The wind bends the grass before it.

Though autumn had come, the heat in the air had not yet broken. Past Xinzhou city, fewer and fewer travelers could be seen along the roads and among the hills, and the wind occasionally carried a scorched, acrid smell. Shi Jin knew it well — the smell of bodies that had been burned.

The Jin army itself had not yet arrived, but the vanguard of the Yisheng Army — those Liao remnants who had submitted to the Jurchen at Yanmen Pass — had already been rampaging through the area around Xinzhou in successive waves. By the time Shi Jin and his six companions passed through Xinzhou, the whole city had already gone under martial law; the scattered remnants of the Wu Victory Army, along with half the nearby Wu Might Army, had already retreated into Xinzhou, preparing to hold the city walls and strike out when opportunity arose. On the roads elsewhere, though, still more people kept pressing south, hoping to reach a major city like Taiyuan.

Being men of the wilderness, Shi Jin and his companions moved swiftly. They had set out that evening, following the post road north; by the deep of night, the road ahead had already grown congested, so they took a roundabout path, slipping past Xinzhou around midnight. Great numbers of soldiers were pouring in through the city gates, torches stretching in an unbroken line, lighting up the whole city and its ancient walls; the sound of weeping and chaotic commotion made the night as clamorous as broad day. But once they’d passed beyond Xinzhou, the light gradually died away, and the seven of them found themselves as though entering some primeval wilderness, choosing their path with great care, slowing their pace.

In the hours between the deepest dark and dawn, the valleys lay in strange silence. Now and then a point or two of torchlight could be glimpsed — likely villagers moving through the nearby hills, left behind by the main flood of refugees, still fleeing south. They might not have been safe, but at least, in the depths of this night, the great armies would move no further.

Pressing on, they occasionally caught the smell of scorched corpses, traces left from around the previous evening. As dawn approached, mist began rising in the wilderness; by early morning, the white fog had joined and spread unbroken, and as the group led their horses quietly down a ridge, they saw a dim red glow burning faintly within the mist ahead.

It was the sign of fire, yet no human voices accompanied it. They advanced through the fog like ships sailing through open sea, and the smell of char grew steadily stronger. The man in front spotted the first body — lying in the little stream that encircled a village. Ahead stood a narrow stone bridge, and past the bridge, a corpse hung from a great tree. Further on, the scene came into sharper focus: part of the village was still burning, but far more of it had already burned down to embers.

Charred and unburned bodies alike appeared before their eyes, a horrifying sight — this was a mountain village that had been massacred, and had burned for most of the night since.

Not a single living soul remained.

Some of the houses ahead had already collapsed, and the road running through the village was blocked as well; they skirted around it in silence. In the drifting mist, the burning ruins of the village crackled beside them, and as they passed, more half-consumed structures collapsed, throwing up white smoke — like some great vessel, seized and set ablaze, sinking upon the sea.

Amid the fog, the seven of them led their horses forward, and strangely enough, no one spoke a word the whole way. Men who ran with the wilderness folk had, most of them, seen blood on their own hands to one degree or another — Shi Jin himself had witnessed slaughter at Liangshan, and likely so had some of the other six. But perhaps no sight before had ever given them quite this feeling of being utterly submerged. No single army or band of bandits, however great, could produce a sense of devastation as overwhelming as this force sweeping in with the might of an entire nation behind it — because everyone understood that the very same scene was, at this moment, likely playing out in countless other places nearby.

“This time the Jin dogs marched south — the general commanding this western column is Nianhan.”

Once they’d passed the village, the wiry, sharp-eyed man walking at the front finally spoke up in a low voice. His name was Qian Fei; he’d made something of a name for himself moving about the Yanmen Pass region. “Nianhan” was the Jurchen given name of Wanyan Zonghan.

“Grandmaster Zhou has been following this army ever since he arrived up north, just to scout out their true strength. Nianhan is one of the very best at the Jin court — if we can kill him, the pressure of this entire column might be lifted.”

Of the seven, apart from Shi Jin and Qian Fei, the remaining five split into two groups. Three of them — the ones who’d first gathered at that tavern — had clearly spent considerable time in the wilderness; they were called “Bronze Hand” Wei Bao, “Heavy Blade” Fang Ya, and “Iron Hook” Chen Xiuqing. The other two were somewhat younger, one wielding a saber and the other a sword, said to have some skill with hidden weapons besides; they were known as the “Twin Heroes of Hebei” — one named Chen Xi, the other Tang Zuhan — though neither seemed to carry much of a reputation. According to what they’d said, they’d heard the storytelling put on by Bamboo Records and come to believe that true chivalry meant serving country and people; upon hearing news of the Jurchen marching south, they’d felt they ought to come do something to resist.

