Something was wrong with his mare.

Yukan pressed his thighs on Thunder, urging her to keep up with his mounted clansmen headed to Si'oli. The mare was not in a responsive mood, though. With every attempt to hurry her up, Thunder did the opposite until she eventually halted. Why did she resist him today? Did she share his worries about their cursed destination?

"What is it, Yukan?" Dogo stopped his brown stallion next to Thunder. Though he was a decade older than Yukan, the muscular fiftyish man had fewer strands of white hair on his head.

Yukan breathed in slowly as he petted Thunder. "Could be just thirsty."

Dogo pinched Thunder in the neck and released, but the mare's skin took a while to retract. "Just thirsty, you say?" Fluidly, he swung down off his stallion and felt Thunder's pulse below her jawbones. "She is dying, Yukan. When was the last time you gave her water?"

"She drank just before we moved."

"By Si'oli, Yukan!" Dogo grabbed one of the six waterskins strapped to Thunder, three on each side. "When were you intending to use these? You could have wetted her parched throat, to say the least."

Yukan would stop Dogo from wasting one precious waterskin, but in the end, he pitied his poor mare. "I thought we should use our water wisely. The sun is killing us, and yet we haven't even made it to Si'oli." Which would surely be much hotter than here. Only the Light knew how hellish that cursed desert could be.

After Thunder drained half of the waterskin, Dogo rubbed her on the neck and pulled the waterskin away. "Skeptical, like you have always been." He strapped the waterskin to Thunder again. "Weren't you listening to the Mages?"

Yukan had been, like the rest of the hundred thousand horsemen riding to Si'oli. By order of the damned Mages, every able man and youth from all the clans of Ogono was headed to the cursed desert, hoping that would bring the Light's mercy on the poor women and children trapped in their hunger-stricken homes. The Doom had reduced their villages into scorched lands, as a fair punishment from the Light for all those past years of bloodshed and oath-breaking. While it could be true that Yukan's clan, the Korigaidis, should be the one to blame—for starting that endless cycle of blood and betrayal—no clan was excepted from the wrath of the Light. Everybody in Ogono—men, women, children, elders, even the cattle and the horses—were paying for it. When the Mages commanded them to shed their blood in the promised lands of Gorania to earn their salvation, no one dared to question their order. Even if that order implied braving the cursed desert haunted by the demons.

"We are the Sacred Army, Yukan," Dogo went on. Probably he thought that Yukan had missed something from the Mages' speech before their glorious march. "Protected by the word of the Light, none of us shall suffer in Si'oli."

"I believe they were talking about the Light's protection from demons. They said nothing about thirst."

Dogo stared at him, and then he laughed. "We had better move, old man." He nodded his chin toward the huge horde sprawling across the desert valley behind them. "Unless you want to join the lesser clans at the back."

They were still on their way to start their sacred war, and still Yukan's people believed they were above the other clans in Ogono. When would the Korigaidis realize that placing them at the front lines of the Sacred Army had nothing to do with honoring them? While one might argue it was their prowess in battle that earned them their place, Yukan saw it as a higher share of suffering for his very clan. The fearless Korigaidis, who always boasted that their name was a synonym for death to their enemies, were about to test the most tormenting way to die.

"Don't wait for me, Dogo." Yukan dismounted and rubbed Thunder's shoulder. "I don't think she is ready now."

Dogo peered at him. "Do not underestimate the Mages' words, Yukan. All it takes to doom us all is one deserter."

Kill the deserters. Otherwise, they will kill you, Yukan remembered the Mages' warning. While he wondered why the whole army would suffer the Light's wrath because of one deserter, he couldn't see the point of deserting in the first place. Either you flee to the scorched lands to die alone, or you return to your family to perish together.

Maybe that explained why it never crossed anybody's mind to question or even ponder the Mages' order. Simply, nobody had anything to lose.

To give his mare a chance to replenish her strength, Yukan walked her for an hour, his head and tunic soaked in his sweat. As the midday sun was becoming harsher by the minute, he resisted the urge to quench his thirst or even glance at the waterskins. Not now, Yukan. You will need them later, he kept telling himself whenever he couldn't take it anymore. Dogo knows nothing. Our ancestors called Si'oli the cursed desert for a reason. Those Mages are not telling us everything.

And speaking of the Mages; where were they now? Shouldn't they be marching with their Sacred Army?

The thought did alarm Yukan. Now lagging behind his clansmen because of his exhausted mare, he was marching alongside the lesser clans at the rearguard of the damned Sacred Army. "Where are the Mages?" he asked more than one horseman passing by him. A few told them they didn't know, but the majority didn't bother to answer him, and he wasn't sure why. Did they loathe him because it was obvious he was a Korigaidi? Or did they find his question too silly to answer?

Yukan stopped walking his mare and waited until he could see the last horseman in the horde. "What is your problem, Korigaidi?" A lean dark-skinned spearman approached Yukan, and a few of his kin followed him. Xantis, Yukan recognized the best spearmen in Ogono. From their suspicious looks, he could tell they had mistaken him for a deserter. He must be lucky those Xantis took the trouble to ask him instead of thrusting a spear in his back. Killing a deserter would be a glorious act today.

"I'm looking for the Mages." Yukan was outnumbered one to six, but he did his best to keep his calm. He was still a Korigaidi. And a Korigaidi was a dangerous being to mess with. "You know where they are?"

