“Chaaaaarge!”

The command accompanied by the abrupt start of the war drums rang out through the air.

The sky darkened behind the battle lines, clouds rapidly catching up behind the sand knights, bringing a front of cold air behind the charging beasts.

“The rain gods are on our side! Repel the invaders!”

The juggerbeasts’ huge wide feet pounded the sands flat but did not sink. Huge muscles rippled under their thick armor of a hide. Each step of the horned juggerbeasts built up their speed, slowly, until the dozens of sand knights are thundering across the desert.

Behind the riders, thousands of foot soldiers wearing wide shoes and covered in juggerbeast leather armor ran behind the sand knights. Long spears and curved swords bristled as they charged after the knights.

The weariness in their muscles was washed away as the storm brought water from their home oasis behind them.

Thousands of arrows filled the sky, their range bolstered by the tailwind of the surging storm. Drops of water fell through the air, lightning tore the sky, and thunder rocked the lands.

Even with the soft sands dampening the footsteps, the commander of the Velhal army still can feel the ground trembling.

The scouts reported a herd of huge lumbering beasts many times bigger than their warhorses near the oasis, but he couldn’t think of a countermeasure no matter how hard he tried.

Such huge beasts would doubtlessly have incredibly thick hides. Normal arrows might be a slight irritation. Siege weapons might work, but their ballistaes didn’t stabilize well on these sands; not that it mattered since they couldn’t find enough materials to construct enough of them to matter in the first place.

He looked at the deployment of his forces: a heavy infantry shield wall dug in at the top of a sand dune.

Something the size of those beasts will probably sink into the sands if they try to climb the dunes….

A horn from one their scouts sounded. A warning. The commander looked toward the scout, only to see him roll off the top of his dune, an arrow through his head.

The sky darkened, but it wasn’t from the approaching storm. Something else blocked out the sunlight.

The whistle of air being cut through reached his ears and his sharp eyes made out a curtain of black against the rainclouds. Thousand of shrieking arrows fell toward them like a swarm of angry wasps.

He breathed in. How did these savages have so many bows in a desert like this?

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“Shields up!”

Sands flew back as shields locked into the ground was lifted against the storm of arrows. The quaking ground trembled harder.

The barrage of arrows seemed to never stop. Although the barrage wasn’t as impressive as the one their armies created, there was barely a break in the rain of arrows.

Then… the arrows stopped.

The ground rippled until his boots began to sink.

The first of the huge beasts crested over a large dune right before them, charging at breakneck speed. Like a huge wave, the beasts built momentum charging through the dunes.

“Shields down!”

The arrow laden shields of the vanguards slammed against the ground, the sharp bottoms digging deeply into the sands.

“Brace!”

With an earth-shattering crash, the huge beasts with metal tipped horns and polished metal armor rammed into his army’s shield line. The line buckled in an instant and the huge beasts charged through.

A second wave smashed the rest of his front line.

He watched helplessly as the nigh-invulnerable beasts carved a bloody path through his spearmen and reached his archers, who couldn’t drop their bows and draw their swords fast enough.

“Don’t look back, forward!” he cried.

But his army didn’t listen. They turned inwards to focus on the monstrous beasts and their glaive wielding riders, clad in fearsome black armor.

The enemy infantry flanked by light cavalry on humpbacked horses appeared over the large dune, almost trampling the sands flat under the steps of thousands of soldiers.

They pierced into the shields of the few that managed to react and dug their spears and swords into the backs of the others that didn’t.

He stared as three enemy cavalrymen charged toward him.

He might look quite conspicuous in his regal armor and proud steed.

His head dropped to the floor as the three riders passed by him, their glaives red with blood.

Somehow, he was still alive. But, he was alone.

Alive was wrong, as his headless corpse laid on the ground, his horse galloping away from the chaos of the battlefield.

Countless soldiers stood motionless in the desert, unflinching as the warriors of the sand charged through them, not paying them any attention.

The spirits of the dead.

He, like them, was also dead.

Failed in this foolish campaign. This was the cost of underestimating their enemies; the price of believing that which wasn’t true.

Something was in the sky. Hiding in the shadow of the storm clouds that surged above them, something else was there.

It was pitch black, yet it was strangely bright. A scattering of red lights spun, casting an ethereal glow over the dark battlefield.

The commander looked back to see the sand warriors returning, cutting open his people one by one, letting their blood seep into the sand with the falling rain.

A fine layer of red gathered at his feet, thickening slowly into a rolling mist of blood that held still against the roaring winds.

A faint roar from the heavens drew his attention.

The red lights in the dark shape spun faster and faster, carving a black hole in the center.

The red mist began to turn, moving faster and faster, until it spun fast enough to become a cyclone that spun toward the sky, funneling into the maw of the creature above.

Faintly, he felt himself being drawn toward the sky, and his body left the ground.

His people that he brought with him on this campaign accompanied him.

Then, there was nothing but the sweet release of oblivion.