Moling (2)
Inside the city of Moling.
Within the government office where Liu Yao, Inspector of Yangzhou, had once churned through mountains of official paperwork, a lone figure was pacing back and forth, unable to shake a gnawing sense of unease.
"This is simply beyond all reason...!"
Yan Baihu.
The girl who had, in a rather peculiar flourish, gone so far as to name herself after the White Tiger sank into recollection of the recent past.
"You bandits, every last one of you! If you don't want to die, you had best hurry along!"
"What was the boss thinking, trusting a woman like that...!"
The assorted bandit gangs that had joined hands with Yan Baihu were being swallowed whole, their strength utterly absorbed by the ever-growing numbers of the Shanyue tribe.
To take up arms and resist was unthinkable — they were no match for the Shanyue — yet to slip away and hide meant that whichever power they fled from, discovery and the executioner's blade seemed all but certain to follow.
There was no point arguing that the Shanyue knew every inch of Jiangdong, and the General-in-Chief, for his part, had long since made bandit-hunting old hat.
These days, one of the most common rumors drifting through the lands he governed was the tale of yet another bandit band being stamped out of existence.
He rewarded those who contributed to the realm's peace most lavishly, and should they wish it, granted them official posts without the slightest stinting.
Anyone who mistreated innocent civilians under the pretense of hunting bandits, meanwhile, was said to receive punishments so savage that one hardly dared put them into words.
One might wonder what sort of fool would commit such idiocy, but human wickedness had an uncanny habit of outrunning the imagination.
Since death was the price of every road, the bandits had decided to gamble on the unknown and hurled themselves at the General-in-Chief's host, and...
"...Just who did you bandit rabble imagine you were setting your sights on?"
"You will not be permitted to pass."
Swept away, just like that.
There had been no need for Lü Bu of the Peerless Under Heaven to even take the field — the bandits crumpled without offering the slightest resistance to the general bearing the crescent blade and the woman wielding twin swords.
How her jaw had dropped when she learned that those two women were the very ones said to have held off Lü Bu at the Battle of Hulao Pass.
And now that same duo, who had once driven her utterly into a corner at Sishui, was cutting down her allies with terrifying ferocity.
"What the hell? Where'd the Shanyue go? Why's it nothing but a swarm of bandits? Gongjin, is this for real?"
"...Why are you asking me that?"
"Because you always know everything."
"What kind of crock is that... ...Enough. I'll hold my tongue."
It was far too carefree an exchange for the middle of a battlefield — but there was nothing the least bit amusing about the sight of bandits dropping in heaps every time the weapons in those women's hands flashed.
In the end, the bandit forces Yan Baihu had so confidently swallowed up bought her only a little time before they were annihilated to the last man.
She had never expected much from a pack of mere bandits to begin with, but it had still been an absurdly one-sided fight.
Even after losing them, Yan Baihu's challenge (?) marched on.
"No one alive knows this route! Now we charge!"
A secret path so obscure that even among the Shanyue themselves, few knew of its existence.
No matter how thoroughly the enemy prepared, Yan Baihu believed this one surprise attack could not fail.
That is, until she came face to face with heavy infantry standing rooted across the road, sealing it shut.
"Just as our darling little strategist said."
A woman with orange hair, a massive axe slung across her shoulder, drawled the words.
Yan Baihu jolted in shock and shrieked.
"Eeeeek! How on earth did you know about this path?!"
"...She just took one look at the surrounding terrain and said she could tell right away."
The General-in-Chief's strategist placed constant weight on reconnaissance, and possessed a peerless talent for piecing together the intelligence it yielded to see straight through an enemy's intentions.
Realizing she had moved exactly as her opponent had foreseen, Yan Baihu's eyes spun wildly in their sockets.
If she turned tail now, they would be on her instantly, exacting a heavy toll.
Judging it better to stand and clash once, cleanly and openly, Yan Baihu let out a war cry.
"...So what if the ambush failed! If I crush the lot of you here and now—!"
"Er... Did you really think we'd station our troops only at the front when we knew exactly where you'd be attacking from?"
"......Pardon?"
At that moment, the woman whose gray hair was pinned in place with hairpins issued an order in a voice deadpan to an almost uncanny degree.
"All units, nock arrows."
In the same breath, an astounding number of archers materialized from the brush nearby —
"Loose."
Thwish-thwish-thwoooosh—!!
— and loosed a storm of arrows straight into the Shanyue trailing behind Yan Baihu.
"GYAAAAH!"
—Any fool could see they'd come this way. Set an ambush.
—Ah. Understood.
With the uncanny sensation of overhearing a conversation that had never actually taken place, Yan Baihu screamed in haste.
"If we keep this up, we're all dead! Fall back, now!"
"R-right, Sis!"
And so they fled for their lives from the rain of arrows — for all of a moment.
