No Name for the Free

by Devin Harbison

  What few possessions he has have been moved to one side of the tent, and it seems he has set up a space for me where there is now nothing but dirt and my few belongings. A new bed roll has been unrolled, surely less comfortable than Em's bed, and my sword, taken from me some time after I passed out, lays next to the flat bed, like it is waiting for me to lie beside it. So, after I have put myself down onto the ground and crawled onto the thin material, I take that flower out of my hair and put it beside my sword, where it will be kept safe. And, afterwards, it doesn't take long for the weight in my eyes to come.

  The heat from the fire in Yemi's tent is enough to keep our tent warm as the shadows of the men over there still shift, and Abraham does not seem ready yet to sleep either, twisting and turning on his bedroll, trying to get comfortable but with his eyes more open than I have ever seen them. Yet, before I can find the strength to ask if something is amiss, I am fast asleep.

  Whether I sleep heavy or light depends on the night, but, with all that had been going on around the camp still as I snoozed off, I can only assume that I slept heavily for some time, far past when everyone else had given in to slumber too, but the rock that was my dreams slowly becomes a pebble as mumbling and shuffling start to disturb me.

  One eye at a time, each opening almost as slowly as the sun rises or sets, it is easy to tell that what I heard was not just a figment of my imagination or dreams, and only grows louder as my bedroll crinkles too, with Abraham growing more and more disturbed by the second. I turn to my side, to face him, only for his back to face me as his face points towards the wall of the tent on his side. As late as it is, no sun provides light, and the moon barely seeps in, along with the few fires around that are left, but there is still enough light for me to make out that both of his hands cover each of his ears as he shakes around, like he is trying to block out a sound that does not exist.

  So, as I crawl closer and closer to him, whispering his name louder and louder, strong enough to pierce the flesh of his hands but not enough to wake all the tents around, my words leave him unaffected, as shuffling and mumbling continues. And, once I am on one knee beside Ham and can see the look on his face, eyes shut, I know the sounds he seems to fear come not from the open air but from inside of his mind, and I make a horrible mistake of grabbing hold of his arms in an attempt to set him free from whatever disturbs him in his sleep.

  Instead of being able to pin his wrists to the dirt and shake him free, his arms overpower mine, grab hold of my throat, and push me to the floor. There, I bite down on my tongue, try to scream, try to loosen his grip with my hands against his, try with my fists against his skull the weaker and weaker I get, yet his eyes still refuse to open, as if still stuck in the dream. And, while I am almost ready to join him, permanently it seems, consciousness fading faster than I can let another fist fly, I sense another shadow over the two of us, right in the center of the tent, and then hear the crack of wood against the bone of a skull once Abraham's body falls limp against mine and finally lets me breathe.

  Before I can gather my thoughts, the shadow is pulling Abraham off of me and tossing him back onto his bedroll, and, now free, I recoil back into my corner of the tent, fearing that all I explained to Em is happening. That they know who I am. That they are here to try to kill me again. But, before I find the courage to lift my sword out of its sheath and cut the tent in two on top of all of us, a thick accent and familiar voice comfort me.

  "You are safe now, boy."

  Yemi stands in the dark, towering over me, and he holds the hilt on one of his swords backwards, where the curve of the blade faces inwards, towards him, and his hand still shakes from having to bludgeon his own friend. I have nothing at all to say in response, while the fear still settles, so, instead, I sit quietly and let Yemi continue before he departs.

  "Do not disturb his sleep. He has seen many horrible things in his life, and they haunt him in his dreams."

  The way he says that hints at a tired nature, and the fact that he has had to share that information more than once, so, rather than keep either of us from more sleep, I keep my mouth shut and move back towards my bedroll, where I can only hope morning comes quickly. Yemi is then gone faster than the gentle breeze that enters the tent, and, as long as I lie still, the only detail I notice is the change in the way the air feels, until rain hits my ears. No other sound makes its way around the camp, and even Abraham lays as silent as a rock. So, as best as I can, I try to doze off again, fail time after time, and eventually accept that I've had enough sleep, and put my hands, interlocked over my chest while I lie, spread out, on my back.

  Here, more sounds come with time. Wherever we are, the waves hitting the beach seem to grow heavier and louder as night becomes morning, and what may be the early signs of a rising sun are accompanied by a flourish of chirps, until others around the camp start to stir too. From grumbles, to whispers, to full on discussions, all rise with time, and, after what happened a few hours ago, Abraham is the last to wake, with a few words under his breath.

  "Why does my head hurt..."

  Now that morning has come, I do my best to remember what Yemi told me about Ham's past and take what he says as a statement, rather than a question, and say nothing in response, so I do not tell him what has happened, lest his nightmares get worse or something of the sort. Still, I wait until he rises off of his bedroll first, rubbing both the back of his skull and his forehead as if the pain passes between both ends, and, soon enough, I am up. Enough noise is made outside of our tent for that to block out most thoughts, while dozens upon dozens of men seem ready to march, so I gather what I can, and need. I have not lost my clothes since Em bandaged me back up, leaving nothing for me to do but make sure my boots and the rest of my clothes are tight enough not to come loose, put my sword and its sheath over my shoulder, and place Em's flower somewhere where it will not get stepped upon.

