On the far side of the Indus River, atop a high ridge.

A high platform had been erected on the ridge. King Harsha stood upon it, surveying the dense mass of sails on the Indus River. More than ten of the imperial army’s generals stood behind him, awaiting his command.

“My encampment is positioned right at the crossing point. The Persians appear to intend a crossing downstream,” King Harsha said with a laugh. “They do not plan to fight me on the water — they want to fight a landing battle. Then I will see to it that they do not get their way.” King Harsha turned and issued orders: “Pass my command — the imperial fleet is to engage with all speed! The objective of this battle is primarily the destruction of the enemy’s warships!”

The fleet’s general received the order and departed. Signals rose from the water camp, and one warship after another sailed out, raising their sails, heading downstream to intercept the Persian warships.

The two fleets met in midstream on the Indus River, and a ferocious and bloody battle erupted in an instant.

Eighty zhang away, the Persian fleet launched the first attack. Persia was rich in naphtha oil, which had been deployed extensively throughout four hundred years of war against Byzantium. They poured the oil into clay jars, stuffed them with white cloth, and loaded them into small catapult bags with a range of a hundred zhang. Seeing the Indian fleet enter range, the military commander in charge of the fleet gave the command, and soldiers lit the cloth and launched the clay jars. In an instant, a dense swarm of clay jars, trailing fire like shooting stars, flew toward the Indian fleet. In one volley, three hundred jars were launched. At least one-third struck the enemy warships, where they crashed and shattered, and fierce fires blazed up. The Indian forces had never encountered this form of attack and fell into immediate chaos. Some rushed to extinguish the fires; others were splashed with the naphtha oil and caught fire, filling the air with agonized screams as they leapt into the river. Some ships successfully put out the flames, but others could not contain the fire and sank amid the blazing inferno.

The commander of the Indian fleet knew that his side was at a disadvantage in long-range combat and immediately ordered a rapid advance. At the cost of enduring an unceasing rain of naphtha jars, they closed the distance to fifty zhang. In the thirty zhang of water between them, the Indian fleet lost at least fifty or sixty warships, and more than a thousand men were buried in the Indus River.

“Longbowmen, volley!” the Indian fleet commander ordered.

The longbows of India were extremely powerful. The bows were crafted to match the height of the user, made from palm, bamboo, and various woods of high resilience, with bowstrings of deer sinew, silk, and hemp — drawing strength enormous. The soldiers propped one end of the bow against a slot in the ship’s deck, left foot braced against the bow body, both hands drawing the string. Arrows were three cubits long, capable at several tens of zhang of piercing shields and bodies. The longbowmen drew their bows with both hands; a thousand men loosed simultaneously. Long arrows crossed the sky above the river in a dense swarm, shooting toward the Persian warships. The Persians were instantly struck as though by a violent storm — shields and armor alike were pierced through. Some of the powerful arrows passed through one body and continued with unspent force to pierce another. After several volleys, the Persian warships were washed clean as if by a rain of blood — corpses piled everywhere, with the screams of the wounded all around.

The two sides drew still closer, reaching a distance of thirty zhang. The Persian archers came into play as well, and both sides shot at each other across the water. The battle grew extraordinarily fierce; at intervals someone struck by an arrow would fall into the river. On the several li of river surface, corpses floated and blood dyed the water red. From time to time a warship would pass over the corpses, and waves would rock the dead so they rose and fell.

After several exchanges of arrow fire, the two fleets suddenly rushed together, crashing into each other’s formations with thunderous impacts. The Persian warships, converted from fishing boats, immediately suffered greatly — many were simply rammed and sunk. At the cost of a hundred or more warships sunk, the Indian ships’ momentum was at last checked. Both sides erupted into boarding actions.

The killing raged on the Indus River. One side was defending their homeland; the other had no home to return to. The will to fight was unprecedented. When a ship was overrun by the enemy, the defenders often fought to the last man and refused to abandon ship. Even the winning side paid an equally devastating price.

On the western bank of the Indus, the Persian high priests gathered around the sacred fire altar and prayed together, singing ancient liturgical hymns. Yazdegerd III stood on the high platform, watching with his whole body trembling, hot tears streaming from his eyes.

“Warriors bleed — the blame lies with me. If only my Persian people could gain a place to settle in the land of the five rivers, I would willingly forego the sacred fire rites after my death,” Yazdegerd III murmured in prayer. “I only beseech the almighty Ahura Mazda to protect my warriors and bring them safely home.”

Firuzan came rushing up to the platform: “Respected King of Kings, the battle has reached a stalemate. We must execute the next phase of the plan.”

“You are the supreme commander — give the order as you see fit,” said Yazdegerd III.

“As you command.” Firuzan picked up the military flag and waved it several times. Messenger soldiers transmitted his will down through the layers of the chain of command.

