Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 170: Charge

"Don't be sorry. Real warriors sleep every minute they can, in times like this. Our attackers are making an attempt on the Bridge fort and the Lower Town, while, I assume, sending their warriors to look at what we built yesterday. Or perhaps to burn it."He sounded quite happy about the prospect.

Jia took a deep breath. An attendant put a cup of warm wine into his hand and he drank it off.

Wuyi leaned well out over the wall. "Loose!"he called.

The ballista in the western tower creaked, and the whole tower moved by the width of a finger.

"Hail shot. Watch this.'

Jia was no stranger to archery. This was like that, only multiplied many hundreds of times, with larger arrows. One arrow was taking out dozens of demons in one go.

"Again!"Wuyi called.

Down in the Bridge Castle, both of their heavy small ballistae loosed together, throwing arrows the size of a man's hand out into the trenches built the day before.

Screams rose out of the churned ground.

"You seem very pleased with yourself,"the Pavilion Mistress said. She was fully dressed and looked exactly the same as she did in the height of a calm day. She had come around the corner by the west tower, attended by stretcher-bearers and a pair of nursing elders.

"The enemy has just fallen into our little trap with both feet."He turned to Wanxie. "We'll get one more round off. Then raise both red flags. At that signal, everyone—everyone in the group except you and the ballista crews—attacks down the road. With me.'

Wuyi bowed to the Pavilion Mistress, who seemed unfazed as always. The attendants had Haruki saddled, and Wuyi took his place at the head of Meiying's group. Jia, still fuzzy-headed and with his ribs burning in his chest, tried to keep up with him.

Zhen was standing by Jia's horse. "You looked like you needed your sleep,"he said, with a smile. "Don't get fancy, youngster. Those ribs will kill you."He leaned close. "So will kissing girls, if it costs you rest.'

Then Jia was up on his horse, Zhen's hand shoving his rump to get him into the saddle, and he was out of the low stable gateway and into the courtyard. Dong was holding Wuyi's mask while eating a half-loaf of bread, and Wuyi was holding something—a white silk handkerchief. It was very white against the dark black Qi armour of his.

Jia grinned. "What is that?"he began.

"Shamed be he who thinks evil of it,"said Wuyi. He winked, took his mask from Dong, gave the boy a smile, and wheeled Haruki just by a thought.

"Listen up!"he called.

The group quieted.

"Once we're through that gate, kill everything that comes under your sword,"Wuyi said. "The trench edge will be marked in fire, so remember your route. If you lose me, follow the route. When you hear fort bells, sound the recall; you turn and come back. Understand me?'

And with that as a speech, they rode from the gate as the ballista sprayed another rain of death over their heads.

The hour was on the knife-edge between day and night, and the ballista's great multiple arrowheads had obliterated life over a swathe of ground that was roughly the shape of a great egg—creatures had been turned to a bloody or ichorous pulp just by the weight of the arrows, and the ground was littered with the large ballista arrows—softer ground had deep marks.

Bushes and grass were pulverized cleanly. In the half-dark, it was a vision of hell, and the sudden burst of balefire in the new-dug trenches added to the terrible aspect.

Especially when viewed through the slit of a closed mask.

There was no fight in the men or the demonics that struggled to win free of the beaten ground or routed away from the hail of missiles still coming at them from the Bridge Castle. They were streaming for the woods, over a mile distant.

Wuyi led his group well to the south, right along the river, along the smooth ground, and then formed them up in a single rank and brought up his lead call maker and his great black banner with the brotherhood sign, and drew his sword.

"All the way to the edge of the wood, and then form up on me."He had his black mask on, and dressed in all-black Qi armour, he looked more demonic than the demonics themselves. He looked around—Baijian was at his back, Meiying to one side, and Yun Ming was close.

"Kill everything that comes under your sword,"he said again. Jia didn't think they had lost a single man getting here. The war ballistas had utterly shattered the enemy attack. He took a deep breath, and the routed enemy flowed past them, running on exhausted feet—or talons, or claws, or paws—for the woods.

