The Battle of Didao (4)
"We've succeeded in routing the enemy detachment on the left!!"
"The detachment on the right has been wiped out to the last man as well!!"
Messengers had come galloping in from the units dispatched to counter the night raid.
"...Then, just as the operation laid out in advance intended, they'll be joining the vanguard from there."
Fa Zheng had arranged it all beforehand: once the detachments were driven off, those troops were to reinforce the vanguard under Pang De's command without delay.
"Understood. General Ma Tie?"
"...Huh? Ah—y-yes!!"
Ma Tie, who had been moping in boredom at being left out of the fighting, snapped upright at Fa Zheng's call and answered like a raw recruit with his blood suddenly up.
"Take down the white flag over there, replace it with the red one, and raise it high."
"Of course! Leave it to me!!"
The moment the order left her lips, Ma Tie's movements turned lightning-swift. Down came the pole that had flown the white banner; up went the red one, hoisted in a flash.
"It will be visible, won't it?"
"Yes. I've handpicked sharp-eyed soldiers and posted them along the ridge to watch for it, so as long as they're holding the high ground, they cannot miss it."
The red banner caught the wind and began to ripple.
Just as Fa Zheng had promised, the troops encamped on the ridge spotted it.
"General!! The red flag is up!!"
"Good! Then it's our turn now, isn't it?"
The woman who had moved her army in secret the night before and climbed to the high mountain ground to lie in wait bared her teeth in a grin.
The first hour of Yin had arrived—the small hours between three and four—and sunlight came pouring down the slopes, setting her white-blonde hair ablaze more brilliantly than ever.
"Let's ride!! We're off to take Dong Zhuo's head-!!"
"WAAAAAAH-!!"
Catching the signal, the body of cavalry swung into their saddles and came thundering down from the heights.
Their destination was Dong Zhuo's main camp.
They drove on without pause, to hammer home the wedge that would decide victory and defeat in this war.
In the vanguard's ferocious melee, Dong Zhuo's army was steadily being pushed back.
Nothing sways an army's morale like the deaths of the officers leading it, and with two of their generals dead before the battle had even properly begun, it was only natural they were losing ground.
Hua Xiong, who by rights should have been taking enemy officers' heads to lift his men's spirits, found himself locked in a desperate struggle of his own instead.
Damn it all! Where in the hell are Li Jue and Guo Si—!! Hrk—!
FWOOOOSH-!!
Wrenching his upper body far back in a panic, Hua Xiong evaded by a hair's breadth the crescent blade hurtling in at his neck.
But his famously long torso proved his undoing: he could not slip the strike entirely, and the edge sheared across his armor, leaving a hairline crack. A thin trickle of blood began to seep from his upper body.
"You went for my eye... Do you take me lightly?"
As she drew her crescent blade back in, Pang De's blue eyes gleamed colder still. The heat and exhilaration of battle seemed to cool and die in the face of those frosty depths.
Two generals already felled, and not a trace of weariness on her as she drove Dong Zhuo's mightiest warrior into a corner.
...Unbelievable. To think that beyond that Ma Chao, they had a commander of this caliber in reserve...
He had turned aside her crescent blade only a handful of times, yet its raw power left his hands trembling. That she was more than fit to lead a vanguard, he could see plainly enough. Then where, in the name of all that was holy, was Ma Chao?
"Then where is this Ma Chao of yours?"
"No fool tells the enemy that sort of thing."
"...I suppose not. Urk—!!"
CLANG!!
The crescent blade came rushing in once more, and Hua Xiong caught it on his raised spear. But where Pang De's strength swelled with every exchange, his own was bleeding away, and inch by inch he was forced back.
"GRAAAAH-!!"
Hua Xiong threw the whole of his strength into shoving her blade away—and immediately after, ragged breaths began tearing out of him one after another.
"They're here! Reinforcements!!"
Far off in the distance, the armies under Yan Xing and Ma Teng came galloping in from either flank to fall upon the vanguard. That they arrived from both sides at once told the whole story: Li Jue's and Guo Si's forces had been routed.
For Dong Zhuo's army, already giving ground bit by bit, the sight of enemy reinforcements snuffed out what little fighting spirit remained. Elite troops or no, they were still men, and men fear death. Their bravest officers were dying one after another; the force that had raided the camp had been annihilated; and with the enemy's reserves pouring in on top of it all, there was nothing left to endure with. The cracks of terror spreading through their hearts buried their loyalty to their lord alive.
"R-run!!"
"Fall back! FALL BACK!!"
With enemy reinforcements joining the fray, the soldiers of Dong Zhuo's army judged the battle beyond all saving. Casting aside their very weapons, they fled, shrieking in desperation.
"...So this is where it ends."
Watching his men retreat with no order from any commander, Hua Xiong knew in his gut that the battle was lost. Half-closing his eyes, he abandoned himself to whatever came.
