He Had No Name

The Boy with no name woke in the morning. The pain was still so vivid he cringed and gasped. He had grown cold in the night, with the altitude blowing autumn winds over his battered body. He should have brought the blanket, he silently begrudged himself of his fake bravado as he shivered laying on the cold ground. The embers of his fire having gone out long before the morning’s sun started peaking over the mountain range. He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t precisely sure what he could do. His wounds were not idly dismissed. He was severely wounded. He didn’t think he was mortally wounded but if any of his injuries got infected, he surely would die.

He rolled over, checking to see if there was any life left in the fire at all. Deep in the embers there was still heat. The Boy with no name crawled around his small campsite and collected enough small sticks to revive the fire from its dark slumber. As he crawled, he inspected in injuries. His mind was not clear, the pain was making him see double. He stopped frequently and just lay there, trying to refocus.

The wolf’s attacks had been relentless. They were almost possessed. What creature would attack in that manner. The Boy winced as a particular pain spiked through his shoulder. He didn’t even remember taking those teeth marks gouging deep tears from his right shoulder down across his stomach. His entire stomach was bitten and scratched to pieces. His wounds were significant enough where he could reach inside himself and feel his organs.

It was a sickening sensation and he might have vomited, had the pain been too intense for his stomach to even function. Still the Boy pursued through examining as much of his insides as he could touch. He laid back whimpering and heaving deep breaths, waiting for the worst of the pain to lapse into the lesser, yet still crippling pain, he had been mustering through.

Several more sticks got thrown into the fire as we he continued his slow circuit around the site. Anything he could grab to feed the gluttonous flames was his primary goal now. Rid the air of its frosty cold and give him something to use to keep the beast at bay should it return. He wasn’t sure how the wolf did not come back and finish him after he had passed out. Certainly, the ferocity and rigor that the wolf had attacked him initially had shown that minor wounds would not stop him. Perhaps he had injured the animal more than he thought he had.

The pain from his self-examination slightly subsiding he continued to find more wood to fuel the fire. He tried several times to potentially put weight on his left leg, but it just wasn’t possible. Out of all his injuries that was by far the worst. The foot appeared to be barely connected, and the wounds already looked sick and festering. He didn’t know how it was possible that only after several hours they should take on a fully infected appearance, but they appeared grotesque.

The fire had picked up enough life to finally stem off the cold. He rested, once again trying to catch his breathe. He pulled out his belt knife and placed it in the coals of the fire to heat the blade. The Boy with no name then took some time to eat his rations of food he had with him. He ate more than he had in days, feeling that his body was completely deprived of strength and needed all the food he could supply it. Drinking the cold water from his waterskin he finally felt warm and fed. The pain was still aggressively present, but he felt remarkably better than when he woke shivering in the cold of the morning air.

He wasn’t looking forward to the next part though. A horrible reality that he was all too aware of. He grabbed the knife from the fire, the blade now blazing hot, and pressed it against the deep laceration on his shoulder. He screamed despite his best efforts. He would spend the next two hours repeating the process. There were long gaps of time in between the sessions where he recollected himself. Once or twice he might have lost consciousness. The work left him depleted, entirely empty. When he finally laid back for the last time, he had cauterized ten wounds. He had gone through the experience ten times, and he was completely deflated. He laid back, drinking thirstily from his waterskin.

He took enough time to crawl outside of his small camp and find larger stocks of wood and drag them back closer to the fire. After fully banking the fire he finally let the sleep take him. It was in the middle of the day, but the pain and strain of the day had exhausted him to the point where he would fall unconscious soon if didn’t sleep on his own. He let the sleep take him.

He awoke suddenly again, startled. Fear swept over him so quickly he lay paralyzed. Minutes would slowly pass for him to calm down to realize there was no new dangers. It was the cold once again that had woken him. He went back to the labor of restocking the fire, slowly crawling in ever greater areas around and outside the camp. The sun was slowly descending, it was going to be dark soon. He would be spending the night here again. The Boy with no name knew he didn’t dare travel at night, not in his current state.

He stocked the fire and lugged back enough wood that he hoped it would keep the fire going throughout the night to keep the chill off. It wasn’t just chilly at these heights, it was cold. He ate and drank a bit more. It was good that he had conserved so much of his food throughout the last week, for now that he needed it, he had several days’ supply even at his increased consumption. When he was startled awake, he didn’t think he would be able to sleep again. But his body still being completely exhausted dragged him back into the depth of sleep.