"Charge!"he roared, and the banner of brotherhood pointed at the enemy as the Drums and Bells sounded.

Jia had been in many attacks, but there was something different about these charging attacks against demonics that were running.

It was exhilarating, and nothing on the ground seemed to be able to touch them. They swept over the swamplings and the broken men and a single larger creature, something nightmarish that gleamed a sickening black hue in the first light of the sun.

But Baijian put his spear tip precisely in the thing's ear-bole as it turned its talons on Haruki, and his spear tip—a spear point as long as a man's forearm and as wide as a big man's palm—ripped its brain pan from its lower jaw.

"I am your nightmare, you filthy demons,"the big man roared.

The monster died, and the line of warriors swept over the pitiful resistance and then into the running men—and things.

By the time the sun was above the horizon, they had reached the wood's edge, and the creatures and men of the demonic faction were a bloody mangle on the grass behind them—or rather, any they'd chanced on were a bloody mangle, while hundreds more ran around them to the north or south, or lay flat and prayed as the horses thundered over them.

And then Wuyi led them back to the gate by much the same road, crashing through a line of desperate duskreavers trying vainly to defend themselves with spears that splintered on Qi armour. Right through, and on to the edge of the fortress hill, where twenty attendants waited with fresh horses.

Jia was mystified. His elation was ebbing quickly, to be replaced by fatigue and the thumping pain of his ribs, jarred by the gallop and barely held together by his Qi armour.

All of the Qi warriors and many of the archers were changing horses; Wuyi still stayed on his Haruki while other horses were tired; this was a walk in the park for his low-level spirit beast.

The men on the walls were cheering them.

Wuyi rode up to Jia and removed his mask. "You're moving badly,"Wuyi said bluntly. "In fact, you look like a demonic being chased. Go back.'

"What? Where—"Jia spluttered.

Zhen took his reins. Jia noted that the Wuyi's Zhen was in armour—good armour—as Zhen got him out of his saddle, and Jia wanted to cry—but at the same time, he couldn't imagine fighting again.

Then Zhen swung up on a heavy horse of his own—an ugly-looking beast with a flaring nose. "I'll keep the Young Master alive, lad,"Zhen said.

So Jia stood there and watched as they changed horses and formed up, and then to his surprise, they turned away from the beaten enemy and rode south, along the edge of the rising sun, moving at a canter. They rode

straight for the Bridge Castle's gate, and it opened as if by magic, letting them pass through, canter over the bridge, and vanish onto the southern road.

As he watched, Jin, the beastmaster, left Bridge Castle with three men and a cart. The men each took a brace of hounds—beautiful hounds—and moved briskly off to the west with a dozen archers covering them.

Just as the first starlings and ravens began to appear, hunting falcons began to soar into the heavens over Bridge Castle, one after another. Up on the walls, a great eagle leaped into the air with a scream that must have chilled every lesser bird for three leagues.

Jin had struck, and the Pavilion Mistress with him. They were going for all the prying eyes of demonics.

Braces of hounds emerged from the cover of Bridge Castle, running flat out for the leverets and the coneys and any other animal that lurked at the edge of the woods, and the falcons, large hunting eagles, and the lesser birds—well-trained birds brought from Ruyi to sell at the fair—struck the starlings, the ravens, and the oversized doves, ripping through their flocks like a warrior through a crowd of peasants, and feathers, wings, blood, and whole dead birds fell like an avian rain.

It took Jia half an hour to climb back to the fortress gate. The attendants ignored him, and he stumbled many times until someone on the walls saw the trail of blood he was leaving and a pair of archers appeared to hold him up.

Liwei removed the Qi armour from his feet and found the flint arrow that had cut deeply into the muscle at the back of his leg. Blood was flowing out like wine from an open tap.

She was speaking rapidly and cheerfully, and he just had time to think how beautiful she was.