Do Not Let Them In

From tip to fletching they ran a full four chi—nearly four feet. The axe-blade heads alone weighed ten taels, some three hundred and seventy-five grams. These were Blood Death Arrows. Without a giant iron bow, Peak Realm archery, and the force of true qi behind them, they could not fly even eighty paces.

A hissing storm of them—unique in all the world—packed the northwestern forest of Mount Baohua. Beneath the rain of shafts, a thousand men of the Blood Death Archery Corps began their crossing advance.

The archers in the evergreens leapt from branch to branch, closing the distance on their target with every bound. While six hundred loosed, three hundred from the rear surged forward to take the van and fire in their turn; then the next three hundred rotated up. The whole formation kept six hundred bows in continuous action even as it advanced. The remaining hundred were Gong Jeong-mun's personal reserve, under his direct command.

"Commander, the picket line was thinner than we expected. Casualties are almost nothing."

"They never thought anyone would climb the cliff."

Cheong Hak and Gong Jeong-mun, commander of the Blood Death Archery Corps, followed at the center of the rear, watching the field. The breakthrough had been almost disappointingly easy. Scaling the northwestern face of Mount Baohua had drained the archers somewhat, but it had cost them virtually no lives. The pickets posted along that sheer drop had been sparse and slack.

"The forest, though. That's the problem."

Cheong Hak's face tightened with distaste. The northwestern face of Mount Baohua was brutal country, and the timber was the worst of it—not a bare winter wood of naked limbs, but a dense stand of evergreens that wrecked both sightlines and movement. The entire corps was leaping through the canopy to shoot, and the drain on true qi and stamina was mounting by the minute. There had been no other choice. Fire from the ground and the dense growth would have swallowed even more of their shafts.

"So this is the last hunt before he moves the capital. He put real thought into the ground. Zhu Di knows perfectly well that more than a few people want his head."

"Not every man under him is a fool, it seems. Still—they never expected us to come. And never through the weakest point."

"The troops they've spread across the mountain and their reserves will start pouring in. From here on it's a race. We finish this before we tire, or we don't finish it at all."

"Yes, Commander!"

Cheong Hak's figure receded as he went to drive the men harder. Even if the Blood Death Arrows were weapons that only Peak Realm fighters and above could hope to stop, delay would be fatal. Once twenty thousand soldiers closed a ring around them, no one here would walk off this mountain. They would leave their bones on Mount Baohua. If the twenty thousand under the Central Military Commission pinned them with sheer numbers while the surviving Jinyiwei closed to melee, there would be no answer for it.

"Before the encirclement. It has to be before the encirclement."

For an archer, close combat was poison. Anyone who cultivated a swift-step art, anyone whose school prized speed, was a natural predator of bowmen. However skilled these archers were, there was a hard limit to how much they could shorten the sequence of planting, nocking, and drawing.

Gong Jeong-mun let out a long breath. They had broken a picket line thinner than expected and kept their strength intact, and the fact of it buoyed him. He looked south, toward where the Yongle Emperor's tent would be, and drew the air in deep.

At that same hour, on the eastern foothills of Mount Baohua, at Longchang Hermitage.

A horn bellowed from beyond the western ridge, followed by shouting whose words could not be made out. Inside the little hermitage, the wooden fish tapped its steady rhythm and monks young and old chanted sutras in peace. Incense burned without a sound, and the old-timber smell of an ancient temple deepened the calm. A single main ridge was all that stood between west and east, and the two faces of the mountain might as well have belonged to different worlds.

"Something seems to have happened over the ridge, Abbot."

"All of it is the dust of the secular world. Every time you come, you offer tea of this quality. This humble monk and his brethren enjoy a luxury we have done nothing to deserve. It is almost embarrassing."

"Hahaha! Originally there is not a single thing. What is good should be shared, should it not?"

"Donor Song's attainment is high indeed."

The scholar conversing with the abbot in that hermitage—so starkly at odds with the slaughter on the western face—was Song Jeon. He had come to Mount Baohua with Yi Yugyeong and Nam Woo-jeong.

"The business over the ridge is the same principle, is it not? Originally there is not a single thing—and still they tear at each other like hungry ghosts. Tsk, tsk."

Song Jeon clicked his tongue as if it were someone else's affair. All things are originally empty; there is nothing to cling to. Did those words even belong in the same room as Song Jeon and Suchengye?

"…Namo Amitabha. Not everyone can possess a Way like Donor Song's. Though I must say—Donor Gong is not with you today."

The abbot never dreamed that the man sitting across from him was the very architect of the bloodbath on the far side of the mountain. To him, Song Jeon was simply a grateful lay devotee who appeared roughly once every three years and left a great deal of wealth behind.

"Ah, Scholar Gong has gone traveling in his hometown."

"Is that so."

"Well then, we shall take our leave. May you attain Buddhahood."

"The paths are slick. Go carefully. Namo Amitabha, Guanyin Bodhisattva."

