The sight of those Ning Army scouts covering each other and their comrades enraged Huduo. What he hated most about Central Plains people was precisely this — their unity.
Though he would not admit it, even to himself: it was not hatred alone, but something closer to fear.
When the people of the Central Plains truly stood together, there were precious few enemies in the world who could face that unity unmoved.
Huduo reloaded his crossbow, raised it, and took aim — not at the scout covering the rear, but deliberately at the squad leader.
By all tactical sense, the rearguard should have been dealt with first, to make catching the others easier. But men like Huduo, born and bred in the Black Wu Black Tooth Division, lived for the pleasure of making others suffer.
He was skilled and experienced. When he released the bolt, it hit the squad leader in the calf with a clean thunk.
The pain nearly sent the squad leader pitching forward. He caught himself and held on, teeth clenched.
He was carrying the scout who had taken so many bolts earlier. Fortunately, Ning Army leather armor was thick — and Li Chi, always trying to safeguard his soldiers’ lives, had done his best to equip them with proper protection.
Scouts generally avoided heavy armor to stay light and agile, but Li Chi had issued a standing order: all Ning Army scouts on mission were required, without exception, to wear both front and back heart-guards.
Combined with the thickness of the leather armor, the scout had no critical injuries. He wasn’t in mortal danger yet.
But he felt the squad leader take the hit. He reached back, found his crossbow still strapped to him, and in one burst of effort wrenched himself free from the squad leader’s back.
The moment he hit the ground, the young scout pulled out his crossbow and began firing at the enemy charging toward them on horseback.
“Squad leader — take the others and go.”
The squad leader said nothing. He took the moment to draw his short knife with one hand and, bracing the bolt’s shaft against his other forearm, cut it flush with the wound. The arrowhead buried in the flesh — leave it for now. He tore off a strip of cloth and wound it tight around the injury several times over.
Then the squad leader reached down, grabbed the young scout in his arms, slung him over his shoulder, and ran.
Seeing the Ning soldiers respond this way only stoked Huduo’s rage higher.
He drove up alongside the rearguard scout and swung his blade horizontally at the boy’s neck. The scout dropped into a crouch just in time. The blade sheared off half his helmet.
Huduo leapt from the saddle and brought his sword down in a chopping blow at the scout’s head. The scout crossed his blade and raised both arms to catch it. The clang of iron rang out, and the scout was driven down by the sheer force — Huduo was simply stronger.
In the next breath, Huduo drove a kick into the scout’s chest, sending him rolling backward.
He deliberately did not pursue the others. He wanted this rearguard taken alive. He would torture him in front of the rest, and see whether these Ning Army soldiers — who supposedly never abandoned a comrade — would come back for him.
The fallen scout was just pushing himself up when he saw Huduo bearing down on him in long strides.
And then, still not fully risen, he heard something unusual. His palms pressed flat on the ground. He felt a faint tremor.
He looked out toward the distance and saw a red signal flare bloom in the sky.
Without a second thought, the scout dropped flat to the ground.
At the same instant, the other retreating scouts also saw the red flare. They made the same choice — all of them hit the dirt.
Then the arrows came.
Dense, screaming through the air on a flat trajectory, like a storm of meteors flying parallel to the earth. Every stalk of tall grass that rose above the rest lost its head.
The whipcrack hiss of bolts split the night.
Huduo had been a heartbeat away from striking the scout when the boy dropped without warning. He felt something cold rise inside him immediately.
Too late.
The dull thuds came in rapid sequence, and Huduo felt jolts of white-hot pain erupt across his back.
Then he heard it — the sound like rolling thunder, rhythmic and deep.
*Xian Zhen Battalion.*
Wave after wave of arrows screamed overhead. In the washed-out moonlight, the Black Wu soldiers who had ridden in with Huduo became pincushions in an instant. The sight of it — white-fletched arrows bristling from every body — was both staggering and brutally brief.
The falling men didn’t even fully reach the ground, their bodies held half-upright by the sheer volume of bolts transfixing them.
Huduo took at least several dozen bolts himself. The impact along his back made him spin around by reflex, and then the pain began blooming in his chest too.
The Xian Zhen Battalion cavalry was superbly trained. The riders at the front heard the shout and reined in their horses, and somehow not a single rider in the ranks behind failed to respond in time.
This elite force, personally trained by Master Wu, had developed an almost supernatural coordination.
Master Wu vaulted from his saddle and ran toward the sound of the calls. He found a scout standing over an injured boy.
“Commander!”
When the scout saw Master Wu, the light in his eyes shone through even the pale moonlight.
“We only managed to save one child,” the scout said. “The rest of the villagers were already killed.”
Master Wu had barely opened his mouth to reply when the horns rang out. Over at the Yong Province army camp, a large force was advancing in this direction.
The boy raised his arm with effort and pointed toward Huduo, who was still somehow on his feet, and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper: “Avenge… avenge…”
Master Wu understood the boy’s meaning immediately. That man was the one who had slaughtered the villagers.
“Two ten-man squads — take the scouts and fall back.”
Master Wu called out the order, then in a single motion launched himself over a full zhang of ground and came down behind Huduo.
Huduo had not yet fully died. His eyes were fixed and staring, yet he still tried to raise his arm to strike.
Master Wu’s left hand shot out, seized Huduo by the hair, and his right hand swept the blade across in a horizontal arc. Simultaneously, he drove a kick into Huduo’s chest.