A moment’s hot blood could hardly make up for unsteady hands. To Shi Jin’s eye, aside from Qian Fei’s lightness skills, the rest of them ranged from middling to below-middling by the standards of the martial world — and as for the “Twin Heroes of Hebei,” even their temperament wasn’t especially steady; after passing Xinzhou, they’d both grown visibly jittery. But there was little use asking for more, under the circumstances.

As the sun rose, they heard the sound of hoofbeats shaking the earth. Qian Fei, the sharp-eyed one, said, “We’re nearly at Dai County.” They left their horses temporarily in a stand of woods and crept forward on foot; by the time they reached the edge of the trees, they could just make out the city walls in the distance.

A troop of Jurchen cavalry came galloping past along the road outside, and on the distant walls, the men standing guard were already Jurchen soldiers as well.

Columns of smoke rose from within the city, drifting up into the sky, and from the county town came a jumble of faint, fragmented sounds — as if countless people were whispering among themselves, mixed with screams and shrill cries. The group lay in the grass listening for a moment; Qian Fei’s fist struck the ground. “The city’s fallen…”

“Old Master Zhou… how do we reach him?” Tang Zuhan asked anxiously.

Qian Fei shook his head. “I don’t know either. When I came south, it was my master who kept in contact with Elder Zhou. With things as dangerous as they are now, I’ve no idea where Elder Zhou might be. If he’s inside the city… we might have to wait until dark before we can slip in and search for him…”

“The Jurchen are massacring the whole city,” Chen Xiuqing said through gritted teeth. “Even if we get in, will we actually find Elder Zhou?”

“We still have to try.”

“Let’s circle the city and see if there’s a good gap to slip through anywhere…” Shi Jin lowered his voice, crawling backward through the grass. The others accepted his suggestion and withdrew into the woods, circling around.

Perhaps because the Jurchen, having fully taken the city, had also swept outward to kill through the surrounding area, there were signs of people having fled through these woods as well — arrows stuck in the ground here and there, and occasionally bodies exposed in the underbrush, the smell of blood hanging thick in the air. Now and then, small Jurchen patrols could be seen moving through the trees, but fortunately all of the group had some skill; Qian Fei was highly accomplished in lightness footwork and concealment, and Shi Jin’s inner strength ran deep, so avoiding these idle patrols wasn’t especially difficult. But when they caught sight of Dai County’s south gate, a shocking scene appeared before them once more.

At the mouth of the south gate, civilian corpses had been piled up — hundreds of them by the look of it. The smell of blood had already stained the road red, even pooling into small marshes of gore at the roadside. Some bodies had been impaled or hung from flagpoles or the gate itself. At the sight of this, Tang Zuhan of the “Twin Heroes” clapped a hand over his mouth, nearly retching. Qian Fei, gazing into the distance from within the shadow of a tree, after a moment, dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face, and slowly began kowtowing.

“The one… on the gate… that’s my master…” was all he said. Of the group, only Shi Jin had skill enough to make out clearly the corpses hanging from the gate, but even he had no way of knowing that the “master” Qian Fei spoke of was that near-dwarfish body up there, hacked almost in two.

At that same moment, sounds carried down from the wall above, and then two naked, pale-skinned bodies were shoved off the wall by shouting Jurchen soldiers, falling to their deaths below.

Qian Fei clenched his jaw and said in a low voice, “Let’s move on, see if there’s anywhere nearby we can get in…”

So they circled about once more, but in the end could find no way to slip in during daylight, and so hid themselves in the nearby woods. Occasionally Qian Fei and the others would creep close to the walls to check on things; as the sun climbed higher, the massacre unfolding within the city grew steadily clearer, carrying to them from a distance like sounds bleeding through a single wall separating them from hell itself. No one could say how many people were being dragged out, killed, defiled, and violated within the fallen city. Even Shi Jin, by this point, could only clench his teeth in silence. Around noon, he heard the “Twin Heroes of Hebei” discussing going out to kill some Jurchen themselves.

“There have to be some who’ve gotten separated from the rest — I’ll go fight them to the death…”

“One kill is one kill, two is a pair — I can’t stand this anymore…”

Qian Fei clenched his fists. “Would it mean anything? Would it actually mean anything?”

