Cao Song (6)
"Take a good look at this lot."
The moment word arrived that bandits had entered the estate, Xiahou Dun had wheeled her cavalry around and raced back. Now, staring at the mob swarming before Cao Song's grounds, she let out an admiring whistle.
"There's way more of them than I figured."
Mengde's father might be the richest man in the realm, but split between that many hands, there'd hardly be anything left for any one of them—or so it seemed to Xiahou Dun, who had no way of knowing what each piece of treasure was actually worth. Even if that were true, though, it wasn't what she needed to focus on right now.
Her mind drifted back to the conversation she'd just shared with Cao Cao at Cao Song's estate.
"──You're aware Dong Zhuo set the Great Fire of Chang'an, yes?"
Before laying out her plan, Mengde had brought up a certain incident.
"──Is there a single soul under heaven who doesn't know that by now?"
Dong Zhuo's Great Fire of Chang'an—the colossal atrocity of a man who had razed a metropolis that could stand toe to toe with Luoyang itself to nothing in a single day. It was already the stuff of legend how the General-in-Chief, eyes blazing at such wanton cruelty, had run down and killed Dong Zhuo—who had fled all the way to Xiliang—in less than a month.
At her reaction, Mengde posed another question.
"──Then tell me. Do you know why Dong Zhuo burned Chang'an?"
"──..."
That much, she hadn't known. When news of Chang'an's destruction had first reached her, her reaction had gone no further than Wow... what a lunatic.
When she failed to answer right away, Cao Cao continued, as if it were nothing.
"──You could dig up any number of reasons if you tried, but in the end, why he did it comes down to something trivial."
"──Which is?"
"──Nothing more than a spoiled child's tantrum. He simply couldn't stomach the thought of handing anything good to that insufferable man."
"──You're kidding."
Xiahou Dun had been left gaping at Cao Cao's assessment. If that was true, then Dong Zhuo had roasted hundreds of thousands of Chang'an's innocent civilians alive for no reason grander than not wanting to gift the General-in-Chief an intact city. He was an even madder bastard than she'd imagined.
"──Which means the reason I'm about to do this is much the same as Dong Zhuo's back then."
"──..."
"──Yuanrang. Just one small favor."
The moment Cao Cao's eyes turned to her, Xiahou Dun—sensing exactly what was coming—pulled a sour face. She was no slouch in the wits department, either.
"──...The way this conversation is heading, I've got a pretty good guess what favor's coming."
"──Then that spares me the trouble of explaining."
Cao Cao tilted her head with a playful grin.
Remembering Cao Cao's plan, a smile crept across Xiahou Dun's lips.
"Honestly, sometimes I swear Mengde's got a screw loose herself."
Cao Cao had ordered the vast fortune her own father treasured so dearly to be burned—without an instant's hesitation. It was only because the child Cao Song doted on had done the persuading personally that the old man had agreed at all; otherwise he wouldn't have budged an inch. And had it come to that, there would have been plenty of casualties. In an age like this one, the iron bond between parent and child shone all the brighter.
Watching the bandits' faces drain to a deathly white as they finally noticed her forces, Xiahou Dun let out a thunderous roar.
"Let's go──! Burn it ALL down──!!"
"RAAAAGH──!"
At the head of the charge, Xiahou Dun crashed into the still-bewildered bandits, great saber swinging.
"...What in the world is that noise?"
Right around the time Xiahou Dun had begun her assault with the cavalry outside, Zhang Kai was still inside Cao Song's estate, elbow-deep in plunder.
"B-Boss! We've got big trouble!"
Just as Zhang Kai was puzzling over the commotion, one of his men came pelting up to him, wild-eyed and gasping for breath.
Zhang Kai questioned the man as he stumbled close.
"What the hell is all that racket about?"
"C-Cao Cao! Cao Cao's turned her whole army around and she's charging in!"
"Say what?"
Zhang Kai's eyes flew open at the report.
"We have to run, boss, right now! Our boys are getting slaughtered by the cavalry as we sp—!"
"BWAHAHAHA!"
At that, Zhang Kai burst out laughing out of nowhere. The bandit mid-report asked him, flustered:
"Boss? What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
"I spared their sorry hides, and now they've gone and marched right back here to die. It's just too funny."
Has the man finally lost his mind?
As the bandit stared at him in open bewilderment, Zhang Kai—looking as though he understood everything—explained the wellspring of his confidence in the gentle tones of a grown-up humoring a child.
"Think about it, boy. Just how many of us are there?"
"......"
"Sure, they've got momentum on their side right now. But once we pull ourselves together and turn our advantage in numbers loose on them, we can beat them back!"
...Is that so?
The bandit, a stranger to the art of war, nodded along in a daze—supposedly the boss knew best. Zhang Kai issued his orders.
"Forget about the lads already getting chewed up out there. Round up the ones nearby and hold a formation."
"...Got it, boss."
It was a plan that wrote off their own comrades' lives without a second thought, but a crew of bandits had never had a shred of camaraderie to begin with, so the man simply did as he was told.
"Attacking us without an ounce of fear, are they? Fine. Let your elder here show them what for."
