The Charge
Red blood ran ceaselessly down Bai Jinchi's arm. The pain had passed the limits of endurance and turned to numbness, and her sensation-fled arm trembled uncontrollably. Still, she gripped her silver spear tight in her hand and held herself ready. Nothing mattered more than getting Bai Qingyun out of this place alive!
"Commander!"
A soldier of the Haoying Battalion killed the last guard keeping watch over the side door of the guesthouse, then called out to Shen Liangyu and went outside to scout a path.
"Change direction!"
Shen Liangyu abruptly turned and fell back toward the guesthouse's side door. Fighting where blades flew and arrows rained down, he withdrew inch by inch.
The leader of Li Zhijie's guards let out a shout.
"Tell the garrison troops to take those bastards down!"
The side door of the guesthouse opened, and Shen Liangyu found his rear cut off. Just as Xiao Ruohai, Bai Jinchi, and Shen Qingzhu emerged from the guesthouse, the garrisoned Xiliang troops raised their torches high and surrounded them. The archers drew their bows in unison and took aim at Shen Liangyu, Xiao Ruohai, and the others.
Bai Jinchi's throat seized up. Without thinking, she brought one hand back to rest behind Bai Qingyun and tightened her grip on her silver spear. Her eyes stung in the wavering torchlight.
"Jin soldiers?"
The Xiliang garrison general, mounted on horseback, pointed his curved blade at Shen Liangyu. He was grinding his teeth, as though he bore some deep blood grudge against the great Jin army.
"Jin soldiers, is it? The Jin army that slaughtered our hundred thousand Xiliang troops?"
Bai Jinchi clenched her jaw and glared right back at the mounted Xiliang general. She readied herself to fight to the death.
Shen Liangyu spat out a mouthful of blood-flecked spittle. Then, with his hands behind his back, he gestured for them to shield Bai Qingyun. He had made a desperate resolve — he would carve a path of blood for Bai Qingyun and Bai Jinchi to escape through. His voice came out cold and hard.
"I am Shen Liangyu... of the Bai Family Army's Haoying Battalion!"
The fearless braves of the Haoying Battalion drew their blades and charged forward.
The Dongga guards all fell back around Bai Qingyun and Bai Jinchi, shielding them with their own bodies.
The eyes of the Xiliang garrison general burned red. Glaring furiously, he roared.
"Kill every one of these Jin swine who have set foot on our Xiliang soil! Avenge our Xiliang soldiers!"
"Attack!"
The moment Shen Liangyu's order fell, the battle-hardened braves of the Haoying Battalion hurled themselves forward in a body of twenty just as the Xiliang army loosed its arrows. They rolled along the ground, then rose swinging frost-cold blades, cut down the throats of the Xiliang archers at the front, and plunged straight into the enemy ranks.
Shen Qingzhu and Bai Jinchi pressed close to Xiao Ruohai, guarding him with weapons gripped tight.
The Dongga guards and the Xiliang army clashed in ferocious combat. Blades punched through flesh and red blood sprayed before their eyes. Bai Jinchi's blood boiled hot — she wanted nothing more than to hurl herself into the fray and slaughter every Xiliang soldier on the spot — but right now she had to protect the wounded Bai Qingyun.
Following Shen Liangyu's orders, the Dongga guards and Haoying Battalion soldiers blocked the Xiliang troops with their bodies, buying time for Xiao Ruohai — with Bai Qingyun on his back — along with Shen Qingzhu and Bai Jinchi to withdraw.
"Fall back to the mountainside, then take the Fourth Young Miss and the Ninth Young Master on horseback and ride ahead! Watch the arrows! I'll buy you time."
Shen Qingzhu spoke with a grave face, shielding Xiao Ruohai and Bai Jinchi as she retreated swiftly.
"Stop them! Not one gets away!"
