James crouched in the shadow of a wild rose bush. Thorns snagged his clothes and drew red lines on his skin, but he held his breath.

A wasp the size of his fist danced just inches away, bobbing like a boxer around a rose bloom. It alighted on the flower, dragging down the whole vine with its weight.

James waited, motionless. Beside him, his brother William’s fist tightened on a rock.

“Not yet, Billy,” he whispered.

William twitched, and the wasp’s antennae flicked. For a long moment all three sat like stones, until an errant breeze set the roses to swaying. The wasp took flight, shaking their teeth with the thrum of its wings, and vanished.

James exhaled. “Okay, let’s go.”

Hours later they found the nest. It was monstrous, a mass of paper and wax and bones growing like cancer in a tree high overhead. The thunder of a million wings shook the trees.

“Now?” his brother asked. 

“Yeah.” James licked his lips. “On three. Ready?”

William grinned and cocked his arm back. “Yeah. One, two…”

“Three!” they shouted. Their arms snapped forward, sending the tiny missiles into the nest. The stones punched through the waxy paper with ease, and for a moment all was silent.

Then the nest shook. Out boiled an army, an endless wave of black needles. They filled the sky, darkened the sun, and fell upon the boys.

“Run!” James shouted, but William was already moving. They darted through the forest, staying just ahead of the wasps. One, faster than the mass, caught up, and James felt an icy sting in his leg. Fire raced up his nerves, filling his brain, and he fell with a scream.

“Jimmy!” William was at his side. He swatted the wasp away and hauled James up. “Come on, we’re almost at the stream!”

Together they stumbled toward the water and safety.

[hr]

“Can you see them?” William whispered. He huddled behind a tree beside his brother at the forest’s edge.

“Yeah. Five, maybe six.” James squinted at the ridge. The goblin patrol had been there for hours. “We’ll have to run for it.”

“Sure, sure.” William tightened the messenger satchel across his back. “Same time?”

James nodded. “Right behind you.”

William waited a heartbeat and darted out of the trees. The ravine was only a hundred yards across. Arrows from the goblin patrol thudded into the ground around them, and William stumbled. Before James could reach him, he was up, and they raced the rest of the way across the open ground to safety.

They panted, spent. “You okay?”

William grinned and pulled off the satchel. A goblin’s black arrow was sunk in it halfway to the fletchings.

“I’ll live.”

[hr]

The battle had been going for hours. The sorcerer’s forces were depleted, on the verge of defeat. James and William rallied together near the front, ready to drive the final yards to victory. For the first time in days, James smiled at his brother and—

“Dragon!” someone shouted. James turned to see the huge shape lift over the horizon. It sailed over them, searing them with its stench. The great maw opened, and a sickly fire spilled out.

“Gas gas gas!” James struggled with his mask. He got it over his face just as the flames reached him. A few feet away, William screamed. His mask, still tangled in its straps, fell to the mud.



Private James Owen trudged through the mud, one step at a time. The wasteland extended far away on all sides. Torn razor-wire grew like brambles, tugging at his boots. 

All the world – the sky, the mud, his torn hands, his blood – was green through the glass panes of his gas mask. Wisps of the mustard fog burned his eyes. His skin wept where it touched.

“Just a few more feet,” he mumbled to the weight on his back. Billy hadn’t moved in hours. Bloody froth seeped out from the edges of his mask. Tiny blisters covered his neck, and James knew they hid inside his lungs as well. He was drowning.

Bullets crackled around them like wasps. Overhead, outstripped five-nines howled and fell to the earth like arrows.

The friendly lines were there. He could see them, just. Past another quarter-mile of hell. His leg ached where the German 7.92 had torn a hole months ago.

He shifted Billy’s weight. One foot, then the other. 

“Billy, stay with me. Listen,” he whispered. “Once upon a time, there were two brothers…”