The Daizhou forces had arrived.

The addition of over two thousand fresh soldiers stabilized the frontier pass, which had nearly been overrun — but this did not mean the frontier was now impregnable. In the grand scope of this battle, these two thousand-odd men were a drop in the bucket.

Outside the city walls, the Black Wu forces numbered at least forty to fifty thousand — and that was only the vanguard. If nothing went wrong, the Black Wu’s total force in this southern push was probably no fewer than three hundred thousand. And this was only an estimate — because to drive into the heart of the Central Plains, anything less than three hundred thousand troops would be little more than a game.

That had been the most conservative figure Tan Qianshou had offered to reassure the people inside and outside the walls. Liu Mu’s estimate was far less optimistic. Judging by the banners and flags outside, the Black Wu vanguard general was Lü Chi — the same man who had driven Dachu’s northern expedition back in shameful retreat all those years ago. At that time, Lü Chi had been young, with a wild, fearless edge to him, and it was precisely that edge that had made him stand out in the great battle.

After the battle, Lü Chi had been promoted and rewarded again and again. Rumor had it that three years ago he had already been elevated to Grand General of the Black Wu Empire — by Black Wu’s rank system, that made him a second-rank official governing an entire domain.

For a figure of such stature to be merely the vanguard general — Liu Mu suspected that Black Wu Khan Kuokedi Dashi might very well be leading the campaign in person. If so, the Black Wu force driving south would be far more than three hundred thousand.

Even people in the Central Plains knew this: Kuokedi Dashi was a battle-mad lunatic. In the years of his reign, he had barely paused the conquest campaigns against his neighbors. Over more than a decade, the smaller nations that had once sheltered under Dachu’s wing had seen dozens of their number wiped out by the Black Wu.

Now was the best moment in history for the Black Wu to drive south. How could Kuokedi Dashi — a man who dreamed of being the greatest ruler of all time — possibly stay home? As long as this campaign settled the Central Plains once and for all, he would surpass every Khan in Black Wu’s history — even surpassing the founding emperor who had led Black Wu’s people, then still a scattered band of soldiers, to victory over the Meng Empire.

Kuokedi Dashi wanted his own name to stand first in all of Black Wu’s history.

The founding emperor had only driven back the Meng Empire, taking back their own homeland from the Meng’s iron cavalry — while if he could flatten the Central Plains, would that achievement not be far more immense and magnificent than anything his ancestors had accomplished?

—

Night fell. Up on the city wall.

Liu Mu came over carrying two flasks of wine and walked up to Tan Qianshou, then kicked the man — who had fallen asleep sitting against the wall — awake with his foot.

Tan Qianshou had barely slept in three days and three nights. After dark, when the Black Wu assault had been beaten back once again, Tan Qianshou had gone over the casualty count and then slumped back against the wall and fallen asleep where he sat.

“You can actually sleep right now?”

Liu Mu gave Tan Qianshou a nudge to wake him, then jeered at him.

Tan Qianshou startled awake, taken aback himself — he hadn’t expected to fall asleep at a moment like this. For the three days and nights before, even on the rare occasions he’d gotten a chance to close his eyes, he would jolt awake again before long. But just now, the sleep had been unusually deep, unusually steady — as though he had nothing left to worry about.

He thought about it, and decided it was probably just because Liu Mu had come.

This man who had once been as close to him as a brother, and then become something like an enemy, had come — and yet now Tan Qianshou slept soundly.

But Tan Qianshou didn’t say that out loud. Two grown men, after all — some things, even if you think them, you’re not willing to say. They’d sound a bit too sentimental.

Liu Mu dropped down to sit beside Tan Qianshou, breathing hard, then tossed one of the wine flasks into his lap.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come?”

Liu Mu asked him, after taking a swig.

Tan Qianshou shook his head. He wasn’t sure how to answer. Before Liu Mu had arrived, he had thought he’d rationally analyzed all the reasons why Liu Mu would not come — and yet another voice inside him had kept insisting, over and over, that Liu Mu would definitely come.

Liu Mu saw that he didn’t answer, and snorted. “Figured that’s what you were thinking. But I came. I’m not like some people — leaving a brother to die without lifting a finger.”

Tan Qianshou gave a bitter smile and took a long drink.

