The Battle of Ma'an Mountain (5)
At first, I hesitated.
There was no duty that demanded I stake my life this far. I knew the history of the Three Kingdoms well enough that, if I simply minded my own survival, I was confident I could live out my natural span. Coldly speaking, charging onto the battlefield to stop the disaster of Yiling was little better than suicide.
Even so, my feet carried me toward the front lines.
…When I was reincarnated, Guan Suo’s memories poured into me. Maybe they colored my temperament as well.
Fear coiled in the back of my mind, yet I was already charging the enemy.
“Die!”
Infantrymen thrust their spears up at my horse. My body moved before thought could form.
KRAAANG!
I swept the crescent blade. The keen tips of their spears shattered all at once.
No one would believe this is a man who just rose from a sickbed.
Even after days of recuperation, Guan Suo’s body was strong. In the games he had always ranked among the most formidable of the second-generation officers. He could not match the true Peerless Warriors—Guan Yu or Zhang Fei—but he was their son. Weakness would have been the stranger thing.
Every flash of the crescent blade sent soldiers flying like autumn leaves in a gale.
“Follow General Guan Suo!!”
His valor lifted the spirits of the troops under his command.
“Your Majesty! It is Guan Suo’s relief force!”
Zhang Bao, who had never looked kindly on Guan Suo for opposing the campaign against Wu, now wore open relief.
“We must aid the reinforcements and break through there!”
Guan Xing pointed to the place where Guan Suo’s sudden strike had begun to unravel the enemy ranks. Strike the weak point they had opened, and a path of retreat could be forced.
“Their line is collapsing over there! Help our comrades and break this crisis!”
The Shu soldiers, once famed for their endurance, had long since reached the limit of their legs; they barely had strength left to resist. But the moment a way out appeared, they wrung every last scrap of power from their bodies and met the Wu troops head-on.
Xianyu Dan’s gaze locked onto the commander of the force that had appeared behind them—Guan Suo.
…That one.
A face so pretty the words “pretty-boy gigolo” sprang unbidden to mind. Anyone could see it did not belong on a battlefield. Yet the martial power he displayed was tremendous. Every time the crescent blade in Guan Suo’s hand scattered light, soldiers spat blood and toppled.
…Still green, though.
He was not yet cutting men down cleanly in a single stroke; he relied more on raw force to hurl them aside. A common fault among officers still short on real campaign experience.
This boy will become a wall against Wu’s unification of the realm. Best to crush the sprout here!
Xianyu Dan’s expression hardened with resolve as he charged Guan Suo.
Sensing danger by instinct, Guan Suo raised the shaft of his crescent blade.
CLANG!
He caught the heavy saber racing for his skull cleanly.
“I am Xianyu Dan of Wu!”
With that cry he pressed Guan Suo without pause, certain the youth had little experience standing in the thick of battle, and intent on taking his head.
CLANG! CLANG!
Steel rang out in harsh, continuous crashes. Yet while Xianyu Dan grew steadily more winded, Guan Suo’s face remained almost serene.
…I can see the movements.
The trajectory of every incoming spear stood out with perfect clarity.
KRAAANG!
A broad horizontal sweep of the crescent blade sent Xianyu Dan staggering far back.
I’m stronger, too.
So why wasn’t I winning?
I knew I could beat him. Yet a sliver of hesitation still lingered—the modern man’s reluctance to take a life. That was what held me back.
…If I don’t want to die, I have to kill.
I steeled myself, reset my grip on the crescent blade, and swung with everything I had.
KRAAANG!
Xianyu Dan blocked, but both his hands trembled violently.
Th-this brat—all of a sudden!?
The sudden shift in Guan Suo’s aura threw him into confusion. Until a moment ago he had been the one dominating.
THUNK!
He thrust for Guan Suo’s throat; the youth simply tilted his head and let the spear whistle past. In the same breath the crescent blade sheared the spear’s head clean off, leaving Xianyu Dan wide open.
“It’s over!”
I raised the crescent blade high and brought it down.
—SLASH!
Xianyu Dan tried to catch it on the remaining shaft, but the blade fell like lightning and cleaved both shaft and man in a single stroke. Scarlet blood sprayed; droplets spattered across my face.
For an instant my stomach lurched, but I bit my lip hard and roared,
“The enemy general is down!”
The Wu ranks, suddenly leaderless, reeled in horror.
“G-General Xianyu Dan has fallen!”
With their commander dead, the soldiers wavered; gaps opened in their formation.
“Your Majesty!”
“Are you unharmed!?”
At the same moment Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji—who had been cut off with the rear guard—came pounding up with their men. They looked thoroughly spent, having clashed with Wu forces while searching for Liu Bei.
“Shu reinforcements?!”
“You bastards!”
“So long as we live, not one finger shall touch His Majesty’s sacred person!”
Whether from guilt at having failed to protect their lord, Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji fought with desperate fury.
“Now!”
“Open the path!!”
Guan Xing and Zhang Bao seized the opening without hesitation. Bolstered by Guan Suo’s struggle and the arrival of relief, the main Shu force finally tore a hole through the Wu encirclement.
