Excerpt: Cactus Land

The truck bounced and bobbed around on its journey through the desert. The road was practically made of tire tracks, surrounded by sand. Sometimes, the dunes gave way to flat terrain, sand caked by the sun until it cracked, inspiring the occasional weed to start. Even a cactus went by every now and then.

Vilyan had made a game of putting weight on his boots in time with the bumps in the road, shifting his legs to keep himself sitting straight as the truck treated him badly. He was still hunched over uncomfortably; Vilyan was tall, and the covering over the truck bed didn't accommodate his height very well. There were no seatbelts in the bed of the truck like the driver and his buddy were blessed with up front, only the boxes of supplies, his M4 rifle and the Airman with the apparent assignment of 'sit with the stuff for the entire trip' kept Vilyan company.

At least the boxes provided reasonable seats. The other guy seemed used to it, to the point where it seemed like he always sat in the back on their supply runs. He didn't seem uncomfortable, at least not so uncomfortable that he hadn't made conversation while he munched on a chocolate bar acquired from god-knew-where. "Hey, hang in there, Private! Shouldn't be far now, and you'll be able to stand up straight again!"

At first, Vilyan had abhorred the idea of traveling in the back of a supply truck with someone else. He would've preferred loneliness to being accosted every second by an overly talkative convoy worker. After a couple of hours, though, he changed his mind real fast. Loneliness was a lot more maddening than he'd assumed, even with company.

Turning his rifle around in his hands and propping it up on his legs so he could get at the ACOG scope better, Vilyan swiped at the eyepiece with a small brush, trying to get rid of the sand that had found its way in. Sand usually got into everything, after all. He answered the Airman without looking up, raising his voice to be heard over the truck's noise. "I've had worse."

"Hey, this must be a break for you," the Airman went on. "We see the guys in this town on every run, don't think they've ever had any action out here! Never even had a bomb on the road, as far as I know!"

Those sounded like famous last words, especially for someone in the military, on a truck, in Afghanistan. When the seemingly inevitable explosion never came, Vilyan set his rifle flat on his legs and leaned on it, fully realizing he was cutting off his circulation and would start feeling pins and needles in his legs soon. It wouldn't be the first time. As hunched over as he was, he could still feel his helmet push against the tarp above his head. "Doesn't really matter how busy it is, being stationed overseas on an easy post is still being stationed overseas."

"Yeah, I guess that's true," he said. Breaking off a piece of his chocolate bar, he reached a hand out with it. "Hey, you want a bite?"

Taking it gladly, Vilyan ate it before it could melt any more than it already had. He didn't want to get any on his gloves; they were already in a sad state, due in no small part to Vilyan having cut the fingers off some time ago. Still, out of all his gear, his gloves had lasted the longest without replacement, and as such, they'd earned the distinction of being his designated lucky charm. He'd even scrawled the Wind Mages' emblem on the palms in permanent marker. The ink was fading, and he wasn't really all that superstitious, even over the superstitions of actual magic, but it had been a small comfort. It was still a small comfort.

He wondered, though, if he might need all the comfort he could get soon enough. He'd asked a couple of officers he got along with about what his new post was like after getting his orders, and both of them, in separate rooms at separate times, had expressed pity. They'd both told Vilyan that the town was in a dead spot of Afghanistan's southern lands - 'southern' combined with 'Afghanistan' certainly meaning 'desert' - that hadn't seen much in the way of action since Operation Enduring Freedom. The locals were apparently friendly with various American and British units that had been rotated in and out of the place.

All of this was a nice way of saying it was a boring place reserved for shit-list posting, and damned if Vilyan knew how he got on anyone's shit-list. He'd had this thought constantly since getting on the truck and it always ended with guilt; he'd seen enough combat to know that most soldiers in their right minds would rather be bored than dodge bullets. Mostly, he felt his tour would go quicker if he was active and doing something, even if 'something' was combat.

He was meant for combat, and he knew it. It wasn't something he took pride in, he didn't overtly enjoy ending the lives of other human beings, but he had a knack for it and he wouldn't have enlisted if he couldn't have lived with it.

He wondered how many mages were in the military right now. Probably not more than six or seven in the whole world, including him. Letting himself daydream, Vilyan imagined how things would be different in a place like this for a mage with any innate other than Wind. He wondered if something unquestionably offensive like Fire might actually be harder to live with, knowing you couldn't ever send flames to sear the enemy on the spot unless they were winning and you were the last one alive.