The Gate of Wrath
It was a gate of wrath—or a fortress gate, if one preferred the name—a colossal main entrance rearing high into the sky.
For a thousand years it had stood unyielding in this place, a living emblem of the Moyong Family’s unique position on the northern frontier, and of their pride.
“…….”
As Moyong Un-jeong gazed upon the great gate, a tangle of emotions knotted in her chest, a report reached her ear.
We have arrived.
She turned her eyes to the speaker.
“Make certain every man has memorized the operational orders.”
“Loyalty!”
“Halt! Halt!”
The heavy scrape of the Great General’s armored carriage grinding to a stop grated on the nerves more sharply than usual, and the snorting of the warhorses set every heart on edge.
“Form ranks!”
Seated within the carriage, Moyong Un-jeong’s face was as cold and severe as ever.
“…….”
Yet deep beneath the firm line of her sealed lips, a last thread of fear and hesitation still lingered.
But then—
“Entry is forbidden!”
At the words of the Moyong Family gate captain standing watch, the captain of the Great General’s escort first looked simply incredulous.
“What nonsense is that?! Do you not know who rides in this carriage?!”
He barked the challenge—yet the gate captain, wearing the characteristic braid of the northern tribes and lounging with insolent ease, did not so much as flinch.
“We know well enough. But we have procedures to follow!”
“Procedures?!”
Behind the faceplate of his helm, the escort captain’s features darkened with rising fury.
“The one within this carriage is the Acting Family Head of this very house, and the Acting Great General of the North—Lady Moyong Un-jeong!”
The more he spoke, the redder his face burned and the louder his voice became.
“The master of this household sits here, I tell you!”
His roar, thick with inner force, thundered across the broad approach before the Moyong Family’s main gate.
“And you dare bar her way?! Have you all taken leave of your senses?!”
“Ah, come now. Didn’t I already say we know?”
The gate captain was not even properly armed; he chewed lazily on a strip of dried meat.
“We’ve already sent a runner inside. The moment word comes down, the gate will open.”
“What…?!”
Ignoring the escort captain, who was too stunned to find further words, the gate captain turned away.
“(Zhongyuan dogs always are in such a damned hurry.)”
He spat the half-chewed meat onto the ground along with a gob of phlegm, then melted back among his spearmen. From atop the gatehouse—so vast it might as well have been a city wall—sidelong glances drifted down, and low voices drifted with them.
“(So that’s the Moyong Un-jeong everyone’s talking about?)”
“(They say she’s a demon of the battlefield and all that—but she just looks pretty.)”
“(Heh heh. That’s how rumors go.)”
They had not meant to be overheard. Yet not a single man of the Great General’s escort standing below was of so low a level that he would miss whispers at this distance—and every one of them understood the northern tongue.
“…….”
Their rage boiled like magma beneath the earth’s crust.
All members of the Great General’s escort: hold formation until orders are given.
At their captain’s sound transmission, not one of them took a single step from his place.
“Gate captain.”
“Yes?”
Through the carriage window, Moyong Un-jeong called to him in a low voice.
“You are a face I do not know.”
He lounged where he stood.
“Well, that’s true enough. First time I’ve set eyes on the Acting Great General myself.”
Ignoring an attitude almost too insolent to endure, Moyong Un-jeong asked again.
“Where is General Eulji-hwang, who once held the post of gate captain of this house?”
“…General?”
The gate captain looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded in recognition.
“Ah—Elder Eulji-hwang. He’s been stripped of his post. Too much skimming off the top while he was gate captain… tsk tsk.”
He shook his head, and his braid swayed.
“…That General Eulji-hwang?”
“Yes, yes. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
The gate captain bared yellowed teeth in a sneer.
“An old body can’t win merit on the battlefield anymore, so I suppose he was just trying to secure a little something for his twilight years.”
Impossible.
Beneath the helm she had not removed even inside the carriage, Moyong Un-jeong’s eyes grew deeper still.
“You lot do not look like people of our Moyong house. Where do you come from?”
“Ah—us, you mean…?”
Whether he meant to placate or to provoke, the gate captain answered with a sly grin.
“We’re troops dispatched from the Neutral Tribal Alliance.”
“…The Neutral Tribal Alliance?”
The Neutral Tribal Alliance was a confederation of tribes that had once sworn generations of loyalty to the Moyong Family, only to break away. True to their name, they maintained a carefully calculated neutrality in the struggle between Prince Gong and the Northern Great General’s command, harvesting profit from both sides.
“By what right, then, do you stand guard at the main gate of our main house?”
That they could force her procession to wait under the pretext of regulations was possible only because the Northern Great General’s command could not lightly touch the Neutral Tribal Alliance and the considerable power it commanded.
“As for the dealings of the high and mighty, I wouldn’t really know….”
The gate captain lounged and shrugged.
“We’re mercenaries in all but name. We take our pay—”
He gestured toward his men.
“—and we guard the gate according to the rules and the orders we’re given.”
Faithful? Hardly. The gate captain himself was not even properly armed.
“(Is snack time ever going to come?)”
“(Why hasn’t the relief shift shown up yet?!)”
Discipline, military bearing—search as one might, not a scrap of either could be found among them.
