Many years before, steppe warriors had marched south, broken through Daizhou Pass, taken Daizhou City, swept deep into the interior, and laid siege to Jizhou. They had seized city after city and killed without number.

That campaign had been won by deception. How quickly the cities fell had astonished even the steppe warriors themselves — and remained a subject of dark jest among them for years afterward.

Large numbers of steppe traders had passed through Daizhou Pass into the Central Plains, driving cattle and sheep, weapons hidden beneath the animals’ bellies and lashed into place. Once inside the city, they struck without warning. Hundreds of men seized the pass, killing over a hundred of the garrison soldiers.

What the steppe warriors had not anticipated was that Xu Yanda, the commander holding Daizhou Pass at the time, ordered a surrender. Under that command, nearly a thousand garrison soldiers laid down their weapons and were herded into an open area within the city.

Xu Yanda declared that the court had shown them no loyalty — the frontier soldiers had gone three full years without receiving their stipends. Why should they give their lives for such a court?

The thousand soldiers who had surrendered their weapons were driven into the open ground and killed by a rain of arrows. Not one survived.

General Xu Qulu led an army out and destroyed the combined tribal forces of the steppe outside Jizhou in a single battle, capturing Xu Yanda alive.

Xu Yanda was his cousin.

In the moments before Xu Yanda’s death, he wept bitterly and begged the General to kill him and bury his remains alongside the frontier soldiers he had betrayed. Xu Qulu said only three words.

*You are unworthy.*

He ordered his soldiers to shoot Xu Yanda to death with arrows. Xu Yanda took a hundred and twenty-six arrows.

Xu Qulu then led his forces into the steppe and swiftly subdued the tribes.

At precisely this moment, an urgent dispatch arrived from the Western Territories: the allied forces of the Six Western Nations had broken through the border. Without waiting for the court’s orders, Xu Qulu immediately marched his army to the western frontier.

The Six Nations’ allied forces had won battle after battle through their chain-mail infantry — armored soldiers who laughed at arrows and charged in crushing formations.

Xu Qulu ordered the requisitioning of draft oxen to prepare a fire-ox charge, and had serrated blades forged. Fire oxen in the vanguard, a thousand serrated-blade soldiers swept through the chain-mail infantry of the Six Nations. Then he pressed the pursuit beyond the border, driving over a thousand leagues into the Western Territories. Three of the six nations were destroyed.

But when Xu Qulu returned to the capital, the matter of taking his army into the field without imperial sanction was brought against him in a formal accusation. The charge of slaughtering draft oxen without authorization followed.

A few months later, Xu Qulu was executed. Many of his subordinates were implicated in his fall.

The serrated-blade regiment — once the scourge of the Western Territories — was absorbed by a newly appointed general after its campaigns in the west. The blades were locked in a warehouse and forgotten. The regiment’s more than a thousand formidable fighters, because of their loyalty to Xu Qulu and the jealousy of the new general, were maneuvered into a trap, surrounded without relief, and wiped out almost to the last man. Their distinctive weapons taken from them, ordered to fight bare-handed against the enemy, no reinforcements ever sent — the serrated-blade regiment was extinguished.

But the legend of the serrated blade did not die.

So when Liu Yingzhan saw the blade in Qiu Qingche’s hand, his expression changed at once.

The techniques of the serrated blade were nothing like conventional long-blade forms. Against chain mail, they were uniquely effective.

“So you’re a remnant descendant of that treasonous Xu clan.”

Liu Yingzhan gave a cold snort. “The court should have been more thorough all those years ago. After all this time, there are still traitors’ descendants making trouble.”

He extended his hand; a weapon was immediately passed forward from his retinue. When Qiu Qingche saw it, his eyes narrowed slightly.

It was a wolf-tooth mace.

Between the chain mail and this weapon, the fury in Qiu Qingche’s eyes deepened.

“So you’re a descendant of those Western barbarians who invaded us,” he said.

Liu Yingzhan laughed. “Upset about that, are you? My ancestors led the army that broke the Western Gate — then fell to Xu’s forces. But Xu came to a bad end, and yet here I am in your Central Plains, living in luxury. I have men, I have money. And you — you traitor’s descendant — look at what you’ve come to.”

He pointed the wolf-tooth mace at Qiu Qingche. “Even I find it somewhat unjust. And yet I enjoy that injustice. Even I find it somewhat ironic. And yet I enjoy that irony.”

He stepped forward. In that lean, angular frame, wielding a weapon of such terrible weight — it was at once absurd and formidable.

A resounding clang — Qiu Qingche blocked the mace with his serrated blade. The massive force drove his blade arm back and nearly tore the weapon from his grip.

Liu Yingzhan kicked at Qiu Qingche’s chest. In that instant, Qiu Qingche raised his right forearm as a crossbar. The kick landed on his arm and sent him sliding backward along the ground for at least half a pace.

“The Xu traitor died precisely because he didn’t know which way the wind was blowing. You remnant descendants are the same — you never learn.”

Liu Yingzhan advanced again, striking downward in repeated blows with the mace, bellowing as he struck: “You people with your stubbornness and your inability to adapt — you have to be swept aside. We understood how to win better than you did. We couldn’t defeat you on the battlefield, so we entered Dachu. We used gold and silver, we used women. If war couldn’t make us your masters, we found other means to climb over you!”

Driven back by the mace’s crushing force blow by blow, Qiu Qingche found his back against the cart with nowhere left to retreat.

Liu Yingzhan swung a horizontal sweep. Qiu Qingche ducked hard. The mace struck the cart body, instantly smashing a large hole through it.

