Questionably Brave

They were out in the Wastes, the dusty, barren wilderness that comprised most of the land north of the Borderlands. It was, by far, the worst location in all the known world. No one in their right mind would set foot in the Wastes. Wind tore across the jagged plains of rock. There was not a living thing in sight, save for the occasional scorpion and strange plants that grew directly on the rock. A dozen figures stood out against the reddish hue. They stood atop a rough-hewn cliff that jutted up suddenly from the flat rock below.

“Alright, guys.” The man spoke with the authority of a leader, though he was among the youngest of the scouting party. His sandy blond hair and smooth cheeks didn’t do much to make him look older. His mouth, though, was set in a grim line. His quick eyes assessed their position and his scouts in a swift move. “Orders are to stop at the ravine. Let’s search this peak and head home.”

A quiet cheer went up from the group as they drew their weapons and began a quick search around the jagged peak of rock. Their leader turned to look out over the space they had just crossed. It remained the same, reddish-brown and barren. The sky was eerily almost the same color as the earth.

His dozen scouts were covered in the dust of the Wastes. Even Stan’s golden wings, which usually glittered in the sunlight, were dulled by a coat of dust. They were some of the best he’d ever worked with, though they had the traditional make-up of a scout unit. He surveyed their movements now. Stan, their winged forward scout, was staring over the opposite edge into the ravine. Misha, their telekinetic, and AJ with his earth magic were moving aside the largest of the boulders to check the small caves concealed behind them. Peyton had sat one of the other fighters down to tend to a particularly nasty scrape with her bag of herbs. Ronald, his stepbrother, was insisting that the other six stop shoving each other into rocks and focus. And me, he amended mentally. August Moncrief, scout leader and Force wielder to be reckoned with. They’d been sent out to the Wastes by the Magic Clan Council to survey the ever-changing land and give them a break from fighting the restless Cystairs, the non-magic population.

“August,” Stan called to his leader from the other side of the peak.

“See something?” He was peering over the edge into the chasm on the other side of the peak. August was grateful that their orders were only to go so far. At least they wouldn’t have to cross this mess of a ravine. “What is it, Stan?”

“It’s just…” Stan looked confused and his wings flexed unconsciously on his back. “I thought I saw something move.”

“What did it look like?” August said curtly. They hadn’t seen anything else living for days, save for the scorpions and some strange plants that grew in clusters. He’d ordered his scouts not to touch those, especially after he found out that Peyton’s plant magic didn’t affect them.

“Just, sort of…black, I think. Like a shadow,” Stan replied.

“Seeing things, are ya, Stan?” Peyton had finished with the scrape and appeared suddenly beside them, her long, blonde ponytail swinging behind her like a pendulum.

“No,” he said immediately and it disturbed August to see him so shaken. “There was definitely something moving down there.”

“Point it out,” he ordered curtly. Stan gestured to a spot that was halfway down the opposite side of the ravine, but it remained desolate.

“Just past that rock that looks like a bike,” Stan added.

“That doesn’t look like a bike, you idiot,” Peyton replied. “It looks like a deer.”

“That’s oddly specific,” AJ said. Half of their group had gathered along the edge of the ravine to see what the commotion was about. “Are you sure you’re looking at the right one, Pey?”

“Yes, it’s that one. It looks like a deer,” she replied impatiently.

“No, it’s that one,” Stan said and moved her hand a few inches to the left. “The one that looks like a bike.”

“Okay, fine, it does look like a bike,” she finally conceded, swatting Stan’s hand away.

“Bro,” Ronald came up and clapped August on the back. “I thought we were supposed to be checking this place out, not sightseeing.”

“But there are so many lovely sights to see,” AJ joked, gesturing out to the reddish expanse of nothing.

“Stan thought he saw something moving out there,” August answered.

“I did see something moving out there,” Stan countered with a huff.

“I’m going to go check it out.” August pulled a hoverboard from his back and tossed it onto the ground. It lit up as soon as his boots touched it. His magic turned the gravity around it so that it hovered a foot or so off the ground. “Keep checking around up here,” he ordered.