  For the time being, the only place that seems safe for it is on top of my fading bedroll, rather than on the dirt because I find it least likely that someone will lie down or step upon the place I sleep while I am gone, and, as soon as I have managed to think that through between what sounds like Gorm yelling for everyone else to ready themselves by dawn, Abraham is asking me the same, in the right mind again.

  "Are you ready, Fjord?"

  Standing at the flaps that close the tent, the two of us watch as groups of three carry boat after boat with the light of the rising sun, through the line of trees that eventually appear at the edge of the camp further up the beach, as far away from Gorm and Em's tents as one can get. So, before everyone is gone from the camp besides Abraham and I, and Em if she stays behind, I nod and walk alongside him before I feel the urge to turn around and say goodbye, but, in the lone moment when I do give into the urge to turn my head, I catch her watching out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she still knows more about what is going to happen than I do.

  Thankfully, it doesn't take long for Ham and I to reach that treeline, and, before it fades to open dirt again, hundreds of branches lay broken because of the boats that have been raised high into the air along, so I do not have to fear a long walk, cramped and filled with anxiety, as we catch up with the rest of the men that surely wait near the cove I saw on the map last night. Yet, it is not until I can once again smell the men's sweat instead of the sap of the trees that I run my right hand down my left arm, where I make sure that strange box is still sturdy against my forearm, and, with that anxiety gone as fast as my fingers can dance around the wood, anxiety the size of a lake fills me while I manage to look between a few of the men at the water's edge, now out of the trees.

  Abraham seems to pick up on this, and puts his hand on my back as I see just how many men surround the body of water so large I can only assume it too is the sea, as I see no edge but for where the men are lined up along the north side, where I now stand, and where wooden structures stand several stories tall off to the west, way out in the distance, but what would have been an eastern edge on Gor
m's map.

  On top of that, there are signs that this may not be the first time the men have tried this assault of sorts, or whatever they plan, as planks of wood and hull pieces litter the beach and the water ahead, but I have a feeling that the size and variations of those hulls are an indication that something has been preying upon ships here for some time, or preying on them at sea and dragging them back to this cove. Yet, none of the men seem bothered by this, but for me, as Abraham drags me along the sand, closer and closer to the trebuchets to the west. That is where I know he intends to end up, since he was left to take charge of them, and, along the way, we find the man meant to take charge of me.

  Facing away from the water with his friends nearby, Yemi watches as Abraham and I approach, looking between the two of us and seeing no further sign of any strangling, so, once I stop before him, he lets loose a sigh of relief and nods. Ham then offers his own goodbye, before he walks off.

  "You two stay safe."

  Yemi responds in a similar manner.

  "And you too, brother. Do not hit me while I am up there."

  The two share a grin, until Abraham turns away and walks off, and Yemi turns his attention to me next. He puts his hands on me as if he is about to shake me down or try to wake me up and motivate me, though I could not be any more on edge, but Yemi's efforts are done only to free my sword from my back and make a comment.

  "How do you carry this slab, boy?"

  I can only assume his use of the word slab refers to the size and weight of my sword, so, while he hands it back to me faster than I can respond and expects me to put it away, he turns to his friends, who look to be his actual brothers, and signals with his fingers towards the boats with words I do not understand. Yemi's actions declare some instructions, and I do not get them until he turns to me and explains.

  "Your sword weighs enough for a small man, so it will be just you and I in a boat together. I hope you are ready."

  I cannot say if I am, especially when I see that most of the men around us, including Yemi's companions, are staying grouped in threes for the drift out into the water, but some of my worry does fade when I hear and then see Gorm coming from the direction that Abraham walked off towards. Today, he has dressed differently. Gone is his shirt or armor, or anything of the sort over his chest, but his boots, pants, grappling device, wrapped hands, and a strap for his axe remain. Yet, the hair from his head and face are enough to cover most of his upper chest and back, so that all I can see of his skin are the scars across his gut where it seems like many swords and claws have pierced and ripped him up, worn proudly despite how grotesque some are.

  Behind him, the twins walk side by side, swallowed by Gorm's shadow, and, when all three approach us, it seems that the two twins are small enough to join Gorm in the empty boat sitting on the beach beside us. So, once he has picked up two paddles, thrown them into the boat, and dragged the curved wood out into the sand far enough that the waves wet up to his knees, he looks up and down the beach in both directions, and then bellows out a command.

  "MEN! Follow me!"

  His voice carries so far that birds, hiding in the trees, rise into the air as far as my eyes can see, and every group, including Yemi and I, gather our paddles and start dragging our boats into the water, where the sand of the beach is quick to disappear for a pit of pure blue. Gorm, despite his size, manages to get himself into his boat just fine, along with the twins, and start paddling slowly enough for everyone else around to catch up, and, thankfully, Yemi and I are quick to do the same, where we are then followed by more than a hundred men in dozens of small boats.

