The Battle of Mount Dingjun

Zhang He was in retreat. From the way he glared back at us, I'd half expected him to throw himself at us in a fight to the death — but he was colder than I'd thought.

Even so, I couldn't simply let him go.

This was a Wei army that had already been driven back by the reinforcements bought with Xiahou Yuan's life. There was no chance they would hold once their command, and a share of their strength, had slipped away.

The advance that had stalled against those reinforcements began to gather momentum again. I could feel the fatigue settling in, but I still had more than enough left to break through — and enough, too, to bring down the enemy general barring my path.

"Telling you to surrender would be pointless, wouldn't it?"

Fei Yao. A renowned veteran of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wei stood planted square in front of me, as if he had no intention of ever letting me pass. He answered with nothing but silence. I let out a long breath and leveled my spear.

"You'll die."

"I made my peace with that the moment I took the field."

He had already taken the measure of the gap between us. Even knowing I stood a full rank above him, he had stepped forward to stop me — and for that loyalty, I paid him respect.

But I couldn't grant him what he wanted. I lowered the spear. At the sight of me refusing the fight, the corner of Fei Yao's eye twitched.

"Shall I take him?"

"No. No need."

I checked Gu Bu as he moved to step in, and turned my horse's head a fraction, meaning to pass Fei Yao by and follow the way Zhang ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He had gone.

"There's someone else who'll be glad to receive you."

Fei Yao started after me as I moved to slip past — but he had no choice but to stop.

"And where do you think you're going? You'll play with me."

The peerless Serpent Spear was leveled at his chest.

"Father..."

"Die by my hand, and you won't walk the road to the Yellow Springs alone. I'll send you plenty of company."

I gave my father a nod and brushed lightly past Fei Yao.

The pursuit was cavalry alone, and given the head start Zhang He had taken, catching him would be no simple thing. And yet I was at ease. Gu Bu, too, didn't remark on my calm or tell me to pick up the pace.

He knew why. He knew why the men I trusted most — why the general I trusted above all — were not here.

Not far from Juma Valley, at the crossing where the road passed the Han River, Zhang He had come to a halt.

It was not by his choice. For the sake of the soldiers he had left behind, Zhang He could not afford to stop — and so if he had stopped, it could only have been against his will. And so it was.

A force stood blocking the road as if they had been waiting for him. Fully armed, they had raised a wall of shields, and above their heads the banners of Liu snapped in the wind.

Liu Bei's army.

Their numbers were only somewhere between one and two thousand, but their purpose was not to slaughter the retreating Wei troops. It was to pin them here. Nor were they tired. The Wei army had just come through a bitter fight and a desperate breakout; however many they might be, forcing a way through men like these would not be easy.

While the Wei soldiers, who understood that well enough, sank into gloom, a general who seemed to command Liu Bei's force spoke.

"Surrender. Do so, and you will be treated with the courtesy due to prisoners."

The voice was flat and dry, as if it scarcely mattered whether they yielded or not. From the first, he had not held so much as a grain of hope that the Wei army would surrender quietly. His lord, Zhang Lan, had said as much — and Wang Ping himself had expected nothing else.

"Ha! Since when does Zhang Junyi live to hear some nameless nobody tell him to surrender?"

It was a bitter thing.

In his youth he had been called one of the Four Pillars of Hebei, and in these days he was counted among the Five Elite Generals of Cao Wei. Days of defeat there had been, but he had always brought them to a close with the least loss he could manage, and roaming the length of the realm he had seized victory and glory on battlefield after battlefield.

And this — had he ever imagined this would be how it ended?

"Nameless general of Shu."

But if he was to die, he would die in a manner worthy of the name Zhang He.

"If you yourself have no wish to die, then clear the road."

"You were the ones who chose the forfeit."

Wang Ping drew his sword.

"Holding you here is no difficult thing."

Zhang He gripped his hilt as well and braced for a last battle.

"I'll take the van and break their line. I'll tear a gap open somehow — Guo Boji, you take the army and get clear."

"But, General—!"

"What they want is me. If I try to escape, they'll throw themselves at us without a thought for their own lives. But if I remain, they'll grow careless about stopping the rest of you."

At Zhang He's resolve to offer himself as the sacrifice and see his men to safety, Guo Huai bit his lip until it bled. Never in his life had he felt so powerless.

When Guo Huai still hesitated, Zhang He barked at him.

"Do you still not see what matters!"

Cao Cao was coming. But if Hanzhong fell entirely into Liu Bei's hands before he arrived, then however much stronger Cao Cao's army might be, the Qinling Mountains would stand in the way — and they would be left like a dog that had chased a chicken, with nothing to do but stare up at the roof. Having already failed to stop Liu Bei, the last duty left to them was to keep him from crossing the Han and swallowing Hanzhong before Cao Cao could arrive.

Zhang He pressed his commander's seal into Guo Huai's hands and spoke with finality.

"This is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an order."