“I’m coming with you,” Stan said at once and unfurled his wings.

“Keep a sharp eye,” Peyton said with worry on her face. It was the scouts’ ‘good luck’.

The rest of the scouts pulled back from the edge so the two could dive off. August reveled in the feeling of the wind rushing past him as he plummeted over the edge of the chasm. Stan did the same, his black hair and golden wings both slicked back by the rush of air. Before he could come to a messy death against the rock bottom, he pulled up.

From the ravine below, August heard the echo of Peyton’s high voice as she grumbled, “I hate it when he does that.”

From down below, August gave her a thumbs up to reassure her constant concern. She returned it, but even from below he could see her shift anxiously. Stan sped down the ravine floor with uncanny speed. August pushed his hoverboard after him, but it was difficult to keep up with his swift wings. He suddenly pulled to a stop and hovered beside the rock that had been the source of their previous argument.

“I don’t see anything here now,” Stan said with a curse. “I swear, August, there was something here.”

“It’s alright, I believe you,” he answered, though he was a little skeptical. It was difficult to see anything in the dull monotone of this landscape. All the rock was the same color and there was a constant haze lingering on the rocks. Sometimes, it was hard to tell the difference between sky and land.

They poked around by the rock for a while and checked every nook, but there was nothing to be found. Whatever Stan had seen was long gone.

“I’m sorry, Stan,” August said. “I believe you, but we have to go back to the others.”

The scout nodded his understanding. August felt better once his feet hit solid ground again. His scouts had returned to checking the area, but it appeared that they had run out of things to investigate. Peyton, Misha, and AJ were gathered around something. Ronald and several of the other scouts were lounging against the rocks, but they straightened up as August approached.

“Anything of interest?” he asked his stepbrother.

“No, not here. It’s pretty barren, just like all the other times,” he answered with a shrug.

“We should be grateful for that,” August said. Peyton, Misha, and AJ were still huddled together and speaking in muffled voices. August approached them. “Anything?”

“Misha found another one of those weird plants,” AJ said and grinned when he saw who had asked. “Hey, Peyton was right, that’s a fine scrape you’re sporting all over your face. Guess our leader can’t take care of himself after all.”

“Very funny, AJ,” Peyton said without looking up. She was focused on the plant before her, which was another one of the strange varieties. “I hate these things.”

“It’s because you can’t use your magic on them, isn’t it?” Misha teased her with a sharp jab to her shoulder.

“Ow! You’d be creeped out too, if you found something you couldn’t levitate.” Peyton retorted with a shudder. “I can’t use my magic at all on these. It’s like my hand is numb.”

“There are plenty of things I can’t levitate,” Misha retorted. “Buildings…very large rocks…ships…AJ when he’s eaten too much…”

“It’s not because of my diet. It’s my manly physique. All this muscle, no wonder you can’t levitate it,” he said with a dramatic flex. Misha and Peyton looked unimpressed. AJ ignored them and went back to business. “What’s the word, boss? Did you find anything out there?”

August shrugged. “We couldn’t find anything.”

“I swear, there was something out there,” Stan said again from behind him.

“Yeah, okay, Birdbrain,” Misha teased. “Come on and do some real work, won’t you?” They left Peyton, August, and AJ still gathered around the strange plant. Peyton was focused on putting part of it into a sample bag for later testing.

“You alright, Pey?” August asked, looking down at her scrunched brow.

“Yeah, August, I’m fine,” she answered and tried to reassure him with a smile. “I just want to get out of this place, you know?”

“We’ll be gone soon enough. It’s only a few days to the Borderlands and then it’ll feel like we’re back home,” August said.

AJ sighed, “that’s the worst thing about scouting missions.”

“What is?” August asked.

“Taking weeks and weeks to get home,” Peyton answered for him, securing the plant in the bag. “I’m done.”

August called Ronald over for a moment so he could burn the remnants of the plant. Peyton looked moderately better when it had smoldered down to ash, but she glanced anxiously over the edge of the cliff again. “Are you sure there’s nothing out there, August?” she asked.

