Dawn- An Age Of Darkness

We left everything behind just before the afternoon and started for the north. 

The army hadn't made a run for. Seriously, were these guys morons?

'Why do I smell ulterior motives here?'

I was at the front.

Neira and the mama's boy kid- who told me his name was Albin but I ignored it- led the whole army. They were just behind me and the whole army was behind them.

Most of the army traveled by foot. But the commanding officers- who survived- had horses or large lizards. I didn't even want to bother to remember their names.

They didn't have any camels though. 

"The desert is pretty big right, so do you guys have enough rations?" I got myself a large land lizard. The guy was good, and he kind of liked me- probably. 

"WE have enough to sustain us for thirteen days. By the end of the thirteenth day, we'd reach the battlefield. Or we would have if the whole army was here. with our current rations, we should last a good five weeks."

So, they really were sacrificial pawns. They'd arrive on the battlefield on their last day and then fight with their lives and then be sacrificed. 

Whoever came up with this idea really knew what they were doing.

I wanted to meet the guy to give him a good pummeling. 

"We'll mostly travel at night," The kid said. "So, the desert shouldn't be an issue. If we maintain good pacing, we should get out of the desert in two nights."

So far, the terrain was good. Just grasslands. 

No large monsters. 

Quiet.

Whenever some small ones showed up, the soldiers took good care of them.

"The daytime would be very hot, I guess."

It made sense to travel at night. Cold was manageable but the super-hot weather of the desert wasn't really that traversable in the daytime at least. 

"Actually, it has more to do with the nature of the desert than to do with the weather," Neira said. 

"What do you mean?"

"Those who venture into the desert during the day often get lost due to the mirages and end up dead."

"Well, it's a desert so obviously there'd be mirages."

I'd been in deserts myself. I knew how hard it was.

"But unlike normal mirages, these mirages are too real. And unless you see them you can't comprehend just how deadly they are. Everyone sees the same castle in the distance." Neira paused, grimaced slightly. "They say, whoever went for the castle during the day, have ever returned."

'Same castle?'

I never really liked those never returning stories. Somehow, they always brought me trouble. 

"I suppose."

But these guys were locals. I didn't see any point in arguing with them. 

Besides, I was pretty content with traveling at night. 

***

We'd traveled for two whole hours through the grassland and reached an area with cracked soil. It wasn't quite a desert but the temperature was rising. 

And my throat was often drying up.

Since it was evening, it wasn't that bad though. 

"We should rest for an hour," the kid said. "It'd be best."

"I don't see why not." 

Unlike us, most of the soldiers were walking on foot. So, they of course needed some rest. 

But we were perhaps being a bit too conservative. 

Then again, we'd cross a freaking cold desert, so it was natural they had to be their best.

"I'd like to get there as fast as possible, so we don't miss anything," I said, climbing down from the lizard. I'd named this guy Todd. He was a beaut!

"If we maintain good pacing in the night, we should be a day early. We'd reserved one day, as we had to destroy that town. But since we didn't, we should still be about a whole day ahead," The kid said.

He also got down. The writing on his armor was kind of still making me curious. 

"Say, that stuff… who wrote it?" I asked, pointing at his armor.

Directly asking about the stuff seemed a bit rude, so I made sure to keep my tone neutral. 

"Oh, this? My dying brother. I can't read, so I'm not sure what it means."

***

We started resting. 

The soldiers though were far too laid back. They were just sitting there, chatting around, chuckling. 

They weren't even concerned that much. 

Did they really take my word at face value?

In the end, I just grabbed the kid. "Why the hell are you people so relaxed? I literally killed your general and took command and you guys aren't even revolting and stuff." Not that I wanted them to revolt or anything. 

And I'd killed over half of them….

"Well," The kid chuckled, scratching his cheek ever so slightly. "We kind of knew we're going to die: we signed up for that. We don't have a place to go back; it's all gone. So, when you said you could make sure we're going to survive, we wanted to bet on that."

"Makes sense, I guess." I let go and sat down on the ground, just below a date tree. Soon, we'd be seeing cactuses too. 

But- they could have just run to another continent and-

Oh wait, all three continents were going to war. 

I guess, nowhere was safe anymore. Besides, they were demons. 

Even if they meant no harm, they'd be persecuted.

***

With that behind us, we picked up the slack and trudged through the cracked lands. 

About half an hour later, sand was everywhere. 

Another half an hour later, dunes. 

This was a desert alright. And it was frigging cold. 

The soldiers had pyres in hand but most of their armors were made of metal. So yeah, they were freezing alright. 

"Sandworms DEAD AHEAD!" one of the spotters screamed. 

A rather elf-sized sandworm tried to come at us, only to be skewered by the kid next to me. 

Screech! It probably called for its friends with its dying scream.

I was about to take care of it but he got it first. 

These things smelled awful- almost like rancid fat.

"If there's one-"

"There's plenty more."

And yeah, the worms didn't disappoint. 

Roughly a hundred more or so come for us. 

And these were bigger too. 

They came in all sizes. Some were even bigger than sperm whales. 

Oh well. 

But the worms weren't the only things to watch out for. 

There were some undead in the area and some nocturnal hounds. 

For an army of this size though, a pack of wild monsters wasn't a threat.

We just massacred everything that came in our path. 

Most of them weren't good enough to be food though. After all, who wanted to eat something with such terrible smell?

We buried our dead under the sand.

***

We stopped at midnight by some large rocks, made a fire, and dined. 

After maybe half an hour of resting, we again set out. 

No sleep. 

Their target was an oasis just ahead. Once we'd get there, we'd mostly sit ducks the next day. 

But I could tell, everyone was tired. 

It was cold. 

It was night.

And there were monsters everywhere. So far, no cactuses though.

But- but we went on. 

And we did find the oasis. 

There was a small forest of sorts here. And a pond. The shade wasn't enough for the army- but they had measures to cope with that. 

But there was just one bad news.

The pond was small. For a hundred men or so, it would have been fine for a few days. 

But for an army of four thousand men, this pond wouldn't even last two hours, let alone the whole day. 

'We're already going to have to dig into the reserves?'

"No one can produce water in your army?" We hadn't settled down yet. 

"There were some but they were killed. I'm not sure if any are left."

Magic wasn't that rare among demons. But just because someone could make water out of nowhere, didn't mean they could produce it infinitely. And then there was the question, of whether that water was drinkable or not. 

So, basically, it was my fault. 

Sigh. 

I had water reserves in my ring but they wouldn't have been enough for an army of this size. 

If I had my pendant, I could have easily made water. But that was broken. 

Anyway, we still stopped at the oasis. 

It'd be dawn soon. After a long arduous night, the soldiers would get some good rest. For how long though- yeah. 

Everyone started to prepare for sleeping. Half of them would sleep now and rest, while the other half would keep watch and they'd alternate that till dusk of tomorrow. 

'Can we really make it though?'