Not the One Who Fights, but the One Who Makes Them Able to Fight
At Liu Bei's shout, the soldiers on the wall loosed their arrows, and the battle began in earnest.
Both sides poured shafts at one another, and here and there men dropped where the arrows found them.
"Guhk—!"
A soldier nearby took one in the arm and went down, and every time he thrashed he soaked the stones in blood.
"Don't give ground!"
The wounded were hauled back under supporting arms, and the men waiting behind them drew their bowstrings.
Thwack!
In the space of a blink, a soldier in front of me leaned out to shoot beyond the wall—and an incoming arrow dropped him where he stood. He collapsed, shuddered, and then went still. He never moved again.
"!"
"A battering ram is coming!"
"Siege ladders too! Don't let them hook the wall—stop every one of them!"
Shouts and screams rose on every side, and through a gap in the parapet I could just make out the siege engines closing in. I had a helmet on, but one careless lift of the head and an arrow from anywhere might kill me. Even so, I forced my eyes wide and watched. I had staked everything on this place. I had to live, and we had to win this fight.
Boom— boom— BOOM!
A tremendous crash shook the earth, and both my feet staggered. I lost my balance and nearly went down; the moment I caught the wall and shoved myself upright—
Shhhk!
Clang!
A spearhead and a sword flashed in together and struck aside the arrow screaming for my face.
"Are you all right?"
"Zhang Qian! I told you it was dangerous!"
Zhang He and Zhao Yun had drawn sword and spear at the same instant and stopped the shaft aimed at me. Zhao Yun, on my right, did not stop there. He pulled several short blades from inside his robe and hurled them down at the Cao troops trying to climb from the foot of the wall.
I went straight back down off the rampart.
I could not take up spear and sword and go out to fight. Nor could I snatch up a bow now, of all times, and start loosing at the enemy. But was I simply to stand here alone? This war had begun because of me, and I had gathered every one of them on the faith that we had to win.
"Hoo—!"
I stilled my hammering heart, shook the blood from my clothes, and pulled myself together.
"All right..."
That was when I saw soldiers from the rear scrambling up with bundles of arrows and jars of oil.
"You there."
"Ah— my lord!"
"Give me those. I'll carry them!"
The moment I saw the Jizhou soldiers hauling the supplies the fight depended on, I shouldered a bundle of arrows myself and ran.
"Junyi! Zilong!"
"!?"
"Why are you coming back up ag—"
I set a great sheaf of arrows down in front of them, and Zhang He stared at me, blank-eyed.
"When these are gone, I'll bring more!"
Zhang He gave a short laugh, drew a single shaft, and immediately bent his bow toward the field beyond the wall. Elsewhere, Lu Su had donned his armor in person and was commanding the archers with a bow in hand. I carried over jars of herring oil, rank with its fishy reek, and poured them into the braziers until the flames leapt.
Hissss—
"More oil!"
"Ah, thank you. Loose fire arrows again!"
Lu Su checked the oil, and the moment the soldiers thrust their arrowheads into the brazier, flame caught. Those makeshift fire arrows drew screams from the enemy outside the walls, and the acrid stink of burning rose with them. Beyond the ramparts they were still clawing desperately to take this place—scaling the walls, hammering the gates—and I felt those wretched cries, and the lives burning out, through my whole body.
"Next— where's the next one?"
"Uuugh... ghk!"
Soldiers staggered past with arrows in them. Everyone nearby was too busy holding the enemy to spare them a glance, so I got one of the wounded onto his feet and heaved him onto my shoulder.
"Out of the way. Wounded coming through."
I carried him down inside the fortress by main strength and sent him to the physicians treating the injured. One of the doctors, already tending a crowd of soldiers, came running, looked over the man I bore, laid him flat, and yanked the arrow straight out of his belly.
"Gyaaaah!"
"Bear it, you fool. Keep thrashing and the bleeding won't stop."
He smeared mugwort powder over the abdomen where the blood welled and bound it tight with cloth to stanch the flow.
Then, farther off, I saw women with knives, whittling bush clover. Afraid the arrows inside the fortress might run short, they were sharpening the tips themselves and gluing on fletching, making shafts without pause—and Zhuge Xue and Huan Ying were working among them.
"Here."
"You're working hard."
"Ah!"
I tied those arrows into bundles and loaded them onto both shoulders. Huan Ying's eyes darted anxiously this way and that. Zhuge Xue hesitated, then all at once ripped the sleeve from her own robe and came to me. With the torn cuff she wiped the blood from my face and body, and spoke in a voice that did not waver.
"My lord. May fortune attend you in battle."
"...Right."
And so I carried the arrows back up and handed them over, and I ran without rest—ferrying endless supplies, bearing the wounded to the rear. Wherever weapons ran short, I delivered them. I shouldered the injured and escorted them down. I drew water, wiped the sweat from soldiers flagging under the strain, poured it over their heads, and kept urging them on.
My heart felt ready to burst and the soles of my feet burned as if they might catch fire, and I was still running when, all at once, the sounds of lives passing back and forth between death and survival stopped. The winter wind was rising harder, and the sun was dropping fast toward dark.
"The enemy is pulling back!"
"They're retreating!"