Hardly had Zhang Kai finished speaking—grinning in a way that curdled the blood—when tongues of flame began leaping up all across the estate.
The fire spread in the blink of an eye, and thick, acrid smoke swallowed the interior whole. Zhang Kai nearly jumped out of his skin.
"W-What the hell is this?!"
His face twisted in horror; he had never dreamed of such a thing. The blaze was spreading far, far too fast. As if the whole place had been slathered in oil...
...So that was it. That weird smell hanging around the place... that was oil?
The instant the thought landed, Zhang Kai scrambled helter-skelter for the exit, desperate not to die roasted alive.
By the time he spilled out of the building, slaughter had already erupted all around the estate.
"GYAAAAH!"
"H-Hot! It burns! Somebody, anybody, get me out of here!"
Every one of Cao Song's buildings was already ablaze, belching black smoke toward the four winds. The wall ringing the estate had half caved in, and Zhang Kai's men ran screaming in blind panic, scattering every which way to flee Cao Cao's soldiers.
Then Zhang Kai spotted him—the very underling he'd sent off moments ago, lying dead a short distance off, eyes glazed and staring.
"Oh, you son of a—!"
One look was enough to grasp exactly how bad things had gotten. Zhang Kai spat a curse and bolted.
Did these people care nothing for the treasure here at all? How could anyone set it all alight without a flicker of hesitation?!
Zhang Kai had pinned his hopes on the city streets being too tight and cluttered for cavalry to run amok—but Cao Cao's army had simply put them to the torch and flipped the entire battlefield on its head instead. With flames climbing skyward on every side, the force was beyond salvaging. Pressing a crushing advantage in numbers only mattered when your men still had the stomach to fight, and at this rate there wasn't a prayer. Men were even now stumbling out of the inferno wrapped head to toe in flame—what was anyone supposed to do about that? When he saw even the men posted in reserve around the estate quietly slinking away, Zhang Kai knew the only question left was how to save his own hide.
A few, concluding there was no way out, turned and raised their weapons against Cao Cao's soldiers instead—but it was all wasted defiance. Did they imagine the horse would stand idle while the rider swung a blade from its back? The great beast bowled men over with its massive bulk, kicked, reared, and thrashed like something possessed, and no ordinary man alive had the means to stand against it.
"And just where do you think you're going?"
Just as Zhang Kai was slipping away, a young woman's voice floated into his ears, singling him out. He whipped his head around to find a woman with slate-blue hair looking down at him from the saddle, a massive saber propped on her shoulder. Drops of blood fell from its edge in a steady rhythm—by the look of her, she'd already reaped plenty.
Forcing down his unease, Zhang Kai roared at the woman before him.
"Out of my way! Stay in my path and you're dead!"
"Ooh. Now that actually sounds fun."
The woman soaked up his threat without so much as blinking.
"But can you really, though? Kill me, I mean."
"...Don't you dare underestimate me!"
When the woman's saber leveled at him, Zhang Kai understood there'd be no dodging this fight. He wrenched a great saber of his own—near enough the same size as hers—from his waist and hefted it.
"Rushing headlong to your death without even knowing your place?! Fine by me! Come on, then!"
"Sure thing."
The words were barely out of his mouth when the woman dug in her heels and came on, horse and rider closing the distance in a heartbeat.
"Then let's see you block this one."
"!!"
Eyes bulging, Zhang Kai flung his arms up to meet the strike.
CLANG!
Their weapons met with a shriek of steel so piercing his ears went numb.
"Gwah—!"
The impact tore the weapon clean from his grip, and Zhang Kai grimaced as numbness shot up his arms.
His saber spun once through the empty air before clattering to the ground.
"Huh. That's it? We're done already?"
The woman's face fell into a look of mild disappointment as she went on. Zhang Kai couldn't so much as twitch—he knew perfectly well that the moment he stooped for his weapon, she'd take his head in a single stroke.
In the end, he flopped down flat where he stood and thrust out the gems he'd so jealously hoarded, offering them up to the woman.
"I-I'll give you whatever you want! Just spare my life, please!"
"Well, well. Even in the middle of all that, you still made sure to grab yourself a haul."
Muttering in genuine admiration, the woman sauntered toward Zhang Kai at an unhurried pace. Then she asked him:
"You'll give me whatever I want, hm?"
"Anything! Just name it and it's yours...!"
And while Zhang Kai was still groveling, the woman abruptly swung her blade.
Watching the dead man's severed head go bouncing and rolling across the ground, Xiahou Dun muttered flatly.
"How come bandits always behave exactly the same way?"
Crime as a career right up until the tide turned against them—then instant surrender, begging for their miserable lives. She'd come to deal with him personally because anyone could see at a glance he was the head of the pack, and yet... perhaps a bandit was simply a bandit, down to the marrow. Disgusting creatures, and hardly satisfying to cut down besides—Xiahou Dun was in a foul mood.
Paying Zhang Kai's corpse no further mind, she swept her gaze across the area. The bandits, their will to fight utterly shattered, were scattering in all directions, weapons abandoned where they'd dropped. Fleeing bandits, wide open and defenseless.
Xiahou Dun was not a merciful enough woman to let them go.