Hulao Pass (2)
The merciless slaughter had begun, and blood and viscera churned the field into a mire. To stand upon a battlefield was to count mercy and pity as luxuries; this was a cruel stretch of earth where the only question left was whether a man lived or died.
Whenever Lu Bu took the field she came out swinging, ferocity and cold precision in equal measure, savoring the fight like a sport—but this time was a little different. Resigned to death, hollowed out and worn, she hurled herself at the armies of the lords. Each wild, sprawling arc of the Sky-Piercing Halberd in her hands sent the lords' soldiers crumpling where they stood, thick blood and severed heads geysering upward before they toppled to the ground.
The Bing Province cavalry thundered into the coalition's host as it broke apart in retreat, and at their head, tearing across the open plain at a furious pace, Zhang Liao wheeled her Azure Dragon Halberds again and again, carving through the fleeing ranks.
"Drive them in!!"
The soldiers of the Trapped Camp under Gao Shun wrapped around the enemy from both flanks, sealing off every gap the footmen might use to scatter and slip away from the horsemen. True to the elite name they had earned back in Bing Province—where every assault ended in victory and every camp and fortress fell before them—they were a match even for the Bing Province cavalry, pressing the enemy soldiers relentlessly behind unyielding shields and keen spears.
The coalition's soldiers, by contrast—once the fierce generals leading their vanguard had fallen—could not so much as contemplate fighting, and fled headlong without a backward glance.
"What in blazes are you dogs doing!! Fight, damn you—!!"
The bellowed commands of the warlords directing from far behind went unheeded; the soldiers bolted with their tails between their legs.
Their opponents were the army of Bing Province, the veteran force that had beaten back foreign tribes, the Black Mountain Bandits, and every species of rebel besides. Their own side—gentry of the Clear Stream Faction who had whiled away their days in Luoyang bickering and jockeying for advantage—showed miserable military talent, and, having been appointed to provincial offices only recently, could not yet digest the full deployment of an army in the field. Lu Bu and her elite veterans were an opponent far too heavy for soldiers still green in war—even men like Han Yeong's or Sun Jian's—to stand against.
"GRAAAAGH!!"
Yuan Yi, Governor of Shanyang, took the Sky-Piercing Halberd full on and died. The lords who witnessed it felt their orders to fight lodge somewhere deep in their throats, and without waiting to see who would bolt first, every man of them wheeled his horse and ran.
"Gahh!! Do something, someone!!"
Yuan Shu, who had thrown himself into the battle dreaming of the glory that would let him knock Han Yeong down a peg, felt his helplessness before Lu Bu's overwhelming strength and refused to accept it, hopping with fury and shrieking—but no amount of yelling conjured a solution.
"M-My lord!! Lu Bu is coming this way! You have to get clear!!"
"Wh-What?!"
At his officer Zhang Xun's words, Yuan Shu whipped around, heart lurching. The sight of Lu Bu bearing down on him astride a savage black horse wrung cold sweat from every pore and turned his knees to water.
Before that terrifying beast, before whom even the prestige of a great house carried no weight, Yuan Shu abandoned his bravado and drowned in fear—instead of ordering his soldiers to withdraw, he simply turned and ran.
"UWAAAAAH!!"
This time it was Qiao Mao, Governor of Dongjun, who met his end beneath the Sky-Piercing Halberd as it darted in, swift as a thunderbolt.
The lords who had marched out so gallantly, blinded by ambition and hungry for a feat to catch Liu Xie's eye, began limping back to camp in crushing defeat.
I knew it would come to this.
Just as predicted, the coalition was streaming back to the camp in rout, savagely broken on Lu Bu's spear.
Frankly, I'd have loved nothing more than to leave them exactly as they were...... But if I did, the famed names of the realm would denounce us for refusing to lift a finger for our allies—coalition or no.
At the very least, I still needed those fools to get across Hulao Pass.
The other lords—those who had earned merit in the previous battle, and those who had sat this one out and held the camp—were likewise readying relief forces to send.
"......Shall we go and play rescuers, then?"
"Do we really have to?"
Ma Chao, remembering the disdainful looks the Clear Stream gentry had given them, felt little eagerness to save them.
