Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 173: Saving Caravan

If Luding continued gathering, he would soon reach a level that would at least appear to challenge his peers – already the mighty black serpent of the Gray Hills was awake to him, raising, as it were, a scaled black eyebrow at Luding's speedy accumulation of power and lesser creatures, men, and resources. The old Shadowmaw in the mountains did not love him either.

And at some future point, the Yanshi, scarcely people and more like cruel animals as they were, would come to resent his chains and find a way to throw them off.

So might one feudal lord of this wild be alarmed—or at least deeply curious—when learning that a neighbor of theirs had called in his vassals and raised an army. Luding will have problems.

But it was not his fault that he was better than them he had once been a man—a man capable of raising armies.

Before he'd learned the truth.

And the fortress was obviously not going to crumple at his command. Xiang's outer town had fallen so easily that he'd allowed himself to be seduced by the easy victory—but the stronghold fort itself, full of terrified humans, was not yet under his claws and the easy conquests were over.

And whatever the dark sun was, it was powerful and dangerous or someone powerful and dangerous was behind him, and the men of violence who surrounded it were deadly enemies whom he would not underestimate again.

Neither could he accept their pollution of his land, attack of his camp, or the preceding endless cycle of challenge and counter challenge that had led him to grant a favor and confront the fortress more directly.

And where, exactly, was his professed friend in the Fort?

Enough.

He had made his choices, and they led to making war. Now he had to marshal his assets without affronting his peers, rip the fortress from the face of the world—a warning and a tale for all his foes—and grant this land to the demonics and please his master.

And all the while he contemplated this next move, that part of him which was enjoying the cool of night continued to avoid the golden light cast by the Pavilion Mistress, as if the mere admission of her existence would be a defeat. Her pure golden Qi was equally dangerous as that black sun.

Twenty Li to the south, a hundred of his creatures stirred and rumbled and slept in the cold darkness, and two hundred men huddled close to their fires and posted too many sentries, and over the mountain to the east and west, hundreds of Nomad warriors woke and made their fires and prepared to come to his cause.

And west, and north, creatures woke in their burrows, their caves, their holes and hides and homes—more duskreavers, more swamplings, and mightier creatures—a clan of Yingmo, a group of Crimson Shadowmaws. And because he was strong and power called to power, they were coming to him.

The Yanshi would counter the Qi warriors. The Nomads would give him more reliable scouts. The duskreavers and swamplings were his foot soldiers. By morning, he would have a force to deal with anything that righteous could offer. Then he would close his claws around the fortress.

Of course, there was irony in his trust of Talons and nomads as demonic wild did not trust Humans he was more demonic wild than hum. But he trusted the demonic men more, rather than creatures of the Dmonic faction, to fight other men.

With this decision his separate consciousness collapsed, one by one, back into the body under the tree, and his bony structure stretched, sighed, and was almost like a man's.

Almost.

✶ ✶ ✶

After defeating the attackers at Fort Wuyi, the group did not stay at the fort. There was a window of opportunity: the enemies had run away, and there was chaos in their camp. Wuyi and his group had the chance to check if the road to the west was clear. He had heard about a large caravan full of warriors coming toward them, surrounded by Dmonics; maybe he could save them.

The warriors would owe him greatly; he would gain more warriors for his group and men for the upcoming war.

That was his trail though until they arrived, the scene in front of him surprised Wuyi.

Because there is a great deal of luck involved in catching an enemy, especially a victorious enemy who outnumbers you twenty to one, caught flat-footed, glutted with spoil, unable to fight or flee.

There's even more luck involved when you catch your enemy glutted with spoil and pinned against a roaring torrent of a stream, with only one crossing, and that crossing held by someone who doubted everything in this world and was suspicious of everything, even if he had assuring cheats.

