No Name for the Free

by Devin Harbison

  With the speed we have left the keep at the peak of the city, its citizens have had no chance to get out of the way of a man banished from a home that was once his too, so we mingle and slip between giant men and normal women once more. Somehow, Gorm still stands taller than many of them, so his head can be made out from a few feet ahead in the crowds, before he is lost as he leads us, but Yemi, Em, and I still feel lost, I think. I was the first to walk out of the castle, but have now let Gorm, Yemi, and Em go in front of me in that order as I take up the rear. I do so for two reasons. One, I want to make sure Em does not get left behind, by having someone for her to follow and someone to follow her to make sure she doesn't get lost among the people in the city, and fear being left here again, and, two, almost like Em, I'm not too fond of the city either and want to literally be the last one who has to lead the way through it.

  The king has now given us freedom to go at least, but the way the people refuse to look at us is still unsettling, especially when the giant men seem to stare at anywhere else as they go about being so damn tall. I can only be thankful that the sight of Gorm, after all these years, makes many of them slow down enough that there is almost always a path that he clears between them in his wake, and I find something else to be thankful for once we reach the wall and the door, already open for us to leave.

  They couldn't have gotten us out of the city faster, even if they chased us with weapons drawn, for, outside the walls, we know the rest of our home waits for us, no matter how pitiful it looks out here in the cold, with the tents covered in so many animal skins and blood-stained tarps that we look like wild men. All we would need to complete the look is skulls on sticks, sticking out of the ground, and some hanging bodies, but even that joke fails to make me feel better when the thought brings nothing but a reminder that the place I once called home is gone.

  Most of the loss I felt for it has come and gone entirely in the past few weeks, but just the mental image of it once more is enough to make my stomach turn. So, with my mood ruined once more, I get to thinking, battling in my mind, how we could have left that city with no more help than we went in with, but it is worth mentioning that there are still enough supplies, despite the damage done by our last foe, to keep us going in the wild for months at least. I know we have dropped below a hundred men, even though I am not the one to count heads. The scale of it all really does not make sense until you lose enough for the difference to be visible. There is still water, food, beer, tents, wagons, and horses a plenty, but the camp of our men no longer seems as crowded, especially when so many are now hiding from the cold.

  The only hope I get comes in the form of a few words spoken by a familiar face just as we leave the city and stand about in the cold for some time.

  "I will see you soon. Mother would not be happy with what you have planned, but she wouldn't let me have you fight alone, either."

  The laugh Gorm, Fern, and the other four men we saw before explains it all. They seemed to have been dealing with the corpse of the giant like they said they would, since it's gone entirely but for some blood, scorched flesh, and an indentation in the snow. Where it went, I am not sure unless they just cut it up and rolled its limbs down the hill opposite the side of the wall where we set up our camp, so it could fall into the valley below, or maybe they just burned it completely to turn even the bones into ash and dust. Their sudden appearance from that direction explains why the city's entrance is open too, and the way Fern hugs his brother, along with what was said between them before and said just now, tells me that we have had new allies this entire time. It was just impossible to tell with how little Gorm tells us, no matter how better or worse off some of us are for being left in the dark.

  There is hope in that, having a good feeling that we may see them come morning or whenever we decide to fight, and, when they have come and gone back into the city, and had the door closed behind them, Gorm answers my thoughts, like he can read my mind.

  "We will rest for now, but be ready to fight come morning."

  At this point, we all have nothing to give the man except for a unanimous nod and some grumbling, and that is because, after all this time, we are all tired. What the rest of us will do with our lack of sleep, joint pain, and empty bellies is not for me to know because, once we start walking into our camp and embracing the additional fires that have been set up while we were gone, I stop in front of Gorm's tent to watch Em enter hers, and only the sound of Gorm's voice behind me is enough to distract me, even when the men around the camp do seem to be taking the chance to rest as an opportunity to bust open some casks.

  "Will you make sure she is okay for me, Fjord?"

  Gorm has surprised me plenty lately, but I still would not expect those words now, or ever, so, when I turn to look at him, he responds to the confusion in my gaze.

  "I know that it is strange for any father to ask someone else to do that for them, when it should be me doing it, but no one has ever been able to get through to her as well as you do."

  I take what he says as a compliment, but the whole ordeal is strange still, but that can be said for some of Gorm's behavior as of late as a whole. Maybe the fear of what will come, that he bears alone, is getting to him, or maybe he is just at a loss about what to do with himself too, after seeing his mother in the state she was in. I also do not want to discredit how far Em and Gorm have come together, and how he has raised her, so I cannot even thank him for saying I do a better job than him with what he asks, somehow. So, in place of anything else, I try to be straight with him.

  "Of course, I was already planning to sit with her until I knew she would be able to get to sleep. You're both worrying me."

