From darkness to daylight, after a full night of fighting, the walls of Beishan Pass seemed to have changed color entirely.
Outside the walls, the corpses on the ground were so numerous they had completely covered the earth. Not a patch of soil could be seen.
The five siege ramps near the walls were still burning. The Ning army soldiers knew that if they didn’t destroy all five ramps, the Black Martial forces would use their numerical advantage to take the walls.
The walls of Beishan Pass were not the common people’s wall. The frontier soldiers were the people’s true wall. These fortifications were only the frontier army’s wall.
Without these walls, how could the frontier army possibly hold back the assault of hundreds of thousands of Black Martial soldiers?
Black Martial general Qike had already led his men in three consecutive charges up the ramps, yet had been unable to break through the Ning army’s defense of the pass.
All three times they had drawn close to the walls. On one occasion they had actually set foot on the battlements — but each time they had been driven back.
“Rotate new troops in.”
Zhimocan called out the order.
“Hold on!”
Qike turned to look at Zhimocan. His face was blackened — the color of smoke and fire — which made his eyes appear startlingly white by contrast.
He dropped to one knee before Zhimocan and said: “Divine Seat, please give me one more chance. I will lead my men and take Beishan Pass.”
Zhimocan replied: “I saw your courage, and the courage of your men. I have no intention of finding fault with you. Rather, your men are exhausted and need to rotate out for rest. We have more than enough troops — there is no need for you and your men to carry the assault indefinitely.”
“I can still fight!”
Qike said loudly: “I ask that the Divine Seat grant me one more chance.”
After a brief silence, Zhimocan nodded: “Very well. One more assault.”
Qike gave his thanks loudly, then turned and rallied his men, charging up the ramp for the fourth time.
For the Black Martial forces, fortune seemed genuinely not to be on their side.
They had waited a full three months for a cloudy night so that they could advance the siege ramps without the Ning army detecting them in advance.
Yet at the very moment of dawn, the skies were gradually clearing. The clouds were dispersing.
If rain had come at this point, the fires the Ning army had set to destroy the ramps would have been extinguished. Then Zhimocan’s plan would have already succeeded — but heaven was not standing with them.
If the rain had come, the Black Martial forces should have been standing atop the walls of Beishan Pass cheering by now.
Without fire to rely on, the Ning army could not have held back Black Martial soldiers who showed absolutely no regard for their own lives. The numerical advantage was absolute — a single rain shower would have transformed that absolute advantage into an absolute victory.
Li Chi and his brothers had been fighting all night. Everyone was exhausted. Several fresh batches of reserve troops had already come up, and the count of those who had died in battle on the walls had long since grown too great to reckon.
During a brief moment of respite, Li Chi and his brothers worked together to carry the bodies of the fallen below.
They could not allow their brothers’ remains to be trampled.
While moving the bodies, Li Chi looked up toward the girl standing at the highest point, then stretched out his hand with his thumb raised and gave her a waggle.
When he looked in her direction, it happened to be the direction of the sun.
That battle goddess, bathed in sunlight, was looking at him too. She raised her own thumb and gave it a wave.
Perhaps no man or woman in this world could have a story quite like Li Chi and Gao Xining’s.
They had met at the academy. They had been forced to flee together. They had lived together in the underground palace for a long time. They had journeyed ten thousand li together to Daxing City. And now, here they were, side by side on this battlefield defending against foreign invaders.
Li Chi called out to Gao Xining: “You look wonderful!”
Hearing this, Gao Xining smiled — then shouted back: “I know!”
Both of them laughed. They were each other’s anchor.
“The Black Martial forces are coming up again!”
Just then someone shouted a warning. Li Chi turned to look outside the walls — the Black Martial formation was surging forward again, dark and dense as a storm.
During that brief moment of respite, Li Chi had ordered men to use hooked poles to push the siege ramps away, but they were far too heavy. They couldn’t move them.
There was no way for them to form a ring of men and push the enormous structure as the Black Martial forces had done.
So Li Chi gave another order: soldiers were to clear the bodies from the walls as quickly as possible — that way, when the Black Martial shield formation came up again, the Ning army’s rolling logs and other weapons could be deployed effectively.
“Find me some carts. As many as you can get.”
Li Chi called out and then reached for a strong bow.
Yu Jiuling answered at once. He wasn’t skilled at hand-to-hand fighting, but he knew where he could be most useful.
He led his men rushing down into the city, ran all the way to the logistics camp, and came back with vehicles — it was difficult to get large wagons up to the walls, but fortunately there were quite a number of two-wheeled handcarts.
By the time Yu Jiuling returned with everything, the Black Martial assault had already begun.
Wave upon wave of Black Martial soldiers, shields raised, pressed through the arrow storm and climbed onto the siege ramps once more.
“Load the carts with stones.”
Li Chi called out while shooting arrows.
Yu Jiuling and the others loaded the carts as fast as they could, then pushed them to the edge of the ramp. The Black Martial shield formation had by now reached the middle of the ramp, and it was still intact.
Arrows had no power against those heavy defensive shields, and the mounted crossbows couldn’t achieve the angle needed to attack the Black Martial forces on the ramp.
And so the carts proved their maximum value.
A fully loaded stone cart was shoved out and sent hurtling down the ramp, smashing directly into the shield formation. A gap was punched through the two front rows of shield bearers.
