When Bei Kuangtu saw Tang Pidi’s men dragging corpses behind their horses, the fury in his eyes ignited in an instant.

His people had always done this to others — when had he ever been on the receiving end of such humiliation?

These brigands killed without mercy and even killed for sport, yet now that they saw their own men being dragged in the dirt, even they felt their scalps go numb.

“Flay them alive.”

Bei Kuangtu extended his hand and pointed toward Tang Pidi’s position.

One of his Five Fierce Generals, Feidiao, immediately spurred his horse forward, and the hundred-odd brigands under his command charged out with him.

Facing them were only twenty or thirty men, and the bandits hadn’t given them a second thought. Feidiao in particular ranked low among the Five Fierce Generals and had never been held in high regard. Now he simply wanted to make a show of himself before Bei Kuangtu.

Tang Pidi watched the detachment break away from the main force and offered only a faint smile.

He issued an order: “Cut the drag lines.”

His soldiers drew their blades and sliced through the ropes trailing corpses behind them.

“Bows!”

At Tang Pidi’s command, twenty riders unslung their hard bows and reached back to the quivers strapped diagonally across their shoulders, drawing their feathered arrows.

When Dantai Qi had first laid eyes on Li Chi’s unit, he had been deeply curious — how was it that this outfit was so magnificently equipped?

Each of these hundred cavalrymen carried gear fine enough to make every garrison soldier in all of Dachu envious — Dantai Qi himself included. Even his own Liangzhou veterans couldn’t match this standard.

Every man had a horse bow. Every man had a repeating crossbow. Each carried a long saber and a short blade. On the left arm rested a cavalry round shield. Though they wore no uniform armor, their leather jerkins were thick, reinforced with heart-mirror breastplates.

This was not a typical light cavalry unit — light cavalry, in pursuit of speed, generally kept its equipment simple. But beyond all of this, each of the hundred riders also carried a polearm. Not a costly war lance, just a wooden spear, hanging from one side of the saddle.

When Dantai Qi had first seen this, he had been startled — it was rare for light cavalry to carry polearms. In mounted charges, the saber was the weapon of choice.

“One hundred paces!”

Tang Pidi called out sharply.

The soldiers leveled their bows and drew the strings to full draw.

The incoming brigands rode with expert horsemanship and came on at blistering speed. In the brief moment it took to raise and draw, the riders had already closed to eighty paces.

“Loose!”

With the command, twenty-one feathered arrows sang out in a swarm.

These hundred men had been painstakingly trained by Tang Pidi and his companions, drawing on the best of every tradition, and each fighter’s combat ability was extraordinary.

Twenty-one arrows flew — and then a chorus of screams erupted from the opposite side.

The dozen or so brigands at the forefront had no time to evade. Arrows found them and they tumbled from the saddle; their horses lurched to a stop, and the momentum of the charge faltered.

In that brief stumble, the second volley arrived.

In a cavalry charge against archers, the window of time is narrow — from the moment riders enter range to the moment they close to melee, a skilled archer can loose three to four arrows.

The second volley flew nearly level with the ground, and many of the riders who had slowed were immediately struck.

“These bastards are tough!”

Feidiao shouted.

He hadn’t expected a few dozen men to prove so ferocious, so well-armed. In an instant, nearly all of his desire to show off had evaporated.

He glanced back. Bei Kuangtu gave no signal to withdraw. Feidiao gritted his teeth and bellowed.

“Keep charging!”

He drove his horse forward, and his brigands accelerated again.

The third volley came. One arrow flew straight for Feidiao’s chest — he saw it in time and managed to press his body down, but the shaft still punched through his shoulder.

These brigands were ferocious, but they were poorly protected. With arrows flying in their faces at speed, to be hit was to fall.

Three volleys. Of the hundred-odd brigands under Feidiao, more than thirty had been shot from their saddles — some killed outright with arrows through vital points, some knocked off their mounts and trampled by the horses behind, some crushed to death beneath galloping hooves.

