnabas. He leaned forward, resting his clasped hands on the table and looked down the end of his crooked nose at Zander. “Your mess suffered no casualties, yet also took no lives. Explain.”

Zander stumbled over his words before saying, “The enemy had high ground. We launched our Striker but the Raven retreat was well-timed.”

Barnabas sat back in his chair and gestured for Gryphon to stand. “I’m not surprised to see you make Striker, Gryphon, son of Troy.”

Gryphon’s eyes nearly doubled in size. “Thank you, sir.” He kept his head down but a zing of pride filled his chest. His hard work had not gone unnoticed.

The clan chief said, “Your father was my Striker for a number of years. Did you know that, boy?”

Gryphon’s brow wrinkled. “I didn’t know you shared a mess unit.” No one had ever told him. Not even his mother.

Gryphon’s father had been taken in a Wolf ambush when Gryphon was still a baby. Maybe the first Ram ever taken alive. He’d left his shield and dishonor behind as Gryphon’s inheritance.

“Troy never missed a mark.” Barnabas’ jowls shook as he laughed at the memory. Then, as swift as a changing tide, his laughter cut off and he leaned forward. Without an ounce of humor he said, “It’s a shame you didn’t inherit your father’s aim.”

Gryphon’s head sunk low again. The dishonor made it hard to breathe. What would Barnabas think if he knew the whole truth? That he intentionally spared the boy’s life?

Zander rested a hand on Gryphon’s shoulder. “There was no target, sir. As I said before, the Raven retreated before we could attack.”

“Excuses,” Barnabas grunted. “If there was one Wolf with the Raven, there will undoubtedly be more. We need to find that settlement.” He drummed his fingers on the horn-shaped desk. His eyes glazed over as he stared past them at the back wall of the room.

Gryphon and Zander exchanged uncertain glances. The Seer adjusted in her seat, scowling in their direction. An insect buzzed around the room, hovering from one end of the horn to the next. Gryphon’s legs complained from going so long without rest from their journey. He shifted his weight. The insect landed in front of Barnabas and without warning the chief slammed the bug with his fist, his eyes still eerily unfocused as he pondered.

Moments later, he got to his feet and gestured for the guards to escort Zander and Gryphon from the room. “Dismissed.”

Gryphon exhaled. He could barely make out the low hiss of the Seer’s voice as he left. “I don’t like it, Barnabas. The Wolves are organizing … ” The door closed. Gryphon’s suspicions leapt as he considered the implications. The lesser clans had never banded together in the past. Why now? And why would the Wolves—their strongest enemy—help the others when their main settlement sat well outside the reach of the Ram?

They stepped out of the stone building and Gryphon raised a hand to cover his eyes from the bright sun. As Zander started walking toward the training fields, Gryphon called after him. “Thank you for speaking for me.”

Zander twisted to look over his shoulder. “I said nothing that wasn’t true.” He paused. “Right?”

Gryphon nodded, but the action was delayed by a fraction of a second. “Yes, sir.”

Zander’s lips formed a thin line. “If you look bad, the whole mess looks bad. Especially me.” He walked away without a backward glance.

Gryphon thought of the Raven boy trying to string an arrow. How many Ram would that boy grow up to kill before he died? His body shook with rage. He needed to hit something. Someone. He walked by one of the training fields and yanked a spear staked to the ground. A wild roar escaped his chest as he launched the spear over the training field, deep into a thick copse of trees.

The young boys and girls in training lowered their weighted weapons to stare. One girl actually clapped. The instructor shook his head in disgust and ordered her to fetch the spear.

Gryphon’s shoulders slumped.

He’d only taken two steps toward the mess barracks when a breathless runner caught up to him. “I have a message, sir. It’s from the Medica.”

Gryphon froze.

“Joshua lives!”