Invasion (4)
It was while Zhang Yang was drawing up a plan of response against Yufuluo alongside the officers under his command that the woman made her appearance.
With a presence like gazing up at a clear blue sky, she was someone deeply familiar even to Zhang Yang, the current Inspector of Bing Province.
Zhang Yang greeted her with evident delight.
"You're the wandering heroine who swept away that horde of barbarians all on her own just recently, aren't you! What a welcome sight!"
"I am grateful for your warm hospitality."
The woman bowed her head with formal courtesy.
At the sight, a smile touched the corners of Zhang Yang's mouth as he spoke.
"Haha, how could I ever treat a talent of your caliber carelessly?"
"……."
"I'd stake my word that anyone who has witnessed your valor even once would conduct themselves exactly as I do."
Having said as much, Zhang Yang once more replayed in his mind the scene he had recalled there many times before.
The sight of her plunging without a flicker of fear into a band of barbarians numbering no fewer than several dozen had been breathtakingly bold, and the way she crushed them single-handedly had been simply magnificent.
And it had been quite the spectacle indeed, watching those savages—who under ordinary circumstances knew nothing of fear—flee shrieking like frightened children.
She was a figure truly worthy of being called one against a hundred.
Having witnessed that martial prowess, Zhang Yang had naturally sought to bring her into his service, but the woman had politely declined his offer, saying only this:
"For now, there is something I wish to observe for a time."
"Hmm? What do you mean by that?"
Hearing his question, the woman had continued in a calm, even voice.
"...I wish to see for myself whether the world I dream of exists here."
"...Mmm."
It was an ambiguous answer whose exact meaning he could not fathom, but sensing the conviction carried in her voice, Zhang Yang had swallowed his disappointment and withdrawn.
"My gates are ever open. Should your mind change, come find me whenever you please."
To Zhang Yang's words, heavy with lingering regret, the woman had answered with a smile.
"A kindness beyond my deserts. I thank you."
Even after that, the woman roamed the whole of Bing Province without rest, hunting down single-handedly every foreign band that came to raid.
When her spear snapped partway through a battle, unable to withstand the fury of the melee, she would snatch up a tribesman's weapon and wield it in its stead; and when even that grew too ruined to use, she would take up yet another and fight on—for days at a stretch.
"No—what in the devil is wrong with this place?! I rejoiced when they told me Lü Bu had vanished, and now what in the—!"
"Please be quiet."
"Gahk!"
There was never a day when the blood on the silver armor she wore had time to dry.
The white horse she rode was forever steeped in gore.
So a not-inconsiderable span of time flowed by, and with every passing day the woman's name rose higher and higher within Bing Province.
Just as it had for Lü Bu in the days when she was called the Peerless Under Heaven.
Zhao Yun, Zilong.
Or, as others came to say it: Zhao Zilong of Changshan.
By now, no one within Bing Province did not know that name.
For there was not a commoner living beyond the protection of the city walls who had not received her aid at least once.
Zhang Yang, the Inspector of Bing Province, asked with an expression brimming with expectation.
"That you have come to us in a moment like this—am I right to take it as meaning you've come to help?"
"That is so."
The woman with the sky-blue hair answered with quiet courtesy.
At this, Zhang Yang could not contain his joy.
"Haha! With you at our side, it is as good as a thousand troops and ten thousand horses! Welcome!"
Zhang Yang turned his head toward a Black Mountain Bandit standing nearby.
"Sui Gu! What say you! If I appoint this woman as your deputy, can you hold back the Xiongnu Chanyu's offensive?"
"Merely hold them back, you say?"
Sui Gu, the chieftain who commanded the Black Mountain Bandit forces across Bing Province, flashed a wolfish grin.
"Handled well, we could deal them a heavy blow before the reinforcements the General-in-Chief sent even arrive."
"Very confident, I see?"
"Just give us proper support from nearby. Then we win."
Zhang Yang nodded with a satisfied expression at that dependable bearing.
"...Well, I did say all that riding the momentum, but..."
Sui Gu muttered in a voice of sheer disbelief as he stared at the scene before his eyes.
"...I never dreamed it would turn into a mess this bad."
The battlefield at that moment could rightly have been called pandemonium itself.
"Die, you barbarian bastards!"
Swish-swish-swish—!
The Black Mountain Bandits he had deployed at points all across the mountains loosed arrows from every direction,
"Let's show these weaklings what riders born on the steppe can do—!"
and the Xiongnu, refusing to be outdone, went careening wildly through the range and answered with counter-volleys of their own.
