Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 224: Motives

Li Zhuang was as tired as he had ever been. The fatigue weighed heavily on him, and something was wrong with his left glute—it didn't seem to move as freely as it ought. Despite this, he managed to get his leg over his horse's broad back and rode forward under his own banner. Behind him, his cousin's men were arrayed—two hundred warriors in total.

The cost of this day had been high; fully a hundred warriors lay dead or wounded in the woods and meadows along the road. It was an absurdly steep price to pay for his cousin's reckless desire to be the man who broke the ambush his cousin's master had warned them awaited the king's army.

His cousin, who now lay in the arms of death, had only wanted to be the greatest warrior in the empire. Li Zhuang, however, had different aspirations. He longed to return home to Lanxiang, to sit peacefully in his castle and contemplate which wine was the best at what season for him to consume. As he thought back to the peasants under the bridge, his heart filled with understanding and compassion.

He vowed—would the heavens accept such a vow?—to go home and beg the lady he admired for her hand in marriage.

At the top of the last ridge, the king's friend, the Lord of the Borders, was sitting with a number of other men under the flapping folds of the Royal Banner. Li Zhuang rose in his stirrups—damn it, that left hip hurt—and looked down to the river where the red-armored Royal Guard were just marching toward the great three-span bridge.

On the other side, two groups of warriors were formed in neat wedges at the base of the great ridge on which the fortress sat, half a league north of the river. From the Fortress of Yushan to the bridge ran a trench, blackened as if it had been burned.

At the western edge of the meadows and burned-out farms that had marked the demise of the Pavallion Mistress, thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of creatures swarmed like ants from a recently kicked hive. As he watched, the long arm of a stone thrower mounted high in the fortress swung.

It appeared to swing slowly, but its payload—invisible at this distance—flew at the sudden whip-crack release of the counterweight. Li Zhuang looked for the fall of the shot, but he couldn't see it.

The Lord of the Borders, Tao Wen, waved. "Lord Li Zhuang," he said. "You command the vanguard?"

"I do. My cousin is wounded," Li Zhuang said. "I have fewer than two hundred warrior groups, and many of my younger warriors are spent."

"Despite which, the king begs that you will use every effort to get your men across the river—dismount and occupy the line of works prepared for you." Tao Wen pointed at the black slash that ran from the fortress's ridge to the bridge.

"I see it," Li Zhuang said. "But I lack the force to occupy that length."

"You shall be with the Royal Guard and all our archers," the Lord of the Borders added. "All dispatch, my lord!"

Li Zhuang could see creatures from the swarm now venturing farther and farther into the fields beyond the wood's edge.

He nodded and then ordered "All warriors,move on my command."

In the enemy camp, Luding watched the Royal Army begin to deploy across the river. His blow was ready—a single hammer strike to win Tianqin.

The Royal Army appeared singularly unharmed by a morning-long ambush. That was unexpected. The Yingmo alone should have done great damage among their ranks.

He felt a ripple of power—identified it, and cursed again. Both the dark sun and his former apprentice had survived. He acknowledged his own hubris in imagining them dealt with. It was the very curse of his existence. Why did he constantly think things would go his way? Because they should.

He felt another being—closer to him, and it smelled like Yingmo. Like Jianfeng.

He nodded and drew back conscience power to himself. The Yingmo presence on this side of the river was very revealing. The great Yingmo was coming for a trial to confront him. Luding rocked his bony head.

"Idiot. Traitor. I undertook this for you."

Gray fire began to play along the edges of his stick-like bony limbs, and small demonic pests flying around him flitted through the clearing, excited by the overflow of his demonic Qi resources. But He drained them of Qi in a single sip, leaving their fragile bodies to flutter to the ground.

The magnificent demonic Yingmo entered the clearing from the south. His hide was still wet from swimming the river, but green and brown lightning played along the sides of his head, down to his long, scythed arms and over his richly inlaid beak and armor. Luding let him come.

When they were a few horse lengths apart, Luding raised one hoary arm.

"Stop," he said. "If you mean me harm, save it for the defeat of our enemies."

Jianfeng stopped but shook his mighty head.

