It was the darkest hour before dawn. Shi Jin sat on the wooden beam, and when he heard Zhou Tong mention Lin Chong’s name, he didn’t know how to answer. After a long silence, he heard Zhou Tong ask, “How has Lin Chong been?”

Something caught in Shi Jin’s throat. He swallowed. “After Liangshan fell, that one time… he said he was going to see you, at Yiyuan County. But afterward… afterward, I don’t know why, but he never came back to find us. The next we heard of him, he was being hunted down. He may already be dead.”

The old man frowned and closed his eyes. “Dead?”

“Possibly dead,” Shi Jin said.

“Then he isn’t dead.” Zhou Tong said. “We’ll see him again someday.”

In the dim light, the old man’s voice was steady — less like hope or comfort, more like certainty. Shi Jin had watched Lin Chong fall from the cliff with his own eyes, and had no idea where the old man’s certainty came from. But by now they were trapped in the city, about to undertake something that was nearly a death sentence, and his concern over the matter had grown distant in his heart.

After a moment, he asked, “Elder Zhou, when will Nian Han enter the city?”

“I’m not sure either,” Zhou Tong answered. “Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. When the Jurchens marched out, I was within the borders of the Jin state, and I followed their great army south. Nian Han has some measure of valor — he won’t wait until no one else is left to enter the city. Once the resistance in Xinzhou has been mostly slaughtered, he’ll come in.”

Shi Jin frowned. “Then the seventy-odd of us will have to hide in the city for at least two more days?”

“It won’t be easy,” Zhou Tong said, “but there’s no other way.”

Between the two of them, what was said and answered was simple, and afterward the courtyard fell quiet. The looted courtyard reeked of blood and smoke; the corpses of the household’s dead masters still lay near the front gate, and the sounds of Jurchen slaughter drifted faintly in the distance. The old man stood, walked to the other end of the courtyard, picked up two sticks, and tossed one to him.

“You’re Wang Jin’s disciple. Run through a set of Demon-Subduing Staff with me.”

He said this while already settling into his stance. The Demon-Subduing Staff was a basic staff technique of the martial world, plain and simple — Shi Jin had long since lost count of how many times he’d practiced it. He settled into position as well, and when the old man swung out the first strike, he followed along.

There wasn’t much power behind it, not much sound of wind being cut, as Zhou Tong led Shi Jin through the sequence once, simply and plainly. Under the nearby eaves, other martial artists lifted their heads to watch. Zhou Tong’s staff work was, by itself, merely smooth — perfectly correct, nothing more.

Yet for Shi Jin alone, by the time the set was finished, his whole body had eased into relaxation, a warm sensation flowing through him. At his level of skill, taking another step forward required an insight so subtle it bordered on the metaphysical — in Ning Yi’s terms, it would even require an elevation in one’s worldview and philosophical framework. The staff technique Zhou Tong performed was nearly identical to his own, but once their rhythms aligned, in the smallest of details, the old man led him to make adjustments and fine corrections. These tiny details let him glimpse the possibility of something approaching perfection.

The courtyard was quiet. When the set was finished, Zhou Tong nodded to him, then walked off elsewhere.

Not long after, this brief peace passed…

…

Before Nian Han entered the city, the seventy-some people would need to hide within it for at least two more days.

This had only been a simple exchange between Shi Jin and Zhou Tong earlier, but once it became reality, what followed was the most grueling stretch of time yet.

When Xinzhou had first fallen, the four gates were sealed, and the Wuchao troops divided within the city put up widespread resistance — large-scale street fighting broke out everywhere. During that stretch, things had still been bearable for Shi Jin and the others. But by the morning of the eighth day of the eighth month, the army had mostly died or surrendered, and organized resistance had completely collapsed.

The Jurchen massacre and plunder squads spread through the city. That day, the search net cast over the city grew tighter and tighter in its mesh, and true hell descended upon Xinzhou. Killing, looting, and fires were everywhere. Civilians hiding in the city were dragged out in great numbers; any woman with the slightest beauty was inevitably violated; anyone who resisted was killed or beaten, some even hung from flagpoles and burned alive, others tied behind horses and dragged to death — such sights were everywhere.

Whenever a large group of resisters was encountered, the searching Jurchens would loose signal arrows, and nearby comrades would rush over swiftly to reinforce them.

This was a carnival belonging to the Jurchens, and to the former Liao people of the Yisheng Army.