Song Jeon's party set down their cups and rose. The work had begun; a conclusion would be reached within a quarter of an hour. They could hear that conclusion after they were off the mountain and still not be late. Before long, soldiers would flood in from every direction and ring Mount Baohua in layer upon layer.

"I do hope Scholar Gong's road home is a smooth one. He ought to arrive safely."

Song Jeon glanced once at the northwestern sky beyond the ridge, where the snow was falling in heavy flakes, and then walked out of the hermitage. Behind him came Yi Yugyeong, beautiful as a blade of light, and Nam Woo-jeong, a man of strong, carved features.

At the same hour, around the imperial tent of the Ming royal house.

Of the two thousand Jinyiwei who had held the final picket in the forest, half now ringed the tent in overlapping ranks. The other half had formed up facing the northern woods, from which the Blood Death Arrows were coming.

Most of those going down in the snow had never cultivated martial arts at all—eunuchs of the sixth rank and below from every office except the Directorate of Ceremonial, palace women, and assorted officials. The worst of it was falling on the Jinyiwei. Dozens had already taken Blood Death Arrows and gone over.

A Blood Death Arrow could not be stopped by anyone who could not form protective body qi from true qi. The only thing that could refuse both the elastic drive of the bowstring and the killing force of true qi packed into the head was solid protective qi. And so the guards of the seventh rank and below—Zongqi and lower, most of them First-Rate—were taking shafts and dropping.

Golden sabers charged with Nine Dragons Grand Luo protective qi swept the heavy snow, batting the incoming arrows aside. Among them, one saber unfurled a fan of protective qi forward, shielding the tent and the men behind it. That saber belonged to Gongsun Dajing.

"Armor-piercers! Zongqi and Xiaoqi, fall back inside!"

Gongsun Dajing had read the arrows' power at a glance. He stood at the center of the northern rank in the ring around the tent.

"Ha!"

"Baihu and above, step forward! Do not give ground!"

"Ha!"

A thousand Jinyiwei guards answered as one. They did not flinch. They did not fall back. They only stepped forward, and then stepped forward again. A Jinyiwei guardsman in combat retreated only on a superior's order, and that was the pride of the Guard.

"The Great Ming has a plan for this day! So block them, and block them, and block them again!"

"Ha!"

"The hour will come to split the rebels' hearts! Do you understand?"

"Ha!"

When a comrade went down they dragged him at once to the innermost rank, and the man behind stepped into his place. Blood Death Arrows tore flesh and shattered bone, and not one man screamed. Not one man hesitated to take the front. All of it was done with faces of ice. It was a sight to freeze the blood. These were, in truth, the finest military officers in the empire, raised with painstaking care by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and by Zhu Di himself.

"Imperial Embroidered Uniform Guard Command! Sing the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠song of the blade!"

Gongsun Dajing had been taking his men's deaths into a burning chest. Now that chest exploded.

Golden light of Nine Dragons Grand Luo protective qi, risen to the ninth star, flashed out and reduced dozens of incoming Blood Death Arrows to powder. Fragments rained down like a second snow through the heavy flakes driven back by the blast of air—and the song of a thousand sabers shoved that rain toward the far sky.

A thousand guards, one voice, one cut. With each unified stroke the incoming Blood Death Arrows died in a single direction. The opening forms of the Nine Dragons Grand Luo Saber Art. Bands of golden light linked east, west, south, and north around the tent like a rolling tide.

Inside the Yongle Emperor's tent, where the principal figures of the imperial house had gathered, the Emperor sat at the center before the north-facing entrance. Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi sat at his left, the Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu at his right. Sa Hapji, Commander-in-Chief of the Jinyiwei, stood beside the Crown Prince.

Then two women's voices rose in alarm from behind the Emperor.

"Imperial Grandson!"

"Heir!"

The Crown Princess and the Consort of the Prince of Han, catching at sons who meant to go out and fight. Beyond the canvas, bodies were hitting the snow in dull, heavy drops—guardsmen going down, without a doubt. What mother would not fear a child stepping out to stop an attack that even the Guard could not stop?

Zhu Zhanji and Zhu Zhanhe, unable to break their mothers' hold, found another way. They ran straight to the Yongle Emperor and cupped their hands.

"What is it."

"This humble grandson is the Imperial Grandson of this nation. Your servants are bleeding outside. Has a prince no duty of his own? This grandson would go out and fight the rebels."

"This grandson as well. Please permit us to go out and fight!"

Zhu Zhanji and Zhu Zhanhe were running hot. They could not bear it—the sound of guardsmen falling, and over that sound the voices flying at the enemy's heart, Gongsun Dajing and a thousand men chanting as one. They could not stand it. Something had risen burning from the chest and scorched the throat, and there was no swallowing it down.

"No."

The Yongle Emperor did not permit it. Zhu Di's face had set cold and hard. He looked north and did not so much as glance at Zhu Zhanji or Zhu Zhanhe.

