Nameless (36 page)

A man covered in fur carries a large round shield in one hand. He holds the tip of his spear to Mom’s neck. He wants to know where the food is, but all Mom can do is stare at Dad and try not to look at the large wicker basket in the corner where I am hiding with my baby sister.

Tess is asleep in my arms and I know any moment she will wake and wonder why Dad can’t get up and blow raspberries into her round tummy. It’s their favorite game.

And that’s all I can think of. Who will blow raspberries in Tess’ belly if Dad doesn’t get up?

Zo tripped, but gathered herself. She needed to get to Joshua before he bled out. They approached the large tree tucked into a corner of rock. The same tree they’d hidden beneath the night before Zo entered the Gate.

Other memories surfaced. Things Zo had somehow forgotten.

Mom shakes her head over and over. She’s crying. Pleading. But the fur-covered man won’t listen. Mom has her hands raised as she steps backward until she is out of our hut. She steps to the side, out of my line of sight, but what I can’t see I can hear. Her screams shatter something fragile within me. Something important that can’t ever be fixed.

I sit with Tess in my lap, my hands blocking her ears as I rock her. And rock her. And rock her. I don’t want her to hear our mother’s screams. Especially the last one that ends so abruptly.

Zo lifted the low-sweeping evergreen boughs from the ground while Gabe crawled under the tree. He set Joshua between two large branching roots near the trunk. “His breath is so shallow,” he said. “Is he going to make it?” Gabe sounded like he knew the answer to his question. He put a hand on Zo’s shoulder as she used the pack to prop up his legs. “Just do your best, Zo. No one can ask more of you than that.” He crawled back out from under the tree, likely off to see if Gryphon survived.

The morning light filtering through the branches didn’t seem to belong to the gory sight of Joshua covered in blood. Zo knelt down and stared as the horrible memories of her past crept over her skin. She tried to think of what she was supposed to do first, but couldn’t seem to remember anything but the nightmares.

I wait until I’m sure the soldiers have left before setting my sleeping sister down. I leave the basket and run for my Mom’s medical kit. I am her apprentice and I can save my parents!

I go to Dad first. I feel for a pulse. His hand is already cold and I know he is gone. The kit knocks against my shins as I hurry outside to help Mom. She’s on her back, lying perfectly still except for the slight rise and fall of her chest. Her body is covered in weeping red gashes and a thick line of blood runs from her neck where her artery is severed.

She doesn’t have much time. And I can heal her. The words of the blessing always come easily to me.

But all I can do is stare at Mom covered in gore. I feel myself melt to my knees. And I stare. Willing myself into action, but my body won’t obey. I forget how to breathe. I think I hear Tess crying in the hut, but I’m not sure.

Mom dies before my eyes and all I do is watch
…

“No!” Zo’s crippling fear would not control her. Not ever again. She instinctively reached for her medical kit, and realized too late that it was still back in Gryphon’s barn.

Frustrated, she ripped the fabric from Joshua’s stomach to expose a long gash that reminded her too much of her mother’s so many years ago.

Her mind wanted to retreat into a safe place burrowed deep within her own oblivion. This time she fought the safety. She pumped her hands to bring them warmth and forced herself to act.

“Joshua, can you hear me?”

Of course he couldn’t. The flow of blood had slowed, but that wasn’t surprising considering how much he had already lost in the last fifteen minutes.

She stripped another piece of cloth from Joshua’s shirt and held it over the fatal wound. The words of the blessing seemed just outside her mental reach.

Please remember!

Then, like a splash of water to her face, her mother’s bell-like voice entered her head.

“Love, Zo. Just love.”

Could she give Joshua everything she’d worked so hard to bury? With hands pressed to his stomach, Zo stopped struggling to find the words of the blessing. She stopped worrying about what would happen if she failed. Instead, she only thought about Joshua. Always so loyal, defending her against Gryphon in the woods, joining her to visit sick Nameless families, his insistence on calling her Zo when he was raised to think of Nameless as animals, his freckled smile and clumsy feet, the puppy dog eyes that worshipped Gryphon’s every move.

Loving Joshua wasn’t hard.

A small hand touched her back. “I can help.”

Zo shrugged Tess away. But it was too late. Her concentration slipped and the darkness slipped back through her defenses.

“Tess, go back outside with Eva. I need to do this.”

But Tess wouldn’t move. “I can
help
.” She bit down on her bottom lip like she might cry. “I need to, Zo. Please let me.”

With hands still pressed to the wound on Joshua’s abdomen, Zo saw something in her sister that she didn’t dare refuse. She’d never realized just how much Tess looked like their mother. Zo’s mouth was dry as she nodded her answer.

Tess dropped to her knees beside Joshua and placed her hands over Zo’s.

A vein throbbed in Zo’s forehead as she battled past her parents’ death and focused on her feelings for Joshua. Her hands shook against the boy’s neck. She didn’t feel a pulse, but refused to acknowledge what that meant.