“Switch to crossbows.”

Tang Pidi issued another command.

The soldiers swiftly rehung their bows and drew their repeating crossbows. The enemy cavalry was already within fifty paces.

At this range, the repeating crossbow’s lethality far surpassed the bow.

A clatter of triggers sounded, and a dense swarm of foot-long bolts hammered across the gap. The brigands at the front went down one after another, crashing to the ground hard.

Behind them, at the fork in the road.

Bei Kuangtu raised his spyglass and peered ahead. His brow had begun to furrow.

The enemy cavalry numbered only about twenty or thirty, yet they were equipped like this — and in the heat of combat, they showed not a trace of panic. Measured and unhurried.

Compared to his brigands, their fighting quality stood an entire tier higher. His men knew only how to bluster and brawl.

In a close-quarters brawl, his people might hold their own — but they hadn’t even made it to close quarters before losing forty or fifty men, and their morale was faltering.

A third of his force had been scythed down, while the enemy looked as though they hadn’t done a thing. Their silence was unnerving.

Each man, crossbow emptied, quickly rehung the weapon and reached for the spear hanging from the saddle.

“Swallow-tail!”

Tang Pidi swung down his own iron spear, gripping it with both hands, point forward.

At his command, twenty riders formed a swallow-tail formation. Nearly a hundred brigands still bore down on them — like a flood hammering against a dam.

The flood’s vanguard crashed forward, throwing up waves.

The swallow-tail dam held firm.

Twenty-one spear-points thrust out, and the brigands ran straight onto them. Warhorses collided; the flood was dammed at the embankment.

Spears stabbed without pause. Brigands who pushed close were skewered one by one, yet their horses jammed up the gap, blocking those behind from getting through.

The brigands fought with sabers — and sabers couldn’t reach. But the spear-points had already killed two rows of men.

Tang Pidi’s iron spear moved like an enraged dragon; anyone who came close died without exception.

Feidiao glanced back again. Still no signal from Bei Kuangtu to withdraw. He dared not turn back.

He knew what Bei Kuangtu would do to him if he retreated without orders.

So he gritted his teeth, snatched up his long saber, and launched himself from the saddle, running across the backs of horses in front of him to hurl himself at Tang Pidi.

He came leaping down from above, slashing at Tang Pidi with a downward blow.

Tang Pidi’s iron spear swept across with a clang, batting Feidiao’s saber clean out of his grip.

Feidiao lurched sideways, barely managing to stay upright on the horse beneath him — but before he could recover, Tang Pidi shot out his hand and seized the man by the leg, hauling him across.

Feidiao thrashed desperately to break free, but Tang Pidi dragged him close and tucked him under his left arm.

Then Tang Pidi let out a thunderous roar.

“Kill!”

The mass of horses jammed in front of him startled at that single bellow and scattered in every direction.

Tang Pidi drove his horse forward — Feidiao pinned under his left arm, right hand leveling the spear. That heavy iron shaft moved as nimbly in his single hand as a light sword.

Each tap of the spear-point claimed a life.

Twenty riders surged forward with Tang Pidi, and when the brigands saw their leader taken alive, they fell instantly into chaos. After a string of further deaths, they finally lost their nerve. Those at the rear refused to push forward any longer; they wheeled their horses and fled.

Tang Pidi led his twenty in pursuit. A force of more than a hundred — and twenty men had killed seventy or eighty of them. The survivors scattered and ran.

Tang Pidi’s side had not lost a single man.

Tang Pidi gave chase on horseback, running down anyone he caught with a single spear-thrust through the back of the skull. Every strike was fatal.

He led his twenty to within thirty zhang of Bei Kuangtu’s main force before pulling up. Tang Pidi released his left arm; Feidiao’s corpse dropped to the ground. The man had been crushed to death by the single-arm grip — his face was an ashen blue, his eyes bulged open, unable even in death to close.

