The siblings examined the highway stretching out before them, leading to their friendly lines. “If the Torins were on the other side of the river then they probably don’t have any ambushes set up over here,” Darren noted. “Plus we didn’t see them earlier today.”

“Torins are unpredictable. What worries me most is not why the Torins are not moving west to occupy this side of the city, it’s why the Joya Union and Ieral armies are not moving east to take it back,” Aela said, crossing her arms as she watched the boats in the distance.

The Ieral Navy had moved in closer, looking on the verge of grounding themselves on the deep, short beaches of the Graden Bay. One large vessel actually had grounded itself, a large door opened on its side where tanks and trucks hastily drove out into the shallow water, most getting bogged down in the surf with their haste.

“I guess they got the message. They look like they’re preparing for a big attack,” Darren said.

Aela turned around and looked at the empty space of mud where the Torins had been assembling on the far side of the river. “It makes me wish we were still up on the pylon. We should tell them the attack was called off,” she said.

“Well, that makes our decision, then. We need to go on this highway as fast as we can and tell the Prophets with the Joya and Ierilan armies that the attack was called off.” Darren took his pistol out and hurriedly walked down the highway. “Who knows, we might just find a car that isn’t blown up and be able to drive there.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Aela said as she caught up with her brother, stepping around the other side of an armored personnel carrier that had split in half from a direct hit from a shell. “Let me go first. There might be mines.”

“You’re the Gold,” Darren said as he let his sister lead the way, choosing to swallow his pride rather than swallow an explosive. “By the way, don’t look into that…”

Aela’s eyes widened and she took a quick step back, seeing the smiling skull of a burnt corpse.

“Okay, I guess you saw it. No big deal,” Darren said.

The skeleton was one of many burnt bodies in the back of the armored personnel carrier. The steel frame that was meant to protect them had become a metal crucible when the vehicle had split in half and caught fire, trapping its occupants.

Aela leaned forward to get a better view of the interior of the blackened vehicle, examining the looks of pain still visible on the corpses’ eyeless faces. Darren found his sister’s apparent fascination with the skeletons a little unsettling.

“Come on, Aela, it’ll be dark in a few hours,” Darren said. “I don’t intend for it to take us that long to get to the Joya camp.”

“Do you remember why this war started?” Aela asked as she continued to look at the bodies.

She wondered what they were thinking when they died, as the fires consumed them. Did they think their sacrifice was worthy? Did they think they were soldiers in a just war? Would any of them had given up the cause they fought for to make it out of that oven alive?

“Stop looking in there or I’m going to think you’ll take them home.” Darren tried tugging on his sister but she didn’t budge. He sighed after she stood and turned around. “Finally, can we go now?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m just not a fan of looking at cooked soldiers, is that a bad thing? Now let’s go.”

Aela looked from her brother, to the blackened APC, back to her brother. She shrugged and started walking along the highway again, ignoring the rest of the wreckage forcing them to weave a path along the asphalt.

“You okay?” Aela asked after a few seconds.

“Fine,” Darren replied. “I just don’t like picturing what those guys went through.”

“Why?”

“Look, you’re not a psychiatrist or anything so leave it alone. I just don’t like the idea of dying that way, okay? Ask me about the war again, it’s a more peaceful subject.”

“Your use of dialect always intrigues me, Darren.” The asphalt crunched beneath the two Prophets’ boots as they weaved their way along the road, the light sound of the calm ocean occasionally breaking through the otherwise silent city. “So what do you think? Is this a just war?”

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“I’m fighting in it aren’t I?”

“We don’t have much of a choice. And we’re not trying to fight it, we’re trying to end it.”

“I’m sure those guys in that APC were doing the same thing.”

“Okay, so let me rephrase the question,” Aela said, twisting her body around so her shield wouldn’t get caught in the gap between a large truck and its detached trailer as she squeezed through. “Do you know what this war is about?”

“Vaguely,” Darren said. “And don’t get mad at me about that. Like you said, we’re trying to end this war not fight it. All I know is that the Torins invaded west of their borders, the Joya Union formed to push them back, and Ieral came to help. Something about Sai was in there too but I’m pretty sure they’re not on this continent.”

“They’re fighting over the Krane subcontinent. The little nations there are begging for Ieral to give them support but they’re too disunited and Ieral’s too busy fighting Torin.”

“Point is, I don’t care why these guys found the need to fight but I’m gonna end it. Hendar said one solid victory with this Ieral counter-invasion would bring the Torins to the negotiation table.”

