The Moyong Family
"When you speak of a thorn at our rear…"
Moyong Un-jeong's lashes, those of a woman long famed for an unchanging face, fluttered once.
"You mean the Moyong Family?"
"I do."
Yeon So-hyeon nodded without the slightest pause.
"Quite apart from the grain we have secured, the Moyong Family remains vital."
He looked down through the window as he continued.
"If, behind the front lines, the Moyong Family fails to hold its center as it does now—if it shakes from within and finally joins hands with the enemy in earnest…"
Moyong Un-jeong forced the words out.
"…then the Northern Army Command would no longer be isolated, as it is now. It would be encircled."
"Exactly."
Watching Yeon So-hyeon incline his head so lightly, Moyong Un-jeong felt a tide of confusion rise in her.
"…But, Eldest Young Master."
She voiced her concern with care.
"Even if the Moyong Family's scale cannot compare to your Luoyang Sword Clan…"
Yeon So-hyeon took up her words as if they were nothing.
"It is still a house vast enough to be called a true great family. The Moyong Family is no less."
"…Yes."
Moyong Un-jeong went on.
"And worse—my family is already full of those hostile to me…"
She tried to master her feelings, but the anger she had pressed down for years against her own house rose with every phrase.
"It overflows with men who care more for their own gain than for the clan…"
"Men who traffic with outside powers throng there. As the Moyong Family stands now…"
Because she stood before the Eldest Young Master, she paused and chose her words with care.
"…it is rotten to the core."
"Precisely."
Yeon So-hyeon nodded in ready agreement.
"Which is why, before it is too late, it must be set right—or it will become a great calamity at our backs."
"But—"
At that moment—
"Eldest Young Master."
A knock at the door cut Moyong Un-jeong short.
"As you commanded, preparations for departure are complete."
The plain stretched away to a long horizon, and pale dust rose in rolling clouds.
"Hiyah! Hiyah!"
The carriage bearing the Eldest Young Master and Moyong Un-jeong raced without check over the dirt road of the plain, while before and behind it some several dozen heavy-armored guards of the Great General's escort drove warhorses clad even in barding.
"…Eldest Young Master."
Inside the carriage, fully armed, Moyong Un-jeong spoke.
"Will you not reconsider once more?"
Was it the unease of riding at ease in a carriage rather than on a horse she always rode herself?
"Reconsider what?"
Moyong Un-jeong felt the sweat in her palm as she answered him.
"In a situation such as this, for both of us to leave our posts at once is by no means a wise course."
To that—
"Un-jeong."
"…Yes, Eldest Young Master."
Lounging at his ease, leafing through documents, Yeon So-hyeon looked at her and smiled.
"In the Northern Army Command are countless generals whom you yourself selected and raised, men tempered again and again in true battle."
Still smiling, he asked her,
"Do you not trust them? So little that even a brief absence leaves you anxious?"
"That is not so!"
Moyong Un-jeong half rose from her seat, then let out a breath.
"…It is a house already ruined past repair. Reclaiming such a family will never be finished in a day or two. Rather—"
She offered an alternative.
"Rather, with your superior political skill, Eldest Young Master—what if you simply drove cracks among them?"
"A delaying measure…?"
"Yes."
When Yeon So-hyeon repeated it as if the idea had merit, Moyong Un-jeong pressed her case with greater force.
"If the danger is that the Moyong Family will later tilt toward the enemy, then is it not enough to divide them further—so that they can move neither this way nor that—and simply buy time?"
She did not stop speaking, intent on persuading him.
"And when the Army Command has won its victory, that will be the best moment of all to set the house in order."
Yeon So-hyeon nodded.
"That much is true."
"Then—"
"But."
Turning a page, he asked in an even tone,
"If we put the Moyong Family in order first, would that not raise still higher our chance of winning the war?"
"That is…"
He kept his eyes on the documents, giving her ample time, and waited for her answer.
"…That is…"
In the end, she could not deny his view.
The Terror King.
Yayul Nuju-cha had, in an unbelievably short span, raised a force of terrifying strength.
Even with every preparation properly laid, victory could not be guaranteed—and no one knew that better than a woman whose bones had been seasoned on the battlefield.
"……"
Silence held the carriage for a time. When he judged he had given her enough space to master her feelings, Yeon So-hyeon set aside the papers he had been reading.
"Un-jeong."
He asked her, quiet and steady,
"Are you afraid to return to your main house?"
"……!"
Moyong Un-jeong's lids flew wide. Her gaze seemed to chase the dust whirling in the air beneath the dazzling sun of the steppe—then fell at last to her own knees.
"…Yes. I am afraid."
The voice that answered him trembled finely.
That she was, regarding her own family, uniquely emotional and illogical—Yeon So-hyeon had already grasped that much.
And yet he had neither driven her hard nor pushed her roughly, because he understood too well how deep a wound the cool Acting Commander of the Northern Army, Moyong Un-jeong, still carried.
In the past, she had not been hated by her family from the first.
