Inspector of Youzhou (6)
Liu Bei's party, having broken out of the prison, loaded Liu Yu into the carriage that had been waiting outside it. He was still too dazed to come to his senses — it seemed Gongsun Zan hadn't even bothered to feed him properly.
"Hey! He's wasted away somethin' awful! Drive that carriage good!"
"You needn't worry — that was my intent regardless!"
At Zhang Fei's words, Zhang Yi, holding the reins, called back at the top of his lungs.
"We'll ride on ahead, then!"
Liu Bei nodded, and Zhang Yi set the carriage rolling and made for the edge of the city. With a rattle of wheels it shrank into the distance in no time, and the three sworn sisters swung up into their saddles and followed after it.
"Kgh!" "Gwaah!"
The soldiers who kept bursting out of the streets along the way were cut down without a shred of mercy by Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
Zhang Fei muttered, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"What a pointless thing to do."
Apparently they were throwing men at them to buy time — but they had misjudged their opponents, and misjudged them by a mile. The moment she or Sister Yunchang so much as swung a weapon, soldiers dropped like ninepins; what time was there to buy? They were just dying for nothing.
If anything, raining arrows on them from far away would have been far more meaningful—
Klang!
"Huh?"
Almost as if the thought had summoned it, arrows came streaking in from the distance — a wild spray of shafts, as if determined that at least one should find flesh. And out of the darkness, one keen arrow flew suddenly for Liu Bei.
Zhang Fei batted it aside with a sweep of her Serpent Spear, her brow creasing slightly.
"That won't do."
Guan Yu carved a path at the front while Liu Bei lent support from the center; Zhang Fei's role was to hold the rear and forestall any surprise. And so, galloping along as they shook off the pursuit, the city gate drew suddenly, dramatically near.
The gate that should have been barred fast in the dead of night stood wide open. It was the work of a general who had served Liu Yu loyally and a handful of soldiers acting with one heart — a scene that showed just how dearly the Inspector of Youzhou was loved by the men under his command.
The carriage, far out in front, passed through the gate and out of the city. Liu Bei's party followed hard on its heels, and they were clear.
From here on, it was a contest of pure speed. The task now was to shake off the cavalry of Gongsun Zan — riders whose horsemanship every power in the land bowed to. If the carriage reached Bing Province with the pursuit thrown off, they won; if it was run down and crippled before then, they lost. The carriage carrying Liu Yu had no means whatsoever of standing against pursuers, so the role of Liu Bei's party mattered more than anything.
The good news was that the city of Ji lay tremendously close to Bing Province. The bad news was—
"Catch them! You must not let them escape!"
—that the White Horse Volunteers, Gongsun Zan's elite cavalry, were stationed at Ji.
The general commanding the White Horse Volunteers leveled his sword straight ahead and roared.
"Loose your arrows! The White Horse General says he cares not whether Liu Yu lives or dies!"
"WAAAAHHH—!!"
Gongsun Zan's elite horsemen, every last one of them a master of the bow from the saddle. Scarcely had the order fallen before the whole of the White Horse Volunteers was wheeling its mounts with practiced ease and loosing arrows in wild, indiscriminate volleys.
"What a nuisance."
Zhang Fei whirled her Serpent Spear in great arcs, sweeping aside every arrow that came flying in menace. It was a small mercy that the weapon's length let her cover a broad swath effectively.
Sister Yunchang had tucked in close at the carriage's tail, shielding it. Watching her deftly turn aside the stray arrows that came winging in now and then, there was no cause for worry at all. Not that anything so paltry as arrows could ever bring down that terrifying sister in the first place.
No — what worried Zhang Fei was Sister Xuande, whose martial skill was the humblest of the three. A few arrows she could knock down well enough, but hundreds at a time, like that, was beyond her.
Thinking this, Zhang Fei stole a glance toward Liu Bei — and was treated to quite the entertaining sight.
"Whoaah?!"
The horse beneath Sister Xuande was tearing across the earth with a savage, ferocious energy. Startled, it seemed, by a speed far beyond her expectations, Sister Xuande was flattened low against its neck. Given even the briefest opening, the horse was already gone into the distance, and the arrows meant for her did nothing but bury themselves in innocent ground.
