The night was deep, shrouding the ridges of the Yin Mountains.
The Baiyin Grasslands lay deep within a valley, surrounded on all sides by steep stone cliffs.
A harsh wind funneled through cleft in the cliffs, flattening the withered grass, which rustled as it swayed.
This place was the primary grain depot of the Helian Left-Wing King’s court.
Endless mounds of grain stretched beyond sight, and beneath deep earthen pits, the smells of saltpeter and gunpowder were buried by the soil.
In days past, this place was heavily guarded by rows of soldiers, defenses tight.
But now, Ashina Dubi had summoned the main force to attack the solitary northern fortress, leading his iron cavalry southward.
Only a few hundred elite soldiers remained stationed within the grasslands.
Several patrol torches flickered uncertainly in the wind.
A few Helian old soldiers, wrapped in worn sheepskin coats, huddled under a windward haystack, their spears scattered haphazardly on the ground. They gathered around a charcoal brazier, rubbing their hands and breathing warm breath, utterly unguarded.
Beyond the southern entrance lay a rocky slope, silent and still.
Amur sat cross-legged in the shadow of a massive rock. His fine steel armor was carefully daubed with ash to hide its shine. His eyes were fixed tightly on the wooden gate.
His tribe, the Qiyan, had been defeated; its people reduced to slaves.
Behind him, five hundred Qiyan death-sworn warriors held wooden bits in their mouths, pressing close to the frozen earth. Their horses were led into low hollows, mouths wrapped in cloth and hooves padded with thick felt, betraying not a sound.
They had lain in ambush for a full day and night.
The cold seeped through the gaps in their armor, seeping into their bodies.
Arslan crouched to Amur’s right, his gaze locked on the movements within the grasslands.
He stared at the drowsy Helian old soldiers, the white mist from his nostrils growing heavier, full of contempt.
"Young Chief," Arslan said, lowering his voice, "the brothers below have lain all day; their blood is nearly frozen stiff."
"Those old dogs inside can barely lift their swords. If we charge down now, we can level this depot in half an hour!"
With that, Arslan’s hand was already on his sword hilt, knees bent, ready to rise.
Without turning his head, Amur reached out his left hand and placed it steadily on Arslan’s sword, holding it down.
"Do not act rashly," Amur said, his tone calm, showing not a ripple of emotion. "Though the Helians have pulled out their elite, the camp’s discipline remains. If you charge now and they beat the copper gong, the roving soldiers of nearby smaller tribes will hear the commotion and surround us. These five hundred men won’t be enough to daub life."
Arslan grit his teeth, released the sword hilt, and pressed himself back to the ground, his chest heaving with suppressed anger.
Amur’s gaze crossed the rubble and fixed on the hourglass atop the southern watchtower.
"Wait another half-hour. At the third quarter of the Hour of the Ox, the first and second night patrols will swap. Those who’ve spent the night are eager to rest, and those just crawling out of warm blankets can barely open their eyes."
"In that half-cup of tea’s time, this camp’s defenses are at their weakest."
No sooner had he spoken than a change erupted.
From the ancient road below the rocky slope came a sudden tremor.
Someone was coming!
Amur’s eyes sharpened; he pressed his ear to the ground.
The hoofbeats were chaotic and urgent.
Seven or eight riders sped in from the south, their figures swaying slightly in the saddle. Their horses’ muzzles sprayed thick, foaming breath, heading straight for the wooden gate of the Baiyin Grasslands.
The lead rider held aloft a black wolf-head banner.
Amur recognized that banner—the command standard of the Left Luli King’s tent.
The front-line army had been advancing south, assaulting the passes for several days. Sending a messenger back at this hour could only mean one thing: a demand for grain.
Ashina Dubi’s hundred-thousand-strong iron cavalry was short on supplies.
This messenger had come to take the depot’s grain ledger, to verify shipments.
"Hiss, Young Chief, it’s a Helian King’s courier," Arslan recognized the rider too, his breath quickening. "Let them in?"
Thoughts raced through Amur’s mind. If he let the courier into the camp to fetch the ledger and return to the front lines, Ashina Dubi would soon learn of the depot’s situation. Once the army knew its rear supply line was cut, this grain interception would lose all meaning. He decided to act immediately.
Time pressured them. Amur released his grip on Arslan’s sword and in turn seized the hilt of the blade at his own waist.
The blade slid free, reflecting the chill moonlight.
"Pass the order," Amur said, his voice grim. "We wait no longer. Split the force into three groups."
His blade pointed straight at the messengers who were slowing to knock at the gate below.
"Have our best archers and horsemen step out to intercept these riders. Leave neither man nor horse alive—cut off their retreat!"
The blade swung, aiming at the endless grain stacks deep within the depot.
"Arslan, take two hundred men. Bring kindling and flame oil, charge straight to the grain zone. Burn every haystack; let the wind spread the flames and turn this supply for a hundred-thousand-strong army into ashes!"
Amur then turned to the old warrior beside him, the one famed for his archery.
"You gather the remaining brothers and follow me to the gunpowder pits. Strike from inside and out, sever this lifeline!"
"Orders received!"
Arslan drew his own blade, staring down below.
On the rocky slope, the death-sworn warriors who had lain in wait all day rose in unison from the shadows.
A dozen or so Qiyan archers, shielded by rubble, nocked arrows and drew their stiff bows full.
The creaking of tightening bowstrings surged in the wind like a single sound.
They released.
The sound of bowstrings snapping was shredded by the frontier wind.