“Things have gone this badly, and we can’t even find Grandmaster Zhou — if he’s in there, by now he might already have, might already have…”

Though they spoke this way, in the end none of them actually charged out to throw their lives away. By afternoon, sunlight filtered down through gaps in the trees; Shi Jin looked up at it and found himself suddenly at a loss over his own rash decision to come north. He had certainly considered the possibility of dying in this war, and had considered the possibility of turning back and fleeing — but having come this far with Qian Fei and the others, only to be unable to find the Zhou Tong he’d hoped to meet, was something he truly hadn’t anticipated.

Wanting to see Zhou Tong was, in part, a lingering sense of loyalty toward his brother Lin Chong — but even if he did find him, there might be nothing much to say. He could accept fighting to the death, or accept fleeing, but simply sitting here not knowing what to do felt rather foolish — especially in an environment like this one, with the Jurchen massacring the whole city, people dying every single moment, not knowing what to do felt especially foolish indeed.

Perhaps it would be better to give up looking for Zhou Tong and simply break off from this group. Then, whether he turned back, fought to the death, or slipped into the city himself, everything would be far simpler. Such a thought was rising in his mind when Qian Fei, Wei Bao, Fang Ya, and Chen Xiuqing, who had gone off to scout the walls, and the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

Shi Jin and the “Twin Heroes of Hebei” hurried to the edge of the woods, but found only Qian Fei there alone. Off to one side, Jurchen banners were streaming out from Dai County’s south gate, a cavalry formation spreading out — like some vast torrent of warhorses and banners. Shi Jin asked Qian Fei about the other three; Qian Fei said, “The Jurchen are marching out of the city — they’re headed to attack Xinzhou. The other three circled off to see if there’s anywhere the Jurchen have pulled back their defenses.”

“They haven’t pulled back the defenses,” Shi Jin said quietly, watching the patrolling soldiers atop the wall. “Only some of them have marched out — the rest are still inside, still killing. Before nightfall… we probably still won’t be able to get in.”

Qian Fei nodded silently. The group hid in the shadows, not far at all from the great column of Jurchen marching south out of the city. They watched for a long while like this, and then saw civilians being driven out from behind. Most had their hands bound with long ropes, men and women, young and old, strung together in long lines; Jurchen cavalry drove them forward mercilessly with whips, and the low buzzing sound of weeping filled the air. The wretched sight stirred in them a genuine urge to charge out.

Shi Jin watched for a while longer, then, gritting his teeth, pressed his hands down on the shoulders of the “Twin Heroes of Hebei” and said in a low voice, “Let’s go. Back.”

Returning to the spot where they’d hidden before, the group still trembled with suppressed rage. But the other three hadn’t come back yet. After a while, sounds of commotion rose not far off — someone shouting, “Go! Run! Ahh—” Shi Jin recognized the voice: it was Fang Ya, “Heavy Blade,” one of the three.

Weapons in hand, they rushed toward the sound. On the other side lay the edge of the woods as well — a rugged, rocky slope. As they burst through, they saw “Heavy Blade” Fang Ya and “Iron Hook” Chen Xiuqing running upward, leading two other people with them. The two — a man and a woman, evidently commoners — were in terrible shape: the man covered in blood, the woman in tattered clothes barely covering her body. Chasing behind them, closing in, were five Jurchen cavalrymen, one of them carrying a severed human head.

It was the head of Wei Bao, “Bronze Hand.”

They hadn’t even reached Dai County yet, hadn’t even gotten inside, and already one of their companions was dead. Though they’d known the man’s skills weren’t especially formidable, it still struck at something inside them — a bitter sense of futility before they’d even begun.

The “Twin Heroes of Hebei” shouted and charged out together. Shi Jin gritted his teeth, closed the distance in a few strides, leaping past the two of them, and sprinted down the slope. Seeing reinforcements arrive, one of the five Jurchen cavalrymen suddenly loosed a signal arrow, which shot skyward and burst. Just then, “Heavy Blade” Fang Ya was struck by a charging horseman’s spear-thrust and sent flying, coughing blood, into the air. On the other side, Shi Jin had already closed the distance from the slope; a Jurchen cavalryman thrust his spear at him, and Shi Jin leapt into the air, his body curling like a monkey’s, then suddenly exploding outward!

With a resounding crack, his staff, carrying tremendous momentum, sent the Jurchen rider flying, his organs surely shattered within. The warhorse, thrown off balance by the force of the blow, stumbled and tumbled down the slope in a great rumbling crash, kicking up clouds of dust and broken stone.

“End this quickly!”