For all they had contributed to building the coalition, I had no more love than she did for men who cowered before the Black Mountain Bandits or courted Liu Xie for political gain. Yuan Shu worst of all—forever pouring cold water on the mood and slinging slander about them behind their backs—had Ma Chao so thoroughly fed up that she was confident she could set aside her grudge against Lu Bu for a moment and applaud if the woman cut him down.
"Well, it's a matter of propriety. If we sit on our hands while the coalition raised to save the Han is in crisis, the court officials and the great names of the realm won't think kindly of us, will they?"
"Yes, quite right. However strained the relations, if we merely watched as the lords who joined the coalition died, the celebrated names of the Central Plains would denounce us."
Fa Zheng, too, would have dearly loved never to rescue lords whose only brilliance was in their mouths while their feet stayed planted—but she laid out the reasoning that left no way around it.
......Though I do wish Yuan Shu would just die.
He was fated to self-destruct sooner or later, but there were always variables to account for—and besides, the man plain rubbed me the wrong way. I found myself hoping for it regardless.
Mindful of the world's eyes, the warlords in the camp hastily assembled a relief force and marched it out at once—and Lu Bu's army, seeing it coming, simply withdrew into Hulao Pass.
Save for Yuan Yi of Shanyang and Qiao Mao of Dongjun, the lords had scraped home alive by the skin of their teeth.
By rights the alliance leader should have called them to account for the defeat, or bucked them up for the battles to come. Instead it was Yuan Shu—who bore every bit as much blame and culpability for the rout—who shouted, without a trace of shame.
"Why was no relief sent sooner—!!"
As though shame were an emotion he had never been introduced to, Yuan Shu flung the accusation at the warlords garrisoning the camp—the very picture of the pot calling the kettle black. The sly way he tried to scrub his own disgrace from everyone's memory was nauseating.
"If you wretches hadn't dawdled and had sent relief when it mattered, we could easily have taken that mongrel bitch captive—the one who struts about with no idea of her own place!!"
Finger jabbing, every courtesy trampled underfoot, Yuan Shu knitted the brows of every warlord present in disgust.
"This is all on you, Benchu!! It's your incompetence, you bitch!!"
He ought to have accepted the defeat with grace and shown a will to grow. Instead, true to the legitimate son of a great house who would sooner choke than admit disgrace, Yuan Shu did nothing but shove the blame onto others. His refusal to face what he was—his denunciation of them for failing to bring relief fast enough—set the onlookers shaking their heads.
Cao Cao, who these days stood in something like the position of Yuan Shao's hired contractor, threw up a shield against the reckless barrage.
"Volunteering for the vanguard to win glory, then blaming others for the failure—how unseemly, Yuan Shu."
"...What did you say?!"
Cao Cao's words struck the blame-shifting coward dead center, and shame flooded Yuan Shu's face scarlet.
"You daughter of a eunuch's house!!"
"Th-That's enough!!"
"This is no time to fight among ourselves! Only Ding Yuan profits from this!!"
As the quarrel between Cao Cao and Yuan Shu threatened to erupt, the lords hurriedly intervened. Even that was canny of them: while mediating, they seemed to be quietly easing out from under their own share of the blame, letting the whole affair slide past.
When the overheated atmosphere finally cooled after the defeat at Lu Bu's hands, Cao Cao—the coalition's strategist—let out a long sigh and began to lay out the rationale and the purpose of the battle for Hulao Pass.
"The purpose of this battle, from the very beginning, was never to capture Lu Bu."
The battle existed so the coalition could cross Hulao Pass—the gateway guarding Luoyang—and retake the Emperor. It was never about defeating the general hailed as the Flying General and the Unrivaled Under Heaven.
"...Then we had best set about finding a way to hold Lu Bu in place, and a way to bring Hulao Pass down."
"Precisely."
Yuan Shao sank into thought, chin propped on her hand.
With Yan Liang and Wen Chou left behind, our host has no general who can stand against Lu Bu.
"Is there, perhaps, any lord among you willing to pin Lu Bu down?"
At Yuan Shao's words, Kong Rong, Chancellor of Beihai—descendant of the Sage, with a face as mild and benevolent as his reputation—stepped forward.