Liu Bei had barely escaped a crisis that should have ended him. Yet even after breaking free of the net, Wu forces pursued with relentless tenacity. Each time, other generals still searching for the Emperor joined the fray and held them off.
When Zhou Tai appeared, Feng Xi and Zhao Rong barred his path; when Ding Feng came, Wu Ban and Fu Kuang blocked him. Po Sanniang, who had been signaling their position from the heights, drew near enough to rejoin the main body.
“What now? Do we return to the main camp?”
“No. We quit this place entirely and withdraw.”
At Cheng Ji’s question Ma Liang urged that they break out of Ma’an Mountain and fall back at once. While they had been hunting for Liu Bei, the undefended main camp had been attacked.
Few troops had remained on station because of the search; Chen Shi, unable to withstand Wu’s assault, had abandoned the camp and retreated. Xu Sheng, having captured the Shu headquarters, put every last supply to the torch.
Morale was at rock bottom, and the army had lost its provisions.
“As planned earlier—we fall back to Zigui, reorganize the army there, then withdraw to Baidi City.”
While Liu Bei still reeled from the shock, Cheng Ji and Ma Liang set the army’s course.
“…Yuji.”
While the two were still deciding strategy, Guan Xing approached me.
“Thank you for the relief. Without you we would have been annihilated.”
They had clashed over the question of avenging their father, yet now that his life had been saved Guan Xing offered deep gratitude. Had Guan Suo not come, the army would have been wiped out before Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji ever arrived.
“It was nothing. Only what I ought to have done.”
I waved the praise away modestly.
I told Guan Xing—who had just lost Father—to postpone revenge. I can hardly claim the moral high ground.
From the viewpoint of someone who knew the Battle of Yiling, it had been a cold, rational judgment. From Guan Xing’s viewpoint, a younger brother must have been impossible to understand.
“You’ve truly changed beyond recognition.”
“…I have no face left to show the Prime Minister.”
The once-unyielding Liu Bei looked haggard. Trapped by Lu Xun, the main Shu force had lost vast numbers of soldiers. Generals such as Du Lu and Liu Ning had also thrown away their precious lives. Blinded by vengeance, Liu Bei had misjudged everything; he could not lift his head with pride.
“…Forgive me. All of you have suffered because of me.”
His face seemed to have aged ten years at a stroke. The pitiful sight was enough to stir pity even where none had existed.
“This is no time for self-reproach, Your Majesty. We must leave this place at once.”
Huang Quan reminded them of the urgency. Wu had overturned its numerical disadvantage with schemes prepared long in advance.
Still, the damage is nowhere near as catastrophic as the historical Battle of Yiling.
A few generals had fallen, yet the losses fell far short of that disaster. The Shu army crested a ridge and the way out of Ma’an Mountain came into view—
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!!
A rain of arrows fell from the sky like a sudden downpour. The exhausted soldiers at the van could not even react; they crumpled, riddled like honeycombs.
“Damn it!”
“An ambush!”
They had thought themselves free of the encirclement, yet soldiers hidden in the dense brush now rose into view.
“Haha! To think such a golden opportunity would fall into my hands.”
The officer leading them swaggered forward.
“I, Zhang Yi, shall take His Majesty’s head.”
Zhang Yi smiled, already tasting the fame that would come with the Emperor’s head. The Wu troops under him closed in to finish the spent Shu army. Some soldiers, broken by successive crises, simply hung their heads, all will to fight gone.
“Some nameless mutt is making a racket. Who the hell do you think you’re barking at?”
Guan Suo stepped forward with his crescent blade. Words and deeds he never would have used in the modern world spilled out of him.
“…What did you say?”
The other generals looked on with sudden light in their eyes at that fearless figure.
…Youngest of us all, and still he stakes his life like that.
Inspired, vitality seemed to surge back into the exhausted officers’ limbs. Guan Xing and Zhang Bao, worn out from forcing the earlier path, reset their grips on their weapons.
We have to keep His Majesty alive no matter what.
Zhang Nan and Cheng Ji were steeling themselves to fight to the death when—
“KRAAAAAAH—!”
Commotion erupted at the rear of the Wu force blocking the road.
“W-what is happening?!”
Zhang Yi spun around at the sudden uproar. Something was coming this way. What met his eyes was white armor flashing under the moonlight.
I-impossible…!
Startled, Zhang Yi hastily drew his sword to strike—
“Who dares lay a hand on His Majesty’s sacred person!”
A spearpoint flashed like lightning and punched straight through Zhang Yi’s throat.
—THUNK!
It happened so fast he never had a chance to react. Impaled through the neck, Zhang Yi tumbled from his horse without even a death-cry and died on the spot.
The Wu soldiers stared in horror at the general who had slain Zhang Yi. A white horse with streaming white mane cut through the enemy ranks in a single brilliant line. Every flash of the spear sent enemy soldiers spraying blood and falling away. The warrior whirled the spear high and raised his voice in a thunderous shout:
The hero of Changban Bridge had arrived at Ma’an Mountain with the relief force.