Retribution (2)
“Your Highness! The enemy is in retreat once again!!”
“Haha! Just as I thought—those Liang Province bastards are nothing without their cavalry!!”
For a week now, the army under Han Yeong and the army under Song Jian had clashed again and again. Yet Han Yeong's men could not so much as dent Song Jian's ironclad defense. Time and again they climbed halfway up the mountain, met a furious counterattack, and fell back—until retreat became routine.
Song Jian had heard that Han Sui's son commanded the enemy host, but never in his wildest imaginings had he pictured such a coward, and he sneered at the very thought of him.
“Haha! They crow that Han Sui's son is some prodigy—turns out it was all hollow fame!!”
“Just as you say, Your Highness!!”
The generals who had trembled with unease when first they faced the power that had crushed the Liang Province rebels seemed emboldened by the string of victories; fighting spirit and morale climbed hand in hand.
“Any word from the Grand General?”
“Yes, Your Highness! By the Grand General's account, Han Yeong's army has advanced many a time, only to withdraw at every attempt.”
“Haha, good. Good.”
At this rate, he judged, he could win handily even without the Grand General's reinforcements.
“U-um, Your Highness.”
“What is it, Chancellor?”
Then the man Song Jian had raised to Chancellor for his quick wits stepped forward, cautious and careful.
“The enemy, Your Highness, is the very man who repelled Liang Province's great rebel horde. Ought we not keep our guard up?”
“Tsk tsk. Timid as ever—how do you mean to accomplish anything great?”
“But—have we received not so much as a report of the enemy's losses?”
To go stumbling down the slope to count enemy corpses was to beg for an arrow, and so Song Jian's army, having seized the high ground, had not once attempted the descent.
“Worry yourself not. Have our own losses not been next to nothing?”
Liang Province soldiers were strangers to mountain fighting. Arrows loosed from the mountainside never reached the heights, and though the enemy advanced behind wooden shields, one massed volley of hurled boulders sent them tumbling back down the slope.
His supply lines ran smooth as well; he was confident he could hold through a long war.
“That may well be, but...”
“Hahaha!! They'll slink off soon enough!! Pathetic, isn't it? They looked at our numbers alone, despised us, and came attacking—and all they've reaped is miserable losses!”
Apart from the arrows and boulders spent, his side had suffered not one casualty.
His first great victory since he had styled himself king.
At the thought, a smile spread across Song Jian's lips of its own accord.
“Now—drink tonight!! I, your king, expressly permit it!!”
“YYYESSS!!”
With the enemy driven off, wine and meat were laid out to honor the weary officers and men, and they were fed their fill.
The proposal had in fact come three days before, from Wang Guo—stationed with his camp on the opposite side—who had sent a messenger to suggest it. Commend the soldiers' and officers' toil, the argument went, and they would give all the more; now that the enemy had come down off the mountain, why not hold a feast? Song Jian had agreed.
Having been struck so hard, the enemy would not dare come again for some time—or so he expected, and so the feast.
The newly made Chancellor had objected that nothing could be more dangerous should the enemy attack, but Song Jian declared that no army would charge straight in after such a drubbing.
A week of climbing and assaulting without rest must have driven their soldiers to the edge of exhaustion.
At times like these, a commander must lay out wine and meat, soothe his men—and only then would they find more strength to give.
With Song Jian's leave, officers and soldiers who had lived taut as bowstrings for days surrendered to complacency, drinking deep and enjoying the feast.
Wine had not touched their lips in an age; spirits high, they drank on into the deepening night.
“Y-Your Highness!!”
“...Mm? What is it?”
Song Jian, flushed a deep red with drink, asked the officer who came sprinting up in obvious alarm.
“What's all the clamor on this fine day of beating the enemy? Have a cup yourself...”
So saying, Song Jian moved to hand the man a cup of his own—but at the officer's next words, the cup fell from his hand before he could stop it.
“The enemy has fallen upon the camp! They're butchering the soldiers and firing the grain stores!!”
Crash—!!
At that bolt-from-the-blue, the cup dropped from his fingers and shattered on the ground.
“Wh-what!? What rubbish is this? Those bastards couldn't even climb halfway up the mountain—how could they have made it here?!”
“Th-that is...”
“Out of my way!! I'll see it with my own eyes!!”
Stung by the impossible report, the drink burned clean out of him, and Song Jian hurried from the command tent.
“Th-this cannot be...”
One look at the scene before him, and he doubted his own two eyes.
His soldiers were being cut down, miserable and helpless, under the blades of Liang Province troops.
“That's the traitor's army!! Cut them all down!!”
“Follow me!!”
“That one's their head man—don't let him slip away!!”
Yan Xing, Ma Wan, and Cheng Yin led the troops, weapons swinging, and mowed down the soldiers still gaping in disbelief.
What in the world is happening?! Men who could not so much as climb the slope had appeared out of nowhere, and Song Jian's mind reeled.
