Army of the Cursed - War of the Last Day #1 [EXCERPT]

Prologue

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."