Change (5)
A duel between Zhang Fei and Ma Chao.
It had come together so abruptly that there were no spectators to speak of — at most, a handful of soldiers idly lounging around the training grounds, and that was all.
"Hahaha! The weather's no problem at all!"
"Sweat it out, and the cold disappears just like that!"
...Though calling that "lounging idly" would be more than a little strange, wouldn't it?
Muscular soldiers were toiling up a sweat on the training grounds despite it clearly being a day off from training. Watching people who genuinely seemed to enjoy driving themselves into the ground was, frankly, a little frightening.
Of course, the soldiers' strange exertions stopped as if by magic the moment Ma Chao and Zhang Fei made their appearance.
"Huh? What's this?"
"What's going on?"
The soldiers wore puzzled expressions as they stared at the generals who had materialized in the middle of the training grounds. Small wonder — both women had arrived mounted, looking as though they might ride straight onto a battlefield at any moment.
Zhang Fei, astride the horse I had once given her, showed herself with the Serpent Spear slung across her shoulder rather than a practice weapon. This time, apparently, she had no intention of going easy.
Granted, Ma Chao's provocation had been a touch intense.
Ma Chao seemed to sense that edge in Zhang Fei as well, but she only curled the corners of her mouth upward, as if this suited her just fine.
"How convenient."
"What is?"
"It would have been troublesome if, after losing to me, you'd started rattling off excuses about how you never really fought me properly."
"......"
At the unforeseen jab, Zhang Fei's brow twitched for an instant.
She really is quite the piece of work.
I was beginning to understand why the Qiang tribes feared Ma Chao.
"...Ha. Now this is fun."
After a brief silence, Zhang Fei muttered those words and lowered the Serpent Spear — a monstrous weapon boasting a full zhang and eight chi in length, a good four meters.
Honestly, I had no idea what Ma Chao intended by requesting a mounted duel. In an ordinary fight, a difference in reach is nothing to dismiss. Pit an average man with a sword against an average man with a spear, and the spearman wins most of the time. All he has to do is hold his distance and thrust away, and his opponent ends up riddled with holes.
What's that? You'd parry the thrusts, deflect them, and counter? It would be a little strange to call someone capable of that "average," wouldn't it? A truly average man would, at best, yelp in fright and go rolling across the dirt. That was precisely why most infantry on a battlefield were handed spears in the first place — they were easy to mass-produce, and so long as a man held his ground firmly, he did his job.
My thoughts had wandered off in another direction for a moment there, but the point stands: a difference in reach has an enormous effect in combat. Ma Chao did carry a spear of her own, but set against Zhang Fei's Serpent Spear, the gap in length was simply too vast — every bit the difference between the sword and the spear from my example just now.
Zhang Fei said, her red eyes gleaming.
"I honestly don't know where you find the confidence."
"......"
"What will you do if I put you flat on your back in one blow? You'll be wanting to die."
To advice that sounded like something offered to a small child, Ma Chao fired back in a level voice.
"I might ask why you're trumpeting so loudly, General, when I can't imagine what you'd do if it were you who lost."
With that, Ma Chao gave her mount a single stroke — the horse whose coat shimmered with a faint reddish tint.
What an absolutely relentless battle of nerves.
Ma Chao was plainly worked up over Zhang Fei's habit of treating her like a green recruit, and Zhang Fei was just as plainly aggravated by Ma Chao's habit of clambering right back up her back. With both women taking pride in their own abilities, it was hardly surprising.
Suddenly on the verge of witnessing a reenactment of the Battle of Jiameng Pass, I watched the unfolding scene with keen interest.
"......"
"......"
How much time passed like that? Zhang Fei and Ma Chao, who had been holding their distance, abruptly turned their heads and looked at me in perfect unison.
"...Huh? What?"
Why are they looking at me?
Before I could voice the question, Liu Bei, standing nearby, spoke up.
"It appears they are waiting for the General-in-Chief's signal to begin."
"Ah, I see."
Hearing her out, I belatedly grasped what the two generals wanted. They wanted me to call the start, same as last time. That was unexpected, actually — I'd assumed they were so thoroughly worked up that they'd slam into each other on the spot, signal or no signal. Was this their own way of showing me respect?
Calling a start was no difficult task, so I raised my voice loud enough to carry to the two women far away.
"Then — ready!"
No sooner had the words left my mouth than Zhang Fei and Ma Chao dropped into their stances, glaring at each other with fierce intensity.
"Begin!"
The instant the signal fell, the two of them lunged at each other in a swirl of dust.
"...Hm?"
Lü Bu, watching the two collide, let out a voice tinged with puzzlement.
"Isn't that a Ferghana horse?"