On the contrary—she had been a child treasured by the Moyong Family itself.
"My goodness!"
"How lovely and pretty she is!"
The mere sight of her at gatherings large and small drew praise without end.
"She already rides?!"
"And the bow as well?! Remarkable, haha!"
When she drew a bowstring and spurred a horse, admiration followed close behind.
"Un-jeong. You will succeed your father and lead this house."
It had been a world of warmth, and she had been the happiest child under heaven.
But all of it vanished with the war.
No—it was thoroughly twisted.
"(Are the warriors of our tribe expected to obey the word of a little girl playing Acting Great General?!)"
After the war, the first to change were the northern tribes that had followed the Moyong Family.
"(Nonsense!)"
"(We cannot accept such a mediation!)"
When the name and authority of the Moyong house—forced to bear unavoidable blame for a war that deserved to be called a defeat—crashed into the dust,
"(Our Buhyul tribe will follow the Moyong Family no longer!)"
the tribes began to slip free of control. That, in turn, meant that the Moyong Family, which had long regulated the north through bloodline and ancient custom, lost the root of its power.
"Acting Head!"
"With the merchant caravans forbidden passage, our losses are catastrophic!"
"The desertion of the tribes is turning into ruinous damage!"
"How, Acting Head, do you intend to answer for this state of affairs?!"
Those who had once praised her horsemanship now sneered that she rode at all. Those who had lauded her martial skill now cursed her for displaying it.
"Take responsibility!"
Before she knew it, every burden had become hers alone.
"Acting Head!"
And she—despite every effort—
"Acting Head!"
the child once most beloved of her house had become the person most hated within it.
"I was the same."
At Yeon So-hyeon's abrupt words, Moyong Un-jeong lifted her eyes to him.
"…Pardon?"
Turning his gaze from her reddened eyes to the window, he continued.
"I feared people speaking ill of me. I feared my family tearing at me. I feared them raising their expectations as they pleased—and then being disappointed as they pleased."
"……"
Those were old memories, from the years of his seclusion.
"The people of the house behaved as though I alone must answer for every problem—and at the same time laid at my feet the fact that the world would not turn to their convenience."
"……"
Come to think of it, the man sitting so calmly before her was himself one who had suffered for long years in a clan called the first under heaven.
An absent head of house. The runaway desires of its members. A house sliding into corruption.
"…Ah."
Their situations were more alike than any other—and so there was no one better able to understand her heart than Yeon So-hyeon.
"But do you know this?"
Wiping her eyes with the handkerchief he had casually offered as if he had not noticed, she asked,
"…What is that?"
Yeon So-hyeon grinned—
"Something I only understood after I ended my seclusion."
—and wore a mischievous smile that still held something of a boy.
"The underlings who scorned me. The kin who mistook the house for their own. The power-mongers busy justifying their own greed."
He counted them off on his fingers, then bared his teeth in a smile sharp enough to freeze the blood.
"The moment that feels best, in truth, is when you snap the fingers of those who pointed them at you."
"……!"
In that instant, something seemed to break open in Moyong Un-jeong.
"……"
Leaving her staring blankly into thought, Yeon So-hyeon turned his eyes away—and the empty waste beyond the window had already become the tangled landscape of a city.
"Reporting, sir."
"We will reach the Moyong Family shortly."
The captain of the Great General's escort, riding alongside the carriage, sent the message by sound transmission.
"Good."
"If anyone at the gate dares to bar our way—cut them all down."
Yeon So-hyeon answered in high spirits.
"…Sir?"
The captain faltered for a moment, then laughed as if he had taken it for a joke.
"Haha! As you command!"
Crack. Crack-crack.
Yeon So-hyeon stretched his back and rolled his neck; the sound alone was satisfying.
"Un-jeong."
And already—
"Yes, Eldest Young Master."
—a smile faintly like his own had begun to rise on Un-jeong's face.
Looking at that face, Yeon So-hyeon spoke with the certainty of a vow.
"You, too, will come to know the pleasure I felt."
"Can we not go any faster?!"
At Sama Dae-gunsa's roar, a warrior shook his head.
"Impossible! This is the maximum speed!"
Even now the carriage carrying Sama Dae-gunsa screamed and jolted as if it would shatter at any moment under a pace already at its limit—and the old strategist knew it well enough.
"The couriers?! The messenger hawks?!"
"Already sent!"
Thanks to the banner of the Saryetaegam, current head of the Gongson house, which he had obtained and hung, he had avoided the endless delays of northern gates and inspections—and was saving more time than even that meeting had cost him.
"At the next post-station, arrange a change of carriage and horses!"
"Already arranged!"
Sama Dae-gunsa made no effort to hide his agitation.
"Estimated arrival?!"
"If we ride through the night like this, we will arrive within tomorrow!"
The wrinkled lids of Sama Dae-gunsa trembled.
"Too late… too late…"
Until Sama Dae-gunsa reached the Moyong Family, one day still remained.