“No,” he said honestly. “But we couldn’t find anything. You worry too much. We haven’t seen anything worse than that plant and there are twelve of us. We’ll be fine.”

They camped out on the rocky outcropping for the night. The chill set in as soon as the sun sank, which all of them thought was abnormally early, but August wouldn’t let them light a fire. It was too visible from their height and, as he argued anyway, hampered their night vision. “Just in case,” August said. Peyton hated just in cases and told Misha so, but the short-haired woman just laughed and patted her on the back.

“You worry too much,” she’d said before curling up on her bedroll and falling into a surprisingly sound sleep. It was another one of Misha’s gifts. Peyton had drawn the first watch. She sat back to back with AJ with her bow held loosely in her lap.

“Keep a sharp eye.” August told them before crawling into his own bedroll. He lay awake for a while on the hard ground, listening to his scouts regular breathing and Peyton and AJ’s quiet conversation. They were often paired for watch and talked quietly to keep themselves awake. It inevitably kept him awake for a little longer than usual.

“What will you do first when you get home?” AJ asked her.

“Probably take a nice, long bath and eat some great dinner. Go shopping. Sleep for hours,” she said wistfully.

“Sounds like you have a whole day planned out,” AJ answered.

“You?”

“I’m gonna see my girl,” he said longingly. “If she’s still loyal to me.”

Peyton laughed quietly. “We’ve only been gone three months,” she reminded him. “Becca’s got more patience than that. Now, if we get deployed to the frontier guard next time…well, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Thank you, you’re very helpful,” AJ answered, but there was no bitterness in his voice.

“Think we’ll be with August next time?” she asked after a period of silence. August had been on the brink of sleep, but his name pulled him unwillingly back to consciousness.

“Who knows? The council decides. I hope so, anyway. They’ve kept us together for three tours now, maybe they’ll keep it going. Haven’t had a better commander,” AJ answered with uncharacteristic seriousness.

“Same,” she answered and they lapsed into silence for several long minutes. “What do you think was out there?”

“Maybe something, maybe nothing,” AJ answered. August could almost hear his shrug in his voice. “Probably just an animal.”

“We haven’t seen any animals since coming into the Wastes,” Peyton reminded him.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” He chuckled.

“I don’t like being out this far. No one comes out this far,” she whispered.

“That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it? So no one else has to be. It’s probably the safest place to be, if you really think about it. I heard some of the Cystairs in the Brackenridge Forest were getting restless again,” AJ answered.

“There are always Cystairs getting restless somewhere,” Peyton said with a flick of her hand.

“Well, we could be there fighting for our lives instead of here, looking out into a serene and very quiet night,” he said and sighed in contentment.

“Yeah,” she finally agreed, letting her head drop back against his shoulder, “I guess there’s something to that.”

August had managed to catch a few hours of sleep, but he was jolted awake again by Misha’s cursing. Peyton had woken her up for watch. Several other scouts had woken too, judging by the sound of their grumbling.

“Stuff it,” Ronald called, turning over in his bedroll.

“You stuff it,” Misha hissed back. “Why’d you have to roll me over?” she grumbled to Peyton, rubbing a sore spot on her arm.

“Because I tried being nice and you wouldn’t get up. Stuff it and go on watch,” Peyton answered,

“I’m going, I’m going,” Misha grumbled the whole way.

“Keep a sharp eye,” Peyton whispered after her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she answered back.

Peyton shook out her bedroll to make sure nothing unpleasant had crawled into it before nestling herself inside. August heard Misha say, “oh, great, you’re my watch partner, Birdbrain?” and smiled before drifting off to sleep again.

~ ~ ~

August awoke to a scream from somewhere to his left. Before he could even fully come to, a dark figure leapt on him from above, claws digging into the skin of his arms. His instinct was to grab the knife under his pillow and ram it into the thing’s side. The blade glanced off without doing any damage. Instead, he sent a powerful shockwave of magic through its body. That gave him enough time to pull himself out of the bedroll before the next one was on him. He didn’t bother with weapons that time. They clearly had no effect. He fought with his magic instead. August planted a hand against the ground and sent tremors towards the shapes moving against him. The rock on the edge of the ravine split and they fell with ghastly screams.

