Night pressed down upon the southern city wall.
No light shone from the ramparts.
To guard against enemy arrows, even the warming braziers on the western route garrison had been doused.
Wounded soldiers leaned haphazardly against stacked stone blocks, snatching their final moments of rest.
"We're as good as dead, aren't we? Come dawn, when the Helian forces attack, you reckon you'll live through it?"
An old soldier said this to Little Li.
The occasional stifled groan of pain drifted into the darkness on the night wind.
They were all waiting—waiting for the pale gray of dawn to break on the horizon.
Waiting for the Helians' nine trebuchets to once again hurl thousand-pound boulders, erasing this last half of the southern wall completely.
Little Li leaned against the crenellation.
He was barely more than a boy, not even a trace of stubble on his chin.
A stray arrow had pierced his thigh, and he shook uncontrollably from the pain.
Old Zhao sat nearby, using his teeth to bite down on a bloodstained hemp rope.
He wrapped it around and around his right hand, binding his palm to the notched blade of his saber.
"Enough, Little Li. Stop your shaking."
Old Zhao spat out the frayed thread, smacked his lips, then stuck out his tongue to rid himself of the stubborn taste of rust.
"Uncle Zhao, I ain't scared of dying," Little Li's teeth chattered. "I'm just cold."
Seeing that the boy spoke the truth, Old Zhao pulled a rock-hard black flour cake from his chest, tore off half, and tossed it over.
"Eat. Eat your fill, and when dawn comes, you'll march off as a ghost with a full belly. Down in the underworld, you'll have the strength to keep fighting those barbarian dogs!"
A one-eared soldier nearby cursed with a laugh.
"Fight my ass! We've got five thousand broken men left to throw against fifty thousand royal tent soldiers? Come daybreak, their cavalry charges once, and there won't even be bone dust left."
Old Zhao ignored him and continued checking the plates of his armor.
The weight of the atmosphere pressed down on every man's head—heavier than the boulders outside the city.
Little Li took a bite of the cake but couldn't swallow. He craned his neck and dry-heaved twice.
He braced himself against the cold city bricks, struggled to his feet, and tried to catch a breath in the night, to take one last look at this battered western garrison.
He gripped the crenellation and poked his head out, gazing beyond the wall.
Sure enough, he saw the Helian camp five li away, its sparse fires neatly arrayed.
Little Li muttered to himself.
"I grew up in this western garrison, but the most—"
But then he only glanced once, casually.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, rubbing hard at his sand-caked eyes.
Those eyes, red from smoke, went wide as saucers.
"Th-this—!"
His lips trembled for a long moment, unable to form a single complete word.
Old Zhao noticed the commotion and furrowed his brow.
"You got possessed or something? Pointing at what? The barbarians can't sneak over here in the middle of the night!"
Cursing, Old Zhao used his blade-bound hand to push himself off the ground, rising crookedly to his feet.
The one-eared soldier beside him stood up too.
Following the direction of Little Li's finger, several old soldiers craned their heads over the crenellation.
At the edge of their vision, that massive encampment spanning half the sky had changed completely.
The tents that had been resting silently in the darkness were now spewing towering crimson flames.
Red!
An impossibly brilliant red!
Fire serpents raced madly between the camp palisades, devouring tent after felt tent.
The tremendous roar, carried on the night wind, slammed wave after wave against the southern wall from five li away.
This sound was no pre-battle horn.
It was screaming, the clash of blades, the thunder of collapsing camp structures.
Massive orange fireballs fell from the sky, detonating in succession at the heart of the enemy camp.
The westernmost row of palisades was being flattened by something charging straight through.
Countless figures fled in panic within the firelight.
Old Zhao's mouth hung half open, the bit of dried ration he'd been holding falling to the ground.
"This is—the camp's in chaos…!"
The one-eared soldier shouted beside him, his voice cracking.
"The Helians are in chaos!"
The wounded men lying along the wall heard the outcry and struggled to crawl toward the crenellations on their elbows.
Little Li hung half over the parapet, his voice splitting with strain.
"Uncle Zhao! That's the royal tent army! They beat us soundly today, their morale's sky-high—how could they mutiny in the middle of the night!"
Old Zhao leaned out even further.
The crimson flames lit the horizon bright, and in that firelight, he could clearly see—this was no case of men trampling their own.
He suddenly realized there was a force!
Within that great blaze, another armed force was charging and cutting through!