“Your Majesty, the battle situation is at an extraordinary stalemate — I am afraid that whoever wins will do so at a terrible cost,” Bani was saying on the eastern bank of the Indus, deeply troubled.

King Harsha was unconcerned: “What is a costly victory? The Persian objective is to cross the river. So long as their fleet is destroyed, their strategic aim is completely defeated. Then the entire strategic situation will be ours to control — we can advance and cross to attack, or hold the river line and defend. At bottom, even if both fleets destroy each other completely, it is still our victory.”

Just then, the camps to the south suddenly erupted with a deafening roar. Everyone was startled and looked south. From the direction of the southern encampment, dust flew up into the air, and rolling sounds like thunder came rolling through. All those present were veterans of battle, and everyone’s expression changed simultaneously — this was unmistakably the surge of a large force of cavalry at full gallop. From the look of it, there were no fewer than ten thousand riders!

“What is happening?” King Harsha shouted.

Immediately a scout returned on horseback: “Your Majesty, Persian cavalry has suddenly appeared thirty li to the south and is driving toward our encampment. They are now less than five li away. General Judhanandatta has led his forces out to meet them!”

“How many cavalry does the Persian force number?” Bani asked urgently.

“Approximately ten thousand riders!” the scout said.

King Harsha’s complexion turned iron-gray: “How did this ten-thousand-strong cavalry cross the Indus River?”

“That… has not yet been determined,” the scout said hesitantly.

Bani smiled bitterly: “Your Majesty, they appeared from the south — they must have bribed the kingdom of Vallabha, crossed the river secretly through Vallabha, then moved through the shoals and wasteland and taken a flanking route.”

At that moment, another group of scouts came to report: “Your Majesty, General Judhanandatta’s entire army has been wiped out! The Persian cavalry has broken into the southern camp!”

“Useless! All of them useless!” King Harsha fumed with rage. “Order the central army to reinforce — the southern camp must be held at all costs!”

Before the words had even died away, from downstream on the Indus River, suddenly a forest of masts appeared. A fleet was driving upstream against the current, bearing down on the entangled battle scene! The fleet was not enormous — about a hundred warships — but it was a completely fresh force. The moment it entered the battle, it launched a fierce attack on the Indian fleet, and the Indian fleet immediately cracked under the pressure, showing signs of rout and collapse.

“So they were building ships in Vallabha!” King Harsha let out a groan. “I underestimated these Persians!”

This was the river-crossing strategy that Yazdegerd III and Firuzan had spent two years planning. They first bribed Vallabha, the kingdom south of Gandhara, and in Vallabha’s harbor built ships while shipping across ten thousand cavalry three days in advance. Then they launched a frontal crossing to seize King Harsha’s attention. When both armies were locked in battle, the cavalry launched a surprise attack to disrupt King Harsha’s deployment, while the secret fleet joined the fighting to destroy the Indian fleet.

The battle situation unfolded exactly as Yazdegerd III had hoped. After the two fleets joined forces to defeat the Indian fleet, they escorted soldiers ashore, while the ten thousand iron cavalry attacked the southern camp with suicidal determination, holding the Indian forces firmly in place. Very quickly, the fleet arrived at the riverbank, and the remaining three thousand infantry leapt from the warships and joined the assault on the southern camp.

It appeared they intended to take the southern camp and use it as their base.

King Harsha’s vision blurred with fury. He ordered the southern camp to be held at any cost. In an instant, Indian troops surged like a tide to reinforce the southern camp. But by that time, more than half the camp had already fallen into enemy hands, and both sides fought over the camp’s stockade walls.

“Your Majesty, Yazdegerd III planned the crossing of the Indus River for two years, having devised every possible measure in advance. Taking some early losses is to be expected,” Bani urged. “As long as we can withstand his initial offensive, he lacks strategic depth and must ultimately lose.”

“The Persian fleet requires an hour for each round trip — we must smash the Persians in the southern camp within that one hour!” King Harsha had also worked it out, and immediately issued orders.

The Persian infantry held the southern camp’s entrance to the death, while the cavalry, besides mopping up the remaining forces inside the camp, concentrated on striking the flanks. Both sides — close to thirty thousand combatants — killed each other in that narrow section of ground until the blood ran like rivers.

Infantry was Persia’s core branch, divided into archers, shield-bearers, spearmen, and slingers — the coordination of these four arms in battle had been the inheritance of the Persian Empire for hundreds of years. Even transported by ships, the troop types remained complete. Three thousand men held the entrance of the southern camp: first the slingers and archers launched a ranged barrage, then when the enemy cavalry charged to close range, they immediately fell back and let the shield-bearers cover the spearmen’s advance. The shields were driven into the ground, and between the points where shields crossed, spears thrust outward in a dense mass — bristling like a thicket of thorns.

