Feng Qizheng was getting worked up. “All right, say we can reach the North Royal Court. How is a force our size supposed to stand against tens of thousands?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “There aren’t tens of thousands at the North Royal Court now. My guess is five thousand at the outside.”

Then he went through his reasoning for them.

Pan Yucheng and the rest stared at him, shocked past anything they could add to it.

What Ning Chen was doing was a great deal too bold.

Pan Yucheng said, “And if the guess is wrong?”

“If it’s wrong we turn around and come back. We’ll have wasted some time, that’s all.”

“And the food on the way back?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Then we’re on our own. Snow mice, hares and the rest… whether we live through it depends on how hard our luck is.”

“Of course, if any of you is afraid, he can go back. I won’t hold it against him.”

“But I trust my own judgment. The North Royal Court is certainly short of men right now… If we can cut clean through it and take the King of the Left Court alive, rank and office and high place and fat pay are as good as ours.”

They looked at one another.

Feng Qizheng said, “God damn, who are you looking down on? I’m shocked at how bold the notion is, that’s all. I’m not chicken.”

Yuan Long broke into a wide grin. “Now this is exciting. General Ning, I’ll follow you. Let’s just get it done.”

Qi Yuanzhong smiled bitterly. “Things have come this far. What is there for me to say? A surprise attack on the North Royal Court. It’s madness.”

Pan Yucheng said nothing, but one look at his face and there was no mistaking what he had decided.

Feng Qizheng said, “Where’s Old Chen? Something this exciting and you leave him out of it?”

“Chen Chong has both his parents above him and a wife and children below. I’m not taking him this time… And if we do bring it off, there’ll be a fortune falling out of the sky and his share of it won’t be short.”

They were a long time silent. It seemed Ning Chen had planned it all out well beforehand.

“We’ve decided to do it. Keep moving.”

A forced march the whole night through.

Not until the first light of the next day did Ning Chen give the order to rest where they were.

A night of that marching had every man of them worn out.

They rested until afternoon before Ning Chen ordered them on again.

“Yuan Long. Pass the word. Every man is to put the green gauze he was issued over his eyes.”

Ning Chen fished out a strip of pale green gauze as he said it and covered his own eyes with it.

The gauze was very thin. Over the eyes it did affect the sight a little, but not badly. A man could still see clearly enough.

Yuan Long looked lost. “General Ning, what good is wearing this thing? It won’t even keep you warm.”

Ning Chen explained patiently. “Look at snow long enough and it will blind you… This is to protect the eyes. Otherwise we’d all be blind by the time we reached the North Royal Court.”

Yuan Long’s forehead filled with question marks.

“Snow can blind a man? There’s snow in the capital too. How is it nobody there ever went blind from it?”

Ning Chen said, “In the capital there are other colors besides snow, and nobody stares at snow all day.”

“Here it’s a different thing. White as far as you can see. You’d have a hard time not looking at it… Go on. Get every man to put it on.”

Yuan Long answered him and passed the order down.

Feng Qizheng came up close. “Ning Chen, how do you know everything?”

“Because I’m a genius.”

Feng Qizheng put the pale green gauze on. “Can you see the contempt in my eyes?”

Ning Chen glanced at him and shook his head. “I don’t see any contempt. What I see is a pair of eyes full of wisdom. You look like a proper mastermind.”

“Right? I’ve got real ability, in fact. I just don’t care to show it off as a rule.”

Feng Qizheng grinned wide and laughed like a fool, preening all over his face.

While Ning Chen was on his forced march, a thousand Tuoluo horse appeared outside Beilin Pass.

At their head was a big man, thick through the shoulders and the waist, with a savage face.

He wore warm clothing made of hides and carried a wolf-tooth club with blood still on it.

On a hill not far off, the soldiers of the Great Xuan were already waiting for them.

The two bodies of men looked at each other across the distance.

On the Great Xuan side the man leading was not Liang Jingwu but his deputy, Liao Xingwen.

The Tuoluo commander swung the wolf-tooth club and called out something strange. It must have meant charge, or something like it.

A thousand horses broke into a run and came at the Great Xuan soldiers.

Liao Xingwen leveled his spear. “Kill them for me. Not one left!”

The two sides charged each other.

Liao Xingwen went first himself, riding at the Tuoluo commander. The spear went out like a dragon, the long shaft like a splinter of light, straight for the man’s throat.

The other man grinned wide. The heavy club weighed nothing at all in his hand. He swept it across and struck the spear shaft.

Clang!!!

Sparks flew.

The force in it nearly shook Liao Xingwen off his horse.

He drove the spear into the ground and steadied himself, and as he pulled it out the point came up from below and tore open a Tuoluo soldier’s throat.

In a moment the killing cries went up on every side.

Metal rang on metal without a break.

The screams rang against the sky.

Severed limbs flew, and the blood flew with them.

Liao Xingwen ran a Tuoluo soldier through, turned his horse and rode at the commander again.

The two came together again, and Liao Xingwen changed from the thrust to the sweep, the long spear bringing the wind with it.

Clang!!!

Club and spear came together hard, and the spear was thrown back.

And then Liao Xingwen came clear off the saddle, both hands on the butt of the spear, and used the force coming back at him to spin once on the horse’s back like a top, and the spear swept out again with the wind behind it.

The club in the other man’s hand came down hard to meet it.

Clang!!!

The ring of metal on metal cut at the ear, and sparks flew.

The Tuoluo commander’s great body was shaken clean off his horse and came down hard on the ground.

Liao Xingwen made a cold sound in his nose and roared, “Hand over your life!”

With that he set his heels in, and the warhorse sprang forward, and the long spear went like a splinter of light at the Tuoluo commander.

The Tuoluo commander rolled on the ground in an undignified scramble and got clear of the thrust, and without stopping for the club he ran and swung up onto a horse and bellowed something strange.

It must have meant fall back, or something like it.

The Tuoluo soldiers began to scatter and run.

Liao Xingwen roared, “Loose!”

Whip! Whip! Whip!!!

A rain of arrows filled the sky and came down on the fleeing Tuoluo horse.

The screams came without a break.

One Tuoluo soldier after another pitched off his horse, and horses were hit too and went down, crying out pitifully.

“Let them go!”

Seeing the Tuoluo well away, Liao Xingwen gave the order to break off the pursuit.

The Tuoluo came fast and went fast… A thousand came, fewer than eight hundred got away, and two hundred bodies were left behind.

Liao Xingwen did not understand it himself. By rights they should have pressed the advantage… but Liang Jingwu’s order to him had been to kill the Tuoluo when they came and not to chase them when they ran.

“General. They’re back.”

Liao Xingwen narrowed his eyes. The Tuoluo had run a long way off and come back, but they did not charge… They stood at a distance howling and waving their weapons.

Liao Xingwen knew what it was. This was how the Tuoluo threw down a challenge.

“Beaten men, and they still talk of courage.”

Liao Xingwen made a cold sound in his nose. He badly wanted to ride over and butcher every one of them.

But a soldier’s first duty is to obey his orders. Liang Jingwu had told him not to pursue, and so he had to hold himself in.

(End of Chapter 159)