The mounted Xiliang general bellowed at the top of his lungs. Then, with hawklike eyes, he stared at Bai Qingyun — soaked in blood and unconscious — slung across Xiao Ruohai's back. In an instant, he understood why this Bai Family Army was so willing to risk their lives: they were trying to save that man!
The Xiliang general gripped the reins hard and squeezed the horse's flank with both legs. The warhorse shrieked. Then he led the soldiers behind him, charging toward the direction where Xiao Ruohai's party had fled. His curved blade was raised high; his killing intent surged.
"Xiao Ruohai! Take the Young Miss and the Young Master and go ahead!"
Shen Qingzhu gritted her teeth, raised her sword, and charged straight at the oncoming general.
She sprang off the wall, long sword raised, and struck down at the general galloping toward her. The Xiliang general blocked the attack with his curved blade. Instantly, Shen Qingzhu's left hand whipped the dagger from behind her back. Long sword in one hand and dagger in the other, just like Xiao Ruohai, she sent the blade's icy gleam flashing straight for the general's nape.
The Xiliang general's pupils dilated. He flung his body backward to evade her ambush. But rather than continue the fight with Shen Qingzhu, he wheeled his horse into a great leap and charged straight for the fleeing Xiao Ruohai.
The general raised his curved blade high. When it fell, he could take off both Xiao Ruohai's head and Bai Qingyun's in a single stroke.
Xiao Ruohai whirled around fiercely with his long sword raised, gripping his dagger tight, and moved to block the blade of the enemy bearing down on him with overwhelming momentum.
Bai Jinchi's eyes went wide. She let out a scream and swung her silver spear — and stabbed the neck of the warhorse flinging itself into the air.
In the flash of firelight, a strange whooshing sound came from somewhere unseen. An arrow, heavy with biting cold, punched through the Xiliang general's throat and buried itself in the eaves of the watchtower across the way. The arrow embedded there trembled without cease.
The warhorse, its neck pierced by Bai Jinchi's spear, reared its forelegs high and shrieked.
The curved blade the Xiliang general had raised high never fell. Eyes bulging, he stared up at the sheer cliff wall beneath the moon hanging overhead. Someone sat atop a horse there, drawing a bow once more as they looked down. Cold armor rimed with frost, a red cape whipping in the wind — an aura of killing intent as deep and solemn as a rakshasa risen from hell spread across the night.
Before the general could even cry out, red blood gushed from the pierced hole in his throat. He opened his mouth — unable even to give the order to hold the line — and collapsed in a spray of blood atop the warhorse he had run through with a spear, blood-mist scattering through the air.
Bai Jingyan's fury began to boil over. If she had been even a moment later, she could not have borne to imagine the consequences!
Her frost-laden gaze was enough to raise the hair on a man's neck. Bai Jingyan lifted her Sun-Shooting Bow high and roared through gritted teeth.
"Kill them all!"
Moonlight poured down like frost upon the cold, sheer cliff face. The Xiliang soldiers, heads snapping toward that soul-shaking voice, saw a hundred-odd figures appear behind Bai Jingyan.
The shriek of the warhorse seemed like it would split the sky. A hundred cavalry came thundering down the treacherous rock face like men who feared nothing in this world, driven by the momentum of a storm. The sheer ferocity of it sent chills down every spine and raised every hair!
Under the cold moonlight, Bai Jinchi recognized the rider at the very front as Bai Jingyan, and felt her hot blood surge upward. Unable to hold back her tears any longer, she broke down weeping and cried out at the top of her voice.
"Big Sister!"
She had thought she would die here today, together with her ninth brother.
Through more than ten years of life, Bai Jinchi had lived believing no one in Dadu could surpass her. At the Battle of Ongsan, her eldest sister had been at her side, and the comrades who bled alongside her in battle had shielded her. Never before had she been this alone, this isolated. Never before had she felt death this close.
Then, in her dazed haze, she saw her eldest sister — and like a small child who had finally found something to cling to, she could not gather her emotions at all and simply wept.
Her eldest sister had come. There was nothing left to fear.
