Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 226: Charge

Monk Zen didn't like what he had to do. He didn't like that they all hated him now, and he wanted to argue with them, to show them what they were going to become. Like her. Like the true evils.

Gnawing the ropes was easy. But the archers had hurt him, and his back was flayed raw. It took time and pain. He paused and rested. Paused and slept. Awoke when he heard voices coming into the cellars from below.

He gnawed his bonds again, mad with fury like a trapped animal. When he exhausted his muscles, he made himself pray. He overcame the pain. He was good at pain.

After hours and more hours, he had the ropes off. Then he got through the scuttle – a trap door to the next cellar room. He moved carefully, and he only passed out once and woke again minutes or hours later. He made it to the base of the main cellar ramp, where he could hear a pair of archers on duty.

He prayed, and the heavens showed him the way. Whoever had come up into the cellar had left a door open. He dragged himself to the portal and looked down. Scrambled and found a lantern and a tinderbox. It was heaven's will. He dragged himself down the steps into the dark.

The warriors, efficient as always, had left markings on the rock for path. He began to follow them.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luding watched his great assault sally forth from the edge of the woods and knew fear. He had lost many creatures in the weeks of siege and now feared he lacked the resources to survive. His fear hadn't started there, though.

As his assault began, something whose level of manifested strength was to Luding as Luding was to a Swamplings had appeared on the other side of the river. That person had the power of his master. It had cast a single strong spell of such complexity and power that it beggared the very strongest sending Luding had ever cast. And then it had vanished. A Power. A great Power of the unknown.

Luding stood at the edge of the burned fields, watching his massive assault leap towards the hated enemy; seeing the fruition of his revenge on the king and his useless nobles, watching as his Swamplings finally seized the empty Lower Town and boiled through its streets. And all he could think was, "Curse the Yingmo. He was right. I've been had."

✶ ✶ ✶

Wuyi led his men in single file across the boards laid across the burned, vitrified trench. As he crossed, two farm boys with weapons waved. They gave a cheer. Why not? They weren't riding into a horde of Swamplings.

He laughed. Turned to find Zhen behind him, a trumpet bearer and Jia in tow.

"Form your front," he called.

The line of Swamplings was about sixty Zhang distant. He looked back at Bridge Castle, hoping to see the king. He looked across the river, but the main battle was just straggling down the ridge. Two thousand warriors. The king was just a little late. He could see a handful of warriors crossing the bridge.

The banner was from Lanxiang, and not one he knew.

Move! he thought. He looked back.

His warriors, with the addition of all the Lotus Order warriors, formed in two ranks and took up twenty Zhang of front – leaving as much again on either flank. Empty air. He was the center man in the line. The Swampling line was forty Zhang away, give or take.

"Advance! Walk!" he called, and Yushen Feng repeated it by yell.

"Remember this, men!" Baijian called from his place in the ranks.

The big horses made the earth shake, even at a walk. Their tack rattled and clinked, and the sound of their riders' armor added to it. The sound of a group of warriors.

Thirty Zhang. "Trot!"

Even a hundred and fifty armored men on big horses make the ground rumble like an earthquake. One last time, the enemy had underestimated them. They had more than a dozen of the great Dushas, belling and ranting several hundred paces to the rear of the line. They were coming on now – coming quickly. But like the king, they were going to be much too late for the moment of impact.

Wuyi had a feeling, though, that the Dushas were not at their best in the open, and that they wouldn't be particularly maneuverable. Or was that his own hubris? But that was all passing away. Strategy and tactics were over now.

He turned his head at the cost of some pain and saw the warriors pushing along the trench. The crossbowmen were moving too – Shen was visible, roaring orders at them. There would be no gap in their line when the enemy struck.

The two lines were approaching each other at the combined speed of a galloping horse. The Swamplings were not going to flinch, but they were spread out over the ground, all cohesion lost, like a swarm of insects pouring over the ground.

"Charge," he shouted. Yushen Feng and Zhen might not have heard him over the drumming hooves, but he swept his spear down to point at his first target, locked it under his arm, and Zhen repeated the charge order.

Wuyi leaned forward into his spear. He was the wind, and the roar of the hooves, and the tip of the spear.

The slight bodies of the Swamplings were like straw dolls set in a field, and the spears ripped through them so smoothly that creatures died without dragging the spears down, and the stronger men were able to engage three, four, even five of the creatures before their spears broke, or their points touched the ground, dug in, and shattered or had to be dropped.

The horses were spread widely enough to allow horse and rider to thread the enemy line, to take advantage of spaces between Swamplings, to weave their path. For a few deadly heartbeats, the warriors destroyed the Swamplings, and there was nothing the Swamplings could do to retaliate.

But like mud clogging a harrow, the very density and sheer numbers of the Swamplings began to slow the warriors' charge, and even their heavy horses had to shy – or simply could no longer trust their hooves to ground that was so thickly littered with Swamplings. The charge slowed and slowed.

And then the Swamplings began to fight back.

✶ ✶ ✶

Monk Zen paused at the base of the steps to gather his courage and his hate. He was deep underground, his lantern guttering, and he had no idea how far it was to the outside. And he hurt. He prayed, and then he walked. Walked and prayed.

And, of course, it wasn't much farther than walking down the castle road outside. He finally found a pair of double doors, as high as two men and as wide as a church. He expected them to be locked with all the power of Hell. But they lay cold and empty. He reached for the two great handles. There was a key between them.

✶ ✶ ✶

The king had Princess on a litter between four horses, and he and his household royal warriors got out the main Bridge Castle gate even as the support shot bolt after bolt over their heads into the oncoming line of creatures.

Even as he watched, he saw lotus order leader Master Zhang and the young warrior lead their warriors over a pair of narrow wooden bridges and onto the plain. He looked to the right and left, trying to imagine why they were charging the enemy. But it was glorious to see.

The warriors took their time, formed up neatly, and the endless horde of enemies ran at them silently – perhaps the most horrible aspect of the Swamplings was their silence. He could hear the young warrior calling orders, and his subordinates repeated them.

"Ready," his royal guard said.

The king gestured across the front of the trench. "Since our friends have been kind enough to clear us a path," he said, and got on his mount.

As he rode, he watched the charge go home. It was superb, and he was annoyed that he wasn't a part of it. He leaned back to his royal guard. "As soon as we move the princess to the fortress, we will join them," he said, pointing to the charge which was cutting through the enemy like an irresistible scythe.

His second royal guard shook his head. "My lord," he protested, "we have only sixty warriors."

The king watched the charge even as his household royal guard trotted across the front of the trench. He spoke, "The young warrior hasn't much more than that."

"But you are the king!" his royal guard protested.

The king began to feel the onset of the indecision that infected him on every battlefield. A lifetime of training and cultivating as a warrior demanded that he lead his warriors in that wonderful charge – a charge that even now was beginning to lose its impetus, three hundred Zhang from the trench at his feet.

He was also aware – as a man is aware of a distant call – that it was not his duty as king to perform feats of glory.

But his daughter had said— The fighting was so close. And his Princess didn't need him. She had a clear path all the way to the gate of the fortress.

"Warriors!" roared the king. "On me!"