"Greater powers than you or I contend here today," he said. "You are a pawn in the plans of a greater power."

Those were not the words Luding expected, and they stung—stung with the peculiar power of words that carry their own truth.

He wondered how this lowly demonic thought such things. Did his master contact other demonics? He thought about it, then shook his head.

"It cannot be," Luding said.

"Why else do the righteous humans have every advantage when we have none? That thing you call fortune; we have none. Every turn we make favors the enemy. Let us withdraw from this field." Jianfeng held up an axe. "Or we must be rid of you."

Luding had agreed to master for his own greed, but he needed time to test the hypothesis that he had been used. He was the one who used others even his master—the enmity of the demonic wild for the Tianqins, the needs of the Swamplings for new ground to live, the hunting instincts of the Flying Serpents and the Dusha.To earn their loyalty and build on demonic wild kingdom he was doing it.

He was not, in turn, used.

"We have been used!" Jianfeng insisted. "Order the retreat, and we will fight another day!"

Luding considered it. And he considered the great mass of his underlings—the white Swamplings in their magnificent armor, the five thousand Duskreaver archers, the squadrons of Dusha ready to engage the enemy's warriors. The Nomads and the Flying Serpents and the other demonics. The sight was a formidable one, each unit prepared for battle, each ready to lay down their life for the cause.

"Even if what you say is true," Luding said, his voice steady and unwavering, "we are about to win a great victory. We will scour the kingdom of Tianqin from the face of the continent. We will rule here." His confidence was palpable, a stark contrast to the looming uncertainty of the battle.

Jianfeng shook his great head slowly, a gesture filled with resignation and sorrow. "You delude yourself," he said with a heavy sigh. "There is no number of Swamplings who can match this number of armored men in combat. And Luding—I call you by name—I call you three times to attend my words.

A battle, says my grand leader, is the result of a situation wherein both sides imagine they can win a conclusive fight with one throw of the knucklebones. And only one side is right. Today, the King of Tianqin believes he can defeat us. You believe that you can defeat him, despite everything. I say we will lose on this field. Withdraw and I am your loyal ally.

Order this attack and I will fall on you with fire and talon."

Luding chewed on Jianfeng's words for many heartbeats, each second stretching into eternity. Not a breeze stirred the torpid late spring heat in the woods. The air was thick and oppressive, weighing heavily on everyone present. Insect noises stopped abruptly, leaving an eerie silence in their wake. Not a demonic chattered, as if all of nature waited on Luding's decision.

The tension was palpable, the future hanging in the balance.

The white Swamplings stood in perfect formation, their magnificent armor gleaming in the dim light. The Duskreaver archers, five thousand strong, held their breath, their bows at the ready. The squadrons of Dusha, poised for engagement, awaited their orders. The Nomads and the Flying Serpents, alongside other demonics, remained silent and still, their eyes fixed on Luding.

Every creature, every soldier, every being present knew the importance of this moment.

Luding's mind raced as he considered Jianfeng's warning. He weighed the potential victory against the possibility of devastating defeat. His fingers drummed. The silence grew heavier, pressing down on all, as if the very forest held its breath in anticipation.

"Not for nothing do men call you The Orator, Jianfeng," Luding spoke. "You speak brilliantly. But I doubt your motives. You want this army for your own. The only good you know is the good of the Yingmo." He took a breath and let it out slowly, to still his rage. And then he threw a single attack, a long-prepared blow, like a single spell.

The Yingmo reacted instantly, raising all of its not-inconsiderable power in a wall of force to stop the blow. Quick as a mountain lion, Luding cast again.

The single gout of gray lightning blasted through the wall like a siege ram through the walls of a wattle and daub house, and the tall Yingmo crumpled to the ground without a sound. He lay still but for the thumping of his left leg under the command of his hindbrain, still battering the ground in rage and frustration at his own death.

"Attack," Luding ordered his other leader underlings. To the corpse, he said, "One of us was wrong, Jianfeng." He reached out and subsumed the Yingmo's essence. And rose from it more powerful than he had ever been.

I should have done that a year ago, he thought, and smiled. And walked out onto the field at the head of his armies.