Amid the cheers I found one last soldier braced on the ground and staggering, got him to the rear, and sank down in front of the field-hospital tent.
We had held the first day.
A day of battle passed. Then came the next day, then five days, then more than ten.
"Arrow delivery!"
"Getting faster every time. Much obliged!"
Jian Yong took the arrows I had brought and passed them straight to the soldiers.
"Aaah! A ladder's hooked on! The enemy's coming u—"
"Hmph!"
In that instant a red-faced giant of more than nine chi, the Green Dragon Blade in hand, charged in and cut the Cao soldiers off the ladder in a single stroke, dropping them from the wall.
Shwaaaak—
Right behind him, a muscle-bound man with a tiger's whiskers and a long serpent spear seized the ladder and, by sheer strength, flung the whole thing over.
Boom— crash—
One ladder went over, and two more hooked on in succession as Cao's soldiers came climbing again, faces full of killing intent, determined to gain the wall and force their way in no matter what.
"Zhang Qian, get down!"
"?!"
I dropped flat on reflex, and in that instant Liu Bei vaulted over my back and swept his twin swords.
Shuk—
"Gyaaah!"
"Aaaah! My arm!!"
Shwaaaak—
He carved through the soldiers coming up both ladders, twin blades flashing, and sprayed the wall with blood. Then he rushed over and hauled me up.
"You don't have to come in this close. Leave the fighting to me and the brothers!"
"I'll keep helping."
Liu Bei heard me, clapped a palm against my back, snatched a shield off the ground, and set it to his body.
"Half a month could pass, and the enemy still wouldn't break this place!"
Supplies inside the fortress were ample on their own. Even if we only huddled behind the walls, they could not force a breach. Whenever our men began to tire, Liu Bei and his sworn brothers ran the length of the wall themselves, cutting down the enemy as they climbed and shouting encouragement, and I could see morale rise every time they did.
That day's short sun fell just as quickly. Liu Bei lifted his two blood-soaked swords toward the moonlight and celebrated with the soldiers that they had come through another day unharmed.
If we kept on like this, we could win for certain, and without great loss.
A great host of fifty thousand had arrived out of Yanzhou, and word that Cao Ren's vanguard of twenty thousand was hard-pressed reached the Spearhead Army at once.
"My lord, the fighting at Xiaopei seems to be taking some time."
At the words of his strategist, Xi Zhicai, Cao Cao—honing his beloved sword inside the carriage—smiled.
"Zixiao still hasn't brought down that frail little Xiaopei, even after half a month?"
"According to the reports, the stores inside the fortress are greater than we thought, and the soldiers' morale does not fall easily."
"They've still got something left to stuff their bellies with, so they fill them and keep fighting."
Cao Cao answered indifferently, turning the blade this way and that to inspect the edge. But his eyes were sharper than the sword he had just whetted, and full of the will to go on fighting.
"Zhicai. Aren't the supplies from Dong Commandery running a little late?"
"There is a gap of about two days, but I will look into it myself tomorrow morning."
Just then a messenger approached and reported in haste.
"A report for the Governor of Yanzhou!"
"Speak."
"General Xiahou's second column of fifteen thousand, which swung wide and advanced by way of Mount Tai, has subdued the Xuzhou garrison throughout the Mount Tai region."
In that moment the corner of Cao Cao's mouth lifted.
"Heh, heheheh! That's it! What Zixiao of the vanguard could not do, Miaocai of the second column has done. Then we're fine!"
Having taken in the reports on his younger cousins, Cao Ren and Xiahou Yuan, Cao Cao turned to Xi Zhicai.
"We'll shift the line of attack toward Miaocai, but we'll still need to help Zixiao while he has Xiaopei surrounded. Give me a stratagem."
"We must make Liu Bei, holed up in Xiaopei like a turtle, come out of his own accord."
"Right. How do we make him pop out?"
At his lord's reply, Xi Zhicai raised a finger and pointed toward the lands of Xuzhou, still steeped in the slaughter of days past.
"We need only brand the memory of last winter into the people at Xiaopei."
Hearing him, Cao Cao took up the sword he had been honing and rose from the carriage.
"We go to Mount Tai. If they've broken through there, the rear of Xiaopei is Tan County, isn't it? Stir up that whole stretch—the place that was left intact last time—and they'll come bursting out on their own."
Cao Cao turned the Spearhead Army not toward Cao Ren, but toward the Taishan Commandery that Xiahou Yuan had breached. And he declared that he would go in person to where the people of Xuzhou still lived, in Tan County and Xiapi Commandery—the ground they meant to hold as Xiaopei's rear.
"It will surely be so. And Xiaopei without Liu Bei will be nothing but a turtle that has cast off its shell."
"A turtle stripped of its shell is for roasting and eating. The shell makes a fine ornament."
Xi Zhicai understood his lord Cao Cao's mind at once.
"You mean to take the merchant who stuffed Xiaopei full and gave it that hard shell?"
"If I take him, there's something I want to ask. Why he poured coin dear as blood into a gutter like that when he left Jizhou."
And so the main strength of Cao Cao's army moved toward Taishan Commandery. Past that commandery the road ran level all the way to the seat of Xuzhou, a path that could be split open in a single drive—trampling flat and sweeping aside everything that stood in the way...