Dozens of fine steel arrows left the strings, riding the high ground’s momentum, weaving a silent net of death through the midnight sky, speeding toward the horsemen below.
But the lead Helian messenger, veteran of countless rides along the edge of life and death, suddenly sensed the danger.
The cold wind funnelled into his ear canal, carrying a shrill sound of tearing air.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Instinct honed by years of slaughter forced him to duck low, his hand already reaching for the horn at his waist.
The warning had barely left his lips: “Enem—”
Half a word out, a gleam of cold light swelled sharply in his pupils.
A wet thud.
The armor-piercing arrowhead, triangular in shape, tore through the flesh of his neck, and the barbed tip shattered his throat cartilage.
His warning dissolved into a string of thick, bloody bubbles.
His eyes wide, his hands tried desperately to clamp over the spurting column of blood from his neck.
But his body listed sideways, and both man and horse crashed to the ground.
Because the leader’s death occurred in the blink of an eye, the second rider, following close behind, had no time to rein in.
Three heavy arrows, arrayed in a triangle, followed immediately afterward. They shredded the leather armor over his chest and buried themselves right to the fletching.
The warhorse’s forelegs buckled, and it let out a piercing wail of grief.
The rider on its back was flung clear by the momentum, slamming hard into the wooden gate of the White Sound Pasture.
Wood splinters punctured flesh and muscle; the brittle snap of broken ribs echoed in the night, enough to make one’s scalp crawl.
Only now did the remaining five or six couriers snap out of their shock.
“Ambush! Retreat!”
Someone shrieked madly, yanking desperately at the reins.
Warhorses reared up, hooves churning the ground frantically as they tried to turn and flee back toward the barren flats.
But it was too late!
From behind the scattered rocks blocking their retreat, dozens of dark figures scurried out, hugging the ground.
The Qiyan death warriors had flames of vengeance burning too long in their eyes, yet they made no sound.
They didn’t engage the seasoned riders head-on. Instead, they kept their bodies as low as possible, the Great Qian cross-blades skimming the earth, aiming exclusively at the warhorses’ most vulnerable legs—their tendons and knees.
One ferocious Helian veteran, his face scarred from a blade, saw the retreat cut off and gave in to savage rage.
He gripped the horse’s flanks tight with his thighs, raised his curved saber high, and driven by the downhill momentum, charged recklessly at the two Qiyan warriors blocking his path.
“Stand in my way and die!”
Facing the racing warhorse, the two warriors remained stone-faced, not yielding a single step.
As the horse charged in, the warrior on the left executed a clean, neat roll on the ground, barely dodging the saber swinging down toward his head.
The blade’s edge snipped a strand of his hair.
Without even rising all the way, using the momentum of his roll, he swung his cross-blade in a full, flat arc against the frozen earth.
The razor-sharp steel, forged in Great Qian, sliced easily through the flesh of the horse’s foreleg, severing both knees cleanly.
The horse whinnied sorrowfully as it pitched forward, its massive body skidding across the ground on momentum.
The scarred courier was hurled from the saddle. In midair, he still tried to parry with his blade.
But the warrior on the right had been lying in ambush, coiled and ready.
He bent his knees slightly, then exploded upward, both hands gripping the extended hilt. He hung high above, and using the full weight of his body, struck downward with force.
Crack!
The blade tore through the boiled-leather armor on the back of the courier’s neck without resistance, splintering the cervical vertebrae.
A fine head rolled with a dull thud into the grass.
The headless corpse sprayed a mist of blood as it toppled into the mud and dust alongside the crippled horse, kicking up a gritty cloud.
The remaining two couriers were thoroughly terrified.
They abandoned any pretense of formation, wildly whip the horse’s rumps with the spine of their blades.
They drove their mounts left and right into the thick, waist-high withered grass along the path, trying to escape under cover of night and the tangled foliage.
Sheaves of yellow weeds were trampled flat underhoof in broad patches, their snapped stalks making a continuous sound.
The old clansman stood steady on the hillside, in no hurry about the fleeing prey.
He reached out two rough fingers, pinched up a clod of dirt, and rolled it between his fingertips.
Fine grains of sand slipped through his fingers and were carried sideways by the night breeze halfway down.
A northwest wind, force three. The grass blades leaned low toward the south.
The old tribesman reached back into his quiver, drew out two heavy, grooved arrows, and nocked them both at once.
His aged arms strained; the tough bow bent into a full moon, letting out a grating creak that set teeth on edge.
He closed his left eye and held his breath. Instead of chasing the two blurry shadows with his gaze, he predicted the trajectory of the trampled grass.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
His fingers loosed.
The two arrows tore through the wind, one after the other, drilling into the pitch-black depths of the tangled grass.
“Aargh!”
Two screams of agony broke out at the same moment, followed by the sound of heavy objects hitting the ground.
The masterless mounts ran a few more steps, then stopped in confusion.
No more sound of living men came from the tangled grass.
Only the north wind as it scoured the withered grass, making a rustling sound.
From the release of the first arrow to the fall of the last man, scarcely the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea had passed.
Seven elite couriers of the Helian Court were dead, men and horses alike.
Not a single one had escaped, nor had they managed to fire a whistling arrow of warning.
Amur strode out from the shadows.
He carried a Great Qian cross-blade, its tip slanting toward the ground, crimson blood dripping steadily down the blood groove.
He stepped over the couriers’ corpses, still warm, and arrived before the unlocked wooden gate of the White Sound Pasture.
He lifted his leg and kicked hard.
The gate crashed inward, revealing the unguarded interior of the Helian camp.
The spark of vengeance was officially lit.