This isn’t happening again. He will live
!

Zo’s lips set in a thin line, her head bent, her mind centered. She repeated the promise over and over again until every cobweb of doubt was cleared to reveal pure determination. Her hands warmed. It was a while before she realized her lips were moving. She gave the words breath and spoke foreign strings of ancient words that carried power. There were several phrases she didn’t even remember learning, but they rolled off her tongue seamlessly.

Tess picked up on the words of the blessing and chanted with her sister. A current of energy emanated from the little girl’s hands. It was a familiar, stubborn energy that wouldn’t be ignored. Much like Tess.

Gryphon drove his knives into the wood like pickaxes as he descended along the massive wall. His arms shook with exertion. Sweat rolled into his eyes. One stab at a time, he moved lower and lower along the wall until he was nearly fifteen feet off the ground. Freedom.

He dropped and winced as a spear thumped into the earth next to his boot. Gryphon leapt into a roll to dodge a second one. He took off at a run into the thickest section of the outlying trees for cover. Shouts followed after him, but he knew it would be some time before anyone followed.

A whistle sounded from somewhere to the left. Gryphon followed the sound until he found Gabe. “Joshua?”

Gabe put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He signaled for him to follow. They zigzagged through the woods, often jumping from rock to log to make it harder for a tracker to find their trail.

They weren’t more than a few minutes run from the Gate when Gryphon spotted Eva. She held her arms crossed over her chest, a pained look on her face as she paced back and forth in front of a thick fir tree.

“How is he?” Gryphon asked.

Eva’s brows knit together and she pinched her lips. Gabe held up one of the sweeping boughs of the fir tree for Gryphon to climb under.

Gryphon shed his weapons and pack as fast as he could, then dove under the prickly branches.

What began as gentle warmth around Joshua’s wound turned into electric heat. Zo lost all sense of gravity and space. Her body swayed into something solid.
The tree?
It didn’t matter.

“Are you all right?” said a clouded, masculine voice that sounded like a dream.

Zo continued the blessing. The words consumed her every thought. She hardly heard the men arguing about something in the background. Her skin was numb to the large hands on her shoulders, even though she was pretty sure they supported a good portion of her weight.

Heat rose up from Joshua’s wound into Zo’s forearms and gathered in her elbows.

Someone shouted something Zo couldn’t comprehend. Tess cried out and her hands fells away.

The heat reached Zo’s shoulders.

Someone tried to pull her away. But Zo would not be moved. Joshua needed her. And she would not fail him like she’d failed her parents.

Just as the heat filled her chest a large force knocked her to the ground. She raked her arms and chest as a searing pain boiled throughout her body.

A single drop of rain rolled down Zo’s forehead and into her eye. She blinked awake from a deep sleep she wasn’t quite ready to part from and yawned. Rolling onto her other side, she nuzzled into the warmth beside her. A heavy arm draped around her shoulder in welcome.

Zo froze as memory caught up with consciousness. “Joshua!” She pushed off from the ground beside Gryphon, wondering vaguely how she’d gotten there.

Gryphon pulled her back to him and clamped his hand over her mouth. Outside, the sky was overcast and the sun seemed prepared to relinquish its hold on the day.

She looked around, surprised to find everyone but Gabe sleeping near the trunk of the enormous spruce. The lowest branches brushed the ground, making it impossible to see outside of their little haven. Thunder rolled in the late afternoon sky. Crunching feet and calls of men’s voices carried in the distance.

The Ram. Searching for them.

Zo nodded her understanding and peeled Gryphon’s warm fingers away from her mouth. Joshua rested peacefully along Gryphon’s other side. Zo ran her fingers over the cut along his exposed stomach. By some miracle, the wound had sealed into a pink, branded line of flesh.

Impossible.

She went to take Joshua’s pulse but froze at the sight of her hands.

Heavy black mounds callused her fingertips and knuckles. Angry red boils dotted the pads of her palms and the backs of her hands. The slightest movement tugged uncomfortably at the traumatized skin.

Gryphon frowned and with two careful fingers, took her by the wrist and kissed her open hands one by one. “I don’t know how you saved him, but I can never thank you enough.”

A warm blush crept into Zo’s cheeks, which was completely ridiculous considering the imminent danger surrounding them. “I love him, too.” She looked up into Gryphon’s eyes, but was too self-conscious to hold his gaze. There was absolutely nothing casual about the way he studied her. She couldn’t decide if it was terrifying or wonderful. Perhaps it was both.

“Where is Gabe?”

Gryphon cleared his throat and carefully set her hand back into her lap. “He’s scouting the area for the group of Nameless who escaped the wall. We need to know where they are and whether or not the Ram will pursue them or keep to their plans to attack the Raven.”

Zo squirmed under the idea of Gabe running through a Ram-infested forest, but if anyone could do it … “What is our plan?”