  To mention that I worry for him too makes him smile, or, I at least think that is what is making him smile, but it comforts me little when it seems so strained, like it's hard to keep his face in that position with all of the pain in his heart. Without thinking much about it, I do what he did to me when I first arrived in his camp, all the way back on that beach, and what I saw Yemi do with one of his brothers earlier today, when we were putting up our tent, so, before Gorm can disappear into his tent, I grab the man's hand and try to pull him close to me, only to really end up dragging myself closer to him as strong as he is. And, faster than he can stop it, I throw my other arm around the tree of a man.

  It is a funny feeling when he is two heads taller than me, like a boy hugging his father, but he returns the gesture, thankfully, and even throws in some words, strong ones, to go with it.

  "I am proud of you. You are like a son to me, Fjord, Aedan, or whatever you prefer to be called. You do not need a name at all, just like all of us together, because your actions up until this day speak for who you are."

  As he cracks my back under the weight of both of his arms, once they are both around my body, I'm further caught off guard hearing him say the name my father gave me, through Gorm's gravely tone and the hair of his beard that is so long some of it gets caught in his mouth, but I know how he knows.

  "She told you, didn't she?"

  We then let go of one another as he responds, which might make it seem that I am bothered by how he has come by that information, but the smile on his face and on mine says otherwise.

  "She has told me everything."

  If everything is truly everything, then I have to know how he feels about something.

  "And you're okay with how we feel about one another?"

  He laughs at first, but then holds an expression, just like the one I once bore, and, with how much the question puts him in an awkward position, he still answers quickly.

  "Don't make me answer that. You do not need my permission to love her. Just continue to care for her, today, tomorrow, or the day when I am gone from this world."

  I struggle with what to feel more, happiness that he feels the way he does or sadness because, once again, the thought of his death is on my mind, but he continues to speak on about the part that hurts.

  "I have known for a long time that
I cannot protect her forever, far too long, so you could say I am entrusting you with that from now on."

  I exhale so much air that it fogs the space between Gorm and I, making it so he cannot see me too well as I wipe something from the corner of my left eye, and, because he cannot see that I am a little upset, and might think I am frustrated with the way I breath, I offer him some sincerity before the two of us go about our evening.

  "Thank you, Gorm."

  After he enters his tent, I turn and walk towards Em's, only to stand in the entrance, trying to see what she is doing, and I do not see her at first. She has her candles burning in the place of a true fire, and I can only hope they provide more warmth than the poor light they provide. Yet, as I enter and see an outline under a heavy cover, I understand why she has such little light, when she already seems to have dozed off, so, afraid of waking her up abruptly like I did with Abraham way back when, I simply set myself down on the side of her bed and push her hair back from her face. Em faces the wall of the tent, away from me, and, while her hair has been let down, she has cleaned her face up too, and still had time to fall asleep when it was only minutes between her entering this tent and her father and I finishing our talk. Only when she stirs a bit and says my name do I see that I was wrong to assume she was that tired.

  "Aedan?"

  Her voice is groggy, like she's been half-asleep, and, rather than bother her with my words so much that she wakes up completely, I just let her know that it is who she thinks it is, sitting on her bed, before she starts to freak out.

  "Yes?"

  She manages to roll enough to look at me with a squint, to match my voice to my face, and, once she is certain it is me, she makes a request.

  "Will you hold me?"

  My worries about passing out in her bed are no more, now that she has asked me to lie like this and her father has spoken so intensely about her and I, so, as gently as I can, I slip my boots off and get myself under her cover, that seems to be stuffed with feathers, and find that she too still wears her armor. It doesn't matter one way or another, but it does put a smile on my face to see her so clothed. It makes it less awkward, and will surely keep us both warmer, but, when I notice that she still wears her boots and has only lost the sword on her back, placed now in a corner of her tent, I know she didn't even think about getting undressed as tired as she is. And, if she didn't take her shoes off, why did I take mine off to avoid staining anything but also to make us both smell my feet?

  Once I finally lie down on my right side, facing her, and wrap my left arm around her body, my worry for the smell fades quickly enough, when the cold has kept all sweat away since the last time I bathed, and I find myself slipping in and out of my sleep almost as fast as she has a second time, it seems. Em snores, and that is enough for me to get a few more thoughts in. And, unfortunately, those thoughts are filled with more worries, stupid ones. For a few moments, I wonder what Yemi will think when he sees that I am not in our tent tonight, but, between the booze that's surely being passed around and how well he knows me, I tell myself it will be alright and finally pass out, with her in my arms.

  When I first wake up, I am surprised to find that she is still where I last saw her, and that nobody has come to wake us up, especially when it sounds like a battle is going on outside, already, with all of the damn shouting. A brief look towards the tent flap tells me that the sun has risen, but I still feel like I have not gotten enough sleep, unfortunately, and, when I turn back towards Em and try to lie down again, the fact that her head is turned, and staring at me, startles me a little.