Knowing the enemy had fired a signal arrow, and that nearby Jurchen patrols would come at any moment, Shi Jin gave a low shout, swinging his long staff through the dust as he charged forward. Qian Fei and the “Twin Heroes of Hebei” had already rushed in as well, and together with “Iron Hook” Chen Xiuqing, they clashed suddenly with the remaining four riders.

On the battlefield, victory or defeat is often decided in the span of a few breaths. Qian Fei and Chen Xiuqing struck almost simultaneously, taking down one cavalryman; Chen Xi and Tang Zuhan knocked another off his horse. Shi Jin alone fought two — he struck one man off his mount, and as another rider charged at high speed, Shi Jin’s wooden staff crossed past the man’s spear and slammed into his body, shattering with the impact, sending the man tumbling through the air several times before crashing to the ground. Shi Jin snatched up the fallen spear and turned to finish off the other unhorsed rider, stabbing him where he lay.

Turning around, he saw Chen Xi of the “Twin Heroes” standing dazed not far off. He and Tang Zuhan had brought down one Jurchen cavalryman, but the man had fought back with ferocious strength — drawing his blade, he’d charged, and though the two of them together had managed to get Tang Zuhan’s blade into the man’s head (the blade still lodged there even now), the Jurchen’s last swing had severed Chen Xi’s right hand. Blood now sprayed from the stump; Tang Zuhan stood beside him, at a total loss, while Chen Xi simply stared blankly — first at his own shoulder, then at the sword-gripping arm lying on the ground. As sunlight poured down, his body swayed, and he sat back heavily.

Shi Jin rushed over, pressed several acupoints hard near the severed stump, then tore a strip of cloth from his own clothes and bound the wound tightly at the shoulder. Chen Xi remained dazed, unresponsive. Not far off, “Iron Hook” Chen Xiuqing, breathing hard, spoke to Qian Fei and Shi Jin. “We, we, we… we went to look at the wall… saw these Jurchen doing evil things… there were only six of them, we thought we could definitely win, we thought…”

The three of them had gone together, but now Wei Bao and Fang Ya were both dead, leaving him the only one. Shi Jin turned and barked, “Mount up! Move!” Qian Fei had already swung himself onto a horse; Chen Xiuqing, still shaken, mounted another. Chen Xi pointed with his left hand at the severed arm on the ground. “My hand, my hand…”

“Your hand is gone!” Shi Jin barked, then turned to Tang Zuhan. “Get him moving, fast!” In the distance, arrows came whistling toward them! Some ten-odd Jurchen patrol riders were already closing in.

Shi Jin grabbed up the stolen spear and swung onto a horse; Tang Zuhan hurriedly hauled Chen Xi up onto another. Chen Xi, voice choked with sobs, spoke rapidly, “My hand, oh, my hand…” as though utterly unaware that the blood from his severed arm had already soaked half his body.

Qian Fei spurred his horse forward and scooped up the ragged-clothed woman from the slope, laying her across his saddle. Shi Jin charged over too, reaching to grab the bloodied man as well, but his hand closed on empty air — looking closer, he saw an arrow had pierced the man’s back; he had already fallen and lay motionless.

Shi Jin reined in his horse and fixed his gaze on the ten-odd Jurchen riders closing in. They drew their bows and fired; Shi Jin whirled his spear, knocking the arrows aside in a rapid clatter, and with a few low shouts and glances, signaled the others to run on ahead. Only once they had gotten some distance away did he turn his horse and gallop off in a slightly different direction.

Before long, the Jurchen patrol split into two groups, and the larger one turned to pursue in the direction Shi Jin had fled.

Warhorses chased, fled, and fought, plunging into the hills. And on the road running parallel to them, a terrifying Jurchen army was marching south toward Xinzhou in great force, sweeping along vast numbers of Wu Dynasty civilians caught up in its wake — every moment, someone dying under the whip, dying amid the weeping.

…

Night fell, the sun sinking below the horizon. In the faint glow of starlight, a Jurchen horseman stood among the hills, sword in hand, listening quietly to the sounds around him. At some moment, he suddenly turned toward a certain direction, raised his bow, and let fly; hoofbeats came pounding in swiftly, a warhorse’s shape crashing forward, colliding violently with the one beneath him. The two horses collided with a heavy, muffled crash in the darkness, an arrow trailing a streak of blood as it shot off into the night sky. Both riders were thrown from their mounts, tumbling several times across the ground before rising to their feet.