"Among my subordinates is a general named Wu Anguo. A strongman who swings a fifty-jin iron mallet in both hands—he is more than capable of standing against Lu Bu."
But beyond Kong Rong's Wu Anguo, none of the other lords stirred to volunteer—a stark contrast to the bloodshot-eyed scramble for merit in the previous battle.
"......."
"...I know, I know. You don't have to glare at me like that—I was going to step up anyway."
I had been spectating the coalition's council from the sidelines; under the blazing stare I could feel boring into me from beside, I raised my hand with a wry smile. Lu Bu had already served to knock the arrogant lords down a peg; I had been on the point of stepping forward regardless.
"Then I, too, shall attempt to capture Lu Bu. As it happens, I have also had a way to seize Hulao Pass in mind for some time."
Drawing the Peach Garden Oath trio into our army, after all, had been precisely to reinforce our strength for the sake of taking Lu Bu.
"General Han Yeong... Yes. I leave it in your hands."
The moment Yuan Shao, the alliance leader, granted leave to take the field, strength flowed unbidden into the spear clenched in Ma Chao's hand.
Finally—a chance to wash away my disgrace.
The brutal first defeat she had suffered in Luoyang still stung. Failing to capture Dong Zhuo she had already redeemed at Anding; this time, at long last, she would break Lu Bu—so Ma Chao vowed, steeling herself.
And so Liu Bei, Kong Rong, and I were folded into the force tasked with tying Lu Bu down, while the offensive against Hulao Pass went to Sun Jian and Cao Cao.
Damn it all—that country bumpkin is angling for glory again......
Jealousy caught fire in Yuan Shu, and he bored a sour, venomous glare into Han Yeong.
Of Lu Bu and the Eight Elite Cavalrymen who had marched to war at Ding Yuan's command, Wei Yue and Cheng Lian were the ones holding garrison in Luoyang.
"Damn it all......"
"What's wrong, Wei Yue?"
"Isn't it obvious? It's Sis—her behavior is so damn stifling, that's what!!"
They chafed at the maddening course Lu Bu was steering—acting for all the world like Ding Yuan's own subordinate—yet affection kept them from walking away.
"Some of the others have already left, too disillusioned with Sis to stay. So why are we still out of our minds, groveling to that old man Ding Yuan—!!"
Cheng Lian hastily clapped a hand over Wei Yue's mouth before his fury could become a shout.
"...Keep your voice down, you idiot! If the Grand General's soldiers catch us, we're dead men."
"......I'm just sick of it, that's all."
Song Xian and Hou Cheng had already walked out, declaring they could no longer follow Lu Bu so long as she bent the knee beneath Ding Yuan. The righteous officers and men who had once held Bing Province were losing faith in her by the day, worn thin by her vacillation.
And still she insisted on standing at Ding Yuan's side, loyal to the bitter end—leaving her officers with nothing to do but stew. So Wei Yue and Cheng Lian drank, and swallowed their fury with the wine.
"Excuse me? You two?"
Just then, a scholar approached the pair mid-drink.
"Hm?"
"Who wants to know?"
Wei Yue and Cheng Lian eyed the woman in scholar's robes with open wariness—most of the court's officials, after all, held Lu Bu in poor regard.
"N-No, I'm not anyone suspicious."
With her mild, honest face, she raised both hands to show she bore no malice.
"You are generals serving under General Lu Bu, aren't you? I've heard there is a certain disgrace the Grand General has been keeping hidden from her......"
"What did you say?"
Faced with the two bewildered officers, Xun You calmly held out an official document.
"This is the official record concerning that matter. Would you see it delivered to General Lu Bu with all haste?"
The document passed from Xun You's hands into theirs.
It was a forgery, the brushwork mimicking Ding Yuan's hand—but drawn up on the basis of Wang Yun's testimony, not a word of its contents was false.
...By now the secret letter I sent should have reached Zheng Tai. Whether General Han Yeong—a man I have never once met—will heed my counsel, though......
Believing that Han Yeong would have to set aside his personal feelings for the sake of His Majesty's deliverance, Xun You watched Wei Yue and Cheng Lian take up the document.