Then, all at once, Sister Xuande's horse veered slightly to the left, entirely of its own accord. Zhang Fei wondered what in the world the beast thought it was doing — and then an arrow thudded into the very spot where Sister Xuande had been a heartbeat before, and a gasp of admiration escaped her.
"Oh."
It dodged that one all by itself, didn't it?
Watching Liu Bei's horse now move to overtake the carriage ahead outright, Zhang Fei snorted a laugh. They said the thing killed its riders — but it seemed rumor was only rumor after all.
"What in the hell is with these women?"
Yan Gang, leading the White Horse Volunteers in pursuit of Liu Yu, wore a look of sheer bewilderment. Loose this many arrows and by rights at least one should land — that was simply how it worked. But these women refused to oblige.
The woman at the very rear was turning shafts aside with an absurdly long spear, one that made him wonder how anyone even swung the thing. Toward the end she seemed to find even that tiresome, spinning the spear like a pinwheel in one hand — and what galled him most was that not a single arrow got through.
The woman in the middle, astride a most unnatural horse, was slipping aside from every attack with an almost lazy grace as she fled. He had no idea what manner of horse that was, but judging by its speed, there was no catching it. None at all.
And the other woman riding at the carriage's side boasted the same overwhelming might as the one at the rear. The memory of how she had cleaved his soldiers in half with that murderous crescent blade raised gooseflesh all over him.
Where on earth had such impossible women come from? It was a situation he flatly could not comprehend.
Yan Gang pictured those women escaping from here — and then returning at the head of an army.
"……"
At the image, cold sweat broke over him before he knew it. They had to be caught here, no matter what.
"More speed! The target is the carriage! Ignore everything else and concentrate your fire on the carriage alone!"
Clearly their purpose was to see Liu Yu to safety. Better to strike at the weak point than waste arrows on the wrong targets.
"Ignore them all! Hit the carriage—!"
It was a desperate gambit, wrung from a brain racked for any way to turn the situation around. But even concentrating fire on the carriage proved, in the end, meaningless. Whether they had caught on that his men were shooting only at the carriage, the woman with the long spear had taken up position directly behind it.
Loose arrows, and she swatted every one aside; press close to the carriage, and their overwhelming martial prowess waited, dreadful to face. Yan Gang, able to do neither one thing nor the other, sank into agonized thought — then clenched his teeth.
"…Damn it."
Since when had he become such a coward? Where had gone the man who never once trembled, even before the great hordes of the northern tribes?!
Yan Gang gathered himself, eyes bulging, and let out a great roar.
"Charge! CHARGE! Show them, plain as day, what strength the White Horse Volunteers command—!!"
WAAAAAAHHH—!!
At Yan Gang's command, the White Horse Volunteers began pouring on speed. Gongsun Zan's proudest elite horse archers could run down a mere carriage dragging its baggage behind it with the greatest of ease.
Guan Yu watched with perfect calm as the White Horse Volunteers came on with a roar.
"…So they come."
"Well, at least they're no cowards, huh?"
Zhang Fei loosened up, whirling the Serpent Spear through the air in whooshing sweeps. They're desperate, that's all — desperate men charging in. They could tell this was the Zhongshan region of Jizhou now, which meant Bing Province was truly within arm's reach.
Guan Yu turned her head toward Liu Bei riding beside her.
"Lady Xuande."
"…What is it?"
"We shall guard the carriage from behind."
"……"
After a moment's thought, Liu Bei slowly nodded.
"We have to be careful."
"Oh, quit your worrying!"
Zhang Fei laughed, bright and easy. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei eased their pace a touch and settled in behind the carriage.
With the carriage capping their speed, it was only a matter of time before Liu Bei's party was overtaken. The superbly mounted White Horse Volunteers had, before anyone realized it, closed the gap dramatically.
"Die—!"
The Volunteer who overtook Guan Yu swung his sword with true valor, proving his mettle as an elite—
"Kghk!"
—and was cloven by Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade. Watching the man tumble from his saddle and roll away across the ground, Guan Yu adjusted her grip on her weapon.
"Hey! Stretch that arm out farther! You can't even touch me!"