"The sovereign has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his role, and the subject has his. Do not move lightly."

The Emperor's voice was level and low. Do not rise. Do not shake. It was heavy, and it was still. As if he were the Son of Heaven and the master of all under it—assured, and proudly so.

"Hai Shou. Are you there."

Zhu Di flicked a look across his two grandsons and called for his attendant eunuch. Hai Shou, who had succeeded Yi Gwak as Chief Attendant Eunuch.

"Here, Your Majesty."

Hai Shou's voice and bearing were the same—perfectly composed. He had followed the Yongle Emperor since his youth through the northern campaigns, Yunnan, Annam, and a dozen other fields.

"Bring a Go board."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Wonder broke across every face in the tent. A Go board. Here. In this slaughterhouse, this screaming chaos.

"Crown Prince. It has been some time. Let us have a match."

"Yes, Imperial Father."

There was a warmth in the Yongle Emperor's voice, and in Zhu Gaochi's, that made the company start a second time. Hearing that tone from the Yongle Emperor was a rare thing indeed. Blood Death Arrows were still arriving; golden sabers were still meeting them with a crash of steel. And in the middle of it, they would sit down to Go. The people in the tent could only marvel at the two men's nerve. So this, they thought, was the blood of the Son of Heaven.

The board was set between the Yongle Emperor and Zhu Gaochi. The Emperor took a white stone, then paused and looked toward the entrance.

"Jang Jinmyeong."

He called the name, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠picked up a white stone, and set it down with a click.

Jang Jinmyeong cupped his hands in time with the word.

"I shall contest the Crown Prince here."

Zhu Gaochi answered with a stone of his own.

"Granted."

"Open the tent flap wider. It is dark."

Jang Jinmyeong threw the entrance back at once. He knew it was not the dark. It was a declaration: the Emperor meant to look the rebels in the eye.

Through the widened gap, the snowflakes had grown fat, and gold light stitched the air between them. The Emperor turned back to the board and placed another stone.

"It is noisy outside. Let us hear the erhu."

"Yes."

The answering voice from one side of the tent was brief. It was so refined, so clear, that one wondered if this was what an imperial jade voice sounded like. If voices had grades, the one just heard was of the highest. The middle-aged palace woman holding the erhu had been watching the entrance through half-lidded eyes. She shifted her grip, and began to draw the bow of bundled horsehair slowly across the strings.

A keening, mournful resonance unspooled into the tent, filled it, and held every ear. Those listening did not yet understand that the sound was not merely sound. True qi rode it. The palace woman was one of those vanishingly rare masters who could load an instrument—and a voice—with inner power.

Then, from outside:

"Arrows on the imperial tent! Block them!"

"Ha!"

Gongsun Dajing's shout, and the Guard's answering roar. The Yongle Emperor's brow twitched, and so did Zhu Gaochi's. The game went on.

"Director Jang!"

Gongsun Dajing's voice, urgent now, calling for Jang Jinmyeong—and over it a tearing of air unlike anything that had come before. The Blood Death Archery Corps had found the tent. They had switched from a scattered rain to a concentrated barrage, and Gongsun Dajing, outside, had seen it coming.

Fear moved across the women's faces. They had heard the change in Gongsun Dajing's voice. In the next instant, hundreds of Blood Death Arrows fused into a single black mass and came screaming in.

"Director of Ceremonial Jang Jinmyeong receives the imperial command."

The Emperor's voice was still low. Jang Jinmyeong's eyes, as he cupped his hands, shut and opened, and light cut out of them—a red and a blue more violent than at any time in his past. Isin True Qi. He dragged it to the six-star maximum in a single pull and launched himself along the trajectory of the incoming hundreds.

The Cheonyang Biyeon, gripped in the talons of a golden flood dragon coiled in a black lake, unfurled. Eight chi of blade leveled on the approaching storm.

The air itself detonated. Pressure roared out and the forest in front of Jang Jinmyeong shuddered as if struck. An explosion of Isin protective qi. The snow that had lain in deep drifts rose in a dragon-spout and cut across the arrows' path, and the shafts that hit that rising coil burst apart in midair.

The Jinyiwei who saw it had their eyes torn wide and their mouths fallen open. But the Blood Death Arrows, having once found the tent, did not stop. They kept coming. Jang Jinmyeong met the next ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sheaf between the imperial tent and the storm, and began to dance.

He turned, and reached, and spun—a dance of yielding curves—and the Isin protective qi riding that dance borrowed the body of the Cheonyang Biyeon and swam the empty air. Wherever the dark flood dragon passed, Blood Death Arrows died. Not one shaft, not a single shaft, got past him. And then his breath, which had rested for a count, went on.

Snow fell from the sky. A dragon-spout climbed from the earth. In the space between, the dance of Jang Jinmyeong, inner attendant of the empire, went on—and through it, without a break, the erhu's keening, mournful song.