The Indian cavalry struck this thicket of thorns first. The forward-charging cavalry tumbled in disarray — some even had their horses and riders impaled on the spears. But still more warhorses smashed the great shields aside and broke into the formation. The Persian warriors immediately rained down blades and spears to kill them.

Yet as wave after wave of Indian cavalry launched reckless charges, the first several lines of the formation were successively destroyed. The heavy infantry, crushed by trampling hooves and slashing curved blades, suffered severe casualties. At the camp entrance, the bodies of men and horses piled up like a mountain, several chi high!

On the outer perimeter, the Persian cavalry struck like a sharp sword at the flanks of the Indian forces. King Harsha personally directed the response, and under the waving of command flags, cavalry met cavalry — both sides’ most elite iron horsemen launched a collision of blood and fire.

Every cavalryman on both sides carried two short javelins and one long spear, along with a sidearm — short swords for the Persians, curved blades for the Indian forces. Both sides charged; as they closed, they threw their short javelins simultaneously. More than ten thousand short javelins filled the sky with their howling, a dense swarm flying toward the enemy. The density was so great that some javelins even collided in midair and fell. But far more struck their targets — whether horse or man, the javelins punched clean through. The leading edge of both charging forces seemed to be suddenly hammered by a violent storm, sweeping one layer after another off their feet. Warriors cried out in agony and fell; warhorses screamed and collapsed. Amid all that chaos, both sides leveled their long spears and met each other in a clash like two howling gales colliding, sending up boundless waves. Within those waves rolled the bodies of men and warhorses.

The forward cavalry of both sides collided and overran each other, and the onrushing mass of cavalry behind them pierced through each other’s formations and crossed to the other side. Long spears and such were now all discarded — the only weapons that could serve were curved blades and short swords. The Indian curved blades drew a single stroke across an enemy’s body — no need for great force; the blade moving at high speed sliced through the adversary’s armor as though cutting butter, dragging a gash more than a chi long, flesh curling back, blood spraying outward. The great majority of Persians cut by such wounds lost their fighting capacity, screaming as they fell from their horses. But some fought on with suicidal ferocity, screaming as they thrust their short swords forward — combined with the momentum of their galloping horses, the crude armor of the Indian forces provided no real resistance, and those struck by the sword, even if not dead, lost their fighting capacity.

The battlefield of the cavalry duel ranged far wider. The entire vicinity of the southern camp became a purgatory of carnage, a sea of blood and slaughter.

King Harsha stood on the high platform, silently watching the battle unfold. He knew it had gotten complicated.

“These Persians who have lost their homeland — they actually possess such blood and courage!” King Harsha murmured.

“Their true elite — the Immortal Regiment — has not yet appeared,” said Bani.

“I am waiting!” King Harsha said coldly.

“This battle has become a grinder of flesh and blood,” Bani sighed. “I wonder whether Yazdegerd III truly dares to stake everything on this gamble?”

“I wager he does not dare!” King Harsha gave a cold, knowing laugh. “Among the world’s kings, he is not a gambler — he is a coward!”

On the Indus River, blood-red sunset.

Both sides fought from the early morning until sundown. The entire territory on the eastern bank of the Indus had been saturated with blood; the earth was as soft as ground that had received a heavy rain. Galloping hooves sank into the wet soil; when pulled free, they dripped red.

King Harsha ultimately failed to retake the southern camp within one hour, and watched helplessly as the Persian fleet transported another wave of warriors. With inner and outer cooperation, they completely annihilated the Indian warriors who had been holding the southern camp. But under Indian obstruction, the Persians also found it extremely difficult to land. The battle had raged an entire day, and only two waves of forces had been brought across. Yet counting the combatants already on the battlefield, the Persians now numbered twenty-five thousand, bringing enormous pressure to bear on King Harsha.

Nevertheless, the overall battle situation remained firmly under King Harsha’s control. He still had close to fifty thousand troops in hand, essentially maintaining comprehensive suppression of the Persian forces.

On the western bank of the Indus, atop the platform at the crossing point.

Yazdegerd III had been standing there an entire day. Over the course of the day, his whole body had grown gaunt, two unhealthy patches of red flushing his cheeks. The high priest and Firuzan stood beside him. Below the platform, three thousand iron cavalry stood in perfect formation — the Persian elite clad from head to toe in an iron shell, man and horse alike: the Immortal Regiment.

At the crossing point, more than a hundred warships were waiting to depart.

“Your Majesty,” Firuzan was urging, “the battle situation is at a complete stalemate, and the Indian forces hold the advantages of terrain and numbers. If we cannot break through the Indian forces in short order, our only possible outcome is total annihilation. It is time to deploy the Immortal Regiment.”

“High Priest, what is your view?” Yazdegerd III was indecisive.

The high priest bowed: “Your Majesty, I understand nothing of military affairs. This is for you and General Firuzan to decide.”