The moment the formation broke open, Ning army archers took aimed shots into the gap. The sound of arrowheads penetrating flesh and scraping bone seemed to ring out with sudden clarity.
The carts battered the shield formation apart, and many men were knocked off the sides of the ramp by the impact.
“Go back and find more — or build them if you have to!”
Li Chi shouted, putting an arrow through the eye socket of a Black Martial soldier who raised his head.
Yu Jiuling acknowledged the order and ran back with his men.
When the handcarts were used up, they would improvise by getting the large wagons up. If they couldn’t be transported flat, they could stand them on end and haul them up by manpower.
Yu Jiuling shouldered the heaviest sections of a wagon, until his shoulder was scraped bloody by splinters.
But he knew that his blood, his pain, was nothing compared to what the soldiers on the wall were enduring fighting the Black Martial forces.
He set his jaw and got the wagon up. Stones, wood — anything that added weight — were heaped onto it. Fire oil was splashed over everything, a torch was thrown on, and the flames leaped up.
“Push it down!”
Yu Jiuling roared, and together with the others shoved the great burning wagon forward.
As the wagon came hurtling down, the shield formation immediately fell into chaos. The Black Martial soldiers sheltering behind the shields saw through the cracks between them as the blazing wagon came rushing in. Before it even reached the front ranks, the leading men were already panicking and turning to flee — but behind them was a packed mass of soldiers. A shield formation demands density; men were pressed together with nowhere to retreat.
With a thunderous crash, the wagon engulfed in flames smashed into the shield formation, sending Black Martial soldiers scattering in every direction. The stones and timber loaded on the wagon tumbled down, and with the fire oil burning, the wood caught. The Black Martial soldiers were too densely packed — as men scrambled away from the flames, still more were jostled off the sides.
That solid shield formation was shattered in an instant.
“Jiuling!”
Li Chi called out to Yu Jiuling: “Well done!”
Yu Jiuling broke into a grin. In that moment, he knew he was a person who was useful. He could finally call himself a soldier.
The first wagon had swept the Black Martial forces down, but very quickly, the Black Martial soldiers reorganized.
Their shield formation took shape again, moving up the ramp at speed.
Yu Jiuling turned and called: “Bring up another!”
Working together, they hauled the second wagon onto the ramp and loaded it as fast as they could.
Stones, timber — everything that added weight piled up in no time. Fire oil was sloshed on, a torch thrown in, and fire surged up immediately.
“Push it down!”
Yu Jiuling roared, and everyone pushed together.
At precisely this moment, the shield formation opened, and out charged a Black Martial general who looked as powerfully built as a bear rearing on its hind legs.
This man gripped a wooden post in both hands. When the wagon came sliding down, he drove the post into the ramp surface and braced it against his shoulder…
With a bone-shaking crash, the wagon slammed into the post. The man’s feet skidded back somewhat — yet he actually stopped the wagon dead.
Ning army arrows rained down from every direction. The man forced both arms to full extension, and to everyone’s disbelief, heaved the wagon — which must have weighed well over a thousand jin — and flipped it over.
The burning wagon toppled off one side, and it was the Black Martial soldiers alongside the ramp who suffered for it — an unknown number were crushed to death.
The shield formation advanced, taking the Black Martial general back within its protection. The raw strength this man had displayed was staggering by any measure.
“Spear troops!”
Li Chi called out: “With me!”
He handed his black blade to a personal guard, grabbed a long spear, and charged to the front line. Soldiers formed up at the head of the ramp and waited.
At the moment the shield formation reached the wall, countless spears thrust out.
A shield formation is not a single seamless structure. A long spear is the ideal weapon for breaking it apart.
Spear tips drove through the gaps between shields again and again — every thrust was guaranteed to find someone.
Each time the spear was driven in and then pulled back, the red tassel below the spear tip would have blood dripping from it.
Li Chi drove his spear into the shield formation and heard someone cry out in pain. When he pulled it back, he found it unexpectedly heavy.
He had skewered a wounded Black Martial soldier, the spear tip lodged inside the man’s gut. The Black Martial soldier gripped the spear shaft with both hands and refused to release it — so Li Chi literally dragged him out.
Qike burst out from behind this man and, in one motion, stomped down to snap the spear shaft, then brought his blade sweeping down at Li Chi’s throat.
Li Chi recognized at a glance that this was the man who had single-handedly flipped the burning wagon. He took nothing for granted — he immediately stepped back and let the blade pass. It caught on the battlements and chipped away a corner with a ringing crack.
Seeing Li Chi give ground, Qike found an opening onto the wall. He got one foot up, but the other was still on the ramp, and Li Chi’s broken spear shaft drove into his thigh from the front and punched through the back — Qike let out an agonized howl.
Through the searing pain, he brought his blade crashing down at Li Chi’s throat.
“Die!”
That blade blow carried the force to cleave a mountain.
Li Chi dropped into a crouch. The blade swept across just above his head.
A breath later, Li Chi had seized Qike’s injured leg and hauled himself back a full step, yanking Qike into a splits position.
Immediately after, Li Chi’s knee drove into Qike’s temple. Qike let out a muffled grunt.
In the next breath, Li Chi wrenched the broken shaft out of Qike’s thigh and drove it into his face repeatedly, blow after blow.
Within the span of two breaths, he had struck nineteen times.
That face was reduced to pulp.
Then Li Chi grabbed Qike’s ankle with one hand, swung him in a full circle, and hurled him from the city wall.
—