Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 215: Late Spring Morning

It was a lovely late-spring morning. There was a low fog, and Master Zhenying looked out at it for a moment , enjoying his wine. He waved to Jin, who was fussing with his falcons, and found young Dujuan to get armed.

While he was still getting his arm protector on, the large bell sounded. Before the bell had stopped ringing, he was on the curtain wall of the Bridge Castle with the apprentince.

The bridge was still down, and although the bridge gates were closed and heavily barred, it was still the hope of every merchant in the lower fortress that more survivors would stumble in from the Wild – despite all evidence to the contrary.

Jin had a trio of big hawks with him, and from time to time he flew one away into the morning light. He wasn't much of a conversationalist – mostly he spoke to the hawks, murmuring to them in much the same language that Zhenying's daughters spoke to their dolls. Two archers assisted him.

Zhenying watched the open ground out to the line of trees. There was plenty of movement this morning – Swamplings crawling through the deep grass. They continued to believe that they were invisible in the grass, and Merchant Zhenying, for one, hoped they continued to believe it.

He motioned to one of the small boys who had survived the caravans. "Tell Shen that there is a Swampling attack coming on the curtain wall," he said. And was proud that his voice remained steady and professional. He refused to let his mind dwell on how he had seen a line of Swamplings take his men apart. The boy ran along the wall.

The bell rang again. The new group formed. It was a hodge-podge of men; a dozen goldsmiths with crossbows, with a dozen spearmen, all farmers' sons or young merchants in borrowed armor; but the front rank was all warriors, and Shen led them in person. When they were well-formed and he'd inspected their armor, he led them up the ladders onto the curtain wall.

"Good morning, Master Zhenying," he said, as he got to the top of his ladder.

"Good morning, Shen," Zhenying answered. "Nice of them to announce themselves."

"I've doubled the watch in the towers," Shen said. "Look sharp!" he said, loud and clear, and the men on the wall stopped their conversations and looked through the crenellations. "You – Lusty Luan, or whatever your name is. Where's your chest armor? Get it fastened."

Out in the deep grass, Duskreavers and Swamplings began to loose arrows. One, lucky or perfectly aimed, struck one of the spearmen and killed him instantly, and he fell bonelessly from the wall into the courtyard behind them. The other farmer-spearmen shuffled nervously.

"And did he have his chest armor properly fastened?" Shen roared. "And did I just speak to him about it?" he bellowed.

Jin finished lashing his birds to their perches and putting on their hoods. He went into the north tower followed by his two archers. His calm, unhurried movements contrasted with the spearmen. Their shuffling stopped.

The Swamplings made their run at the wall. There were enough of them that they covered the ground – it was like a charge by a nest of ants. The grass seemed to come alive, and there they were – hundreds of them, scurrying to the wall, the Duskreavers bounding ahead in great leaps.

Like most fortress walls at the edge of the Wild, this one had a slope at the base and then rose sheer for the last few meters. The design had an immediate function beyond stability – as Zhenying had seen in the last four attacks. Swamplings misjudged the wall because of the initial slope and attempted to run straight up it – over and over.

Apparently, they couldn't help themselves, and they ran at the wall, harder and harder, and very few ever made it to the top.

Zhenying had come to believe that this, too, was by design, as the success of a few egged the rest on to continue their mostly fruitless runs. The warriors with spears and heavy swords began the slaughter of the soft-bodied things. The crossbowmen cleared any that managed to alight on the crenellations, their heavy bolts plucking the creatures off the wall to a body-crushing fall.

The spearmen were there to catch any who got through the defense.

Merchant Zhenying appointed himself to the third group. He was much better armored than the farm kids, and yet – he was more one of them than he was a warrior. The fight went very well for two long minutes.

The armored warriors massacred the Swamplings, and the crossbowmen covered their backs, and one big, fast Swampling who knocked one farm boy to the ground got a farmer's spear between his limbs and writhed – literally like a bug pinned to paper – until a half-dozen axes finished it. The boy got back to his feet, unharmed.

Zhenying was unengaged – almost bored, despite the tide of monsters lapping at the wall. But his boredom saved them because he was the one who heard the screams of the guards in the north tower. Zhenying whirled and saw Swamplings on the tower top. He turned and went into the tower through the open curtain wall door, drawing his heavy sword as he ran.

"Swamplings on the tower!" he shouted at a huddle of men – Jin and his beastmaster group. Then he ran up the ladder to the tower top.

"Ring the alarm," shouted Jin – a better response than Zhenying's one-man fire brigade.

Zhenying threw back the roof trap and was hit on the head. The blow glanced off his head protector, and he took another step up. Two quick hits struck his small shield, but he reached the top of the ladder and swung his sword low. He felt it cut into the tough flesh of a Swampling's leg, then he pushed with his legs and moved clear of the trap door.

A blow to his back armor. Zhenying punched with his scabbard, the rim cracking a Swampling's head with the same feeling of a lobster's shell giving under a hard blow, and then he pivoted on his hips – a new move, learned from Shen – and cut with his sword – one, two.

The second blow was wasted – his first went home, splitting a head, and the back cut plucked the head off the body and blood spewed from the thing.

But they were all around him, stabbing with spears. One spear skidded across his back plate and went in under his scabbard arm, stopped only by his armor, and another spear-blow hit the side of his head hard enough to make him see stars.

He stumbled forward and tangled with yet another of the things, who tried to pin him by wrapping all four limbs around his legs, but he put the back of his sword into the center of the Swampling's face and its nose seemed to open into a horrible parody of a gullet, lined in spikes. It shrieked in pain, and all four limbs began to scrabble at a tremendous rate.

Zhenying swept his scabbard in a desperate arc, let go of his sword, and whipped his dagger from his sash. He rammed it into the leathery parts of the Swampling's segmented chest, stabbing more times than he cared to count, and the thing almost literally fell to pieces under his hands.

Then he saw a flash of spear, and Jin was there, swinging a short-hafted boar spear with practiced efficiency – cut, thrust, cut, thrust, like a weapons master demonstrating for a class.

And then they were done. Zhenying was covered in blood – but he felt like a god. He leaned over the wall to call down to Shen and saw that the courtyard was full of Swamplings. White Swamplings. In armor.

"Jin!" he screamed.

✶ ✶ ✶

In the fort Wuyi woke up with a smile on his face in the morning since the war was almost over.

He saw Baijian standing nearby.

"You look like hell," Wuyi said.

"Bridge Castle is under assault," Baijian said. "It looks bad, and they've stopped signaling."

"Right," said Wuyi. He took a deep breath. Of course, the Enemy knew the king was a half-day's march away. Hence their assault. An all-or-nothing assault. And the ballista was gone.

But – Wanxie had spent yesterday with the farmers erecting a ballista that filled the stump of the old tower. Wuyi rolled off his bed. He was fully dressed.

"Wanxie!" he called.

The archer came. "My lord?"

"Start laying large arrows across the line," he said. "Attack as soon as you can get loaded."

Wanxie saluted.

Wuyi turned to Baijian. "Tell the archers to start loosing into the field between here and the Bridge Castle. Everything we have. Don't spare shafts now. Jia! Get me Xilai."

Since Jia had lost his accommodation he had spent the night outside Wuyi's room.

"And then armor," he called out.

Baijian licked his lips.

"Another raid?" he asked.

"Not much choice. Baijian, the three warriors in my side room are warriors of the lotus order – see to it they get wine—"

"And horses," Master Li Zhang said, appearing in the doorway. "If you will allow me, Young Master, I will have my warriors meet us in the field below. Which may be a surprise to our foes, by the grace of the heavens."