The instant she judged the distance sufficient, Yan Baihu heaved a sigh of relief.
"Phew. This far out, we're safe. Now, a short rest—"
"Afraid that's not happening."
"...Huh?"
Before she could even finish the sentence, a brown-haired woman appeared at the head of a cavalry column.
—The enemy will surely flee this way, General. Wait here a moment, then run them down.
—Understood. Leave it to me.
The woman, hair bound in a ponytail, smiled softly as she recalled the white-haired little strategist.
"The battle, you see, is not yet over."
"...EEYYYAAAGH!"
Hearing that, Yan Baihu bolted yet again, and the woman gave chase at once, carving down the routed stragglers.
"If I make a splash here, she'll ride me hard as a horse again, won't she!"
And to top it all off, a beautiful general with blue-silver hair came pelting after them, muttering that deranged little monologue under her breath — by which point the army Yan Baihu had marched out with such pomp was, in the most literal sense, blown to smithereens.
And how many times had a defeat this wretched repeated itself in recent memory?
Credit had to be given where it was due.
Every single officer under the General-in-Chief was first-rate, and the soldiers they led were elite enough that even the Shanyue could not easily push them back.
After wracking her brains over and over, Yan Baihu at last drew out her final card.
"If it has come to this, then we summon every last Shanyue in all of Jiangdong!"
It was no half-hearted gamble with ambiguous numbers — she meant to wage total war with the very survival of her faction on the line.
"Yan Yu!"
"You called, Sis!"
At her summons, the younger sister who supported Yan Baihu more devotedly than anyone appeared before her.
Gazing upon her ever-dependable sister, Yan Baihu commanded.
"Send riders at once! The encirclement formed down south is to be dissolved in its entirety — every force converges here!"
"Yes, Sis!"
"And one more thing..."
Letting the words trail off for a beat, Yan Baihu then declared,
"Wu and Yue in the same boat!"
"......"
"They say the enemy of my enemy is a friend! Once word spreads that our homeland is in danger, even those who refused to side with me will lend us their strength!"
"So that's what that phrase means...! As expected of you, Sis! Your orders are mine!"
Yan Yu's eyes shone at her sister before she withdrew with an energetic bow.
"...Now there is nowhere left to run."
Having watched her sister go for a moment, Yan Baihu murmured in a small voice.
"I shall show them all precisely why I am called the White Tiger!"
The sight of her black-and-white streaked hair whipping about inside the hall was genuinely striking.
"...Nnngh. The wind in here is far too strong."
Though the woman herself, as it happened, seemed less than pleased about the effect.
Precisely a few days after that.
"L-Lord Virtuous King! Urgent report!"
"These days the mere word fills me with dread. What is it this time?"
Just as Yan Baihu had come to expect, the messenger cried out in a frantic voice.
"Our forces holding the encirclement in the south have suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Cao Cao!"
"...Hrk."
"Lord Virtuous King!"
Defeat. Defeat. And defeat again.
There was no shortage of generals commanding the Shanyue, yet not one of them had managed to halt the armies descending from north of the Yangtze.
...Herself and Yan Yu included.
All that remained now, Yan Baihu concluded, was one massive battle decided by sheer weight of numbers.
"Whew..."
Somewhere in the south of Jiangdong.
On a field where a furious engagement had just wound down, the woman with reddish-brown hair lowered her bow and swept her gaze across her surroundings.
"Ahahaha! These lot fight almost exactly the way we do!"
"Right?! At this rate I might actually grow fond of them, Sis!"
Off to one side, a pair of blonde sisters with striking bronze skin were laughing in high spirits, drenched head to toe in blood,
"I hear you're a descendant of the god of fire? So does that mean flame can't burn you?"
"...There's another one just like Meng Huo here."
while off to the other, a pale blue-haired woman was aiming a distinctly dim-witted question at a red-haired one.
"......"
The caliber of the generals was impressive in its own right, but never had she imagined the day would come when she herself would take the field shoulder to shoulder with folk of the Nanman.
Truly, no one could ever say which way life would flow.
Just then, a woman approached Taishi Ci and addressed her.
"I have watched your exploits with great interest."
"...General."
"The report that you broke through the encirclement single-handedly was no exaggeration, it seems."
Cao Cao regarded Taishi Ci and offered a calm, measured smile.
"Splendid work. You have genuinely impressed me."
"I-I am honored."
Taishi Ci could only feel sheer bewilderment at the sight of Cao Cao closing the distance between them by leaps and bounds with each passing day.
What on earth was going through her head, to behave this way?
This was no mere hunger to enlist a promising talent...
It seemed to conceal some subtler, altogether different intent.
"Hmm... Fine looks, fine ability, and a decent character to boot."
"......?"
Taishi Ci had not the faintest idea what Cao Cao was playing at.