“So you're that traitor who crowned himself 'King Who Pacifies the Han' or whatever it was?”
“......!!”
The gruff words came from a woman advancing at a quick, deliberate stride, skewering Song Jian's soldiers one after another with the long spear held in one hand.
The night lay thick and deep, yet moonlight streamed down from the sky, and the fires raging all around threw her features into sharp relief.
Brilliantly shining golden hair; skin whiter than any ordinary Han's; and eyes of deep jade green, dark as polished jade.
“Wh-what are you dogs standing around for?! Block that bitch—NOW!!”
“Y-yes!!”
One look at her face and Song Jian knew instinctively who she was; he hurriedly ordered the men around him to stop her.
The officers desperately drew swords and leveled spears and hurled themselves at Ma Chao—but one sweep of her spear sent most of them sprawling.
“What kind of lunatics are you people? The war isn't even over, and you're sitting around getting drunk?”
Ma Chao looked with pure disdain at the officers before her, so deep in their cups they could barely stay upright.
“Splendid Ma Chao... How the hell is a bitch like you here?!”
This mountain country was treacherous to the bone—a place where a stealthy ascent should have been impossible.
And yet—had these soldiers fallen from the sky, or sprung up from the earth? The question gnawed at him.
“Since when do I owe the enemy explanations?”
“...Y-you insolent bitch...”
Enraged that a mere woman would scorn him—a king—Song Jian screamed at the officers around him.
“Kneel that bitch before me this instant!!”
“B-but, Your Highness, the battle goes ill for us!!”
“Retreat, I beg of you!!”
Grrk—! His subordinates dared contradict his command and urge retreat, and Song Jian ground his teeth hard enough to crack them.
They had seized the high ground, pitched camp, and set their ambushes precisely because a head-on fight meant certain ruin—yet now, far from holding the line, they were meeting the enemy dead drunk. The battle, naturally, had turned sharply against them.
Ma Chao aside, every sweep of Yan Xing's superb blade sent soldiers crumpling, while Ma Wan and Cheng Yin—warlords seasoned by years of campaigning—handled their commands with practiced ease and fought well in their own right.
As Ma Chao advanced, carving through the soldiers and officers blocking Song Jian's path, the Chancellor drew close and murmured in his ear.
“Your Highness—the road toward the Grand General lies open. Slip away for now, and live to fight another day.”
“...Very well. We move.”
For a man with his life on the line, Song Jian did not deliberate long.
With no officer who could stand against Ma Chao's valor, even a king had to save his own skin, or the day would end in utter defeat.
While she carved her unopposed road through his soldiers, Song Jian fled with a small band of men.
Shunk—!
Without so much as a glance at the officer rushing her from behind, she ran him through—and turned an indifferent eye on Song Jian's fleeing party.
“...Hmm. So he really is making for that side?”
Her detachment was that of someone who had known all along precisely where Song Jian would run; she simply watched him go, gaze drifting toward the far mountains, and did not stir.
My part ends here.
Her task this time had been simple: with an insider's help, fall upon Song Jian's camp by night.
Driving in the final wedge—taking his head—had never been part of her role.
She had won her glory putting down the foreign tribes only recently; this time, she figured, the honor belonged to someone else. So Ma Chao did not pursue.
If Fa Zheng's design held true, that man's life was already hanging by a thread.
“Move! Quickly, all of you!!”
They had meant to make their stand on the mountain they held, and so had readied no horses; flight meant running on their own two feet.
“There! The Grand General's camp—I can see it!!”
“Ah—the Grand General!!”
From the camp Wang Guo came forth, his troops armed and swords drawn, and Song Jian—hounded to the brink—ran to him as a drowning man runs to a rope.
“Ma Chao has stormed our camp! You must send relief at once!!”
But—
“......”
At those words, Wang Guo's face held not a flicker of consternation—only a cold, unvarying calm. And Song Jian, his vision bleary with drink in the black of night, never saw it.
“What are you standing there for, Grand General?! Quickly—!!”
Shff—!
Wang Guo simply swung the sword in his hand—and took off Song Jian's head.
The head, severed without warning, dropped to the earth, its eyes frozen wide open in death.
“Hiiiek!!”
The Chancellor who had trailed at Song Jian's heels, and the officers with him, went white as bone and froze in terror.
Just as Song Jian's men began to recoil at Wang Guo's sudden treachery, he turned his head and asked:
“...Will this do?”
And as he asked it, looking back over his shoulder, two women stepped out from the ranks of the army he had led.
“Yes. You've done well. As I told you four days ago, Lord Wang Guo—you shall now be formally pardoned.”
It was Fa Zheng, the woman with hair of deep green, who smiled and sang Wang Guo's praises; and beside her stood Pang De, black-haired and composed, her crescent blade in hand, taking up her guard at Fa Zheng's side.
And so the rebellion of Song Jian—the man who had styled himself a king—came to a hollow end, undone by the traitor within.