“Good. You’re men of my Great Xuan all right. You’ve got balls.”
“But I’ll say this up front. You can come with me, but every damn one of you had better get his ass back here alive.”
“And if a man really does fall — I, Ning Chen, swear it here and now… I will keep your families. I will raise your children to be grown men and women. When your fathers and mothers grow old and sicken and die, I will carry the coffin myself.”
Ning Chen said it in a loud voice.
The men’s eyes went red.
“Thank you, General Ning!”
“General Ning is mighty!”
“General Ning is mighty!”
“…”
Ning Chen pressed his hands down and said clearly, “But remember this. You stay alive for me as far as it can be done… I still have to take you back to the capital to collect your reward. Nobody is allowed to die!”
“When we reach the North Royal Court, don’t spare your bullets or your bolts. If a man can be shot down at a distance, you don’t close with him. Understood?”
Every man of them roared together: “Yes!”
While Ning Chen was giving his men their last word before the battle, the great fight outside Beilin Pass had come to a close for the time being.
Outside Beilin Pass now the dead were heaped in hills and the blood ran like a river. It stopped the heart to look at it.
The Tuoluo army had pulled back for the moment.
In that fight the Tuoluo had lost better than ten thousand men.
The Great Xuan’s losses were heavy too. Man for man in a fight, Great Xuan soldiers were nowhere near Tuoluo soldiers.
The Tuoluo army had not withdrawn, though. It had made camp a mile and a half off.
But the two sides now stood in positions as far apart as heaven and earth.
The Tuoluo had over ten thousand dead, and wounded past counting, and they were short of clothes, short of food, and shorter still of medicine. Those wounded would likely not last many days, and when it came to that, another great lot of them would die.
Things were a good deal better on the Great Xuan side. They had Beilin Pass at their backs, supplies in plenty, and no shortage of army surgeons.
Liang Jingwu kept sending scouts out to find how the Tuoluo stood.
His guess was that the Tuoluo might well come at them one more time.
Liang Jingwu gave the order for the Great Xuan soldiers to clear the field.
He himself went up onto the hill, sat down leaning on his war blade, looked off into the distance and knotted his brows.
And how are things going on Ning Chen’s side, I wonder?
Liao Xingwen looked at him. “We won. Why is the General’s face so clouded?”
“I’m thinking that the Tuoluo army has not pulled out. They will certainly come at us again.”
“The snow has not let up all year. The Tuoluo have had a harder time of it than in other years… It may be they came this time having made up their minds to die.”
Liao Xingwen smiled coldly. “If they dare come again, then let none of them go back.”
Liang Jingwu sighed. “Don’t take it lightly. The Tuoluo have only pulled back for the moment. The next time they come they will only be fiercer.”
“General, then what do we do next?”
Liang Jingwu narrowed his eyes. “Pass my order. Every man is to rest well!”
“The fight has come this far. We can’t leave it half done… This time we hurt them for good.”
Liao Xingwen started. “The General means to attack first?”
Liang Jingwu nodded. “Ning Chen said something once. Sometimes the best defense is to strike first… I didn’t understand it before. Now I finally see what he meant.”
“Every time it’s the Tuoluo who attack and we who hold… This time it’s our turn to strike first.”
“Let the men rest well for the night. Early tomorrow the whole army goes forward… I don’t suppose the Tuoluo would expect us to dare attack them?”
The next day, early morning.
Liang Jingwu led the army out, a great body of men come sweeping down on the Tuoluo camp.
Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
The sound of the war drums went up to the clouds.
“Men of the Great Xuan, come with me and kill the last of these bandits.”
Liang Jingwu roared it.
Horse and man beyond counting rolled forward like a flood.
The Tuoluo army was shocked that the Great Xuan soldiers dared attack first, but they had long since been ready to meet them.
Their scouts had picked up the Great Xuan army’s movement well before.
The drums beat and the fires of war went up.
The two armies fell to killing each other again.
In that fight another ten thousand living men went down.
Bodies lay everywhere, the blood ran like a river, and the ground was one open wound.
The men of the Great Xuan were savage and had no fear of dying.