"A Ferghana horse?"
"Yeah. The horse that girl is riding — Ma Chao, was it?"
I turned my gaze toward where Lü Bu was pointing. ...The reddish-brown coat certainly was striking, now that I looked.
The Ferghana horse — the "sweat-blood horse." A famed steed said to sweat as though it were blood and run swift as the wind. A mount prized so highly that nations had, in fact, gone to war over it; one of the legendary thousand-li horses said to cover a thousand li — four hundred kilometers — in a single day. And if I mention that Lü Bu's own Red Hare is said to be a breed of Ferghana horse as well, perhaps that paints the picture.
Of course, the Red Hare was a freak of nature that could run a thousand li by day and another eight hundred li — three hundred ten kilometers — by night, so it wasn't remotely comparable to an ordinary Ferghana horse.
And Lü Bu was telling me that Ma Chao was, at this very moment, astride the back of one of those very steeds. So that was where all that confidence came from? Xiliang horsemanship and a famed horse whose value could scarcely be named — I couldn't begin to guess what kind of synergy would be born when the two combined.
Perhaps Lü Bu's hunch was right on the mark, because Ma Chao's horse began pulling ahead of Zhang Fei's at a pace that was faster by far, even to a rough estimate. The way it built up speed was anything but ordinary.
While I stood there failing to hide my astonishment at Ma Chao's mount, the distance between the two riders closed in a flash.
BOOM—!
A tremendous collision rang out, loud enough to rattle my eardrums. Hearing it, I knew at once that Ma Chao's skill had changed since last time.
"Hm?"
"...Oho."
Well, look at that.
Lü Bu, who had seemed only half-interested, and Guan Yu, who had been observing the duel with careful attention, reacted at the very same moment. Zhang Fei, too, must have felt something in that first exchange as they swept past each other; she flashed a grin and called out to Ma Chao.
"Well, well. Compared to before, you've suddenly improved by leaps and bounds."
"......"
"If this were last time, you'd already be flat on your back."
Her tone still carried that air of appraising Ma Chao's worth. Naturally, Ma Chao was not the sort to sit quietly and take it.
Hearing Zhang Fei out, Ma Chao narrowed her eyes slyly and murmured.
"And yet your own approach — simply bulldozing ahead with raw strength — hasn't changed in the slightest."
"Huh?"
"Weren't you doing exactly that at the Battle of Hulao Pass, right up until General Lü Bu floored you with a single blow?"
"......"
Ma Chao was dredging up the past — the time Zhang Fei had very nearly died at Lü Bu's hands.
...It was true that judged on strength alone, Lü Bu was the strongest of them all. I could only marvel at where such power came from within that small frame. Of course, that was setting Seo Yeo aside — after all, when Seo Yeo seized Lü Bu for trying to strip my clothes off by force, didn't she fail to budge so much as an inch?
At Ma Chao's continued needling, Zhang Fei reacted once more.
"Oh? And who was it again that lost to a person like that?"
"It's rather unseemly to keep dredging up a past that will never happen again, don't you think?"
"Ha! Then I'll make it happen again!"
With that shout, Zhang Fei swung the Serpent Spear, and Ma Chao, adjusting her grip on her weapon, met the blow head-on.
CRASH!
Watching the duel thunder with savage sounds, I gave a wry smile. They truly refused to concede a single word to one another. Well — I suppose it was precisely that burning competitive streak that had won them such martial might in the first place.
"Mm... As I thought, whenever there's a spare moment, closing the distance is..."
"Liu Bei?"
At the voice drifting over from nearby, I turned my head. The moment my gaze landed on her, Liu Bei smiled her usual gentle smile.
"Just thinking aloud. Please pay it no mind."
"......"
Even so, something about those words nagged at me.
"Do you truly wish to know?"
"...No, I'm fine."
I slightly averted my eyes from Liu Bei's sly-looking gaze. However close we had grown — however much our bodies had even intertwined — she remained a woman whose heart I still could not read. Not that I meant I couldn't trust her, but...
"...Nnh...!"
...Huh?
At that sound, I whipped my head around, eyes gone round as a meerkat's. It was a sound enough to stir a reaction even from Lü Bu, who had been watching the duel with idle detachment — and even from Seo Yeo, who rarely spared a glance for anyone but me.
"...Hah!"
Realizing that every eye around her had converged on her, Guan Yu covered her mouth with the hand that wasn't holding her weapon.
Good heavens. Don't tell me I scored a direct hit on the very first try?
My mouth fell slightly open in disbelief, and Guan Yu — catching my reaction — flushed, rare for her, and averted her gaze. The duel raging nearby had already slipped entirely from everyone's attention.