The Last Legend

by Ernie Lindsey

  “Brandon,” I say, putting a hand on his arm. His muscles are tense beneath his clothing. “We can’t waste a good chance because we’re angry. We’ll do the recon up the valley, and then Finn can tell Hawkins what’s coming behind. Right, Finn? Do you know what’s coming?”

  Finn says yes, cautiously.

  Brandon thinks for a moment, studying our prisoner, and then relents. “You got anything to tie him up with?” He sticks out his hand and waits while I open my pack. I remove the thin roll of twine I use for rabbit snares and give it to him.

  “Put your arms behind the tree,” he orders, and Finn obeys. “Watch him. If he moves wrong, that knife goes in his neck.” Brandon shuffles around the pine tree and quickly ties our friend’s—no, our enemy’s hands together, then moves to the front, using the last of the twine to cinch Finn’s feet together. “That’ll hold for now.”

  “You’ll come back for me?” Finn asks.

  Brandon winks, but it’s not friendly. “Maybe.”

  And then he’s down the hillside and slipping through the underbrush. Not looking back, not waiting for me.

  I push my soaking hair away from my face. Finn smiles, a peace offering, and waits for me to say something. I’m sure he’s hoping it’s something good.

  Instead, I say, “If you’re lying, you won’t have to worry about Brandon, because I’ll slit your throat myself.”

  4

  I catch up to Brandon and grab his arm, pulling hard, trying to get him to look at me. “Is he lying?”

  “About which part?” Brandon says, yanking free of my grip. He doesn’t stop. He slips quietly through the forest, moving from tree to tree, examining a few yards ahead each time he dashes forward, looking for signs of the DAV blackcoats.

  “Everything. All of it.”

  “If you got caught, wouldn’t you tell someone what they wanted to hear?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not I thought I could get away.”

  “He knows he’s not going anywhere.”

  “He seemed like he was telling the truth.”

  “Your crush might get us killed.”

  “My crush?” We step over a fallen oak tree, and I fight the urge to trip him. “I don’t have a crush on him.”

  Brandon looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything.

  “I don’t.” I mean, probably not.

  “Then why’d you let him live?”

  “Why did you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “For information. The same reason you did.”

  “Right.” Brandon slides down the embankment. His feet push the rotting, drenched leaves to the side as he goes, carving a path that reveals the fresh earth underneath.

  I follow, gouging my own channel into the dirt, and then scold him for making so much noise when we get to the bottom. I don’t care how soaked the leaves are, or how much it dampens the sound—if he makes that much racket when we get closer to the DAV army, wherever they are, we’re dead. Or worse, they’ll capture us. From the stories the Elders have told us, death is the better way to go.

  “And besides,” I say, “maybe you have a crush on him.”

  He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Guys don’t get crushes on other guys.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it. What about Elder Parker and Elder Thomas?”

  “That’s different.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  Brandon skids to a standstill, listening. A second later, he grabs me around the chest, clasps his hand over my mouth, and yanks me into a low growth of bushes. We land hard and I twist my head up to face him, to ask him what in the hell he’s doing, but a finger goes to his lips. He flicks a glance to the right, signaling for me to look.

  His body is warm, and I can feel his breath on my forehead as I lean across him and peek through the limbs. Up ahead, about two hundred yards away, I can see four men crashing along. They’re not trying to hide the fact that they’re there. I’ve only seen drawings, but it looks like they’re wearing the thick black and dark red overcoats of the DAV army. I can’t see any weapons, but that doesn’t mean they’re unarmed.

  My heart begins to pound inside my chest. It’s so loud that I’m sure Brandon can hear it, and the irrational side of me is afraid the sound is carrying all the way up to the enemy soldiers as well.

  As quiet as I can, I whisper, “What’re they doing?”

  Brandon shakes his head and lets go, nudging me to the side so he can get up on his knees for a better look.

  “Should we run?”

