The problem with horses was noise. A snorting beast could be heard for miles in the desert. Not to mention Scab odor, which the Horde had learned preceded them.

His mind wandered as he marched, mulling over this treachery Johnis had pulled. Could he and Rachelle both be wrong about the boy? Only they and a close circle of confidants knew of the prophecy about the Chosen One who would save them one day.

They’d often wondered why two prophecies had come, the first spoken by Elyon, the boy, before he dove into the lake waters and disappeared thirteen years ago. The second by Michal, the Roush, spoken to Thomas in his dreams a year later. A chosen child marked by Elyon will prove his worth and destroy the Dark One.

Johnis had the circle mark on his neck, and he’d proven himself by defeating the Horde once already. A most unlikely candidate, true. But Rachelle was sure. And before today, Thomas had been sure.

Now Johnis had betrayed him, Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard. He’d led five hundred fighters into battle, three hundred men and two hundred women, all far more experienced in the ways of war than this young new recruit, who was lucky enough to escape the massacre unscathed except for a bruised shoulder.

He carried himself like a hero one day and an utter fool the next.

Rachelle saw it differently, of course. A hero one day, she’d said, and the kind of idealist who would save a world the next. If he’s chosen, he’s chosen, Thomas.

“But what if he’s not?” Thomas whispered in the darkness.

His task isn’t to save us, Rachelle had said. His task is to destroy the Dark One.

The Dark One. Teeleh? The Dark Priest? The Horde? For all Thomas knew, the Dark One was from another world entirely. He himself was. Wasn’t he?

Thomas reached the smaller dunes with the first hints of dawn. He hurried in stealth now, eager to lose any pursuit. He had only one shot at this, and it all came down to the next half hour.

The dunes steepened and gave way to shallow canyons. Scanning the sand, he ran, keeping to the rocks that littered the ground.

It took him fifteen minutes to find the right lay of rock and sand. Balancing on two rocks, he dug the sand between them deeper, then lay back in the shallow grave. Already he could feel the onset of the Scab disease paining his joints. He looked at his skin, but the light was too dim to show any scabbing or cracking.

He took one last pull from Jackov’s canteen, popped the lenses out of the hollow gourd that made his telescope, put one end into his mouth to form a breathing tube, and buried himself.