Yazdegerd III looked with reluctance at the Immortal Regiment below his feet: “Firuzan, once the Immortal Regiment crosses the river — can they be guaranteed to defeat the Indian forces?”

Firuzan paused: “That… cannot be guaranteed. Judging from the combat ability of the Indian cavalry, they are far below the standard of the Immortal Regiment. These three thousand warriors could rout their ten-thousand-man legions. Under normal circumstances, once the Immortal Regiment lands, they will certainly deal the Indian forces a mortal blow — but the battlefield situation changes in an instant. I… truly cannot guarantee it.”

“Then have you considered this, Firuzan?” Yazdegerd III was tormented within. “In this war I have already staked thirty thousand warriors. This is fighting in enemy territory, separated from us by the natural barrier of the Indus River. If this battle ends in our defeat, these thirty thousand may not have a single horse make it back alive. If I also commit the Immortal Regiment, who will protect the five or six hundred thousand Persian women and children?”

“Your Majesty,” Firuzan said anxiously, “a river-crossing battle is a gamble with life itself. Win the gamble, and we establish our footing on the far shore. Lose the gamble, and whatever number of people die, they die. We have already committed thirty thousand warriors — we have no choice but to gamble everything, staking all our lives and all our wagers. We Persians: we either win this battle and survive, or we lose this battle and our people are extinguished!”

“Win this battle and survive, or lose this battle and be extinguished!” Yazdegerd III suddenly erupted in fury. “Is that the answer you give me? You want me with a single word to decide the life and death of all the Persian people?” He reached into his robes and drew out a gold coin, passing it to Firuzan. “You toss it! If my grandfather’s side faces up, I will personally lead the Immortal Regiment across the river! Go on — toss it!”

Firuzan took the coin, and his hands immediately began to tremble. One face of the coin bore the sacred fire altar; the other bore Yazdegerd III’s grandfather, Khosrow II. Holding the coin in his hand, he could not find the courage to toss it.

“You see,” Yazdegerd III said with bitter contempt, “with only my own life added to that coin, you already hesitate and cannot decide. Yet the coin in my hand is the fate of all of Persia!”

“Your Majesty,” Firuzan let out a long sigh and returned the coin to the emperor, “this servant should not have placed this decision on your shoulders. Matters of the battlefield are this general’s and supreme commander’s decision to make — and all consequences this servant will bear.”

“Firuzan,” the high priest asked, “what have you decided to do?”

“Leave the Immortal Regiment for His Majesty!” Firuzan smiled, his expression conveying an irrevocable determination. “This servant will take not a single soldier, not a single cavalry — and cross alone, to personally direct the battle. Even if we fight down to the last soldier, this servant will break open the Indus River for His Majesty!”

“Firuzan—” Yazdegerd III was stunned.

Firuzan said nothing more. He bowed deeply, turned, and walked down from the platform. At the crossing point, he boarded a warship, raised the sail, and set off for the far shore.

The sunset hung vast and dim. The Indus River shimmered with waves and light. That single warship set out gallantly through the reflections of waves and the setting sun, and Firuzan never looked back.

“Ah—” Yazdegerd III suddenly pounded frantically on the platform railing, tears streaming down his face.

Firuzan’s warship reached the far shore, and Persian cavalry immediately escorted him into the southern camp. The Persian military was organized on four levels — ten-man units, hundred-man units, thousand-man units, and ten-thousand-man units, the last also called legions. Persia had committed three legions in total to this operation. Of the three legion commanders, one had already died in battle; the remaining two, Heroun and Niudoman, came forward to pay their respects.

“Why has the Supreme Commander come alone?” Heroun asked with alarm.

“His Majesty dispatched me to take command of the overall situation,” said Firuzan. “What is the current situation? Can we defeat King Harsha with these forces?”

The two legion commanders exchanged a glance and shook their heads: “All the battle lines are in stalemate. We have been fighting a grinding battle all day long — our soldiers are exhausted and may not be able to hold out.”

Firuzan ascended a watchtower and surveyed the surrounding battlefield. The entire scene was a confused tangle — Persians and Indians locked together inextricably. In such a situation, unless one side was entirely wiped out or completely collapsed, neither could withdraw from the field.

To the north of the battlefield could be seen a great banner standard — King Harsha’s royal standard. When Firuzan inquired, he learned that since midday, King Harsha had moved to the front lines in person to supervise the fighting.

“What are the casualties?” Firuzan asked.

“Rough estimate — our forces have sustained thirteen thousand casualties, with approximately twelve thousand remaining,” said Heroun. “Enemy casualties are approximately twenty thousand. But the Indian forces are numerous and should still have around thirty thousand.”

“The fighting has been so bloody!” Firuzan was inwardly shaken. “How many troops are in reserve?”

“Only a thousand remain,” said Niudoman.