Tang Pidi brought his horse to a stop. He rehung the iron spear on the saddle, then raised his hand and pointed directly at Bei Kuangtu — and crooked his finger at him.

Bei Kuangtu’s eyes went wide.

Tang Pidi wheeled his horse and rode back, leading his twenty riders in a steady withdrawal.

Bei Kuangtu erupted in fury and shouted, urging his horse forward at a gallop.

His brigands roared and surged after him. Nearly a thousand strong, the horde swept forward howling, throwing up a storm of dust.

Bei Kuangtu gave chase — and behind his rear guard, Dantai Qi arrived.

Dantai Qi led forty riders crashing in, hitting the back of the brigand column with a volley of arrows.

Brigands at the rear went down one by one.

Hearing the screams at his back, Bei Kuangtu’s fury redoubled. He ordered one of his generals, Baie Hu, to take men and deal with the rear, while he continued pursuing the riders ahead.

Baie Hu led his detachment, slowing gradually until they fell to the column’s tail, then wheeled their horses to charge Dantai Qi.

Dantai Qi had been hoping they would come. He gave a cold laugh and led his riders turning away in retreat.

Baie Hu was fierce and relentless — he’d seen these ambushers land their blow and try to run, and he had no intention of letting them escape. He shouted and gave chase.

On the hillside.

Li Chi held his spyglass to his eye and watched the battle unfold. Everything was proceeding as planned — yet his brow remained creased.

Dantai Qi had said Bei Kuangtu commanded over a thousand brigands. The precise number he hadn’t been sure of. Now it was clear that Bei Kuangtu’s force numbered at least fourteen or fifteen hundred.

Even if they successfully drew the brigands into splitting their forces, the enemy still far outnumbered Li Chi’s own.

The only option was to force them off their horses. Force them to attack the hill on foot.

To the north, Dantai Qi led his forty riders wheeling back in retreat, with the brigand chieftain Baie Hu and more than a hundred men in hot pursuit.

Dantai Qi rode hard, glancing back. When the pursuing force had pulled well clear of the main column, he called out at once.

He was the first to haul on the reins. His horse reared with a whinny and slowed; the forty riders moved as one, and the column drew to a swift halt.

“Empty your crossbows — then follow me and charge.”

Dantai Qi turned and issued the order.

His unit was different from Tang Pidi’s. Tang Pidi’s men had waited for the enemy to come to them; his had drawn the enemy in pursuit. So by the time he turned to face them, the distance left no room for bows — the crossbow was all they had.

At his command, forty riders spread into two staggered rows across the open ground, and crossbow bolts began to streak outward.

Baie Hu’s men were hit as though by a sudden downpour. Mid-charge, man after man plummeted from the saddle. Some had their feet still caught in the stirrups and were dragged bouncing along the ground, howling.

In a brief moment, Dantai Qi’s men had emptied their crossbows and knocked down at least several dozen — the gap in weaponry was simply too wide to overcome.

“Stay on my heels!”

Dantai Qi let out a thunderous shout, seized his long lance in both hands, and drove his horse forward.

“Do you know the arrow-head formation?!”

He bellowed.

“Yes!”

The riders behind answered together.

“Arrow-head formation — charge!”

Dantai Qi led from the point.

The formation snapped instantly into an arrowhead, with Dantai Qi as the tip.

The ferocious brigand chieftain opposite screamed a battle cry and charged — and as Dantai Qi looked at them, his mind flashed to the innocent people who had been slaughtered.

“Die!”

He roared.

His lance tilted slightly upward, the three-foot blade glinting with cold light.

*Thud.*

The lance drove into Baie Hu’s chest. The man was lifted clear off his horse by the shaft.

Dantai Qi held the lance in both hands and drove onward, Baie Hu still impaled upon it.

One. Two. Three.

In the thundering charge, the lance skewered three men in a line.

—