The Tuoluo soldiers were brave enough, and they had blood in them, and they fought back to the death.
But in the end the marks of a beaten army began to show on them.
The Great Xuan had supplies in plenty and Beilin Pass at their backs. Last night their men had eaten well and slept well and come to the field with their strength up.
The Tuoluo army was short of clothes and short of food, and the supply trains could not keep up. Half a belly was as much as any man got, and their strength had fallen off badly.
Not until the horn for the withdrawal was blown did they give ground, fighting as they went and hating it.
Liang Jingwu gave the order to pursue.
When an army breaks, it goes like a hill coming down.
The Tuoluo left the ground covered with bodies and ran in a panic.
Liang Jingwu led his men after them, killing.
More than ten days went by in a blink.
On Ning Chen’s side, they had reached the North Royal Court at last.
What was called the North Royal Court was in fact one great spread of felt tents, the kind called Mongolian yurts.
Ning Chen sent scouts ahead to look.
Two hours later the scouts came back.
“Well?”
The scout said, “Just as the General reckoned. There are only a few thousand soldiers at the North Royal Court now.”
“Are you certain where the King of the Left Court is?”
The scout nodded, and then began drawing in the snow, laying out the whole shape of the North Royal Court.
“General Ning, this biggest felt tent here in the middle is the King of the Left Court’s royal tent.”
Ning Chen asked, “And how are the soldiers spread?”
“They’re short of men, so they’re spread fairly thin… A little over two thousand are out on patrol around the edges, and just about all the rest are guarding the ground around the King of the Left Court’s royal tent.”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
“Pass my order. Every man is to eat all the food he has left. Eat full, drink full, then rest where you are and build your strength back up.”
“Tonight we hit the North Royal Court in the dark.”
Night came down.
A cold wind howled, and snow began to drift down out of the sky.
Ning Chen, who had been sleeping with his blade in his arms, opened his eyes all at once.
He grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed his face with it to bring himself the whole way awake.
“Pass my order. Ready to move!”
At Ning Chen’s word a thousand men started for the North Royal Court.
“Brother Qi. Take fifty men and hold the outside.”
Qi Yuanzhong nodded. “As you order!”
“The rest of you, come with me!”
They went like ghosts in the dark, closing fast on the North Royal Court.
The patrols at the North Royal Court picked up Ning Chen and his men the moment they came.
A horn call went up.
It was the horn for an enemy attack.
Inside the great felt tent, the King of the Left Court sat at a low table with a woman on either arm.
Beside him, two Tuoluo women waited on him.
Tuoluo women were not delicate the way Great Xuan women were, and their skin was not as white or as fine, but they had height to make up for it, deep-cut features and a wild kind of beauty.
The woman on his left cut a piece of meat off a roasted leg of mutton and brought it up to the King of the Left Court’s mouth.
The other woman held the wine cup.
The King of the Left Court was a big man with hard brows, a mouthful of wine and a mouthful of meat, thoroughly at his ease.
The horn call, coming out of nowhere, startled him. He shot to his feet and shouted something toward the outside, in the Tuoluo tongue.
A soldier ran in and said in Tuoluo, frightened out of his wits, “Enemy attack. The Great Xuan army is coming down on us.”
The King of the Left Court was stunned blank.
The Great Xuan army is coming down on us? Is that possible?
“Hm. A small party trying a night raid, most likely… Don’t panic. Follow this king out to meet them, and let none of them go back.”
The King of the Left Court was no soft-bellied fool. He took up his blade and walked out of the tent in long strides.
But he had only just come out when he heard a burst of noise like a thunderclap, and shrill screaming with it, and the color went out of his face.
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
The sound was thunder. Firelight spread, and black smoke behind it.
The Tuoluo soldiers coming forward burst open in flowers of blood and screamed shrilly.
One party fired and pulled straight back to load again.
Another party moved straight up and fired on the Tuoluo soldiers, who were struck stupid by the noise of the muskets.
Blood sprayed. The Tuoluo soldiers went down in swaths, like wheat under the scythe.
(End of Chapter 162)