Ning Chen kept the Ning'an Army trailing Xiliang's army at an easy pace.

All along the road the dead lay where they had fallen.

With its food running out and, worse, its water, Xiliang's army had turned on itself, and the killing in its ranks never let up.

When the survivors of Xiliang's army finally reached Linxuan City, Xiliang's eighty thousand had shrunk to fewer than forty thousand.

And Xiliang had sent out a hundred and fifty thousand men for this war.

Weng Jin led his broken army to the foot of Linxuan City's wall.

Linxuan City had only a few thousand men holding it now.

"Get the gate open, now!"

Weng Jin shouted it, his lips cracked and his voice gone hoarse.

These last days he had stayed alive by drinking horse blood and horse piss.

Getting horse piss to drink counted as luck. Most of them did not even have that... and men's piss was out of the question. When nobody had taken a drop of water in days, where was the piss going to come from?

If there had been any, men would have died by the dozen fighting over one mouthful of it.

The garrison of Linxuan City hurried to open the gate and welcome Weng Jin in.

But just then hooves drummed and the ground shook.

The Ning'an Army had attacked.

Panic seized Xiliang's army and everything dissolved into chaos... they swarmed at the gate, every man of them trying to get into the city.

But the gate was only so big. In an instant men were crushed against men and trampled underfoot, and the dead and wounded were beyond counting.

These days Linxuan City's garrison commander was Tang Yu, who had served as Che Mingzhe's deputy.

He watched the Ning'an Army sweep in like a raging dragon, and the sight of the two characters Ning'an on its war banners chilled his blood more than anything.

Back when Ning Chen forced Xiliang to hand over the Untainted Ice Lotus, he had taken Linxuan City.

Tang Yu had been Che Mingzhe's deputy then, and had seen…