The Phoenix (4)
Lianhuan Ji—the Chain Strategy.
A scheme that binds each separate ruse together like ships lashed into a single chain, compounding their effect into something far greater than the sum of its parts.
The overconfident army must fall.Shut the gates and catch the thief.The stratagem of ambush.
Encircle an enemy grown arrogant on a string of victories, then—once every road of retreat has vanished beneath their feet—bring them down with a storm of hidden blades.
"Ahem. Seein' this, I think I finally get why the boss keeps fawnin' all over the kid strategist."
Gan Ning muttered it with her twin halberds still tucked through her belt, the plan fresh in her ears.
"If I were sittin' in that seat, the only plan I'd have come up with was smashin' straight through 'em."
"...Yours is truly a temperament that ought to confine itself to leading troops in the field, and nothing more."
Huang Zhong, who had been tending to her weapons while checking her bowstring, heaved a deep sigh.
"I would be ever so grateful if you could manage to move without any... sudden improvisations."
"Aw, you worry too much. All that fussin' just breeds wrinkles, y'know?"
"......"
Another unprovoked strike on the subject of age made Huang Zhong's eyebrows twitch.
"If it is a duel you want of me, I shall grant one at any time."
"Whoa there, now. Flyin' off the handle over a little age talk only makes you look older, doesn't it?"
"A duel it is, then. Follow me. Now."
Caught square in the icy glitter of Huang Zhong's eyes, Gan Ning developed a sudden case of selective deafness.
"Ah... my stomach. Hurts somethin' awful all of a sudden. Think I'll go rest a spell."
"Can you not remain standing exactly where you are?"
Gan Ning had a keen eye for gauging an opponent's strength, and she knew perfectly well that the old-timer(?) in front of her was subtly, stubbornly stronger than she was.
It was a gap she could probably flip with effort—but they weren't enemies meeting on a battlefield, and there was no call to go that far. The real trouble was that watching the woman bristle every single time age came up was simply too entertaining.
Shwiiing—!
"Eek!"
...Though getting shot at under the banner of "retribution" was not one bit fun!
Blunt shafts with no killing power they might be, but take one and it hurt like the devil.
KRAK!
And however much force was behind it—the blunt arrow that struck a tree trunk shattered into splinters past all recognizing.
Gan Ning watched, and muttered under her breath.
"Whoa. One of those hits you wrong and you're a dead woman."
"There will be no hitting you wrong, so rest easy."
Huang Zhong was already nocking a second arrow to her string.
"Phew. Well, that's a relief. At least nothin' fatal's gonna come of—"
"The next one shall be aimed at your head."
"That is the exact opposite of a relief?!"
She hadn't been joking, apparently—the arrow Huang Zhong loosed flew true and dead on for Gan Ning's skull.
Cold sweat breaking fresh across her back, Gan Ning threw herself into a frantic dance of leaps and rolls, dodging for her very life.
"...I am not certain even the most generous reading could call this 'getting along well.'"
The woman watching the madcap scene murmured it flatly.
Wei Yan, Wenchang.
The general who had betrayed Liu Biao—a man still waging a war without a shred of hope, blinded by his own hunger for power—and surrendered to the General-in-Chief.
The woman, strikingly handsome in appearance, sighed as she spoke.
"Really, there are limits. What are they going to do if this clowning of theirs leaves a scratch on my lord's dignity..."
Ever since her days as an officer under Liu Biao, she had heard the stories told of the General-in-Chief's character—and had come, in secret, to admire him.
In truth, the reason she had betrayed Liu Biao at all was the hope that this opening might let her take the field beneath the General-in-Chief's banner.
—Only the General-in-Chief can lead this warring world!
Had Jeong Reung known, he would have worn a look of utter perplexity—but only the barest handful of people knew of Wei Yan's true designs.
'Hmm... Now, how do I catch my lord's eye...'
Just as Wei Yan was sinking into thought, the ruckus left behind her, a familiar voice drifted over from nearby.
"Oh—oh my...? Wh-what's going on here?"
That soft, delicate voice, long since familiar to her ears.
A girl whose timidity was plain at a single glance stood rooted to the spot, wearing a thoroughly dazed expression.
Wei Yan answered with a look of supreme unconcern.
"It happens all the time. Pay it no mind."
"...R-really?"
"Yes."
Loosing arrows at one's own allies—business as usual.
Warriors truly are terrifying, thought Pang Tong, and shivered a little.
"Um... Th-the enemy will be moving soon, so please tell them to prepare..."
"Understood."
Her answer to Pang Tong given, Wei Yan turned to the pair and spoke in a level voice.
"You two—make ready. The enemy is on the move."
"...No help for it, then."
Regret written plain on her face, Huang Zhong lowered her bow.
"And this time, of all times, I had intended to beat some manners into that insolent creature."
Gan Ning, caked head to toe in dust from all her rolling about on the ground, gave her clothes a brisk shake.
"Well, thanks to you, auntie, looks like I won't be dyin' to an arrow any time soon."
"......"
Truly, it seemed, she ought to teach the girl some manners even if it meant a touch of excess force...