“Hand them to me!” said Firuzan. “I will personally lead them, thread through the gap between the infantry and cavalry engagements, cut down the commander, seize the royal standard, and kill King Harsha!”

Both men were greatly alarmed and tried to dissuade him. But Firuzan’s resolve was set. He knew clearly that if the Persian legions could not defeat the Indian forces in short order, there was only one possible outcome: total annihilation.

Firuzan wasted not a single moment. He led the thousand cavalry sweeping out, rounding the southeast corner of the southern camp and cutting diagonally into the battlefield. Along the way, he skirted large Indian formations and simply trampled through small ones. The thousand cavalry were like a hurricane sweeping through the battlefield — or perhaps a specter — savage and ferocious, yet somehow sliding through in ghostly silence, surging toward King Harsha’s central army.

This cavalry force was not small, yet neither was it large. On a battlefield involving four or five tens of thousands of fighters in total, it attracted little attention. Only when they had come to within one li of King Harsha’s central army did the Indian forces notice something was wrong. They immediately assembled troops to cut them off.

Firuzan bellowed: “Accelerate!”

A thousand cavalry simultaneously spurred their horses to a full sprint, surging like an arrow toward King Harsha’s central army. When they reached the simple stockade wall, they did not slow at all — the front riders charged straight through man and horse together, crashing through the stockade wall and sweeping inside!

This threw the Indian forces into complete panic. Shouting furiously, they came converging from all sides. But Firuzan had no intention of engaging them in close combat — a single touch and he was gone, weaving and charging through the central army, searching for a gap to break through.

In King Harsha’s command tent, he was listening to reports from the front lines. Scouts had been keeping watch on the Persian crossing point and noticed a single warship enter the eastern shore, but only one person disembarked, immediately picked up by cavalry and taken away. King Harsha was greatly puzzled, asking carefully about the person’s appearance, yet could make no sense of it.

“Your Majesty,” Bani thought for a moment, frowning. “From the look of that person, it seems to be the Persian supreme commander, Firuzan.”

“Firuzan?” King Harsha was startled. “Why would he come alone?”

As the two of them were still wondering, the command tent outside suddenly erupted with a sound like heaven and earth crumbling, followed immediately by the sounds of close combat, agonized screaming, and the thunder of iron hooves — seeming as though directly at hand.

Imperial guards came rushing into the tent to report: “Your Majesty, Persian cavalry is launching a surprise attack on the central army! They are less than one hundred bow-lengths from the royal tent!”

King Harsha’s expression darkened. He drew his treasured blade and stepped out of the tent. The imperial guards around him quickly raised great shields, surrounding him on all sides in a protective circle. King Harsha stepped out and looked: not far away, a force of Persian cavalry was running rampant and unchecked, moving like a long dragon through his central army, cutting a bloody path, pressing ever closer to the royal tent. At the fore was a general, his hair and beard slightly grayed — from his appearance, it was the very man they had just been discussing, Firuzan.

Bani’s expression grew grave: “Your Majesty, it appears Firuzan is coming specifically for you. Best to withdraw for the time being!”

“Why should I flee?” King Harsha fumed. “I have tens of thousands of troops, yet I am to flee in panic from a thousand men?”

But the situation had already moved beyond King Harsha’s control. Firuzan’s surprise attack had caught him with his main forces on the outer perimeter; only two or three thousand men in the central army could converge to intercept. Yet these thousand cavalrymen fought with utter disregard for death — even if wounded by a blade, they would grapple the opponent and drag him down from his horse. In half a shi-chen, the thousand men had suffered seven or eight hundred casualties — a testament to the ferocity of the fighting.

At the cost of seven or eight hundred lives, Firuzan finally cut through the central army and bore down on King Harsha’s command tent. Bani, regardless of King Harsha’s fury, had him helped onto a horse and retreating rapidly. The moment King Harsha withdrew, the surrounding Indian forces quickly pressed in to protect him. The pressure on Firuzan eased suddenly, and seeing his warriors poised to continue the pursuit, Firuzan knew that the opportunity to kill King Harsha had already been lost.

“Cut down the royal standard!” Firuzan bellowed.

Over two hundred riders wheeled their horses and swept toward the position of the royal standard. Blades hacked and swords slashed, and the royal standard was brought down. The standard, tens of zhang high, came crashing to the ground.

This was a major event. In the chaos of battle, the royal standard was nearly a symbol in itself, serving simultaneously as a tool for directing the battle. A fallen royal standard was, for the battlefield, practically equivalent to the king’s death. In an instant, the Indian legions’ morale faltered, and signs of retreat and collapse immediately appeared.

“Does anyone speak Sanskrit?” Firuzan called.

“A little,” several cavalrymen answered.

“Shout for me: King Harsha is dead!” Firuzan said.