A bloodthirsty battle cry rolled out across the harsh mountainside.
Strength suddenly surged up through Bai Jinchi, her fighting spirit blazing. She gritted her teeth, wiped her tears on her sleeve, and yanked her silver spear free with her foot planted on her horse's head. Then, jaw clenched tight, she whirled the spear and threw herself into fierce battle with the Xiliang soldiers who had surrounded them.
"Come on, then! You Xiliang mongrels!"
With Bai Qingyun on his back, Xiao Ruohai clenched both fists and stayed on guard.
A hundred soldiers broke through the encirclement and began harvesting the heads of the Xiliang army with swinging blades. The Xiliang formation around Xiao Ruohai crumbled. Seeing those ferocious warriors, the Xiliang troops fell back slowly in terror, shields raised.
Rescuing someone inside Xiliang's borders was like snatching prey from the mouth of a tiger's den — an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do.
The Xiliang soldiers kept coming in waves. The Haoying Battalion under Shen Liangyu were brave, battle-proven braves, but they could not hold against the endless tide of reinforcements. Of the twenty-odd Haoying Battalion soldiers, half were already dead. The Dongga guards had fallen in droves as well. Even Shen Liangyu had taken a blade — had it angled even slightly differently, he would have died on the spot.
Shen Qingzhu whirled a long sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, and wherever her blades pointed, enemy throats were severed. But there were simply too many. The Xiliang soldiers poured out without end.
Even the fierce Shen Qingzhu was struggling alone. Her arms grew heavier and heavier, and as she gulped down ragged breaths, her vision whitened and blurred. Blood-mist splashed her face and froze upon her lashes.
Instinct carried her weaving and shoving through the press of Xiliang soldiers. From high above came the shriek of a warhorse. As she caught her breath, a mounted figure charging toward her caught her eye. The killing intent arrived before the person did.
Ever since Bai Jingyan had been wounded, Shen Qingzhu had seen her like this in her dreams too many times to count. Back then, she had blamed herself without end for failing to properly protect the Grand Miss, believing the Bai Family Army had lost Xiao Baixiu — that peerless, flawless warrior.
And now — she had returned!
Hot tears spilled down Shen Qingzhu's cheeks. The tears melted the frost of blood that had hardened on her lashes. She tightened her grip on the blades in both hands. It felt as if boundless courage and strength were welling up from the soles of her feet. She felt she could cut down several thousand Xiliang invaders without breaking a sweat.
The shrill note of a bone whistle rang out repeatedly from the heights. Xiao Ruohai's ears, with Bai Qingyun on his back, twitched.
Xiao Ruohai, Shen Qingzhu — take the Ninth Young Master and withdraw to Xiaoyang Commandery at once!
The bone whistle echoed again and again; the order was repeated over and over. Xiao Ruohai heard it clearly.
Xiao Ruogang, astride a black steed, caught sight of Xiao Ruohai soaked head to toe in blood and cried out, "Brother!" Then he squeezed the horse's flank hard, charged toward Xiao Ruohai, and stretched out his hand. Xiao Ruohai swept his sword back with fluid grace and took hold. The moment Xiao Ruohai was pulled up onto the horse, Xiao Ruogang launched his body off in a stable, controlled leap and dropped away.
Xiao Ruogang's eyes were calm and cold. With a single stroke he punched through a Xiliang soldier's chest, then drew his icy blade out again. Red blood sprayed, and he roared toward Xiao Ruohai.
"Go!"
Reins in one hand, other hand raised, Xiao Ruohai glanced once at Bai Qingyun slung across his back. When he turned his head again, he saw Bai Jingyan atop her horse, eyes dark and sunken, drawing her bow with lightning speed. Her killing intent alone seemed enough to turn a man's bowels to ice.
The arrow whipped the wind past Bai Qingyun's ear and, in a single shot, punched through the throat of a Xiliang soldier who had just drawn his blade against Xiao Ruogang.