Having entertained this faintly bloodthirsty notion, Huang Zhong turned to Pang Tong and broke into a radiant smile.
"Oh my, Strategist—what brings you all the way out here?"
"Th-they say the enemy will begin their assault soon, so..."
The sight of Huang Zhong morphing into the very soul of kindness the moment Pang Tong—and Pang Tong alone—came into view.
And every time she witnessed it, Pang Tong found herself hopelessly flustered.
"...She truly is helpless around anything cute."
Then again, the way the girl flinched and shrank from absolutely everything did carry a certain something that stirred a person's protective instincts.
That ticklish warmth one feels watching a small animal—what else could you call it?
Huang Zhong, who had already scrubbed every last word out of Gan Ning's mouth from her memory, smiled brightly.
"If the enemy means to attack, then we must meet them. What would you have of us?"
"Ye-yes... F-first, the general will..."
And so Pang Tong began walking them through the plan in fits and starts, and the generals who received it dispersed each to her post.
Thus the long battle that had ground on for days was at last drawing to its close.
At the head of the Vine Armor Soldiers, Oldolgol advanced with ponderous strides—and not a flicker of fear anywhere in his bearing.
A frame far more massive than any ordinary cavalryman's. Every step the giant took sent dust whirling into the air.
And how many of those steps had he taken?
Shhiiik—!
From dead ahead, a small concealed blade came flashing in for Oldolgol's vitals.
An ambush most men could never even have reacted to—a strike that could open a fatal wound in a single stroke. Oldolgol did nothing at all.
Ting—!
The blade aimed at his vitals struck bare flesh and ricocheted away as though it had met an iron plate.
An impossible sight, straight out of a fireside tale.
"About, time, you, figured, it, out."
Oldolgol, having demonstrated the point firsthand, rumbled in a grave voice.
"Attacks, like, this, cannot, fell, me."
"Aw, you think I didn't know that before I threw it?"
Before Oldolgol's words had even finished echoing, a figure stepped out at the far end of the gorge.
Unruly dark-brown hair, a strand or two sticking loose. Auburn eyes a shade deeper than the hair that framed them.
"I threw it 'cause you were pissin' me off."
Gan Ning, appearing at the gorge's end, flipped her dagger skyward and caught it, supremely unbothered.
"Though I gotta say, I really didn't figure you'd just stroll into a canyon like this one."
"......"
"It never once crossed your mind there might be a trap?"
Oldolgol answered in a voice of perfect confidence.
"Whatever, the, trap. Just, smash, through, and, advance."
"Ha. This guy is honestly hopeless."
Gan Ning shook her head slowly.
"The world ain't that easy, big guy. You knew that, right?"
"......"
"...Right. Of course words aren't gonna reach a fella like this."
Having said her piece, Gan Ning stopped flipping the dagger and went on.
"Fellas like you only start listenin' after a good thrashin'."
"...You, dare, speak, such, things."
"Enough. Talkin' to you is tirein'. Catch you later."
The words were barely out of her mouth when Gan Ning flung the dagger sideways and sheared through a rope—
Krrrrr-UMBLE—!!
—and in the same instant, rock and earth began cascading down from both ends of the gorge.
Oldolgol stared at the sight, his voice breaking with astonishment.
"Wh-what, is, this?!"
"Good grief—do you have any idea how much backbreakin' labor went into buildin' this thing?"
While the unit up front stalled for time, the units in the rear had been sweating over a construction project of enormous scale—Gan Ning sighed at the memory.
"But what can you do? The kid strategist wanted more of our own boys to come home alive."
"Yeah, you crazy bitch—!"
"Run all you like now. Too late."
With a shrug, Gan Ning turned her back on the gorge.
"No tellin' how many of you'll live through it, but hang in there all the same."
Those were her parting words—and with them, both ends of the gorge were sealed completely shut with stone and soil.
Thirty thousand Vine Armor Soldiers under Oldolgol's command, entombed in the belly of the ravine.
"All of you—make ready!"
Huang Zhong's and Wei Yan's units, their quarry confirmed, showed themselves along the rim of the gorge and barked their orders to the archers.
Ahoenam, who attended Oldolgol, whipped his head toward the voices and roared back.
"You dogs! Arrows like those cannot pierce vine arm—"
He stopped mid-word, his eyes flying wide.
Vine armor—dengjia.
Rattan vines that grew along valley streams and climbed the sheer rock. Armor made by soaking those vines in oil for half a year, then drying them in the sun—ten rounds of it, and more.
A defense that shook off arrows and would not split beneath spear or sword. Light enough to march in all day, besides—and it even drove off every venomous insect of the Nanman.
But it harbored one single, fatal flaw—
"Fire arrows—take aim!"
—it was dreadfully, catastrophically weak to fire.
"...We've, been, had."
Oldolgol murmured it in a strangely level voice.
"LOOSE—!!"
Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip—!
Deyang County, Luojiang Town.
A place that, as some had already taken to calling it, was named Luofengpo—the Slope Where the Phoenix Falls.
And on that slope where a phoenix was fated to fall to earth, the fledgling phoenix spread her wings and soared up into the sky.