The Jurchen warrior gripped his blade; the man across from him stood, rolled his shoulder once, his frame solid, tall, well-proportioned, wounds visible on his body and blood at the corner of his mouth — yet he walked forward bare-handed. The Jurchen warrior let out a roaring shout and charged with his blade; the two figures collided beneath the starlight, and after only a couple of exchanges, the blade changed hands — the bare-handed Han man, tall and broad, swung it five or six times in rapid succession, every stroke landing squarely on the other man’s body.

Blood seemed to erupt from the Jurchen’s body as if in bursts of crimson waves; only once he had fallen did the man’s swinging slow, and he struck the fallen body a few more times before finally stopping.

“Nine-Dragon” Shi Jin. He wiped the blood from his blade there among the hills, sheathed it, and only then, checking on the two horses, discovered that both had been badly injured in the violent collision, lying in pools of blood, unable to move. He sighed, turned to get his bearings, and set off once more toward Xinzhou.

In the course of his flight just now, he had killed off every single Jurchen rider who’d pursued him, one by one — including two newly arrived scouts who’d joined the chase. Though he too had taken some wounds, none were serious. Pressing on this way, in the outline of the hills not far off, he could just make out, down in the hollow beside him, the burned ruins of that village he’d seen that morning — no longer aflame now, just a dark shape in the night, like some vast grave.

Shi Jin made his way through the hills, running into two more Jurchen scouts along the way, killing them as well, and taking one of their horses to continue on. Reaching a stand of woodland, he suddenly sensed something and reined in his horse; not far off, a figure dropped down from a tree — it was Qian Fei, the sharp-eyed scout.

The two men exchanged a glance, saying nothing. Qian Fei led the way forward, and Shi Jin followed him in. Within a clearing in the woods, Shi Jin found the others who had fled. Chen Xiuqing sat curled up in the darkness, staring at a body lying before him — the woman they had rescued. She had driven a knife into her own chest; it appeared she had taken her own life. Not far off, Chen Xi of the “Twin Heroes,” his arm now severed, lay beneath a tree, while Tang Zuhan sat blankly beside him.

Seeing the formidable Shi Jin arrive quietly, Chen Xiuqing and Tang Zuhan seemed to come somewhat back to their senses. Shi Jin looked at the woman’s body, and Chen Xiuqing looked up at him in the darkness. “We — we didn’t save a single one… not one…”

Qian Fei murmured a few words off to the side, though truthfully Shi Jin could have guessed the story without explanation. The woman, her clothes torn away earlier, had kept fighting to escape even after suffering such violation — but once she’d reached this place and finally had a moment to think clearly, she had taken her own life. In the end, “Bronze Hand” Wei Bao and “Heavy Blade” Fang Ya seemed to have died for nothing.

Shi Jin found nothing to say, and walked instead toward Chen Xi and Tang Zuhan. Chen Xi’s arm had already been bound, though he was still barely breathing. Shi Jin watched him for a moment; he suddenly stirred back to hazy consciousness, looked around at the others, and spoke in a weak, hoarse voice. “I’m useless now, just kill me… I’m useless…”

Shi Jin slung his blade across his back, picked up a spear, rose to his feet, drew a deep breath, and said, “This is what war is.”

Just the night before, they had numbered seven, having accomplished nothing yet — now only five remained alive, and one of those had lost an arm. But whatever the case, this was the battlefield; Shi Jin, who had felt hollow and directionless that afternoon, now understood with perfect clarity. This was war. The Jurchen army was still sweeping south like a great flood, its scouts scattered everywhere, and countless people wished to resist, countless more would simply be crushed underfoot — in circumstances like these, the strength of one man, or a handful of men, was pitifully small indeed.

“Live, and you might be of use later. This is what war is.” Shi Jin gripped his spear tightly. “I’m going to Xinzhou.”

Qian Fei looked at him. “To help defend the city?”

“Dai County has already fallen, and it wasn’t a large enough city besides. Xinzhou is big enough. Once it falls, there will surely be street fighting, and that’s when the chaos will be at its worst — that’s our only real chance to assassinate Nianhan, if he enters the city.” Shi Jin said. “If Grandmaster Zhou is still alive, and wants the best chance he can get, he may well be there too. Whatever happens, I want to go see him.”

Chen Xiuqing and Tang Zuhan looked over at this. Qian Fei fell silent for a long moment, then drew a breath and looked at Shi Jin. “I’d meant to go back to Dai County, to try to recover my master’s body and give him a proper burial — but what you say makes sense… I’ll come with you.”

Beneath the starlight, this small resolve, caught up in a torrent of blood, was thus decided…