The yells and shrieks filling the night around him obviously meant that the rest of his crew was awake and in the same predicament. He could see their figures around him and recognized Stan’s fluttering wings, but he couldn’t make out their details. But where are the night guards? he thought frantically. “Ronald,” he screamed as loud as he could over the cacophony. “Light!”

Fire bloomed in an arch over their heads and he knew at least that Ronald was still alive and fighting. The scene that appeared before him was utter bedlam. Dark shapes were leaping off the rocks and onto his scouts and he couldn’t pinpoint their source. It seemed that everyone else had also realized that weapons were having no effect because they had resorted to using their magic. Ronald had set several of them on fire like torches. Misha seemed to have settled for levitating them off the cliff, while Stan was also propelling them over the edge with gusts of wind. Peyton was having a particularly difficult time without any plants around her to work with. August shoved one off her and took up a stance beside her. The things were still coming from nowhere and he knew they needed to extricate themselves from the battle before they were completely overwhelmed.

“Circle up!” He called to anyone who could hear him. They were having one hell of a time fighting their way into some semblance of a formation, but they had to do something. Ronald fell in beside August and unleashed another round of fire. A mysterious and ear-shattering sound made him and everyone else double-over in pain. It seemed to be some sort of signal for the creatures because as quickly as they’d come, they vanished.

August pulled Peyton up from where she’d fallen on the ground and surveyed the scene before him. The sentries were both dead, their faces still frozen in shock and a deep gash leering at him from their necks. Misha was nursing a clearly broken arm and several of the others were injured. But why had they gone?

“Grab as much as you can and head for the cliffs,” he barked out the order. “Leave what you can. We travel light.”

August abandoned his own bedroll and grabbed only his pack, his board, and the few weapons that hadn’t been strapped on him. He kicked over one of the dead creatures for a better look. Its skin was so dark that it looked black, though he could see in the light of the fire that it was dark blue. It was almost humanoid, but a little taller than the average human and with large, bat-like ears. The blank eyes were an eerie and catlike green-gold. He bent down next to the dead sentries. They had been taken by surprise, killed with the quick gash to their necks that had almost decapitated them. One of the creatures nearby had sharp claws extended, but the one next to it did not. Retractable claws, then.

“Ronald,” he said with regret. “Burn the bodies.” He turned his back as his stepbrother obeyed. The appalling odor of burning flesh filled the air and he resisted the urge to gag. “Stan, can you fly?” The man tested his wings and nodded. “Start taking people down. Are you strong enough, Misha? You too. We need to get out of here before they come back.”

“August,” Peyton stopped him when they were on the flat rocky ground again. “Have you ever seen those things before?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea what they were.”

~ ~ ~

The creatures attacked again at midday, crawling out of the rocks same as they’d done the night before and giving no warning, even in the murky daylight. August and his crew fought with all their might, but they had gotten bolder and more numerous. Also, he now knew that they had some sort of magic. Whatever it was, it wasn’t like theirs and it was wreaking havoc on their numbers. Two more of his fighters had gone down and it was physically paining him. Peyton was struggling. As hard as she tried, the local plant life wouldn’t respond to her magic. She was attempting to use her small stash of healing herbs to generate more plant life, but it was having only a moderate effect. AJ pushed her out of the way before she got hit by a bolt of magic from one of the creatures.

“Get on your game,” he yelled teasingly as he skewered one of them with a shard of rock. “Someone might think you’re slacking off.”

“Come on, run!” August shouted and they tried to make for the only cover available to them up ahead, with Ronald shooting jets of fire behind them. AJ pushed Peyton in front of him and she covered her head as they ran for the rock overhang. Stan limped along beside them. He was missing one of his wings. The creatures didn’t follow them into the caves. Misha caught Stan before he fell. Only five of them had made it inside.

“Where’s Ronald?” August said frantically as soon as he had taken stock of the survivors. “No! Where is he?”