Shi Jin and the others wove through the city, dodging as they went. Even though most of them were skilled fighters, there was no room here to truly display their martial arts, and the tragedies they occasionally witnessed piled up an inexpressible resentment in their hearts. Sometimes they stumbled upon Jurchen patrols and couldn’t evade in time; other times, the killing intent in their hearts became too much to swallow and they struck out suddenly. Over the course of that day, they steadily accumulated more than ten wounded.

Immense exhaustion built up in every one of them, but their greatest loss came that afternoon, when they unexpectedly ran into a family hiding in the city. Seeing that this group was mostly skilled fighters and heroes, the family wept and begged Shi Jin and the others to take them along. Unable to make them understand otherwise, this nearly deranged family began following them in a frenzy, screaming at the top of their lungs.

This drew a Jurchen cavalry unit toward them. At a corner of a rubble-strewn street, the group bringing up the rear was caught. When Shi Jin looked back, the few people at the intersection had stopped running. Leading them was the old Daoist Qiu Henian, who carried a long sword. He was already elderly, his once-neat Daoist robes now tattered, but there was still a bearing to his stride that commanded respect, a transcendent air about him.

He waved toward them, then drew his long sword and led several wounded fighters forward to meet the charging Jurchen cavalry head-on.

Shi Jin and the others never saw him again. It was only the next afternoon, while running through a nearby street, that they caught a fleeting glimpse of a corpse hanging from a flagpole — broken and twisted, missing a hand, a foot, and its head, the body dyed a deep, dark color with blood. In it, they thought they could make out a faint trace of blue that might have belonged to the original Daoist robe. But so many had died nearby that he couldn’t be certain it was the old Daoist’s body.

After that day came more long, tense nights, followed by more long, tense days. What mattered most to a martial artist was the spirit within — a first surge carries you forward, a second wanes, a third is spent. If the initial cries and hot blood had once lifted their morale, then in this endless stretch of waiting and hiding, it felt like a dull knife slowly cutting away flesh, sliver by sliver.

The Jurchen search net grew tighter by the day. Would Nian Han come? And when he did, would there still be enough strength left among them, enough people who could still reach him? All of this cut slowly into everyone’s hearts. The kind of stirring, impassioned feeling people spoke of afterward might only ever exist in the retelling — for those actually living through it, there was only immense pain and hardship…

Only on the afternoon of the ninth day of the eighth month, as dusk approached, did a piece of news arrive that finally brought all of that pent-up feeling surging back to the surface. By this point, those still capable of fighting at Zhou Tong’s side numbered only thirty-eight.

Nian Han had entered the city.

…

As the setting sun turned a warm gold at the edge of the sky, autumn leaves swayed in the wind. When Wanyan Xiyin looked up, he saw a great tree that had been half burned — one side scorched black, the other still hung with yellow leaves.

From not far away came the sound of a woman’s crying, screaming, and laughter, but it seemed that resistance nearby had grown thin. Wanyan Xiyin drew a breath, and when his lieutenant approached, he faintly heard him sigh.

“The green mountains lie distant… and the autumn wind wishes to rage…”

The lieutenant looked around, but the autumn wind was gentle, the leaves swaying slowly, warm against the face.

A signal arrow rose from not far away.

…

Wanyan Zonghan’s (Nian Han’s) mounted column entered a Daoist temple on one side of the city.

This temple had not suffered much from the fighting — only a few bloodstains on one set of steps. Two rows of leafy trees stretched from the front courtyard toward the main hall of the temple, and in the bronze tripod in front of the main hall, a great fire now blazed.

The sky was beginning to darken. Those who entered the city alongside Wanyan Zonghan were tall of stature and steady of stride, most of them senior commanders from within the army, many of them close kin or clansmen — men like the generals Wanyan Yinshuke and Wanyan Balishu (brothers), the general Chi Xian, Zonghan’s cousin Wanyan Shaba, and Moyan Dangshi, hailed as the army’s foremost warrior under Zonghan’s command, among others. All of them had followed Aguda through campaign after campaign, having brought down the Liao dynasty, and each carried achievements that inspired awe.

With Xinzhou now taken, their next target was Taiyuan, the greatest fortress city on the Hedong front.

In the evening breeze, the group walked toward this dignified Han Chinese Daoist temple. The soldiers who had gone ahead had already cleared the surrounding area and set up the main hall here as their command post.

…

Two nearby squads of Jurchen cavalry rushed toward the place where the signal arrows had gone up.

Before long, in another stretch of street, two more signal arrows shot up in quick succession. Wanyan Xiyin, riding ahead, frowned as he heard nearby troops being redirected there again.