Liu Mu glanced at him, then exhaled heavily.

“I really did try to talk myself out of coming. You could be heartless enough not to rescue me back then — why should I be any different?”

Liu Mu took a drink of wine, and suddenly laughed.

“Turns out I just couldn’t bring myself to be that heartless.”

He held out his flask. Tan Qianshou raised his own flask and clinked it against Liu Mu’s.

A thousand things to say — all of it in that single clink.

Both men tilted their heads back and took long, hearty swigs, then looked at each other and burst out laughing — that easy, careless kind of laughter. And in that one swig and that one laugh lay how much release, how much shared past.

“Do you hate me?”

Liu Mu asked again.

Tan Qianshou shook his head. “No. Not ever.”

Liu Mu smiled. “I’ve bullied you this whole past nine years, and you don’t hate me?”

Tan Qianshou made a sound of agreement and said, “I wanted to. Truly. There were times you made me angry enough to curse the skies — especially every time I went to Daizhou City to beg you for grain supplies. I could have slapped you. But somehow I never could actually hate you.”

Liu Mu said, “Pathetic, aren’t you?”

Tan Qianshou said, “Come to think of it — a bit.”

Liu Mu said, “Me too. Pathetic.”

The two men looked at each other again and broke into laughter once more.

“Do you know why I changed the way I did afterward?”

This time, Liu Mu didn’t wait for Tan Qianshou to answer, because he knew Tan Qianshou couldn’t give him one — even when they were young and thought so alike that Liu Mu had once said they must share the same brain.

He lowered his head and continued, “Because after that battle, I realized — in this world, the ones who get trampled are always the honest men. The ones who do the work. The ones who really fight. Do you know why it was you and I who got left behind to hold the rear? Think about it.”

Tan Qianshou said, “Naturally because neither of us had paid any bribes.”

Liu Mu made a sound of agreement. “So all the men who’d paid up were in the main retreating force, and men like you and me were left behind — to lay down our lives protecting those cowards who were scared to die. Tan Qianshou — do you know why I resented you? Not because you didn’t come to rescue me. You were right — in the middle of a battle, each man holds his own post. You can’t abandon your position on a whim. I resented you because the mountain pass you held with your life, the mountain pass you threw away a thousand men to defend — it was to protect those bastards.”

Tan Qianshou opened his mouth, but couldn’t say a single word.

He had never thought about it like that. Hearing Liu Mu say it now, the weight of guilt in him only grew heavier.

It was true. He had not gone to rescue Liu Mu — his own brother — and instead had spent the lives of over a thousand Dachu garrison soldiers to hold the retreat for those cowardly, self-serving men.

Thinking of it, Tan Qianshou raised his flask and drank hard, long pulls.

“So I changed after that.”

Liu Mu went on, “Rather than let those cowards go back and claim all the military credit, then point their fingers at us and crow over us — I’d rather go and get my share too. Why the hell shouldn’t I? Yu Wen Le, that bastard, ran with over ten thousand troops and abandoned us — and when he got back, he was enfeoffed as a first-class marquis?!”

He let out a long breath, but couldn’t breathe out the anger of all those years.

He said, “So when I got back to the capital I sold off everything I owned. I did everything I could to flatter Liu Chongxin. Right there in front of the whole civil and military court, I got down on my knees and kowtowed and begged him to take me in as his adoptive son. I still remember the way he laughed — that big loud laugh — as I did it. But I had to do it…”

He looked at Tan Qianshou. “That ‘crimes offsetting merits’ verdict you got — you understand now how that came about, don’t you? Think it through, and tell me — can you still blame me?”

Liu Mu had come to Daizhou as its garrison general — Tan Qianshou’s direct superior. Naturally Tan Qianshou had to watch his face, and Liu Mu went around telling everyone he’d come to Daizhou specifically to deal with Tan Qianshou. Even Tan Qianshou had heard that Liu Mu had gotten rid of his original battle merits, leaving him only the “crimes offset by merits” verdict. But what Liu Mu had done was to protect him.

In the nearly ten years since that great battle, Tan Qianshou had been stuck at this desolate frontier post as a border general — not because Liu Mu was squeezing him out. On the contrary — it was Liu Mu protecting him.