Zhang Fei was toying with the White Horse Volunteers one-sidedly, making full use of her spear's reach. Flustered by her attacks, they could muster no answer at all.
Yan Gang, leading the Volunteers, shouted, his face screwed up tight.
"Y-you shameless witch! Wielding a weapon that long all by yourself — have you no decency?!"
"Mad, are you? If you're mad, go get one yourself!"
With that, Zhang Fei sneered at him.
"Oh — what, too weak to lift one?"
"Shut your mouth!"
Struck squarely where it hurt, Yan Gang howled. It was absurd in the first place that anyone could swing so long a war-spear with a single arm! And she was doing it from horseback, no less! That woman was, without question, a monster wearing a human skin.
They had finally closed to grips, only to grind their teeth before those two, unable to break through — and Yan Gang was near bursting out of his own armor.
He shouted to the men around him.
"Spread out! Spread wide, then ring the carriage in from every side!"
Scarcely had the words left his mouth before the White Horse Volunteers fanned out like a pair of wings and began to encircle the carriage.
"This bodes ill."
"Truly the polished formation-making befitting Gongsun Zan's elite," Guan Yu murmured, flat as ever.
However well they fought, if the carriage was destroyed and Liu Yu killed, the battle was lost. Even then they themselves would not be taken — but failing to repay a debt of gratitude was nothing Guan Yu could wish for.
Zhang Fei, who knew it too, pulled a sour face.
"Things just got a little tangled."
If the three of them split up to hold three directions, who covered the fourth? Sister Liu Bei was weak beside her, granted, but hardly so frail as to be dragged down by common soldiers — that much she did not fear. The carriage was small; it would manage. But if an arrow found one of the horses pulling it, everything ended then and there.
"…No help for it, then."
Liu Bei, riding abreast of the carriage, stretched out a hand toward Liu Yu, who lay slumped inside it. Zhang Yi, at the reins, stared at her with eyes gone wide.
In that desperate moment, Liu Bei took Liu Yu's arm and spoke slowly.
"If we go on like this, we will be taken. You know that, don't you?"
"…I know it."
"We set you in the carriage because you were so weakened — but from here on, it would be better to seat you on a horse and ride together."
"Will that even be possible?"
The horse surely could not bear it. For one horse to carry two people was no small ask — and they had been riding at a killing pace for a long while now; the animals had to be spent.
To his worried question, Liu Bei answered without a shadow of doubt.
"Yes."
If it was the horse she rode now — if it was Dilu — then it could be done. At her bold declaration, Zhang Yi breathed out a long sigh.
"Then I will trust you."
"Thank you."
Liu Bei flashed a smile and called back over her shoulder.
"Yunchang! Lend me a hand!"
"At once."
While the Volunteers paused their assault to form up, Guan Yu lifted Liu Yu and settled him in front of Liu Bei. The slight figure seated there did not altogether block her view.
Watching, Zhang Yi smiled a bitter smile.
"Then this is as far as I go, I suppose. I beg you — look after the Inspector—"
"What on earth are you saying?"
"Ughk?!"
Just then Zhang Fei seized the back of Zhang Yi's neck with one hand and hoisted him clean into the air.
"Hurry up and ride."
Deposited atop the horse that had been pulling the carriage, Zhang Yi could only gape. Lifting a grown man in armor that easily? What kind of monstrous strength was that?
"Well then, we've no more use for this carriage. Ditch it."
CRACK!
Zhang Fei swung her spear and shattered in a single stroke the linkage between the now-empty carriage and the horse Zhang Yi rode.
CRASH—!
"Wh-wha?! Gwaaahk!"
Cut loose, the carriage pitched forward at once and crashed straight into the White Horse Volunteers pressing hard on their tail.
"Pffhah! Talk about luck running dry!"
While Zhang Fei howled with laughter, Liu Bei, carrying Liu Yu, pushed the pace. Carrying two people, and still the horse only grew faster and faster.
…What is with that horse?
Zhang Yi decided there had been altogether too much to marvel at in a single day. The White Horse Volunteers noticed it too, shock written across their faces — but it was far too late to do anything about it.
In the end, Liu Bei's party threw off Gongsun Zan's pursuit and reached Bing Province.