The arrows thus loosed streaked toward one another, each side's shafts piercing the other's soldiers.
"Aaargh!"
"Gahk!"
A Black Mountain Bandit perched up in a tree took an arrow through the torso and rolled down to the ground below.
One unlucky Xiongnu, attempting evasive maneuvers to dodge the rain of shafts, failed to clear them in time and ended up a pincushion—himself and his horse both.
Judged on this alone, it might have looked like an evenly matched contest of strength, but the side currently faring poorly was their own.
Even with arrows flying in from places no one could predict, the barbarians showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Did that mean this much was no true threat to them at all?
There was, what's more, one point that was even more remarkable still.
"Hahaha! Even my little brother, still sucking at his mother's teat, could handle a bow far better than the likes of you!"
The Xiongnu were slipping past the ambush attacks with genuinely effortless ease.
Making use of the trees strewn here and there nearby as cover against the arrows, they kept their losses to a minimum.
Purely on terrain, they themselves, who knew every fold of the ground, should have held the decided advantage.
Yet the Xiongnu, as if to ask what of it, were lightly flipping that advantage on its head.
If there was any blessing amid the misfortune, it was that the Black Mountain Bandits lying in ambush had also settled into spots where the Xiongnu's attacks could not easily reach.
"Ughk!"
Of course, no position was perfectly safe, and there was no helping the fact that a few of the bandits were dying all the same.
Watching a Black Mountain Bandit struck by a blind arrow plunge down beneath the cliff, Sui Gu let loose a tremendous bellow.
"You bastards—! Any one of you, come try taking my head—!!"
The instant Sui Gu clenched his fist and roared with his mouth flung wide, every Xiongnu eye snapped toward him at once.
"Full of yourself, aren't you! Fine! I'll crack that skull of yours open with my own hands!"
Sui Gu shouted right back at the Xiongnu spewing his filth, yielding not an inch.
"No wonder they call you barbarians—savage talk is all you know how to speak!"
"That's right! Come try dying at this barbarian's hand, then!"
A Xiongnu officer, his interest caught by Sui Gu, came charging with a curved saber gripped in his hand.
As the officer rushed in, several soldiers trailing at his heels likewise made for Sui Gu.
The Black Mountain infantry were already run off their feet just holding back the Xiongnu hurling themselves in with their superior mobility, and so at this moment there was no one beside Sui Gu capable of shielding him.
Save for one.
Sui Gu swept a glance around him once, then burst out laughing.
"Haha! You took the bait!"
"...What do you..."
"Can't you work it out?!"
The Xiongnu officer, still unable to read the situation, could only wear a look of blank confusion.
Sui Gu roared.
"You've gone and found your own place to die, that's what—!"
Scarcely had the words left his lips than Zhao Yun, who had been cutting down enemies nearby, came bursting out.
Neiiiigh—!
The white horse she rode tore down through the mountains with a ringing, full-throated whinny.
"N-no?! That bitch was clearly rampaging over there just now—when did she circle back...!"
The Xiongnu officer cried out in horror, but it was already far too late.
"Gahk!"
Piercing the enemy commander's throat without a moment's hesitation, Zhao Yun then cut down even the soldiers following at his heels in the space of a single breath.
Blood dripped in slow beads from Zhao Yun's spear, which had already felled countless Xiongnu before it.
"……."
Zhao Yun paused only long enough to confirm that Sui Gu was unharmed, then went tearing back across the battlefield.
"B-block her! Hold her back──!!"
"Why in the world can't you stop one lone warrior?! That woman is no Lü Bu, I tell you—!"
At the sight of Zhao Yun bearing down on them, the Xiongnu loosed cries that bordered on outright shrieks.
Deflecting with ease the arrows that came flying at her, Zhao Yun cut the Xiongnu down where they stood.
"...Truly beyond belief."
Sui Gu, watching that staggering display, made no attempt to hide his astonishment.
Even back when the General-in-Chief had resided in Bing Province, such a sight had been exceedingly rare.
It was a spectacle no one could have shown save General Lü Bu, the Peerless Under Heaven herself—just as those barbarians had said moments ago.
Sui Gu muttered under his breath.
"Where on earth a talent like that came springing out of, I'd like to know."
Though the battle as a whole still ran against them, thanks to Zhao Yun's ferocity even a draw was now within their grasp.
"You mean to leave everything to one woman—!"
Sui Gu bellowed at the soldiers around him, meaning to whip their morale back up.
"If our line breaks, everything ends right there! Dig in and give me more—!"
Waaargh—!
The Black Mountain Bandits raised their war cries high, for the families waiting behind them.