In the few moments after Vaile had evacuated the Sand Elves’ camp, a pillar of light burst from the sky that had previously been lit solely by flames, stars and the moon. The lance descended upon the exact coordinates where the unidentifiable object had previously stood, landing upon the already scarred sand and melting it to glass. In that briefest of moments before the light faded and its cargo revealed itself, one could almost believe that a star or even the sun itself had fallen from heaven and bestowed its glory and fury upon a small plot of land.

However, when that light finally did fade, it revealed not the sun or a star, but a very, very irate undead monarch who sat upon a massive purple and black colored Emperor Cobra that was coiled up to form a chair. She scanned the area with her senses but could not find her ‘master’ anywhere nearby. She sighed internally, realizing Vaile had simply done his job and then scurried back to safety, just like Ratams had figured that he would. She really needed to give her Supreme General more credit; his predictions had been spot-on for nearly his entire tenure as her best military mind, and it was high time that she acknowledged his ability.

Besides that, she could not stop her more monstrous side from assuming some degree of control. She had felt it when Vaile had suffered his injury, and it was almost a perfect certainty that all of the others had noticed that brief moment where their ‘master’ took damage. She figured that by now the unforgivable transgressor had been killed, but she could not be certain. She needed to find some evidence of the entity responsible, otherwise she felt that she would be held accountable for the damage Vaile had taken on.

It was around that time that she noticed a single bit of discolored sand not even a few inches from herself. The sand bore a rather crimson color, and while there were many such patches scattered around the place, both big and small, this one in particular caused her anger to build more and more the longer she looked at it. She stared at it for a few moments, the reality of it processing in her head in a way that would have been animated to show a cartoon alarm clock ticking and finally ringing as she realized what, or rather who it was from.

With an ungodly roar Zahra called down bolts of magical light from the heavens. The bolts of heat and, effectively, magical plasma, showered the area around herself in a random spread that set the very ground on fire. And yes, dear reader, you can set sand on fire; you just need magic and/or some very fancy incendiaries.

…

It was at this moment that Melark the Great (to his own people), otherwise known as Melark the Cruel (to pretty much everyone else), deigned it appropriate to do something both incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. Although, to be fair, he just wanted to stop his people from chain routing, which was an act that would condemn many more of his kind to death by the Pharaoh’s rage and her stone constructs, so he really didn’t have many other options available to him. Tossing sanity to the wind, Melark rode his mount directly towards the furious Pharaoh, only for the rest of his elite cavalry bodyguards to follow suit.

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Before he could bark orders for his people to turn and leave him, a blast of heat and pressure flew past his side. He at first did not know what had happened, but when he realized what has just whistled by him, he immediately was overcome with intense pain. His whole body on that side burned like it had been exposed to the sun for multiple days on end without protection, and one of his eyes was effectively blinded by the light and heat that had assailed it. To make matters worse for him, a not so insubstantial number of his companions were now either on fire, scorched to the bone, or writhing in agony as their mounts suffered the same fate.

Melark, for all his bravery, realized that even attempting to get close was suicide, and he refused to let his people shatter back into disparate tribes. They needed his guidance and leadership, so he decided to bite the bullet and turned his mount around and fled. At the sight of their leader simply giving up, the very thing Melark was hoping to avoid transpired. Like a dam bursting, the few men and women who were still fighting broke and scattered in all directions. And, as he predicted would happen, the Pharaoh and her force of constructs tore a great many ‘innocent’ Desert Elves to bits as they fled.

…

Perhaps if Zahra had been in a better state of mind, she would have noticed that the man responsible for so much of her peoples’ suffering was within range of her attacks. Unfortunately for her and her people (but not for all of you since it means more chapters), she was not in such a state and therefore did not really notice when Melark charged at her. No, she lobbed that beam of light, heat and death in his direction merely by instinct, and the moment that Melark fled her ‘darker’ side began to order her puppets to slaughter any who fought or fled that they could get their mitts on.

It was only just after the sun had reached a fourth of its journey through the daytime sky did Zahra come down from her fury and, with eyes unclouded by darkness and rage, beheld the bloody carnage that she and her pawns had wrought pun the immediate area. Of the camps that had suffered the loss of their otherworldly object, only two had been evacuated in time to only lose 50-65% of their populace at most.

It was a crushing defeat for the marauders, a massive victory and morale boost for the Solusand Dominion, and a Tuesday for Vaile. But, more than that, it was the beginning of the end for the combined forces of the Desert/Sand Elves. That was due to multiple reasons, but one of the key reasons was rather simple. With the all the objects in a specific area down, there was now a gap in the blockade that Zahra could now expose. She now could call on those loyal to her and, of course, to Vaile that made the deserts their home. Even more than that, she was now once again able to contact the other major players in the alliance between Vaile’s Tamed Beings and, if needed, call on their assistance. The Mutual Defense clause still stood, and while no one had ever invoked it, it still remained.

Whether the Sand Elves managed to push further or not was irrelevant now, because if Zahra felt it needed, she could make sure that everyone was there to fight her foes with her.