"A smart Korigaidi." The Xanti glanced at his fellows, some of them chuckling. "That's a first."

Twenty years ago, those Xantis wouldn't dare to intimidate him. In their age, Yukan would slay the six of them with his sword while they were still dancing with their spears. What those young bastards were clueless about was one important fact: the forty-seven-year-old Korigaidi standing in front of them was still capable of slaying them. He might get a scratch or two. But eventually, he wouldn't be the one lying on the ground in a pond of his blood.

"Listen, boys." Yukan glared at the six Xantis. "If you have no answer to my simple question, then I suggest you stand out of the way of that smart Korigaidi."

"We have been marching for weeks across the scorched lands to make it this far." The young Xanti gnashed his teeth. "We will never let all of that go in vain because of one coward."

The last word was enough to make Yukan's blood boil. Without thinking twice, he reached for the sword strapped to his back and...

"STOP! Stop this farce at once!"

The seven quarreling men turned to the balding fair-skinned horseman yelling at them. He was a Quashtran; Yukan could tell from his looks and, more importantly, his long bow. And he wasn't alone. A dozen mounted Quashtran archers flanked him, their faces grim, their eyes scanning their potential opponents. One wrong word, and Yukan would die with those foolish Xantis.

The furious Quashtran and his clansmen approached a little bit, yet they kept their distance. "Haven't you had enough blood yet? Our women and children are already suffering because of our sins."

"We caught him trying to abandon the army," the Xanti told the Quashtran.

"That's a lie!" Yukan barked. "I was looking for the Mages."

"What's your business with the Mages, Korigaidi?" the balding Quashtran asked dubiously.

Yukan would tell him to mind his own business, but that answer wouldn't take him anywhere. "Just tell me where they are. I must talk to them."

"You see?" The Xanti swept an arm toward Yukan as he faced the Quashtran. "He is taking us for a bunch of fools."

"We will take it from here, brothers," the balding Quashtran firmly said to the Xantis. "Be on your way. We will see you in Gorania."

The Xantis looked from the Quashtrans to Yukan and back. Surprisingly, they didn't make anything stupid and abided by the Quashtran's gentle command. When nobody was standing between Yukan and the mounted archers, the balding Quashtran said, "You should pull yourself together, wise man. Whatever the pressing business you have with the Mages is, no one will allow you to go back to Ogono. It's too late now."

Back to Ogono? Too late? We will see you in Gorania, Yukan recalled the Quashtran's words to the Xantis. "May the Light have mercy on my soul," Yukan muttered, gazing at the endless desert around him. It resembled the desolate sandy lands at the northern borders of Ogono except for one missing feature. When you see sand but no hills, turn around and race the wind until you spot the first rock. For generations, the Korigaidis had passed that piece of advice to their successors to prevent them from being swallowed by Si'oli.

But today, Yukan was not swallowed. He was here in Si'oli of his own will.

"So, you say the Mages are not marching through Si'oli with us?" Though Yukan was almost certain of the answer, he asked the Quashtran, hoping he might hear something surprising.

"Why should they? They did their job by showing us the path. Now it's our turn to do ours."

Those Mages did not need to be warriors to join this horde. If this Sacred Army was sacred as they claimed, they could just accompany them in this march through Si'oli, at least to embolden the wavering hearts like his. But they knew the truth of this place. They knew they couldn't protect themselves, let alone a hundred thousand men.

"I must warn them," Yukan muttered as he jumped on his mare.

"You understand we will shoot you in the head once you make one step toward Ogono?"

"I'm not going back to Ogono on my own, Quashtran," Yukan said. "You had better urge your people to come back while they still..."

Yukan paused when he noticed that eerie silence reigning over the desert. The Quashtrans noticed it too, all of them gazing at the huge horde that suddenly stopped its march. What would make a hundred thousand men grow hushed at the same time?

And then, Yukan could hear it. A faint screech echoing in the desert.

From Yukan's spot, he couldn't see the frontmost riders of the Sacred Army, but he could tell for certain they were not silent anymore. With more dreadful screeches ringing all over the place, the nervous hubbub was getting louder. Even the horses grew nervous and started neighing in unison. Thunder, who was no exception, joined the restless chorus. While looking around to see where those screeches were coming from—because they sounded as if they were coming from everywhere, even from the ground underneath—Yukan petted his mare in a desperate attempt to calm her down. But how could he do that while she could sense his nervousness?

"The sky!" the riders in front of Yukan repeated the word more than a dozen times. Thunder raised her forelimbs as countless stars appeared in the bright sky. A few seconds later, Yukan noticed they were actually moving. Those are not stars. They are comets.

And they were descending. With piercing, horrifying cries that didn't belong to any creature known in this world.

"May the Light have..." Yukan didn't continue his prayers as he realized what those comets really were. Without thinking twice, he wheeled Thunder and spurred her to gallop back toward Ogono. The Quashtran, who had been embracing the Mages' words a few minutes ago, was not to be seen anywhere around in this havoc.

Yukan didn't look back to see why the men behind him were shrieking. "Just fly, Thunder! Fly! Fly!" he urged his mare, though she didn't seem in need of his commands any longer. The mare was listening to her survival instinct right now. As the shrieks were getting closer and the screeches were growing louder, Yukan's instinct told him he was a dead man. The last thing he remembered was a horrendous cry piercing his ear as a column of fire engulfed him.