In truth, things had not been as most people assumed. Why had Liu Mu sold everything he owned to ingratiate himself with Liu Chongxin? Because he had learned that after the army’s defeat, Liu Chongxin and the others were looking for scapegoats. The loss of a hundred and twenty thousand elite garrison soldiers in that crushing defeat — could a few executions even count as accounting for it?

And Tan Qianshou was among those chosen scapegoats. In the memorial originally submitted to the emperor, Tan Qianshou’s holding of the mountain pass to cover the army’s retreat was not listed as a merit — instead, he had been written up as one of the chief culprits whose dereliction caused the rear guard’s catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Black Wu.

Liu Mu had sold everything he owned and given it to Liu Chongxin, and had, in front of the entire civil and military court, groveled as obsequiously as possible and taken Liu Chongxin as his adoptive father — all so that he could get Tan Qianshou’s name removed from that memorial. In the end, Tan Qianshou’s execution of his entire clan was commuted to “crimes offsetting merits.”

Liu Mu had said everything he needed to say, without spelling it out directly — but Tan Qianshou, whatever his other failings, had understood by now.

He sat looking at Liu Mu, his eyes gradually going red.

“Stop staring at me like that — looking like a woman.”

Liu Mu drained the rest of his wine flask in one long pull. He raised his hand and patted Tan Qianshou on the shoulder.

“Qianshou, you know — we’ve eaten too many losses because of who we are. Yu Wen Le is now a senior general commanding a whole garrison. All the gold and silver I sent — and I got a garrison general’s post in Daizhou. And you…”

Liu Mu looked at Tan Qianshou. “Of course, you’re a scoundrel and you deserve what you got. If it weren’t for the fact that I keep reminding myself — what I’m defending is Dachu’s common people, not those parasites of Dachu — I truly would not have come today.”

Tan Qianshou looked at him, then smiled slowly. “I don’t believe you.”

Liu Mu gave him a sideways look. “You think I came purely to save you? I came entirely because of the common people.”

Having said it, he couldn’t quite believe his own words either.

“Last time, we had no chance to fight side by side.”

Liu Mu reached out his hand, letting it hang there. “This time we do.”

Tan Qianshou reached out too. Their hands locked tight.

If it weren’t for arriving at the frontier in this moment and seeing the battle in such a dire state — sensing that he might not make it back — Liu Mu would never have said these things to Tan Qianshou. Part of him had thought: let that fool carry his guilt for another lifetime, the way he’s been doing for nine years. That particular guilt was still easier to live with. Because if Tan Qianshou ever found out that Liu Mu had taken a traitor as an adoptive father just to save him — that guilt would be far harder to bear.

Every time Tan Qianshou had come to Daizhou begging for grain supplies, Liu Mu had ached watching him. And yet he had understood — if he didn’t play the part of the cruel and heartless one, that man would be eaten alive by his own remorse and guilt.

“Such a pity.”

Liu Mu looked at Tan Qianshou and said, “When we were young, we made a promise — if our children were a son and a daughter, they’d marry; if both sons or both daughters, they’d become sworn brothers. And yet you, you useless man — after all these years, you haven’t even got a woman, let alone children.”

He gave Tan Qianshou a withering look. “Pathetic, aren’t you?”

Tan Qianshou snorted. “And you have children? You have a woman?”

Liu Mu said proudly, “I may have no children, but I have women. You think Daizhou City is like this frontier post of yours, where even the bird droppings on the ground are all male.”

Tan Qianshou paused, then shook his head. “That doesn’t add up. If you were truly carousing every night like you claim, how were you still fighting like a tiger out there today? I think you’re making it up.”

Liu Mu burst out laughing. He stood up, resting one hand on the battlements and looking out into the far distance — where the Black Wu camps spread in every direction, their fires stretching out like a scattering of stars fallen to the earth.

Tan Qianshou stood up too. Without realizing it, he had placed his hand on Liu Mu’s shoulder — and Liu Mu’s hand had come to rest on his. Their arms crossed over each other there, just as they had ten years ago — standing on a high ridge looking out toward Black Wu territory before they’d set out with the northern expedition army.

This was what it meant to have an arm around each other’s shoulders, he supposed.

They were no longer young.

—