The blood on Li Chi’s body was so thick that his every movement sent droplets flying outward.
The Black Martial warriors before him were taller and stronger than he was, yet even they could not withstand a single blow under his absolute ferocity.
Li Chi held one siege ramp. Xiahou Zuo held another. And the generals of the frontier army and Ning army fought desperately to hold the remaining three.
By now, the blood on the ramps flowed like rivers, cascading down their entire length of several dozen zhang.
“Fire oil is here!”
Behind Li Chi, someone shouted in a hoarse voice: “Prince Ning, please fall back!”
At the sound of the shout, Li Chi drove a kick into the chest of the Black Martial warrior before him, using the force of that kick to flip himself backward.
The moment he landed, the soldiers behind him hurled ceramic oil jars onto the ramp.
One by one, the jars shattered against the ramp surface, fire oil mingling with blood as it streamed downward.
A Black Martial warrior had been pursuing Li Chi relentlessly, swinging a wolf-tooth mace as he nearly vaulted onto the wall. Li Chi reached out and seized one of the oil jars, smashing it directly into the warrior’s face. The ceramic exploded on impact, splashing fire oil across the man’s entire body.
Countless ceramic shards, driven by that violent impact, embedded themselves into the Black Martial warrior’s face.
Li Chi then delivered a kick that launched the warrior back, that enormous frame lifting clean off the ground.
“Ignite!”
Li Chi shouted.
Fire arrows and torches rained continuously onto the ramp. The Black Martial warrior whom Li Chi had just kicked flying — relying on his thick hide and tough flesh — had somehow avoided serious injury and was struggling to his feet when a fire arrow came streaking in and struck him squarely in the eye socket.
Fire erupted across his face, and the blaze in his eye socket blazed most brilliantly of all.
A moment later, that Black Martial warrior had become a human torch, howling as he turned and tried to flee. Wherever his feet carried him, footprints burst into flame, and very quickly a trail of fire stretched behind him.
The Black Martial soldiers on the ramp were gradually consumed by fire. The men behind them did not dare to approach.
“Arrows!”
Li Chi roared: “Release!”
Seizing this opportunity, the Ning army archers unleashed a dense storm of arrows. Those twisted Black Martial figures writhing in the flames were cut down by the volley.
As the fire oil continued flowing downward, the flames spread with it. Anyone who had never witnessed this sight would perhaps never truly understand what flowing fire looked like.
Outside the city walls, among the Black Martial central army formation, Zhimocan stood watching this scene with a deep frown.
The siege ramps had been his idea. He had believed they would allow a swift breakthrough of Beishan Pass — yet the defensive resolve and desperate will of these central plains people had moved him in ways he had not anticipated.
For the battle to have reached this point, neither side could realistically withdraw.
“Continue the assault.”
Zhimocan commanded loudly: “Our siege ladders are reinforced with shields. Their fire cannot burn the ladders down!”
He looked toward one of Jingluo Fu’s subordinate generals, a man named Qike, a fierce warrior from the Southern Court camp.
Some men are born with the gifts of a commander. Others are born warriors.
Qike was a quintessential Black Martial warrior — towering and powerful of build, bloodthirsty and savage of nature, and possessed of tremendous natural strength.
Under Chizhu Liuli’s command, he had been one of the most capable subordinates.
Because of this man’s martial prowess, Zhimocan had feared for his safety in battle and had specifically reassigned him to serve as his personal guard.
“Qike!”
Zhimocan called out: “Take your men up there. Remove your shirts. Have every man carry a pack of dirt with them — use the dirt to smother the fire.”
Qike answered at once.
A man as fond of battle as he was had long since been straining at the leash, especially after watching Jingluo Fu, the general who had treated him well in the past, be cut down. His killing intent was barely containable.
He wanted nothing more than to fly up there and cut down every last one of those central plains frontier soldiers who deserved to die, one stroke per man.
Now, hearing Zhimocan’s order, Qike surged forward in great strides.
Leading his men, they stripped off their leather armor and the shirts beneath. With both hands cupped, they scooped up dirt and bundled it quickly in their clothing, then broke into a sprint toward the ramp.
“All of you, get the hell out of my way!”
Qike let out a fierce roar and shoved aside a Black Martial soldier blocking his path.
With his strength, those who were shoved flew sideways and lay on the ground for some time before they could stand again.
And the man he had just sent flying was actually a towering, powerfully built Black Martial warrior.
Qike’s men charged up the ramp and poured the bundled dirt across its surface. With so many hands working, they actually managed to beat down the fire through sheer force.
“My shield infantry — advance!”
Qike shouted.
Behind him, a group of soldiers bearing man-height tower shields immediately formed up. They organized into a shield formation and advanced up the cleared ramp.
The great shields fully covered their bodies, while soldiers in the center of the column raised their shields overhead, forming an armored formation like a great iron dragon.
Ning army fire arrows struck the shields with a crackling hiss, sparks flying everywhere, yet the shield formation could not be broken.
Li Chi turned and shouted: “Bring the rolling logs!”
Soldiers turned and hauled the logs stored at the corners of the wall, rolling them forward down the ramp.
But there were too many bodies on the ramp. The first log rolled out only a short distance before it was stopped by the corpses.
“Keep going!”
Li Chi didn’t care whether the logs could clear a path. He kept ordering them to continue rolling down regardless.
Though the logs couldn’t smash open the Black Martial shield formation, their accumulation in the middle section of the ramp prevented the shield formation from advancing smoothly.
Qike, inside the shield formation, looked through a gap and saw that the piled logs ahead were blocking their advance.