“I’ve been on this planet the entire two years of this war. You don’t know how long it took the Prophets on this planet to convince the Sept to let us take a side.”

“Take a side? We aren’t taking a side, we’re trying to bring the two sides together so they’ll stop fighting,” Darren pointed out. “We’d be fighting for the Torins if they were the ones losing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’d never fight for the Torins,” Aela said, stopping suddenly. She thrust out her hand so her brother would stop. “Hold it, I think I see a mine.”

Darren peered over his sister’s shoulder, looking at a clearing in the pavement made by a circle of three cars. Where the clearing turned into a small path leading further down the road, they could barely make out a tripwire leading to a car window.

“Do you know how to disable those things?” Aela asked.

“No, but if you get down behind your shield I’ll show you a quick way to get through it,” Darren noted, and got on one knee, aiming his pistol.

“No, wait!”

Darren fired a single shot that split the tripwire, sending the taught pieces flying back to the places they were tied to. “What?” Darren retrieved his bullet, smiling. “Did you think I couldn’t hit the tripwire or something?”

“I was worried you would blow up the mine.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Never mind. Now that the trigger’s gone, I’ll go take the fuse out,” Aela said, keeping her shield in front of her as she approached the window of the car. The cut tripwire hung limply on the pavement, leading to the window. Keeping her shield up, Aela peered into the window and saw the box-shaped mine sitting where the car’s clutch used to be. She reached down and grabbed hold of the mine, lifting it up and out of the car window and setting it on the ground.

“Please be careful with that,” Darren said, watching his sister handle the mine. “I know you’re good with healing, but you’re not that good.”

“Oh hush. I’m fine.” Aela unscrewed the cap of the mine, easily pulling out the fuse that would trigger the explosive. “So you really think the Torins are just as good as the people of the Joya Union?”

“Well, for one, I have yet to really talk to a Torin who wasn’t cursing or shooting at me, so my opinions are unfortunately skewed at the moment.” Darren breathed a sigh of relief as he watched his sister toss the fuse into the mess of vehicles and stand up, wiping the mine’s grease off her hands. Darren rubbed his hands through his hair, thinking. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard of Torins doing anything worse than Prosperites. There’s so many people on Prosper there’s always a fight going on, and most of the time for useless reasons. I’m having trouble seeing how this is any different.”

“It’s different,” Aela said as she put her hands on her hips, doing her best to look down at her younger, taller brother. “Because the Torins don’t let their people have their own rights. They killed their monarchy and stole from everyone. Then they forced people to work for the government only and tried to take the Jengal Valley.”

Darren shrugged.

Aela rolled her eyes.

The siblings once again started walking toward the Joya Union lines, making an easier path through the cars. The lines of troops and tanks came out clearer in the late afternoon sun.

“I heard about the Torins doing all that,” Darrel conceded. “But someone from Prosper would just say that’s looking out for the common good. Different culture, different tradition.”

“Bad tradition.”

“Different. Look, why am I taking the side of pacifism and prudence? You’re the Gold for crying out loud.”

“This isn’t about Golds or Reds it’s about doing what’s right.”

Darren fell on his knees, clutching his side as he tried to not fall over. His laughter echoed across the vehicle-strewn highway. “What’s right, hah!”

“What?” Aela asked, staring at her brother like he’d gone insane. “What? There’s nothing funny about doing what’s right.”

Darren fell over, laughing even harder as he pleaded, “Please, stop. It’s too much!”

“Shut up!” Aela kicked her brother in the side and he stopped laughing.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“For being a jerk is what. If you didn’t want to stop the Torins then why did you even come here?”

“Stop griping. We’re only a couple kilometers from the Joya base.” Darren ignored his sister’s icy glare and walked ahead of her. As he did, he saw a lookout station set up among the tall sandbags lining the edge of the Ieral beachhead. “Hey look. I think they see us.”

Darren held up his pistol and shone its red side for the Ieral and Joya Union troops to see. He stood and waved it back and forth so that he was sure they knew they were coming. “Maybe Hendar’s with them,” Darren said, and took a step forward. He could see the troops in the beachhead moving with even more urgency, some of the little boats turning around before reaching the shore. “Finally, we’ll get some answers.”

“Yeah, I…” Aela sai,d and paused, hearing a faint foomp-fafoomp far off in front of them. “Did you hear that?”

“Why are those tanks moving toward the highway?”

“Darren, did you hear that?”

“What, the foomp sound?”

“Yeah.”

”Yeah, sounded like…”

The siblings’ eyes widened as they both shouted, “Artillery!”