He woke several times in the night from his own screams, reliving the event in his dreams repeatedly. Somehow, he managed to get back to sleep every time. It was a fitfully filled night though, and the sleep came through many trials and errors.

The morning came, the darkest of the night, right before the dawn. He prayed to the Blessed Spirit that this was true, that the light would shine forth. He thought again of the seer, and his mission the last two weeks. The events of the last days had entirely wiped it from his mind. He was seeking his name, for he was currently without. He was nameless. He let out a wheeze, that was supposed to be a disgruntled laugh. It dawned on him that he didn’t care about a name any longer. His new sole mission was survival, and only survival. He didn’t know if he should pray to the Blessed Spirit thanking him for guidance and clarity, or if he should pray for help, or if he should pray for his original quest. He didn’t know, so he did them all, with a rare fervor. Surely the Blessed Spirit would see him live to see his family again.

He realized he didn’t dare waste any more time though, he had climbed up to this mountain, overlooking the saddle he had intended to descend into to seek the guidance of the Blessed Spirit and to find the answers from the seer. But now, he knew if he had any chance of living, he had to try to return to his people, and hope that he had enough food and strength to make it.

He packed up what he could carry, and that which was necessary for his survival and started out, living the safety and warmth of the fire that had sustained him these last two days. For the first several hours he crawled, walked on his hands and knees, and eventually tried standing. But it was no use, he just could not sustain weight on his left leg, too severe were the injuries. He had to find a way to move though, he was not making anywhere near the progress he needed to. If he was going to return to his people, he would have to move faster.

He prepared two splints from lose branches he found on the ground and attached them to both sides of his wounded leg. He made them longer than his leg so that they stuck down past his leg several inches. He then lashed the splints securely up and down his leg, taking extra care to avoid the wounded sections. On the bottom of the two splints he tied a branch that was slightly larger than his foot between the two splints. He then added a third at the back of the leg and added two more connections below his foot. It was a very poorly constructed brace, but it might work a bit.

He gingerly tested it, trying to put a little weight on it while he still sat on the ground. The contraption held. He hobbled upright and then tried to take a very weak step. It held, barely. This might work, but only if he could also find something to take most of his weight off his leg.

With a makeshift brace under his shoulder, displacing a large amount of his weight off his leg. And the makeshift brace on his leg, he was finally able to walk. Sort of. At least he was upright and making measured steps, if slow. The Boy with no name might have taken a bit of pride in the accomplishment if he wasn’t too concerned with fighting off the pain that came with every step. He was moving though, and that was his only goal for the next days, just to keep moving.

He had been hobbling on his new makeshift attachments for some time when he froze. His eyes going wide in terror. The wolf lay ahead of him, crouched low, waiting. The wolf wasn’t thirty feet away from him, waiting, watching. The Boy froze, not daring to move. He fumbled his knife ready this time, but still he didn’t know if it would do him any good. He was so weak, so weary. When the wolf came for him, there would be nothing he could do. It was over, he would die, nameless.

As the wolf lay crouching, a black vulture hopped up from behind it. The vulture slowly pecked at his eye and plucked it out, eating it. The vulture stopped for a moment and looked at the Boy and flapped its wings. It appeared to be a warning for the Boy to stay away from his food. Another vulture poked his head up over the back of the wolf, its neck covered in blood, and meat dangling from its beak.

The Boy with no name was breathing again, the fear that had immobilized him moments before slowly subsiding. The wolf was dead, he must have stabbed him enough. He was relieved and scared all the more because of it. He finally regained enough courage to continue moving.

As he grew closer to the wolf, he could see that the birds had opened up the entire carcass. There were also three other vultures mingling among the remains. As he moved closer, one vulture hopped up and sat on the head of the wolf. This bird did not behave like the others though, but just stared at the nameless Boy. They just stared at each other, the moments slowly stretching into minutes.

The time stretched on and on, as they silently stared at each other. The Boy without a name finally spoke, “Why do you stare at me?” The bird continued to stare. In a moment of inspiration, perhaps it was revelation, the Boy without a name realized this may be the seer. Perhaps he had finally found the one he sought. “I am no longer nameless, am I?”

The question hung in the air, silently for several moments. The lone vulture, his stare never wavering from the Boy, slowly dipped his head twice in a confirming nod. The intentional move was punctuated with the stare continuing for several more moments. The gnarly old bird then squawked and jumped back down to the back of the wolf and pushed two of his fellows out of the way as they all began to feast again.

The nameless Boy would be nameless no more, he knew his name. He didn’t know where the name had come from, but he knew it. He was Slay-Wolf-of-Night. When he died, at least he would die with a name.