A Battle Cry That Shakes the Heavens
Yun Paxing, shielded by the armored wall of Xiliang generals, heard Zheng Yuanzhi bellowing that he would cut off his head — and let out a great, booming laugh.
"Even Bai Weiting couldn't touch me, and the talking puppet of the Bai family, Zheng Yuanzhi, dares to flaunt his arrogance and claim he'll take my head? Our Xiliang came here with an army of seven hundred thousand! Yes, we're surrounded inside this gorge, but the Xiliang army is fearless! Our forces outnumber Jin's many times over! Hold out only until nightfall, and Xiliang's great host will arrive in relief — and then we need only walk forward, trampling Jin's beaten remnants into the dirt! Zheng Yuanzhi... if I were you, I'd be running right now!"
The moment Yun Paxing's voice died away, a shriek that seemed to tear the very sky apart erupted from above the eastern wall of the gorge. The Xiliang soldiers who had been raining arrows down on Jin's great army all spun toward the rear, bows drawn, faces frozen in shock.
But before a single Xiliang archer could loose his shaft, arrows came pouring down from the peaks of Jiuqu Peak and the mountain tops at the mouth of Wengshan.
Beneath the iron crossbows and arrowheads of the Haoying Battalion, the Xiliang troops screamed. Soldiers struck by the volley tumbled ceaselessly from the gorge walls, and the sudden reversal threw the entire Xiliang host inside the canyon into chaos.
The Xiliang archers shot toward the adjoining summits of Jiuqu Peak and Wengshan, but the terrain was far too low — they could not bring their bows to bear on the Haoying Battalion positioned above them.
Gritting his teeth, Shen Liangyu rode the zip-line at breakneck speed toward the mountaintop. He pulled free the Bai army's war banner from where it was strapped across his back, gripped the pole with both hands, and with a roar drove the standard deep into the summit's earth.
The mountaintop — in sight of every soldier in the canyon. The black-silk White Python Banner unfurled in the wind and snapped like living thunder.
"The black-silk White Python Banner! It's the Bai army!"
"The Bai army! The Haoying Battalion brothers have come!"
The Bai soldiers in the valley below went wild with joy, and as their cries rang out, their morale surged higher still. Strength flooded into their bodies as if blood had been transfused into their veins, and they raised their blades and fell upon the enemy with fresh fury.
"The blades of our Bai army soldiers are invincible! Charge!"
Even Zhang Danyue, standing on the high ground of the western gorge with his troops, felt his blood boil over. He roared at the top of his lungs.
"Loose!"
Following the shortcut marked on her map, Bai Jingyan launched her assault from the midpoint of Wengshan Gorge's eastern wall. The eastern face of the canyon, rising steeply on the whole, gentled into easier slopes near the top.
In war, speed was everything. Bai Jingyan meant to climb to the summit fast and strike the Xiliang troops before they could form a defense, so she ordered her soldiers to ride.
By the time the Xiliang army spotted the thousand-odd Jin troops, the Haoying Battalion was already covering them with iron crossbows and arrows, clearing the way for the main force to race up Wengshan. The great army closed into brutal, close-quarters combat with the Xiliang troops.
Bai Jingyan spurred her warhorse forward at a gallop. Her cold, keen gaze fixed on the hawk circling high above the gorge, and she nocked an arrow and took aim at the bird.
The Xiliang general lying in ambush with his men pressed himself flat against the cliff face, scanning his surroundings with dark, sharp eyes — and caught sight of her, proud and commanding atop her horse with bow raised.
When he realized she was aiming at Yun Paxing's hawk, his heart lurched. That hawk was the very emblem of Yun Paxing himself. Every army outside of Jin's Bai forces that had ever laid eyes on the bird had been terrified into flight by it.
That hawk was the bird that stoked the fighting spirit of the whole Xiliang host. It must not die. He snatched up his bow at once.
A bead of sweat formed at Bai Jingyan's temple. She stilled her heart and clenched her jaw.