A thought flashed through his mind, and he reined in his horse, stopping in the middle of the road. The Jurchen soldiers’ signal arrows were only meant to be loosed when they ran into a formidable enemy they couldn’t handle — firing them without cause was punishable. From yesterday afternoon through this morning, signal arrows had been going up more frequently across the city; by now, in theory, the area nearby should have been cleared out. So why were they suddenly increasing again?

Then, he saw another signal arrow shoot up in the distance.

Wanyan Xiyin’s brow furrowed. After a moment, he abruptly wheeled his horse around.

“Come with me, back to find Marshal Zonghan — something may be wrong…”

Before his words had even finished, a signal arrow suddenly shot up in the very direction where Wanyan Zonghan and the other senior commanders were.

“Go—!”

He let out a sudden roar and spurred his horse into a full gallop, drawing his sword.

The streets around them abruptly erupted into motion, and the guards nearby broke into a run alongside him!

…

“Kill—!”

An explosive roar burst forth without warning from the western side of the temple, followed immediately by the sound of fierce fighting. In the main hall, everyone turned at the sound of the enemy clashing with the soldiers outside — the front line of shouting and killing kept spreading, and it was clear the attackers were true masters. At the foot of the steps, the great warrior known as Moyan Dangshi, head of Zonghan’s personal guard, unslung his long spear and stared toward the wall in that direction.

“Whoever’s come is formidable.”

“No more than one or two men — a dying struggle.” Wanyan Zonghan listened for a moment. “Leave it. Don’t fall for a scheme to lure the tiger from the mountain.”

The sound of fighting died down soon after; clearly, the attackers had already been beheaded. Zonghan turned back toward the seat at the head of the hall. In the western courtyard, Jurchen guards cut off the heads of the attackers, while at the very same time, in the eastern courtyard, one martial artist after another was slipping in swiftly through a hidden passage. This temple covered a large area, and there were many Jurchen soldiers guarding it — but it had, after all, once belonged to the Han people, and as the Jurchens began cleaning and arranging the area, the underworld fighters keeping watch had been able to roughly determine where Nian Han would be positioned once he entered, and from there had found a gap in the defenses.

The Jurchen soldier from the western courtyard ran toward the main hall carrying the severed heads. He knelt down, raising the two heads up, just about to speak, when a roar of “Waaah—!” erupted.

Countless blades clashed, killing broke out, signal arrows shot into the sky, and from the east someone shouted: “Kill Nian Han!”

“Kill Nian Han—!”

Then came a sound like rolling thunder: “Kill Nian Han—!”

The frenzied clash of battle rose to its peak in that instant, enough to make every hair stand on end. The commotion from the eastern courtyard surged and spread amid the overwhelming momentum, sweeping swiftly toward the main hall. The Jurchen defenses on the outer perimeter were cut down like dry grass before a blade; at the courtyard’s outer gate, the Jurchen soldiers seemed to be struck by the charge of ten thousand horses, broken bodies trailing lines of blood flying past everyone’s eyes.

An arrow whistled across the long courtyard, tearing through the air with a fierce shriek, aimed straight at Wanyan Zonghan’s face. Wanyan Zonghan drew the long saber at his waist and struck the arrow out of the air with a resounding crack. “Form ranks!”

Figures of Wuchao underworld fighters vaulted over the courtyard walls and rooftops, hurling throwing daggers down at the guards below. Inside the hall, Wanyan Balishu charged down the steps, drew the steel spear from his back, took a running start, and hurled it howling toward the rooftop, piercing straight through the chest of one of the underworld fighters — the spear punched through the man’s body like a cannon shell, sending him flying into the air trailing blood. “Form ranks—!”

Dozens of Jurchen guards in the courtyard had already gathered in front of the main hall. Moyan Dangshi swung his steel spear, bellowing like thunder: “Form ranks—kill them all—!”

Underworld masters wielding all manner of weapons surged in from the gate, from beyond the walls, from the rooftops — most of them already wounded, but brimming with killing intent, their eyes fierce and merciless. All the resentment and bloodlust that had built up in their hearts until now finally erupted in that instant.

Before them stood the elite Jurchen warriors who had fought their way up from the White Mountains and Black Waters, men who had spent years struggling to survive on land buried in snow year-round, who had risen up before this and brought the entire Liao dynasty crashing down. This campaign sweeping south had, to them, been little more than a game. But in this one moment, at least on this small scale, they finally felt the enormous killing intent bearing down on them face to face — the fierce spirit of the northern lands, carried across a thousand miles, finally catching fire here.

The two sides collided head-on in an instant. The roar of battle blotted out sky and sun, and waves of blood erupted forth…