  He ignores me.

  “Brandon? Should we run?”

  He spins around, lips pinched together, scowling. He mouths, “Shut up,” and then pushes two limbs to the side and watches the men strolling in our direction. I don’t like it when he orders me around, but I do as he says.

  I can hear them talking and laughing, and they clearly have no idea they’re being watched. Since the drumming has stopped, the march has ceased, and they must be a scouting party sent to survey the area ahead of the main army. We’re so far from our tiny village that I doubt they expect anyone to be nearby, observing them.

  When they get closer, maybe fifty yards north of our position, they stop for a moment. They point east and south, nodding, probably discussing the best way to move their army through the forest. I see three younger men—they look to be about Brandon’s age—and an older one with a graying beard. He has extra stripes on the shoulder of his jacket. I don’t know how they rank their soldiers, but he’s in charge of something.

  There’s more head-shaking, more pointing and talking. A decision is made when all four nod in unison, and they resume their walk in our direction. We’re right in their path. My heartbeat quickens, and if I’m not careful, my aching bladder will empty itself down my leg.

  I’ve never been this scared before. I’ve been within feet of a group of Republicons, watching them sneak by in their mish-mash clothing that they’ve stolen from travelers, carrying their homemade weapons and sacks full of things pried from the dying hands of their victims. Close enough to smell their unwashed stench. Yet it didn’t frighten me as much as the DAV troops who are happily unaware that we’re nearby. They’re in a good mood, jolly and lively, preparing for what will amount to an easy war—for them.

  My lungs burn and convulse. I need to take a breath. But I wait, terrified that any noise I make will sound like a bellowing scream.

  Thankfully, the clothing we use for scout uniforms blends into the surrounding forest. Our shirts are soiled, dyed forest green from hours of rubbing wads of grass and leaves on them. Brown patches, ripped from burlap sacks, are randomly sewn onto the material to look like foliage. We all wear dark green pants that Grandfather scavenged years and years ago—passed from scout to scout to scout. If they don’t fit on their own, you find a way to make them fit. Roll up the legs, tie them tight with a piece of rope. Whatever works. Same goes for the rain jackets. Mine hangs loosely on my shoulders. Two of me could fit inside it, but it was the only one we had left. I inherited it from Carl Gaelen when he fell from a tree and broke his leg so badly that it ended his scouting days.

  Brandon taps my shoulder, spooking me, and I almost yelp. Luckily, no sound escapes my lips as he points to the ground beneath us, making a rubbing motion around his face. He pushes the bed of leaves to the side, grabs a handful of dirt, and scrubs his cheeks, his forehead, and across his nose. I understand what he’s doing. Even more camouflage. I do the same, covering my exposed skin with the rich black soil.

  He glances at my hair and nods.

  Reluctantly, I nod back. I don’t want to, but I know my light-colored hair stands out against the browns and greens. It’s drenched from the rain, and when I mash a handful of dirt into it, it makes a soupy brown mess. Now we’re almost invisible. And we smell like rotting nature.

  Brandon pulls me closer to him. I feel his warmth again, and we lie down on our side
s, his chest to my back.

  Briefly, I picture him pulling a blanket over us, cuddling on a cold winter night as we watch a fire crackle and pop. I’ve imagined this very thing before—wanted it, even, and maybe I’ll tell him one of these days—but not like this. Not hiding together on a mountainside, covered in grime and rot, fifty feet from certain death.

  Instead of a blanket, Brandon reaches down, grabs a handful of leaves, and sprinkles them over us. It’s not much, but every little bit of cover helps. He pulls me closer, trying to make our union as complete as possible. With his arm across me, I can feel it shaking. Is it fear? Anticipation?

  “Do not move,” Brandon whispers in my ear.

  Thirty feet away, the DAV soldiers stop again, and their voices become clear.

  I don’t dare look, but I can tell that the older one is talking. His voice is deep, with a gravelly edge to it. It’s the voice of too many years.