The two hundred cavalry ceased fighting and swept across different parts of the battlefield. Wherever they went, they shouted out loud: “King Harsha is dead!”

To the Indian forces’ morale, this was a devastating, crushing blow. With tens of thousands of fighters divided among a dozen or more separate engagements, some sectors of the battle immediately began to show a decisive imbalance. The Indian forces grew panic-stricken and began to fall back. The Persian legions pressed their counterattack. In an instant, beginning from the margins of the battlefield, the Indian forces fell back like a retreating tide — it seemed as though, any moment, the collapse would sweep across the entire battlefield.

Protected by thousands of cavalry, King Harsha stood at the rear, his eyes practically going black with fury.

“Firuzan!” King Harsha roared. “If I do not kill you, I swear I am not worthy of being called a man!”

Bani was also alarmed: “Your Majesty, we must stop this! Once a rout is set in motion, fifty thousand men are no different from fifty thousand pigs — they will all eventually be slaughtered by the Persians.”

“Hmph!” King Harsha fumed. “It seems I was not wrong about Yazdegerd III — he truly is a gutless wretch who cannot bring himself to gamble. Issue the order — it is time to utterly annihilate the Persians.”

“The order was overdue, Your Majesty,” Bani exhaled with relief.

King Harsha shook his head: “If it were not for Firuzan driving me to such a sorry state, I would still wish to wait for the Immortal Regiment. Having sacrificed so greatly, and yet not annihilating the Immortal Regiment — I truly cannot stomach that.”

“Hmm.” Bani gave a wry smile. “Being able to put Firuzan to death is its own reward.”

King Harsha sighed with regret and issued the command.

By now, dusk had fallen over the Indus River. Armor gleamed in the fading light; swords and spears flashed back its rays. And there on that brutal battlefield, suddenly the ground began to tremble — then a sound like thunder that shook the heavens erupted. After a full day of fighting, a considerable amount of blood had pooled on the ground. Now the earth pounded like a drum, and in the blood pools, droplets of blood flew into the air.

Both Persians and Indians looked up in astonishment in the same moment. A wall had suddenly appeared on the battlefield!

It was a dense, arrayed column of war elephants — more than five hundred in all. Every one of them was as large as a small hill. Sharp blades were strapped to their tusks, iron helmets adorned their heads, and even their bodies were clad in iron armor. The war elephants formed a line extending two li in width, advancing from the north, east, and south in a three-sided encirclement — like a great city wall being pushed forward, intending to drive the Persians into the Indus River!

The Indian forces, in the process of forming a rout, immediately found their courage restored at the arrival of the war elephants. Under the direction of their officers at all levels, the Indian legions retreated behind the war elephants and reorganized their formations. Some even directly followed the war elephants in launching a counterattack. On the back of each war elephant rode a wooden fortress, carrying five soldiers — one mahout, two spearmen, and two archers. As these warriors surged forward with the war elephants, they thrust with spears in close combat and shot arrows at range, like a moving fortress of war.

The Persians had been fighting all day and could already see victory within their grasp — now they suddenly met the war elephant corps, and terror overtook them. Before these monstrous creatures, neither man nor horse could withstand a blow. When the tusks swung, men and horses caught by them flew through the air. Some were crushed under an elephant’s foot and turned to paste. Some Persians with great bravado rose up and hacked off trunks with their swords, or hurled spears to pierce through elephant hide — yet these very acts only provoked the great beasts into a frenzy. Countless rampaging war elephants charged and stampeded across the battlefield without restraint.

Especially since most of the Persians were still tangled with the Indian legions. Once the war elephants arrived, the Indian forces immediately took refuge behind them, and whenever the Persians pursued, the war elephants and their riders cut them down. Very quickly, great numbers of Indian soldiers clustered around each war elephant, following behind them as they thundered forward, rolling over the Persians.

The moment Firuzan saw the war elephant corps appear, he knew at once that the battle’s defeat was now inevitable. The Persians too had once kept war elephants, and he had methods to deal with them — but at this point, the Persian legions had been fragmented into separate sections and could not mount large-scale resistance.

The battle situation underwent an instant reversal. The Persians, who had been in pursuit only moments before, now fell into a state of collapse, driven back under the pressure of the war elephants, and this in turn swept more and more Persians into retreat. The entire battlefield was like a great flatbread being rolled up by elephants, entirely enveloping the Persian legions. In an instant, Persian casualties grew severe.

“Niudoman,” Firuzan said, his expression stern, finding Niudoman in the midst of bloody fighting. “Go and find Heroun. The tide cannot be turned — lead our warriors to the ships and retreat.”

“Supreme Commander, we cannot retreat,” Niudoman bellowed. “Once we retreat, the entire position collapses. In the end, not a single man will be able to leave!”

“I will remain,” Firuzan said. “Plant the Persian battle standard at my feet. I will not retreat another step!”