Before she could release, an arrow came shrieking through the air. The warhorse beneath her screamed in agony, and Bai Jingyan — caught utterly unguarded — was thrown from the saddle.
"Sister!"
"Young lord!"
Xiao Ruohai leapt from his own horse and sprinted toward her.
"Young lord — the spear!"
He hurled Bai Jingyan's silver spear to her. She caught it, and almost on instinct her body twisted and drove the weapon forward with everything she had. A Xiliang soldier died on the spot.
Xiao Ruohai drew his long sword and guarded her flank. Bai Jinchi, dismounting, rushed to her sister's side as well and shielded her.
"Xiao Ruohai — plant the banners!" Bai Jingyan shouted.
"Yes, my lord!"
The Xiliang general raised his bow again and took aim at Bai Jingyan. On the battlefield she alone possessed a keen, uncanny sense of danger, and she felt death drawing closer by the heartbeat. She drove her silver spear into the ground, wrapped one arm around Bai Jinchi's head, and pulled her sister down into the shelter of her body.
The arrow grazed past Bai Jingyan's face in a spray of blood. And in that instant, she pinpointed the Xiliang general who had fired at her.
Bai Jinchi followed her sister's gaze. Seeing the general draw his bowstring back for another shot at Bai Jingyan, she urgently threw the Sun-Shooting Bow to her.
"Sister! The bow!"
Bai Jingyan caught the bow one-handed and plucked an arrow with the other. Twisting swiftly aside to dodge the incoming shaft, she drew the string and released with a feather-light exhalation of strength.
It was a shot far faster than the Xiliang general's — and far stronger. Her arrow buried itself in his throat, and the general was dead before the next heartbeat.
"The general!"
The Xiliang troops cried out in horror.
He had been their finest rider and archer — and he had been felled with a single arrow to the neck!
The fighting spirit of the Xiliang soldiers battling desperately on Wengshan's eastern wall wavered all at once.
Xiao Ruohai lifted the banner and led the troops forward. In moments they would charge to the very edge of the gorge's cliff.
As an unclaimed warhorse came pounding toward Bai Jingyan, she slung the Sun-Shooting Bow across her back, wrenched her silver spear free of the earth, and vaulted into the saddle in a flash. Then she shouted to Bai Jinchi.
"Arch up!"
Bai Jinchi seized the Red-Tasseled Spear her sister extended down to her and used its leverage to swing up onto the horse. Mounted behind Bai Jingyan on the madly galloping steed, she whirled the spear, punching through the hearts and lungs of Xiliang soldiers as they thundered past. No sooner had she torn her spearhead free of one body than she plunged it into the next.
"Catch!"
After passing the Red-Tasseled Spear back to Bai Jinchi, Bai Jingyan clamped her legs tight around the horse's barrel and raised the bow. Once more the arrowhead swung toward the hawk wheeling above the gorge.
The galloping horse gathered itself and leapt clean over the heads of the soldiers locked in combat ahead.
Despite all her punishing training, her strength still fell short — but her accuracy had never once been in question.
A faint rasp of friction sounded along the Sun-Shooting Bow. Bai Jingyan hauled back the string with all her might, her whole body drawn taut, sweat beading on her brow.
Aim. Release.
The arrow ripped through the air with an eardrum-splitting shriek and flew straight at the bird soaring in the sky. It punched clean through the hawk's body.
A piercing cry of agony tore across the high air, and the hawk — its body skewered through — began to fall.
Now!
Bai Jingyan hauled hard on the reins, raised her silver spear high, and roared.
"Unfurl the banners!"
Xiao Ruohai, voice thick with fury, drove the Bai army's standard into the high ground with all his strength.
"Unfurl the banners!"
"Unfurl the banners!"
"Unfurl the banners!"
In an instant, more than twenty Bai army standards snapped open in the wind, rippling from the heights along the gorge's eastern wall.