  “It’s thick through here,” he says, “and there’s no way around it.”

  A different voice. One of the younger men. “It’ll be tough, that’s for certain.”

  A third. “What if we cut a path?”

  Then the fourth one adds, “Nah. That’d cost us much time, definitely. We try to bring everything through here, we’d have to dig up the stumps for the tanks too, right?”

  My muscles go rigid and I crane my neck around to Brandon, mouthing the word, “Tanks?” He frowns and barely shakes his head back and forth.

  The older man says, “Not if we cut the trees low enough. But still, Harris is right. It’ll take too much time. We got a mile of thick forest all the way down to the lake, and then it’s another mile or so down to their first lookout base. We’d have to bring the whole army forward to cut ’em down fast enough. And besides, the general won’t go for it since we’re already behind schedule.”

  “Then what’s the plan, sir?”

  The one in charge clears his throat and takes so long to speak that, in my mind, I can imagine him with his hands on his hips, glancing up at the hills, then down toward the lake and back. “He won’t like it much, but we’ll have to bring the infantry through here, and the tanks will have to flank us on the roads to the east.”

  “Are you gonna be the one to tell him that, sir?” one of the younger soldiers asks. His voice is light, perhaps joking.

  “Nope, that’s your job, Samuels. That’s an order.”

  “Aye, sir.” The regret in the man’s tone is obvious.

  “One of these days, you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Next comes the rustling of their footsteps, the noise receding, telling me that they’re heading back north. I risk movement, but only enough to peek past the lowest limb. Up ahead, I spot four backs as the blackcoat soldiers trudge through the forest. I take a deep breath, relieved that we’re safe, for now, but then I remember what’s coming…

  Tanks.

  As part of our training to be army scouts, the Elders tell us stories of the Old War that have been passed down for generations—stories about guns, bombs, and other weapons that were too mind-boggling to be true. These behemoth vehicles that rolled on belts and could shoot massive, explosive projectiles were one of those unbelievable weapons. The fact that they’re real, and that the DAV army has them, means that our little encampment, the place we call home, won’t be the only thing destroyed.

  The PRV doesn’t stand a chance against that kind of firepower. I’ve never been outside of our valley, but from what travelers and messengers have told us over the years, every village from here to Warrenville is exactly the same: huts and shacks filled with citizens of the PRV who just try to get by, day after day, existing as an army outpost in name only. They have weapons, like bows and slingshots, enough to ward off desperate Republicons, but they’re useless when facing a real army, let alone tanks.

  Finn said that there were ten thousand troops to the north of us. Even if all the nearby encampments banded together, forming a line of resistance back to the capital, it wouldn’t matter. We would be firing pebbles at a rolling boulder.

  No, the DAV army can crush a path south, right up to the front gate of Warrenville, without having to worry about any sort of real resistance.

  To save as many lives as possible, our only option will be to run, and to hide. To give up what we’ve held on to since the Olden Days. To hand it over like it was never ours in the first place.

  It makes me angry, but what choice do we have?

  Fight and die? Or run and live another day?

  When the four soldiers have put ample distance between us, Brandon whispers something unexpected. “We have to stop them.”

  I roll over and face him. Our noses are almost touching. His breath smells sweet. “Shouldn’t we go warn the others? We don’t have time—”

  “It’ll give us more time. If we stop them from getting back to their camp, it may be hours before they’re missed.”

  “It’s too risky, Bran—”

  He grabs my arms, shakes me. Not hard, but sternly, just to make his point. “You heard them—they have tanks, Caroline. We need every last second we can get, and if we can stop those four, we might buy ourselves half a day, or at least a couple hours. Every second matters. Every second.”

  He’s right. We have sick people, weak people, children who can barely walk. Grandfather can’t run. At best, with his sickness, he can hobble along, hunched over and coughing. But a couple of hours might give us a chance to disappear into the woods. We know them well. We can become ghosts until we retreat to Warrenville.