“Supreme Commander!” Niudoman froze, and suddenly hot tears welled in his eyes. “Let someone else carry the order! I will stay with the Supreme Commander!”

Niudoman gave the command, had the Persian battle standard planted at Firuzan’s feet, and explained the situation to the soldiers. To the astonishment of all, three thousand men voluntarily chose to fight to the death so as to cover their comrades’ escape. At this point, the Persians across the entire battlefield had been completely defeated. Once collapse set in, the bravest of warriors would see their blood-courage instantly desert them, fleeing like stray dogs in a panic. Firuzan led the three thousand infantry and blockaded the entrance of the southern camp once again, covering the fleeing soldiers’ entry into the camp to board the ships.

And facing them, the Indian forces and their war elephants came on like a steel great wall, surging forward in waves. Firuzan led these three thousand in a fight to the death. They burned the encampment’s structures to drive back the elephants, using their bodies to block Indian spears and arrows. They were completely surrounded, yet not a single man retreated. They were like a reef battered by waves, worn thinner and thinner with each wave, yet never once moving. Three thousand men, stubbornly holding out for two full shi-chen, with barely three hundred remaining — and still they had not retreated. The bodies piled before Firuzan stood three to four chi high, and the fighting had left even the Indian forces deeply shaken.

At that point King Harsha rode up on his fine horse, protected by his imperial guards, and walked to the front lines. He frowned as he watched Firuzan and his men, then sighed: “Firuzan — a renowned Persian general of his generation, yet he must die here.”

“Shall we take him alive?” Bani asked.

King Harsha shook his head: “Grant him the most dignified of deaths.”

At Bani’s command, the longbow company moved up. One-person-height great bows were planted into the ground. Both hands drew the bowstrings, and with a great humming sound, five hundred arrows flew forward.

“Protect the Supreme Commander!” the Persian warriors shouted and threw themselves in front of Firuzan, letting the arrows pierce through their bodies as they fell. Immediately another group of warriors placed their flesh and blood in front of Firuzan to meet the arrows. “Thud, thud, thud” — the dull sounds of arrowheads entering flesh rang out. Persian warriors fell in succession. After several volleys of arrows, only four or five men remained standing.

Firuzan was now riddled with several arrows — one had even passed clean through his body. Yet supported by the last few warriors, using the sword in his hand as a prop against the ground, he stood upright without yielding.

“Firuzan!” King Harsha walked forward. “I respect you as a hero. Allow me to ask you one thing — will you surrender?”

Firuzan laughed heartily: “King Harsha — are you insulting yourself?”

King Harsha was silent for a moment, then nodded and said: “I apologize to you. If you wish to take your own life, please do as you will.”

Firuzan shook his head: “A true man dies on the battlefield — it is an honorable death.”

King Harsha sighed, and with a wave of his hand said: “Bid farewell to Supreme Commander Firuzan!”

Firuzan burst into great laughter, and together with the last few surviving warriors, they sang the ancient liturgical hymns of Zoroastrianism:

“We praise the pure, good, and mighty spirit-bodies of the righteous, who are the most agile of riders, the most ingenious of leaders, the most steadfast of supporters, the most irresistible of weapons. We praise the pure, good, and mighty spirit-bodies of the righteous. They form armies beyond counting, clad in armor and bearing sharp weapons, aloft their gleaming banner—”

The bowmen drew their bows in unison and loosed them simultaneously. The song came to an abrupt end. A multitude of arrows pierced Firuzan through. His body was held upright by the long arrows — dead, yet not falling.

“Go around his remains — do not trample them,” King Harsha instructed.

The Indian forces quickly broke into the stockade from various points and pursued all the way to the riverbank, launching a slaughter of the Persians who were retreating and boarding the ships. In the two shi-chen that Firuzan had held out, one wave of soldiers had already boarded ships and left. But there were still four or five thousand men ashore, and the ships had just returned to the bank when the Indian forces arrived.

Pressed back against the riverbank, the Persians’ will to resist collapsed entirely. Weeping and crying for their fathers and mothers, they scrambled to board the ships to escape. More than a hundred warships could carry no more than three thousand people at most, yet everyone was pushing and shoving. Some ships that had not yet set sail were rocked by the waves and capsized, sinking straight into the river. Others collided and both went down together.

On the water’s surface, everywhere were floating planks and soldiers. Some soldiers who could swim still struggled, while others sank straight to the bottom and became floating corpses. Tens of thousands of Indian forces reached the riverbank and launched a bloody slaughter of the remaining Persians. The Persians wept and screamed, driven step by step to the water’s edge — taken as prisoners, or, more commonly, forced into the water and swept away by the current.

When the moon rose vast and dim, the fighting ended completely.