  Yemi paddles us out past the small waves, until a drift drags us forward inch by inch, and, the farther we get away from land, the more I wonder how so many of us are going to maneuver between so many shattered hulls. That feeling only gets worse once I see the water-logged corpses of so many sailors and the fog that starts to set in. Yemi is careful not to hit any of the corpses with the boat or the lone paddle he uses to move between them and the half-sunken ships that still rise out of the water, and, as time goes on, the fog gets so thick that not only is it hard to see the beach from which we came, but it is just as hard to see the other boats that we move forward with, until we reach what seems to be the center of the water.

  It is hard to tell with no sense of direction, but, with the way our boats have been drifting towards this point and with how broken ships of every size all seem to point towards this spot, I can only assume we're here, just as the fading of the fog seems to declare too. Out in the middle of nowhere, Gorm grabs holds of a stick of wood rising high out of the water, to keep himself, the twins, and their boat from drifting any more towards the center, and Yemi does the same by finally putting our paddle to use, on the underside of another hunk of wood that juts out of the water. Yet, the same cannot be said of the other boats that finally reach us from behind, and decide to pass by no matter how odd it is that Gorm has stopped, exactly where he is.

  From where I sit at the back of our boat, I can only see the back of his head, unmoving as he stares deep into the dark blue water before us, and a total of five boats pass us by in the time, the sight of them all sitting in the middle, where there is only room for that many, growing eerier and creepier by the second. The water has been dragging us towards this point for a reason one could not know, and all of the signs of past death and devastation that dot the surface of the blue join us, but for that center. That is where the fog stops, the broken ships, the bodies, and all. There is so little movement that I'd expect to see muck topping the water here too, especially as the bodies of so many decay, but there is none, nor is there a smell of decaying flesh like one might expect. It just smells like fish, in a body of water where I have yet to see any, but, with the way Gorm suddenly stands up in his boat, ready to tip it over if it weren't for the wood he holds firm, something else seems to move.

  The boats around us start to sway, as does the water they float in, and, as Yemi and I stand too, I can finally make out strands of plants at the bottom of the water, far less deep than I thought. But, as those strands grow closer and closer to the surface while the men around start to shout, question what is going on, and do their best, and half fail, not to fall out of their boats, the plants start to lie flat against a dark surface beneath us. And, faster than Gorm can scream, those plants rise out of the water, and everything else simultaneously.

  "READY!"

  The surface that rises is dark gray from the hair strands of what I once thought were plants and green from the life of the sea. The water rushes away, as do our boats, many of the other men, everything but for a few of us and the pieces of wood, weapons, and broken ships stuck to the earth where rock meets what seems to be fissures in the crust. Foot by foot, the ground, or the sea, or whatever it best be described as goes up higher until those of us that remain rise above the fog and can see over the trees in the distance, and only by the time I hear the first set of attacks from the trebuchets setting off do I fully understand that this whole body of water is the beast, and that it now rises out of its home with us on its back.

  I am still staring at Gorm as he and the twins jump out of their sliding boat, and I almost slide away with our own until I notice Yemi getting further and further away out of the corner of my eye. So, in a rush, I jump, grab hold of the first bundle of hair, or fur, or whatever it is that I can grab, and make the mistake of looking down as our boat and so many others slip off of the back of the beast, and plummet to the sea or the beach from which we came. For, with every second that goes by, those of us who are left rise higher and higher into the sky, so much so that, when I look up, the head and shoulders of the beast pierce the clouds, and I can quickly put together that it is taller than any single mountain I have ever seen.

  A giant, simply put, two legs, two arms, and a head somewhere on top of its hunched back as it seems ready to walk out into the ocean, is the best way to describe it. Refusing to look down, I stare up and try to take in all that is
happening. As high up as we are, we are safe from the trebuchets, while they pelt the beast's legs, but I fear for their safety, and that of Abraham's, whenever the creature groans or bellows, rising swarms of birds from all of the trees around us and either scaring them off or inviting them to perch on the moving beast. Every piece of wood, whether a broken plank of wood or the front half of a galleon, could perfectly carry and nest every bird that I see flying around us, and I'm left with so many questions from the sight of it all when I should be focusing on the other men and our task. Why these boats stick out from the giant's hunched back, a result of the way it crouched in the water for so long, I do not know. As if they sunk into the water and then into the hard flesh of the beast, or like what was once the bottom of this cove, the sand and all at the bottom of the water, became the beast, it's hard to say. Were these ships from other men who came to fight the beast, helpless victims, or warring factions that fought each other, not the beast, in its water, and, if that last possibility was the case, how did they not wake up the beast as we have?

  I could hang here for hours, wondering how such a creature came to be, but doing so might have me dragged out to sea as the beast settles somewhere else, or after it has stomped upon or swatted away every poor soul that was not as lucky, or as unlucky, as those of us that hang on. Yemi, Gorm, the twins, they each seem to be growing further away as they climb the curved back above us that adds some ease, yet I still hang here, just beneath what seems to be the middle of the beast's spine, observing all that goes on still. Then, through the sounds of the birds that remain in the air and those that have perched upon the boats that pour out water and weeds like a patch of waterfalls, only to start wetting me, I hear Gorm's shout as it reaches me.