When Guo Huai took the seal in a trembling hand, Zhang He's face eased a little, and he drove his heels into his horse's flanks.

"The Marquis of Duting is a wise man. He can fill the empty seat. Follow him."

"...Yes."

Zhang He let out a long breath. He had done all that he could do. From here, he would leave the rest to Heaven.

"Go!!"

True to his word, Zhang He was the first to hurl himself at the square of Liu Bei's army.

Horse and shield met with a crash that struck both sides like a blow. Liu Bei's defensive line buckled under the sheer mass of that charge — but under Wang Ping's command a second ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wall rose, and then a third, layer upon layer.

"Out of my way!!"

Zhang He was a general of stratagem. But that by no means meant his martial skill was slight. He had led cavalry from the van, and he had never hesitated to throw himself in as the finest piece on the board, so that the plans he drew might become fact.

Fighting spirit. No other words would do for the way Zhang He raged, already resigned to the end of his life.

Had his opponent been anyone but Wang Ping, he would by now have slipped unhurried through the net, without even having to spend his life to do it. But the man before him was no nameless nobody, whatever Zhang He had called him.

Even a blind man could have seen it. Wang Ping — the greatest shield of Shu in its later years, the commander who had led an utterly outmatched kingdom and ground a great host of Wei to ash.

"Boji!!"

At the cry that tore from Zhang He's mouth, nearly a scream, Guo Huai squeezed his eyes shut.

"...We go! The general has opened us a road! We break through — no matter what!!"

The first charge, Zhang He at its head, crashed into Liu Bei's army. Then the second, the rear column under Guo Huai, drove straight into the weakness he had torn open.

Watching the encirclement waver, Wang Ping narrowed his eyes.

"Let them through. Open the gate of life, and surround Zhang He. Colonel Ma, hold our rear. If they abandon him and choose flight, you may pursue and strike."

"Leave it to me!"

This had never been a design to annihilate them by sealing every road of retreat. Recalling the orders Zhang Lan had given him, Wang Ping fixed his eyes on Zhang He.

Thrown from his horse, the man was still cutting down Liu Bei's soldiers like a demon, his martial might so fierce one could hardly believe he was called a general of the mind. And the soldiers who followed him burned with the same grim will to die at their commander's side.

Just as Wang Ping was weighing whether he himself would have to step in, cavalry showed themselves on the far side of the field.

"So she's come."

Zhang Lan had arrived.

The soldiers who saw I'd arrived drew back from Zhang He, and for a moment the fighting paused. The Wei troops still at his side looked to number fewer than a hundred. Even so, thousands must have gotten clear.

He stayed behind as bait.

With my arrival, Zhang He's judgment had, in the end, been proved right. He knew it. The look on his face couldn't decide between relief and regret.

"No point dragging this out. Don't stop. Attack."

Only in the tales of wandering swordsmen do they spit on a man for wearing his opponent down by turns. In a war, it's nothing but good tactics. And I had no intention of watching any more of my soldiers die, or take wounds they didn't have to.

With Gu Bu, the household guard, and the rest of the elite, I cut through the Wei troops — worn raw by fight after fight — in a breath. Zhang He resisted with a desperate, wretched fury, trying to hold us off, but he was already spent to the bone. The only reason he had lasted to the end at all was that I, too, had burned through a great deal of my strength. Even that was running out.

At last the sword he could not stop tore into him, and blood burst from the wound. It ran along the edge that had carved deep through his body and fell, drop by drop.

Zhang He stumbled backward, step by unsteady step, then dropped to his knees with a heavy thud. He looked up into the sky where dawn was breaking, and murmured, regretful.

"I roamed Hebei and the Central Plains and called them too small to hold me. A long road, from distant Liaodong all the way to Hanzhong. And yet, looking back, it was no more than an instant."

Having said it, he looked me full in the face.

"I've no regrets. Only this — I swore I'd pay back every humiliation, on you and on your father, and that I couldn't keep that oath is the one thing that will not let me go."

"That bastard—!"

"Enough, Xiaoxing. Zhang He — is that all you mean to leave behind?"

Zhang He smiled, bitter. Through a laugh full of pain, as if he were wringing it out of his lungs, he spoke.

"It shames me to ask. May I make one request?"

"Speak."

"I will be dead soon enough regardless. Turn me so that I face Chang'an. My lord will be there."

They say a fox, when it dies, turns its head toward the hill of its old den. If that was true, then home, for Zhang He, wasn't Jizhou, where he'd been born and raised. It was the side of the man who'd recognized him. Cao Cao.

"General, you needn't do it yourself. Allow me."

"Enemy or not, he's a man worth a show of respect. I cut him down with my own hand. Seeing him to the end is the least I owe him."

I lifted Zhang He's body myself and turned him north, toward Chang'an. The haze clouding his eyes cleared for a single instant, and they took in the country beyond.

He let his eyelids sink, and murmured, unruffled.

"...I'll see you buried."

Down came the sword.

In the first light of dawn, fresh blood sprayed.