  Brandon says, “We have to try.”

  “Okay, but there’s four of them and two of us. What’s your plan? And what if the rest of their men are just up ahead, out of sight?”

  “Do you hear anything?”

  “What?”

  “Answer me. Do you hear anything?”

  I tilt my head to the side and listen. “Rain, wind. You. Why?”

  “If ten thousand troops were nearby, we’d hear them. They’re nowhere close, which means we can knock off those four without the main group finding out. They weren’t armed. They’re on strange ground, and the two of us know this valley better than they do. We can do this. We have to do this.”

  “With what? Sticks? Rocks? My slingshot?”

  “Whatever we can find,” he says. Before I can protest again, he’s up and moving through the trees like a shadow.

  5

  A hundred years ago, our outpost was staffed with over two hundred soldiers from what was left of the PRV army. They were mostly men and a few women who were sent up here from Warrenville to keep an eye on the DAV. They set up camp in our current location because it was the best place to take advantage of the natural surroundings. Game paths, available water, and natural cover gave them all they needed.

  Grandfather says that if they had been smarter, or less lazy, they would’ve set up camp on top of Rafael’s Ridge so they would’ve had a better view of any enemy advancement. But, under the false pretenses of the Peace Pact, they were lethargic, too unmotivated to work for what was required for their future survival.

  Over time, any semblance of structure broke apart. They grew less and less reliant on orders delivered from the capital and began to run things their own way. Regulations were ignored. Babies were born. Stragglers were taken in, and we became more of a community and less of a military outpost, far away from the place that many used to call home.

  And once President Larson completely disbanded our military, it became easier to live a quiet, peaceful existence. The scouts were kept in place to warn the village of Republicons and to occasionally pass word down south that all remained quiet way up here in the north. I can’t remember the last time we sent someone back to Warrenville on any kind of “official” business. There hasn’t been a need.

  This old military outpost, made up of soldiers who were too lazy to do their job right the first time, became home for those of us who live there now, in t
he present. For most of us, it’s the place where we were born and hoped to live out our days. It’s all we’ve ever known.

  And now it’s up to Brandon and me to save the lives within it—or die trying.

  We trail the four DAV soldiers, well out of earshot, yet within sight. We’re darting from tree to tree, taking quick, light steps, and then spinning, pressing our backs against the trunks for cover, waiting, watching, before we move again. Every step farther away from our camp, every step closer to theirs, feels like miles away and mere feet closer. I can barely breathe I’m so scared.

  We gain some ground, and are within range of their voices again, and I still don’t know if Brandon has a plan. He’s not saying anything or stopping to tell me. Just moving, moving. I want to stop him and demand that he come up with something before we get too close, but I’m sure that if we pause for too long, they’ll escape, and we’ll be that much farther from home and have less time to tell Hawkins what he wants to know. Less time to tell them that a few extra layers of protection around our shacks won’t be enough. Not with ten thousand soldiers, not with tanks.

  Retreating, running for our lives is the only way to survive.

  A minute later, we catch a small break when the trailing soldier says something to the others and then splits from their single-file formation. Brandon and I slip behind a large pine tree. It’s so wide that we can both maintain cover and observe him from either side. We watch the soldier, who looks to be the youngest one—maybe it’s the one they call Samuels—as he steps into the bushes, lowers his pants, and squats to the ground. I close my eyes, knowing what he’s doing, not wanting to watch.

  Brandon touches my shoulder and moves up behind me. “Give me your slingshot,” he says.

  “Right here? Now? You’re not—”

  “Yeah, I am. Where is it?”

  By the look in his eyes, I can tell that I won’t be convincing him this is a bad idea. “In my pack. The rocks, too.”

  Brandon gently removes my slingshot and my handpicked rocks. “Stay right here,” he says, and then moves fast.