  I jump enough for her to laugh at me, all because I'm a little spooked by her being awake already, and, by the time I lie back down and let my heartbeat return to a normal pace, she has stopped giggling enough for me to get a word in.

  "Were you awake, already?"

  She rolls around in her small bed, barely enough for one person by themselves, and definitely not big enough for both of us, and she almost pushes me onto the ground when she looks at me and responds.

  "Yes. I've just been waiting for you."

  A little bothered, I ask her why.

  "Why didn't you wake me up?"

  With the way Em smiles at me, it's hard to stay mad at her, and her words help even more.

  "Because I didn't want either of us to leave yet, and because you're handsome when you sleep."

  What she says is enough to make me smile too, so I lie back down beside her just to gather myself. Yet, the sounds outside make that impossible, as I said before. I know the men are just getting ready and that the fight is not here yet. It still makes it impossible to relax, and the way I was fool enough to leave my sword and waterskin on overnight only makes that feeling worse. So, sooner than either of us can say anything else, I am up and out of bed, putting my boots back on, and ready to head outside, but, rather than leave her with nothing, I grab her hand and hold it as I say some sort of goodbye.

  "I'll see you again, soon."

  Still under the covers, Em lets me know what her intentions are for when I am gone.

  "Don't worry. I'll come find you in a few minutes."

  Unsure why she is so ready to find me again, when the fight that comes is not for her, I wonder what her reasoning is as I leave, but, once I am outside of her tent, there is enough going on that I forget. I only take a brief moment to adjust my sword, after sleeping with the strap out of position, and look under my arm to make sure that what is left of the flower she gave me is alright, or not completely gone yet. The petals are either almost gone or so wilted that they might as well fall off, but it is still there. It's important to me for that to be the case, since the dead flower is a part of me now, and that is my last thought before I throw myself into the thick of it.

  The going-ons around the camp are no different than the first time I saw the men preparing for battle prior to the fight with our first giant. Most of them move past Em's tent and gather on the other side of the wall, where the giant's corpse once laid, and, already, they seem formidable. That makes me worry less, when I get to see our numbers all together, bearing their full weapons and armor. Some look ready to use both bow and sword, or just one of either, and a few of the men with nothing but bows carry scraps of cloth on their waists, tucked into their pants. My guess is they will try to light fire to whatever we find, as Abraham showed us all last time, and, thankfully, Newt's contraptions look ready too.

  Not just our grapples, but he has made little wagons to carry metal fire pits as well, and, despite all of the siege weapons we lost to the last giant, the small man has been busy pulling together what wood we had, and more from these woods if need be, to put together enough trebuchets that we could devote a single one to each giant if there are enough of them to make up a decent-sized family of beasts, assuming that is what waits for us. Some men still move around the camp, gathering supplies, aid, or just stirring themselves from their rest as I have, and I can only consider it lucky that I watch Gorm emerge from his tent as I stand around, doing much of nothing. But, because I need his permission for something, I shout at him.

  "Gorm!"

  He looks at me with a stern face, not in a mood to open his mouth yet, so, knowing I have his attention, I ask my question.

  "Do we have enough horses for me to gather some men and take them into the fight with us?"

  The idea makes him smile briefly, either because he likes my initiative or because it reminds him of what worked so well last time, and to that, he has a response.

  "You may take six. Leave the rest, or we'll have nothing to pull more than a couple of carts should we see the end of this day."

  The way he expresses a chance we might make it through this next fight alive gives me more hope to build upon, and, as I walk off to go find a horse, I hear him whistle and call for a handful of men that I pray are ones Gorm is certain can ride. Though, before I get the chance to see if any of them can, or even find a horse for myself, I come across a face that is all too familiar, a fri
end that is still drunk, or groggy, from the previous night.

  Yemi looks in worse wear than I, stumbling out of our tent and managing to catch his step quickly enough that he does not eat snow, and, while I laugh at the man and wonder if he is even in the right frame of mind and body to fight, or even walk, he has a question for me, or accusation depending on how I look at it.

  "Busy last night, were you?"

  I don't really know what to say to that right away, but I am at least impressed that the man can put words together properly, since that is a good sign he might be alright. And, while I'm not sure if I should continue to laugh at Yemi or be worried about him knowing where I was, like I thought he would be, he offers some more thoughts that put an end to my worries.

  "Do not look like a bird has taken your tongue, Fjord. I just tease. The booze found me before I found my bed, anyway."

  By now, some of the other men that Gorm has sent back to ride with me have gathered around the two of us, and laugh at Yemi with me to his own amusement as he laughs too, and, based on what he said, I get a feeling he passed out sooner than he could lie down properly. How he knows I was not in my bed then and how he managed to find his eventually, I'm not entirely sure, so I can only assume his brothers carried him, or dragged him there hopefully since he doesn't deserve much more effort when he's drunk. And, on top of that, he must have noticed me missing from my bed and any festivities last night, before he saw the bottom of too many bottles.