"By my ancestors—someone's fighting inside the Helian camp!" Old Zhao grabbed Little Li by the collar, spraying spittle across the boy's face.
"Look, all of you look!"
"Troops are breaking their lines! Allies!"
Little Li was stunned by the shout, then screamed at the top of his lungs.
"What allies? What troops are those? No one's out there!"
Every defender along the southern wall was on their feet now, clutching the broken bricks, staring at that inferno five li away.
But in this moment, not a single man knew whether to weep or to laugh.
"Mother! Am I dreaming or what? This kind of thing—did you ever imagine it? I bet my ancestors down in their graves never imagined it either!"
An old soldier couldn't help but cry out, his heart full of questions.
"What are you still standing around for!" At that moment, Old Zhao kicked Little Li square in the backside. "Go report to the commander! Go now!"
Little Li snapped out of his daze, didn't even bother to snatch up the half-eaten black flour bun from the ground, and scrambled on all fours toward the city wall stairs.
He tripped, tumbled headfirst onto the stone steps, rolled three times, got up, and kept running.
...
In the ruins of the government office below the city wall.
Han Chong sat on the threshold, long blade in his right hand, a torn rag in his left, wiping the edge clean.
Inside the hall stood a dozen or so iron barrels.
They were filled with Greek fire, with small mountains of dry firewood piled beside them.
His personal guard stood at Han Chong's side, face stretched long and grim.
"General, the firewood is all prepared, and the granary is all laid out as well," the guard reported.
Han Chong stopped what he was doing and tossed the rag into the fire.
"Very good!"
Just then, a clumsy, stumbling sound of footsteps came from outside.
Little Li burst through the half-open courtyard gate and slammed headfirst into a stone pillar.
The guard snapped to attention, drawing his blade.
But Little Li paid no mind, lying flat on the ground and lifting his head, shouting toward the interior.
"General! General! Outside... outside it's all chaos!"
Han Chong's heart jolted with alarm. He quickly rose, strode over with his long blade in hand to Little Li, and hauled him up by the collar.
"Speak clearly, soldier! Don't tell me the Helian dog has launched an assault on the city!"
Little Li, gasping for breath, hurried to explain.
"General! No, sir! It's the Hu camp that's on fire! Someone's attacking the Hu! Their entire camp is in complete disarray!"
Han Chong was stunned by these words.
What iron-hearted man dared to strike at the king's tent camp that had smashed the city in broad daylight?
He reached back to grab his belt hook, didn't even bother changing his gate armor, and in a few strides leapt over the ruined courtyard and sprinted up the horse ramp.
...
Han Chong charged up the slanted, ruined tower in one breath.
The old soldiers on the wall, who had already resigned themselves to fate, saw their commander arrive and leaned on their long halberds to stand straight and salute.
Han Chong said nothing, only clasped one fist and returned a heavy bow, then immediately turned his gaze toward the city outskirts.
And what he saw truly shocked him.
Out on the open wilderness five li away.
At the western flank of Helian's fifty-thousand-man camp, a pillar of crimson flame burst into the sky.
The fire showed no sign of dying—instead, it grew hotter in the wind, setting half the night sky ablaze with light.
That black-grounded, gold-wolf banner that had once stood so arrogantly now caught fire and toppled with a crash before the camp tents.
Han Chong stood at the edge of the ruined tower.
The night wind whipped through his loose hair, and firelight danced across his blood-stained face.
Old Zhao, dragging his lame leg, pointed at the distant camp still being savagely devoured by the flames and shuffled two steps closer to ask in a low voice:
"May I ask the general? From the look of that formation, those are no ordinary scattered troops. Does the general know which brothers' unit has come to our aid?"
The old soldiers turned all at once to look at their commander:
"Great marshal, could it be that Marshal Tie from Zhenbei Pass sent us some of his own men?"
Han Chong stared into the flames, thinking hard.
After a moment, he slowly shook his head, no trace of joy on his face.
"Zhenbei Pass has more than enough trouble of its own. Marshal Tie would never dare split his forces—he wrote to me personally saying just that."
"So it seems we have absolutely no idea which heroes of valor have drawn their blades."
The men on the wall drew in a collective breath.
Han Chong, however, let out a long, slow sigh and said:
"But in this death trap of a western prefecture, at least we've caught sight of a thread of hope."
Then, a shadow of worry crossed his face, and his hand tightened around his weapon:
"But... it seems the Helian King's Keshik guard has already moved out. The question is how they'll manage to escape."