They looked around, but, sure enough, he was not among their numbers. August tried to run out of the cave again, but AJ caught him and held him back. “He’s gone, mate. One of them grabbed him. There was nothing I could do.”

For a moment, August considered fighting him to get out and find his stepbrother, but his shoulders finally slumped with defeat. “Let’s go,” he muttered, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“We’re getting close to the edge of the Borderlands,” August said as they helped each other climb out of the other side of the tunnel. “We should be safe there.”

“If the Cystairs don’t kill us,” Misha muttered, nursing her injured arm.

“Hey,” AJ said, clapping her on her healthy shoulder. August checked the area outside the cave and motioned them forward. “After this madness, we can take a few Cystairs. And there are a few clan settlements in the Borderlands, too. They’ll help us out and we’ll be on our way home to see…”

The rock behind Misha exploded. Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion. August saw rather than felt himself being blown backwards. Stan was launched back towards the entrance of the cave, which collapsed on top of him. He was dimly aware of other bodies flying around him. His body crashed painfully against another rock and he lay there dazed for minutes or hours. There was a ringing in his ears that wouldn’t go away even when he shook his head.

He saw everything as if it were a dream. His four remaining scouts were scattered across the rock like discarded dolls. Peyton’s hair was a fan of gold against the red and she stirred, lifting her head to look at the figure next to her.

“AJ,” he heard her weak whisper from a distance. He wanted to help. He needed to help. These were his scouts, his team, his responsibility, and he’d led them into an ambush. But he couldn’t force his arm to move. Peyton reached out to AJ and tried to shake him awake. “AJ, come on,” she said faintly. His head dropped loosely to the side and he stared at her with lifeless eyes, the ghost of his last smile still etched on his face.

“AJ,” she said again and slumped to the ground. August’s vision went black.

~ ~ ~

It was still light when August came to again, but it was dimmer than before. There was something painful jabbing into his back and he groaned, trying to make it stop. He just wanted to sleep. Couldn’t he just sleep? Why would it leave him alone so he could sleep? The smell of burnt flesh and charred stone invaded his nose and jerked him back to consciousness. The painful jabbing in his back was a stone wall that he was painfully cramped against. He had a dim memory of crashing into it with the force of the explosion. It must have been the creatures that set it, but they were nowhere to be seen. He had so many questions, but now was not the time for that.

He pushed himself carefully off the ground and avoided the tender bruises that peppered his body. He’d been lucky. Nothing was broken, save for maybe a rib. But he didn’t trust himself to stand yet. His limbs were still shaky and he was seeing double. He had to find his scouts. There. He recognized Misha’s short, red hair and crawled over to where she lay. It was only when he got there that he realized she was missing everything below her waist. He felt for a pulse, but the skin of her neck was already cool beneath his fingertips.

“Peyton, AJ,” he crawled over to where they lay side by side. AJ was staring blankly at the sky. He felt for a pulse in Peyton’s neck. It fluttered unevenly beneath his fingertips. “Come on, Peyton, wake up.”

He shook her gently, trying not to jostle her too much in case she’d broken something. It took several tries, but her eyes finally fluttered open and took an excruciatingly long minute to focus on him. There was a bleeding gash on her forehead. It was probable that she had a concussion. “August,” she groaned.

“Can you move?”

“You’re bleeding,” she said distractedly.

“Peyton, can you move?”

“August, where is everyone? Why is it so blurry out?”

“Come on, Peyton, it’s going to be okay. We’re…we’re the only two left. We have to keep going.” That seemed to bring some clarity back to her, though her eyes were still sliding in and out of focus. He tried a different tactic. “Where does it hurt?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t. My head hurts. August, AJ’s dead.” Her hand clutched at his with surprising strength.

“Yes, I know.”

“August,” she said again, weakly, her eyes drooping. “I can’t feel my legs.”

It was then that he saw what he hadn’t seen before: a shard of rock sticking out of her back. What were they going to do now?

“August?”

“Yeah, Peyton?”

“Why are we still alive?”