On the jolting back of the racing warhorse, the roar of the wind and the thunder of cheering left Bai Jinchi's ears ringing. She set her jaw, unfurled the banner she had kept folded close against her chest, and slid it onto her spear.
When the galloping horse reached the end of the cliff wall, Bai Jingyan reined in hard, and in that same instant Bai Jinchi planted her silver spear against the ground, borrowing its force to dismount. Then she tore recklessly toward the very lip of the cliff, hoisting high the black-silk Red Python Banner that her eldest sister had once carried — tears streaming down her face, screaming as she waved it!
Bai Jinchi had stolen the banner away in secret. That black-silk Red Python Banner was the one her eldest sister had carried on her very first campaign, riding to war beside their grandfather. Of the character for "python" embroidered on the banner, only its inner component — the one signifying courage, unyielding resolve in the face of hardship, ambition, and triumph — had been painted in red. Because her eldest sister was a woman, a general in red bridal garb, their second sister had said, she ought to carry the Red Python Banner.
And so the black-silk Red Python Banner had gone to war with the second sister when she marched out — and the third sister had carried it with her as well.
Bai Jinchi had brought this banner because she wanted the Bai army to know: the men of the Bai family had all fallen in battle, but the daughters of Bai still lived. That they would never grovel out a wretched existence in this world. That they would share hardship and joy with the brothers of the Bai army, and bear the fate of life and death together!
The sun slanted low, and darkness began to fall.
Inside Wengshan Gorge, the hawk that embodied Yun Paxing had fallen — and in its wake, the standards of the Bai army, masters of the gorge's eastern wall, snapped and billowed in the wind.
Yun Paxing's face turned an ugly shade of purple-blue. Craning his neck, he stared at the black-silk White Python Banner — a sight that alone chilled his marrow — and shrieked.
"What is that?! It must be a trap laid by the Crown Prince of Great Jin! Where would a living Bai army come from now?! Every last drop of Bai blood died by my hand long ago!"
Even the Bai soldiers down in the valley were bewildered. Which battalion of the Bai army was this?
A warhorse's piercing scream rang out above the gorge.
Zheng Yuanzhi looked up. In a heartbeat he recognized the figure on horseback, the Sun-Shooting Bow slung across her back and the Red-Tasseled Spear in hand. When he saw the black-silk Red Python Banner that Bai Jinchi was waving with all her strength, his eyes flew wide. Hot blood surged to his head, and he shoved aside the soldiers supporting him.
The black-silk Red Python Banner. The fine steed. The silver spear. The Sun-Shooting Bow! The undefeated, invincible general — Xiao Baishiu — who had fought shoulder to shoulder with them!
Zheng Yuanzhi, the true man who had not so much as blinked when an arrow buried itself in his shoulder, felt his eyes burn red with overwhelming emotion. He roared out loud.
"Xiao Baishiu! Xiao Baishiu has returned!"
Unable to contain himself, Zheng Yuanzhi broke into great peals of laughter. Tears brimming in his eyes, he bellowed in a ragged voice.
"Yun Paxing, you blasted whoreson! Open those dog eyes of yours wide and look your fill! That is our late marshal's eldest granddaughter — Xiao Baishiu, the one who cut the head from Fang Pingguo, Grand General of Shu! Yun Paxing, you son of a bitch! Let today be the day of your death!"
His strength returning in a flood, Zheng Yuanzhi pointed the black-silk Red Python Banner toward where Yun Paxing stood. Fighting spirit blazed from every inch of him.
"Bai army, hear my command! Xiao Baishiu has returned! We will drive back the enemy following Xiao Baishiu if it costs us our lives! Today we take Yun Paxing's head! CHARGE!"
A battle cry erupted from the depths of the valley.
From the high peaks flanking Wengshan's Jiuqu Peak, nearly two hundred Haoying Battalion soldiers shouted as they rappelled down the ropes in one sweeping motion — like eagles spreading their wings wide and plunging earthward. At that savage sight, the Xiliang troops felt their blood run cold.