Pang De, taciturn even in the thick of combat, stilled her blade for a moment and put the question to him.
"...Have you no thought of surrendering? Our lord prizes capable men. One such as you would, I believe, be given weighty command..."
An offer of surrender.
Li Jue and Guo Si, notorious for a cruelty no less foul than Dong Zhuo's own, had been marked for death—but Hua Xiong was not a man who made a habit of such savagery, and Han Yeong had wanted him alive, under his own banner.
"Heh heh heh. You would have me betray my lord?"
"Bluntly? Yes."
Pang De knew the depths of Han Yeong's heart well: he wanted talent, and cared nothing for pedigree. Had he not taken her and Fa Zheng both—disregarding their standing, their names, their records—commissioning them on ability alone and leaning on them ever since?
"...A gracious offer to a beaten general, but I must decline. One cannot forsake the lord one has served. You understand."
Dong Zhuo had rotted, it was true; these days he dealt in wanton cruelty and base stratagems. But in the lean years he had shared out the spoils of his own commendations with the men who had suffered beside him in his youth—and for Hua Xiong that remained a deep, unforgettable memory. A man of the meanest birth, raised up to general; and by that grace the name Hua Xiong had rung across all Liangzhou as he heaped up deeds of war. How could he abandon a lord who had granted him a debt he could never repay...?
"...I see. Then let us finish this."
Pang De bowed her head to Hua Xiong's loyalty and his honor, and resolved to send him off with dignity—by her own hand.
"My thanks... Pang De, was it? I will remember your name."
Both squared their stances to resume the fight, and the very air between them changed.
They dug in their heels and launched, each swinging a softly gleaming weapon at the other.
SWISH!!
The galloping horses passed one another—and on one side, a general's balance collapsed.
The trajectory bent...
The crescent blade that had come falling straight from above coiled like a serpent and raked down at a diagonal. Hua Xiong, too slow to answer it, took the blow square: a vivid red gash opened across his upper body, drowning his armor in crimson.
And here I thought I had climbed to no small height as a general... A frog in a well, to the last...
Hua Xiong's body crumpled, strength pouring out of it.
Hua Xiong, whose valor had made his name as the finest warrior of Dong Zhuo's army, met his end with the full weight of his own inadequacy upon him.
With reports of defeat flooding in without end, Dong Zhuo spewed fury with every breath.
"Th-this makes no sense!! How could my elite troops fall to some army that hasn't even built itself a proper power base-!!"
"My lord, you must get to safety!! The vanguard is collapsing!!"
Contrary to Li Ru's every prediction, the battle had broken differently from the opening exchange, and the outcome had turned with it. Hua Xiong had fallen to an unknown, nameless officer; Li Jue and Guo Si, who had led the detachments, had lost their lives as well.
"No!! Bar the camp gates and set the archers to meet their cavalry!!"
"My lord!!"
If he lost this battle too, it would be the true, unrecoverable end. How many years had he clawed and schemed to shed the shame of lowborn frontier officer? He had carried the ambition of leaping from these barren, backwater lands of Liangzhou onto the stage of all the world. He could not be broken here.
"Our numbers are still even!! If we hold fast, we will win!! So as I said-!!"
"M-my lord!!"
Niu Fu, an officer of his house and—like Li Ru—a son-in-law of Dong Zhuo, came bursting in unbidden.
"You must get to safety!!"
"What? Retreat!? Don't make me laugh. Vanguard smashed or no, we still have forty thousand men under arms. What spineless whining is this!!"
At Dong Zhuo's bark, Niu Fu shook his head and jabbed a finger past him, toward the rear.
"It's not that!! Enemy troops have appeared at our rear!!"
"Enemies at the rear? What in the blazes is that supposed to mean?!"
The report of enemies at their back snapped Li Ru's nerves taut, and he pressed Niu Fu hard.
"It's Han Sui's army!! And the enemy general at their head is—!!"
CRASH!!
Smashing straight through the wooden palisade, a body of cavalry burst into Dong Zhuo's fortified camp in a rolling cloud of dust, baring themselves to every eye.
The general at their head was a war heroine crowned in dazzling white-blonde hair. She hauled in a deep breath, and then let her voice rip loose, pitched to carry to the farthest corner of the field.
"I am the Splendid Ma Chao of Xiliang!! Dong Zhuo, you villain who preys upon the people—stick out that filthy neck of yours!!"
At her cry, Dong Zhuo's soldiers lunged for Ma Chao with levelled spears; she swept her own in one flat arc and batted them all out of the air. Watching his men go flying helplessly, Dong Zhuo felt his rage gutter out at last—and fear kindle in its place. Xiliang's foremost warrior had materialized to close the war at Didao, and the sheer weight of her presence crushed the fight out of him.
"You're not going anywhere-!!"
Target fixed, Ma Chao spared nothing else a glance, boring through the ring of Dong Zhuo's troops like a single spear—a streak of light.