In this battle, the Indian forces suffered thirty thousand casualties, while of the thirty thousand Persians who had landed, only slightly more than six thousand escaped back to the far shore, over twenty thousand were killed in battle, and three thousand were taken prisoner. On paper, the numbers appeared roughly equal. But everyone knew that the Persians were the utter losers.

King Harsha gave the order: on the banks of the Indus, the three thousand prisoners were all to be beheaded. Their bodies were thrown into the river; their heads were loaded onto a ship and transported to the far shore.

Bani was greatly alarmed and remonstrated: “Your Majesty, killing prisoners brings ill fortune — it is contrary to the will of heaven!”

King Harsha gave a cold laugh: “Since I may attain immortality and need not face the judgment of the Ni Li Hell, why should I concern myself with the will of heaven? Kill them all — I wish to overawe all under heaven with the blood of the Persians!”

The moon rose to the center of the sky. Yazdegerd III still stood at the water’s edge, waiting with bitter longing. He waited for the news of defeat, waited for the first shipload of routed soldiers, waited for the second shipload of routed soldiers, waited for his legion commander Heroun — but he could not wait for his supreme commander Firuzan.

Yazdegerd III uncrowned himself, let down his hair, knelt on the riverbank, and wept openly.

Just at that moment, in the light of the moon shimmering on the waves, a boat came drifting lazily down the river. The boat rode low in the water — whatever was stacked on it formed a small mountain. Yazdegerd III’s heart swelled with hope, and he had people pull the boat over. When the boat was dragged close, a piercing smell of blood hit them full in the face. Then everyone was stunned. Yazdegerd III sat down on the ground.

On the boat, three thousand heads had been stacked into a tower. At the boat’s prow lay Firuzan’s complete body, with more than thirty arrows still lodged in it!

Yazdegerd III swayed and staggered to his feet, then suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground.

It was on this evening’s dusk that Xuanzang arrived at the banks of the Indus River and crossed from downstream of the battlefield. Two boats carried a full load — two boats of scriptures, commentary texts, Buddha images, elephants, and horses. When the boats reached mid-river, an endless stream of corpses came drifting down from upstream, packed densely, overlapping and intertwined, rising and falling in the river water. In the reflected glow of the setting sun, the river water was almost stained deep crimson — the entire Indus River seemed like a giant whose head had been struck off, gushing a whole river’s worth of blood from its cavity.

The boats made their way through corpses and bloodied water, the stench striking the nose full force. Xuanzang stood at the ship’s prow and gazed blankly — at the river full of corpses, and then back at the scriptures and commentary texts piled in the ship’s hold. He suddenly knelt down with a thud on the deck. Seventeen years of westward pilgrimage, the return of these boatloads of true scriptures — how many human tragedies could they dissolve? All the way, carrying the true scriptures in his hands; all the way, walking through carnage and slaughter. Xuanzang suddenly felt the things of this world were so bitterly ironic.

The Indus had great waves. Suddenly a storm struck — the wave crests blood-red. The great waves swept up the river’s full cargo of corpses and the wreckage of warships and came crashing against the vessel. Countless severed limbs, corpses, and fragments of ship’s wood pounded the flagship. A good number of people were knocked straight into the river. Fortunately, under the protection of the pure servants, Xuanzang was unharmed — yet fifty bundles of scripture scrolls were knocked overboard.

In this moment of danger, a Persian warship that had remained on watch on the river broke through the waves, used ropes to secure Xuanzang’s flagship, and towed it to the opposite shore. The moment they heard it was the Dharma Master Xuanzang, the Persians quickly went to inform Yazdegerd III.

Yazdegerd III came urgently to see Xuanzang. They had not met for more than half a year, and the young Yazdegerd III now appeared to have aged more than ten years — his golden hair had taken on streaks of white, his expression haggard and exhausted, his face carved with deep wrinkles.

Yazdegerd III was supported by others as he came forward and bowed deeply, his face a picture of bitter resignation: “When I failed to heed Wang Xuance’s words that day, I have regretted it ever since. I wonder whether the Dharma Master has any words of counsel for me?”

Xuanzang thought for a moment and said: “Does Your Majesty know why, when this humble monk was crossing the river, he encountered wind and waves, and scripture scrolls fell into the water?”

Yazdegerd III shook his head in puzzlement.

“There is an old tradition passed down throughout India: in the Indus River dwell divine beings. They guard the vast land of India and protect India’s treasures. Once someone attempts to carry away the treasures of India, the river gods will overturn their boat and let these treasures sink to the bottom of the river.” Xuanzang said. “The true scriptures this humble monk has sought, the land you would take — these are India’s true treasures!”

Yazdegerd III silently let out a sigh and said nothing more.

Xuanzang pressed his palms together and departed. The westward pilgrimage road — whether the going or the returning — was ultimately Xuanzang’s road alone. He set his feet once more upon the long road home.