Qiu Qingche braced one hand against the ground and drove both feet upward into Liu Yingzhan’s abdomen. Liu Yingzhan reeled back in pain.

Qiu Qingche sprang upright immediately, bringing the serrated blade down at Liu Yingzhan’s throat.

Liu Yingzhan smashed the mace into the blade — a sharp ringing crack, the blade was knocked aside. Using that spinning momentum, Liu Yingzhan brought the mace around and drove it full into Qiu Qingche’s chest. Qiu Qingche was sent flying backward.

Liu Yingzhan spat contemptuously. “Why are you all so stupid? Central Plains people — all the same.”

He planted a foot on Qiu Qingche’s chest and raised the mace to bring it down.

A crack — something struck him from behind. He spun around to look.

A boy of about fourteen or fifteen years stood there, still holding a piece of brick in his hand.

“Looking to die?!”

Liu Yingzhan turned toward the boy. “I’ll oblige you.”

He kicked Qiu Qingche aside and walked toward the boy. The boy fell back in clear terror — but still hurled the second brick he had picked up.

Liu Yingzhan tilted his head to dodge. The look in his eyes turned murderous.

“Run, child!”

Magistrate Yue Huanian shouted from across the courtyard. The dark-clad fighters had surrounded them completely; his guards were keeping him at the center and he could not break through. He called out to warn the boy to flee.

But the boy stopped. He shook his head. “The magistrate is a good magistrate. The magistrate should not die.”

He bent down and picked up half a brick. His face was pale, but his eyes had grown steadier.

“When my parents both died of sickness, it was the magistrate who saved me. It was the magistrate who fed me. It was the magistrate who taught me to read. It was the magistrate who told me to remember one thing: a man of worth must act.”

He charged at Liu Yingzhan with his half-brick raised: “I am a man of worth!”

Liu Yingzhan brought the mace down toward the top of the boy’s head.

Qiu Qingche, from where he had fallen, summoned everything he had and threw himself forward. He wrapped both arms around Liu Yingzhan’s legs and pulled with all his strength. Liu Yingzhan’s stance broke; he lurched forward.

The mace struck off-course — but it still caught the boy across the shoulder. The impact drove half his shoulder into collapse. The boy cried out immediately in agony.

But he did not fall back. He brought the brick down on Liu Yingzhan’s head.

Liu Yingzhan, now having taken a hit, roared in fury: “All of you — die!”

He tried to kick Qiu Qingche free, but Qiu Qingche clung to his legs and would not let go — one kick failed, then another, and another.

“Boy, run!” Qiu Qingche rasped out, hoarse.

The boy grabbed Liu Yingzhan’s wolf-tooth mace — but with one functioning arm he couldn’t lift it. It was far too heavy.

“Protect the magistrate!”

From every direction, ordinary townspeople came surging in — brooms, hoes, carrying poles, spatulas. They converged from all sides.

The dark-clad fighters surrounding Yue Huanian found themselves rapidly encircled in turn. Their expressions shifted — they had not expected these timid, fearful people to dare come.

“Do you all have a death wish?!”

Liu Yingzhan finally wrenched himself free and stood up, raising a hand to his head. A brick had split his scalp open and there was a good deal of blood.

“Hit him!”

A man called out and brought a carrying pole swinging down. Liu Yingzhan kicked him away, strode forward and added another kick — directly to the man’s neck. The man gave a dull grunt; blood spilled from his mouth, and his eyes slowly rolled upward.

“You cannot defeat them,” Yue Huanian pleaded. “Please, all of you — go!”

“Magistrate!”

An old man raised his broom and charged Liu Yingzhan: “You go — we’ll hold them!”

Liu Yingzhan seized the old man by the throat and hoisted him single-handed into the air. “You common rabble — are you truly not afraid to die? Tell me now where the grain went, and I’ll let you live.”

“Pfah!”

The old man spat directly in Liu Yingzhan’s face.

“Die then!”

Liu Yingzhan squeezed his five fingers. They drove into the old man’s throat. Blood welled up at once.

He tossed the body aside and swept his gaze over the townspeople. He called out: “I act for Prince Yu’s household. You dare resist the Prince’s authority? Move again, and the army marches in and puts every last one of you to the sword!”

That declaration stunned everyone. Not one of them had imagined these men could be from Prince Yu’s household.

Seeing them freeze, Liu Yingzhan smiled with contempt. “I’ll say it once more. Clear out — all of you — and I’ll act as though you were never here. Stay, and I will slaughter every last person in this county.”

“I’m not afraid of you!”

The boy — half his body ruined — looked at Liu Yingzhan and said: “I’m not afraid of Prince Yu either. I’m not afraid of anything. I’m only afraid of losing the magistrate.”

“We’re not afraid of you either!”

The people pressed forward — step by step, closing in. The dark-clad fighters began to retreat toward Liu Yingzhan; dozens of them were surrounded by hundreds, and more people were still arriving.

“Fine!”

Liu Yingzhan snarled. “You’ve brought this on yourselves. Now I understand perfectly.”

He turned to look at Yue Huanian. “So this is how low you’d stoop — using grain to buy these people’s loyalty. These rabble took grain from the official stores, and for that they all deserve to die!”

Yue Huanian shook his head. “I submitted a disaster report to Jizhou and petitioned for permission to open the granaries and distribute to the people. But Jizhou was afraid I’d give the grain to the people — so they dispatched carts at once to take it away. They didn’t dare send men in official uniforms, so they sent people like you from the grain stores. You are all the same kind of filth.”

Liu Yingzhan roared: “The grain belongs to the authorities — not to these rabble!”

Yue Huanian roared back: “The grain belongs to the people!”