“Clear the logs!”
Qike shouted his order.
The front of the shield formation opened, and soldiers poured out to heave the blocking logs off the ramp. At precisely that moment, Ning army archers — who had been waiting for exactly this opening — loosed a unified volley.
The concentrated fire of that salvo produced an arrow density that made one’s scalp prickle.
A dark mass of arrows came in — like a great, overwhelming fist forming in midair.
The Black Martial soldiers who had charged out from the opened shield formation were killed by the arrows in an instant.
The shield formation stalled. Before them lay piled logs and the bodies of their comrades. A rapid advance was no longer possible.
Yet at this moment, large numbers of Black Martial soldiers had also reached the base of the city wall, and siege ladders were being raised one after another.
Because most of the defensive forces had been drawn to the siege ramps, a massive wave of Black Martial infantry had pressed close.
Now the ladders were up, leaning against the wall, and Black Martial soldiers with curved blades clenched in their teeth were scrambling upward hand and foot with terrifying speed.
“Arrows!”
Xiahou Zuo’s throat was raw from shouting, his voice like dry firewood split by flames, with sparks crackling from the cracks.
Ning army soldiers and Dachu frontier soldiers threw everything they had into holding the line.
It took more than ten men working together with long hooked poles to push a single siege ladder away.
Long ladders toppled backward, and Black Martial soldiers on them scrambled and leaped in panic — some fell onto soldiers below, others struck the ground and shattered bones.
This was the most brutal, bloodiest fighting since the battle had begun.
Whether the Black Martial forces below the wall or the Ning army soldiers upon it, casualty figures were expanding at a terrifying pace.
“Courier! Get the reserves up here — the reserves, immediately!”
Xiahou Zuo saw the soldiers around him growing fewer and fewer, and he called out to his surroundings — only to discover as he called that the courier was already lying dead nearby.
That young man, who had been only seventeen or eighteen years of age, had taken a sword through the throat. Perhaps because he had already bled nearly dry, his face was white to a frightening degree.
Just yesterday, that young man had been saying with a grin that when this battle was over, he was going to find himself a wife — because if he happened to die young in battle, he’d never even know what a woman was like.
Xiahou Zuo had told him then that when this battle was done, he’d give him special leave to go home and get married.
The young man had laughed and said, General, stop teasing me — it’s not that easy to find a wife…
And then, mid-laugh, his voice had gone quiet, and his face had taken on a trace of sadness.
“Everyone from my village fled, during the bandit uprising. My father and mother disappeared somewhere — haven’t had a single word from them. Before I came to the northern frontier, my father had a matchmaker arrange a bride for me. But when she heard I was going to serve in the frontier, she wasn’t willing.”
He smiled bitterly. “I don’t really blame her. She wasn’t wrong to say it. The matchmaker came back and told me — it’s not that she thinks less of you as a young man. It’s that you’re going to a place like the northern frontier, where life and death aren’t certain. You can’t expect a young girl to marry you and then become a widow before long…”
Xiahou Zuo had been furious at the time, yet he hadn’t known at whom to direct his anger.
Now, in this moment, he looked at the young man lying on the ground, his complexion white and bloodless, eyes still open as if gazing up at the sky.
And just then, Gao Xining came up from within the city. She looked at the state of the fighting all around, and her own face went slightly pale.
However powerful she was, she was still a young girl — she simply knew there was no time for fear.
She called out: “Who knows how to sound the horn?”
Yu Jiuling shouted: “I do!”
Gao Xining nodded: “Take the battle horn and come with me!”
She raised her hand and pointed to the highest point of the gatehouse tower.
The two of them found a ladder and climbed to the roof of the gatehouse. Gao Xining stood at the highest point, holding a blazing red battle standard.
She looked out at the brutal fighting raging across the city walls, drew a deep breath, and gave Yu Jiuling her order: “Sound the horn. Bring the reserves onto the wall!”
Yu Jiuling immediately blew the ox horn.
Inside the city walls, a frontier army general waiting for orders heard the horn and immediately called out: “Follow me up!”
Soldiers ran up the ramp onto the wall. The general followed the sound of the horn and looked toward the highest point — and saw her there, standing like a goddess of war, using that blazing red battle standard to point toward a specific position.
He understood at once. One hand raised: “With me!”
The first reserve unit came up and, guided by Gao Xining’s battle standard, moved to reinforce the position where their forces had been most severely depleted.
Gao Xining looked again. On the other side, a gap had already opened. She called at once: “Sound again. Bring the second reserve unit up.”
Yu Jiuling immediately sounded the horn. The second reserve unit, just arriving at their position, heard it and charged up immediately.
They too, as they ascended, saw her — the girl standing at the highest point, blazing red battle standard pointing the way.
This was a position of extraordinary danger. In order to be visible to the reserves as they came up through the dark of night, Gao Xining had ordered the soldiers who had accompanied her to light torches all around, illuminating her.
In that moment, every person who looked up and saw the girl wielding that battle standard felt something go quiet in their hearts.
They saw light radiating from beside her, and the blazing red battle standard pointed like a divine beacon.
“Kill!”
The second reserve unit surged up and swiftly plugged the gap.
Siege ladders continued to be raised against the wall, while Ning army soldiers continued to push them back down.
When the deepest darkness was at last gradually illuminated by the growing light, people suddenly realized that dawn had come.
And they also suddenly realized that the overcast sky had cleared.
In the light of the newly risen sun, golden radiance poured across the pass fortifications — as if this were a peerless masterwork painted entirely in blood.
—