The force behind that kick was so grotesque that those who witnessed it felt slightly unreal.
A single kick — and the headless body sailed at least two zhang through the air. The speed was such that by the time the body hit the ground, the blood that had gushed from the severed neck during the flight was only just now spattering down.
Master Wu flicked his wrist and tossed the head behind him. A soldier caught it.
The soldier brought the head to the boy. “Afraid?”
The boy took the head with both hands. The words that came out through his clenched teeth were: “I’m not afraid. When I get home, I’ll chop him to pieces.”
The Yong Province army came surging toward them. Master Wu raised his hand. “Xian Zhen Battalion!”
“*Hoh!*”
Eight hundred elite soldiers answered as one.
“Two ten-man squads to escort the wounded back. Everyone else — follow me. Charge.”
“*Hoh!*”
Another crack of thunder.
Not quite eight hundred cavalry, hurling themselves at the oncoming Yong Province forces.
Han Feibao could never have imagined that on this unremarkable night — because he had ordered a handful of villagers seized for interrogation — the battle would come early.
And it came from eight hundred men.
That night the moon was dim, the wind was light. Eight hundred Xian Zhen soldiers killed two thousand of the enemy, retreated intact, and lost not a single man.
Master Wu led those Qingzhou warriors he had trained across the land of Jizhou and carved a path of blood for the enemy to remember.
When dawn came, Master Wu brought the eight hundred Xian Zhen Battalion back into the forest. He counted them. Every man was present.
The force that had poured from the Yong Province camp that night had numbered at least four or five thousand, with more pouring out behind them. But this Yong Province army had almost no cavalry worth speaking of. Against the Xian Zhen Battalion, they became paper.
On open flat ground that allowed a mounted charge against infantry who were themselves charging on foot —
It would have been a different story against battle-hardened infantry in a prepared defensive formation. Not even the Xian Zhen Battalion, powerful as they were, could have ridden through that as if through empty air.
The sun’s light began to spread across the land — and across Han Feibao’s dark, brooding face.
Sunlight can scatter the gloom from the sky and banish the shadows from the earth. It cannot scatter the gloom from Han Feibao’s expression or the shadow from his heart.
He looked at Yuan Zhen. Yuan Zhen’s face was equally dark.
Yuan Zhen was a man of considerable intelligence. He had grown up loving Central Plains military texts, and he believed he understood Central Plains people thoroughly.
But none of those books had told him that Central Plains people would deploy a full military force to rescue a handful of ordinary peasants.
In the Black Wu Empire, such a thing was beyond imagination. Even if you wanted to use this as army propaganda, no one would believe it. The Black Wu soldiers themselves would probably find it laughable.
“We’ve been exposed,” Yuan Zhen said to Han Feibao. “There is only one option now: launch the attack on Dragon Head Pass immediately. We cannot afford more delay.”
Han Feibao slowly raised his hand to grip his sword hilt. He drew a deep breath, and the long sword slid gradually from its scabbard.
The blade came to rest pointing at Yuan Zhen’s nose — perfectly centered on the tip of it, so close that Yuan Zhen could feel the cold radiating from the steel.
“Send your men in for the first assault. If you refuse, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
The cold in Han Feibao’s voice matched the cold at the blade’s tip precisely.
Yuan Zhen’s expression darkened. He narrowed his eyes and looked into Han Feibao’s. “My lord means to send my men in as the first wave of cannon fodder?”
Han Feibao said, “Either they die in the fighting at Dragon Head Pass, or they die along with you under a hail of bolts from my soldiers.”
“You don’t find that despicable?” Yuan Zhen asked.
“I have never cared what people call despicable,” Han Feibao replied. “If I had, do you think I would be the master of Yong Province?”
He pressed the blade tip forward a fraction. Yuan Zhen took an involuntary half-step back — if he hadn’t, the steel really would have cut his nose.
“Not asking you to go with them, Yuan Zhen,” Han Feibao said. “That is already my greatest mercy.”
Yuan Zhen looked back at his men. The Black Wu soldiers all wore grim expressions.
These men had been selected for this mission specifically because their appearance wasn’t unmistakably Black Wu. But they were Black Wu through and through — and some of them were even from the Ghost Moon Eight Tribes.
Of course, the fact that their features weren’t quite pure-blooded was precisely part of why they’d been sent to the Central Plains. Not simply because they were suitable, but also because they were not *noble enough*.
“…Fine.”
Yuan Zhen gave his men a nod.
But his men had no intention of listening to him.
Yuan Zhen was a man of the steppe. Was he somehow nobler than them?
They drew their blades.
If they were to die, they would die fighting. Better to die taking Han Feibao with them than to be cut down by Ning Army arrows or Han Feibao’s archers. At the very least they would die with Black Wu’s unbowed pride.
Yuan Zhen watched helplessly. He did not stop anyone. He only stepped quietly back out of the way, a flicker of apprehension crossing his face.
Han Feibao gave a savage laugh and charged into them with blade raised.
Moments later, several headless bodies lay on the ground.
Han Feibao swung his arm and sent the heads rolling to Yuan Zhen’s feet.
He leveled his blood-wet blade at Yuan Zhen. “You’d better pray that we can take Dragon Head Pass in one stroke. If we can’t — I’ll take your head the same way.”
—