“…….”
Without question, someone within the family had, for the sake of the countless rights and transactions that flowed through the main gate, handed even its defense over to hired swords.
“…….”
As Moyong Un-jeong fell silent, the gate captain spoke again.
“The moment word comes from inside, we’ll open the gate in a hurry. Just rest easy for a bit.”
Yet no order arrived from within.
“(…Uh, what’s going on here?)”
Sensing that the air had begun to turn strange, the gate captain snapped at his subordinates.
“(Hey! Why is there still no word from inside?!)”
“(…I-I don’t know, sir.)”
A cold sweat ran down the gate captain’s face.
“(Send another runner—now!)”
“(We’ve already sent three!)”
However strong the Neutral Tribal Alliance at their backs, openly clashing with the Acting Great General herself would be sheer madness.
“(C-Captain, look over there!)”
And then, from deep beyond the gate, came what sounded like fighting—and dark smoke began to rise.
“Fire! Fire!”
“(Huh? Huh?)”
The gate captain could no longer hide his panic; he had no idea what to do.
“(Huh? Huh?)”
In the midst of it all, Moyong Family troops in full arms came racing from within. No—they only seemed to be racing. They met other Moyong Family soldiers head-on, and the shouting began.
“Prince Gong’s dogs!”
“Running dogs of the Murim Alliance!”
They fell upon one another in open combat.
“(W-what the hell is happening?!)”
He screamed into the chaos and looked outside again.
Below, without the slightest stir—
“…….”
“…….”
—the Great General’s escort sat their warhorses in perfect ranks, a sight so still it was uncanny.
“(Captain! The Moyong bastards have gone insane!)”
“(The fire’s spreading!)”
Useless reports poured in upon the gate captain.
“(C-Captain! What do we do?!)”
Hands seized him and shook him; he swayed limply in their grip.
“(The Moyong Family men are coming this way!)”
Who was friend, and who was foe?
“(They’re pushing up toward us!)”
What connection did the arrival of Acting Family Head Moyong Un-jeong have to this upheaval?
In a maelstrom too vast for his crude mind to grasp—
“(Aaaargh!)”
—as if his ears had gone deaf—
“(Hold them! Hold them back!)”
—the screams of his men and the clash of steel rang distant and wild. Driven into a corner, he looked down from the gate, and what met his eyes was searingly clear.
“Load!”
As one, the Great General’s escort drew long, black shafts from their backs and raised them.
“Aim!”
A line of dark metal flashed in the sunlight. The half-maddened gate captain had only just begun to understand what he was looking at when—
“(W-we’re being overrun!)”
“There’s the gate captain!”
“Kill him!”
—Moyong Family soldiers stormed up onto the gatehouse itself.
In that instant—
“Fire!”
—at Moyong Un-jeong’s command, a steel storm—the simultaneous volley of the Great General’s escort—swept the gate.
Bullets the size of walnuts tore through the acrid powder smoke and flame—
“-------!”
—and crossed the open air to strike the face of the gate captain mid-scream.
“-------!”
The flesh of his face shredded away; his skull burst apart where he stood. His pulverized lower jaw and a flung eyeball met, midair, the shattered cranial bone of a Moyong soldier—
“-------!”
—and northern blood and Zhongyuan blood mingled as they whipped across the high ceiling of the gate tower like a lash, painting it anew.
“-------!”
Severed limbs pinwheeled; torn leather and shredded scraps of flesh spun in every direction.
“Cease fire!”
What remained atop the gate that had seemed a fortress wall was nothing but a heap of corpses past all recognition of form.
Then—
Sseeeeeeing—!
—a signal shot rose from the forest near the Moyong estate, and a scout lifted his voice in report.
“Signal confirmed!”
At word that the First Young Master’s prearranged signal had been sighted, Moyong Un-jeong mounted her warhorse and gave the order in a low voice.
“Break the gate.”
Crrrack!
Smoke billowed on every side. Noncombatants screamed and scattered in all directions. In a melee where friend and foe were nearly impossible to tell apart, no one clearly witnessed the instant the great gate was smashed apart.
But—
“------!”
—the sight of heavy cavalry on massive warhorses pouring through the shattered gate burned itself into the eyes of every man fighting nearby.
“Fire!”
Once more a volley order rang out, and the troops near the gate were mowed down in swathes.
“Charge! Charge!”
Setting her long musket in the saddle and drawing her spear, Moyong Un-jeong cried out from the very front.
“Escort! Do you remember the First Young Master’s command?!”
Her voice cut clean through the din and reached every ear of the Great General’s escort.
“Cut down anyone who bars our path!”
Pro–Prince Gong or pro–Murim Alliance—it made no difference.
Crack!
The escort’s brutal couched-lance charge swept away every soldier still standing on two feet.
“Do not stop!”
It was Moyong Un-jeong herself who burst farthest ahead, discarded a spear skewered with two corpses like meat on a spit, and drew her general’s sword.
“We break through in a straight line to the Grand Assembly Hall!”
Blood-drenched, she spurred her snorting warhorse and shouted—
“Loyalty!”
—and the thunder of heavy cavalry hooves, armed with spear and sword and saber and gun, roared at her back.
“Kill every last traitor!”