Because he was in command, and because he feared a trap, Wuyi was among the last men onto the field, leading half a dozen archers, two Qi warriors, and Zhen with all the attendants as a reserve. He came forward still full of doubt at his own decision, which seemed rash, and yet full of a sort of certainty—almost like religious faith—that he could sense the enemy's failure.

He came on the heels of the main battle's charge to cover Baijian's headlong rush who had already entered the fight and supporting the caravan warriors, and Zhen was less than twenty horse lengths behind the last man of the main battle. Still, by the time he rode under the big Tallow trees, the fighting was over by the abandoned wagons.

He rode by what he assumed had been the convoy's last stand—a dozen caravan men face down, some of them looking half-eaten or worse.

He rode past the carcasses of not one, but three dead Kwimok. He had only ever seen one before today.

He passed down a line of carts, their draft animals dead and partially butchered in their traces. Other wagons had their oxen or horses untouched, panicked in the traces but alive. There were human bodies among the dead swamplings and other things—one corpse looked like a crimson shadowmaw, cleanly beheaded.

He shook his head in disbelief.

He couldn't have planned it this way. Couldn't have coordinated such a victory, not with a pair of Qi masters to handle communications and twice the number of men.

Farther on, they were still fighting. He could hear Baijian's war cry.

He came up to two men holding a dozen fretting war horses, and Zhen sent four attendants to take their reins. The two Qi warriors grinned, loosened swords , and headed off down the trail toward the sound of belling. Wuyi took a breath, thinking of the kind of men and women he employed. The kind who smiled and hastened down the trail to battle. He led them. They made him happy.

He dismounted, handed his horse to Zhen, who gave him a weapon.

And dismounted himself.

"Not without me, young master," Zhen said.

"I have to," Wuyi said. "You don't."

Zhen sighed. "Can we get this over with?" He gestured, and Dong appeared, somehow taller and more dangerous-looking in Qi armor.

They ran forward. There was fighting off to their left—the humdrum sound of blade on blade. And ahead, heavy movement and grunting, like a huge demonic boar in a deep thicket.

"Don't let it cross the river!" Baijian roared, almost at his elbow.

Wuyi came around the great bole of an old tree, and there was the beast—twenty-five hands at the shoulder, with curling tusks.

A demonic behemoth. It turned.

It's eyes met Wuyi's , Wuyi quested it and tried to control the beast.

The beast roared a challenge.

"Here we go," said Baijian, with relish. "Young Master is also here. Now we can dance!"

Zhen shot the thing, a clean shaft that leapt from his bowstring at full draw and plunged through its hide, vanishing to the fletchings. His bow was as long and heavy as Yuei's, and most men couldn't draw it.

Someone behind it plunged a sword deep into beast's side, and then a Qi warrior was sawing at its neck, and it roared in anger. But the flurry of blows let up, and suddenly it got its feet under it, tossed the Qi warrior free, and put its head down.

"Oh Heavens, it will charge," Zhen said.

A solid halberd of fire flew out of nowhere, struck the behemoth in the head, splintering a tusk and setting fire to the stump. Despite the fear, every man turned to look. Most of them understood where the halberd had come from—Red Daoist.

Red Daoist charged it because that seemed a better idea than letting the beast charge. Wuyi had done no summoning so far for the same reason. His horse had done all the work until now; he had killed a few running demonics, and the cost to his physical body was minimal, the perks of being a Qi master.

The problem only arose when he summoned: the longer they stayed, the more exhausted he would be. All warriors around him relaxed too with presence of Red Daoist.

The fire was a nice distraction, and Red Daoist slammed his halberd into the beast's face, near an eye. The beast was collapsing back—Zhen, also unaffected by the pyrotechnics, was walking forward, putting arrow after arrow into its unguarded belly.

Beast turned away, suddenly less fearsome and sensing the defeat of near death. It tried to burst free across the stream, but the rocky bottom betrayed it, and it stumbled; a dozen archers, caravan warriors, and Wuyi's warriors alike, poured shafts into it, and its blood swirled in the fast water.