Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 230: Saved

Li Xian judged his moment well. He had led the warriors of Tianqin off to the west almost a league along the river. A handful of Swamplings had tried to oppose him, his sword was wet with their hellish ichor, and it was as easy as taking the heads off fennel plants in his mother's garden.

And now— Oh, the glory.

He raised his arm, closed his fist, and turned his horse. "Halt!" he ordered. "Now turn to face the enemy!" It was not a royal command, but he had never led so many Warriors and did not know their commands in their language. So, he turned out of the line and cantered along the column. "Face me!" he called. "Come!

Turn your horses!"

As soon as half a dozen Warriors understood him, they all understood. The great column, a thousand horses long, turned into a line a thousand horses wide as he cantered down the front, his spear held above his head, the royal arms of Tianqin sparkling on his chest.

Not a mere duke, but someday I will be a proper king.

He didn't know where the thought came from, but suddenly it was there. His master had told him to acquire the title of duke, but he felt that was not good enough. He grinned and turned his horse to face the enemy. He was in the center of this mighty line. To his right front, his own dismounted Warriors, led by his cousin, and the men of the King's Guard had just slammed into the enemy fighting line.

They were outnumbered badly.

But it didn't matter.

Because he lay across the enemy's line,and the enemy had committed all of his reserves. There was no force on earth, in the demonic Wild or out of it, that could stop a thousand of his kind charging in a line.

He raised his spear high, feeling the astonishing vitality fill him. "For Heaven and honor!" he roared.

"For Heaven!" cried the Warriors. Men donned their masks. And then the line started forward.

The battle was over long before the first spear struck home. The enemy's whole right wing had begun to melt back into the forest as soon as the Warriors emerged over the bridge. Now, as their charge rumbled forward, the flying serpents, the Dusha, and the handful of Yingmo edged back too. Some simply turned and ran for the woods. They didn't have the bad judgment of men.

Like any animal in the Wild faced with a larger predator, they turned and fled. Flying serpents leapt into the air; the remaining Dusha ran with stone-footed grace, and the Yingmo ran at the speed of racehorses – untouchable.

Only the Swamplings and duskreavers stood and fought.

In the center, held by Luding's will, a dozen mighty creatures and a horde of Swamplings continued to try to kill the king and the dark sun.

✶ ✶ ✶

In the midst of the battle, even though Wuyi was absorbing their vitality, he could no longer lift his sword to strike. They had killed a third of the demons, halting their advance, but many more kept coming like an endless swarm of insects. Exhaustion had overtaken him.

He gripped his weapon with both hands – his left hand halfway down the blade, using it like a short spear to stab faces and armored chests.

Moments of fear blurred together—a scythe-like claw nearly cut him. Three duskreaver warriors overpowered him with their weight, their thin, strong limbs clashing against his armor in a frenzy. Slowly, like honey on snow, his right hand reached past their limbs to the dagger at his hip. He fell to one knee, and suddenly, they were gone, and his dagger was covered in blood.

He felt the comforting rasp of armor against his back—someone was there with him, and he was grateful for that armor instead of the demons' hard shells.

Then, a Yingmo appeared.

This lord of the demonic Wild was taller than a warhorse. Wuyi hadn't noticed their absence in the battle until now, and he realized he had never faced one before. The crest on its head was a bright blue—completely different from the ones he had encountered in the western woods or in the darkness.

It watched him intently, but it didn't attack.

He watched it and wished he had his spear—currently leaning against his armor rack inside the fortress—and a horse, and a crossbow, and twenty fresh friends.

The thing had a spear the size of a wagon's axle-tree. The head was flint. It was crusted with blood.

It turned its head.

Had he been fresh, he'd have sprung forward with a mighty attack while it was distracted, but instead, he merely breathed again. It seemed the moment of his last resort had come; he would have to summon the statue of shadow. He would try to kill it or escape. He had always kept some reserved energy for escape.

But it did not attack him. Instead, it looked back at him.

"You are the dark sun," it said at last. "I can take you, but if you hurt me, I will die here. So instead—" It saluted him with a flourish of the great spear. "Live long, enemy of my enemy."

It turned and ran.

Wuyi watched it go, throwing Swamplings from its path, with no idea who or what it was. Or why it had left him alive.

But his hands were trembling.

He fought more Swamplings. He cut some sort of tentacled thing from Master Zhang, who flicked him a salute and went back to work. Later, he saw the king go down, and he managed to get a foot on either side of the king's head, and then all the monsters in the demonic Wild came for him.

Some time passed, and he was standing between Meiying and Baijian, and the King of Tianqin's body lay between his feet. The last rush of the monsters had been so ferocious as to rob the word of all meaning—an endless rain of blows, which only fine armor could repel, because sheer fatigue had robbed muscles of the ability to parry.

Baijian was still killing. Meiying was still killing. Jia was still standing...

...so Wuyi kept standing too, because that's what he did. They came for him, and he survived them.

There finally came a point when the blows stopped. When there was nothing to push against, no fresh foe to withstand.

Before he could think about it, Wuyi removed his mask and drank in the air. And then bent down to check the king.

The man was still alive.

Wuyi had a leather bag just an hour ago. He started to search his person for it with the slow incompetence of the utterly exhausted.

Not there.

He felt an armored back against his and turned to find Wuyi of the King's Guard—Chen Rong. The man managed a smile.

"I will build a Temple," Jia prayed thanking heavens. "I will burn a thousand incenses to the heaven," he went on.

"Get the crap off your blade,demonic blood will rust the weapons" Baijian said. He had a scrap of cloth out and was suiting action to words.

Meiying didn't grin. She took a cloth out from her armor and wiped her face. Then she took in what her Young Master was doing and handed him a leather bag of water.

He knelt and gave water to the King of Tianqin, who smiled.

Soon a warrior arrived near them. He provided some shade. His giant war horse had a hard time standing securely on the shifting pile of dead Swamplings, and rider curbed him savagely and swore. He looked around as if expecting something.

The king grunted something, and Wuyi bent over further, his shoulder screaming at the effort, the armor on his body and neck feeling like the weight of a lifetime of penance.

The king had a horny talon buried deep in his thigh, and his blood soaked the ground.

"I have saved you," said the warrior who towered over them. "You may take your ease—you are saved." Indeed, as far as the eye could see, a wave of Warriors were dispatching the last creatures too foolish or too bound by Luding's will to flee. "We have won a mighty victory today. Where is the king, please?"

Wuyi was able for the first time in hours—it felt like hours, and later it would prove to be only a few minutes—to look around.

His group—

His warriors were gone. They lay in a ring, their black armor darker with gore.

The king's household Warriors were intermixed with them, and the Warriors of the Lotus Order in their red-black. Many of the latter were still standing—more than a dozen.

"The king is right here," Chen Rong said.

"Dead?" Li Xian asked.

Wuyi shook his head. He could easily come to dislike this foreigner for some reason he had worked hard to gain glory infront of the king.

His mind was wandering.

Don't give him the king, he got an indication from the statue of knowledge.

"Give him to me," said the foreign warrior. "I will see he is well guarded."

"He's well-guarded right here," said Chen Rong the king's guard..

Baijian leaned forward. "Go away, son."

Wuyi reached out a hand to steady Baijian.

"You need manners," said the mounted warrior. "Not for my group, you would all be dead."

Baijian laughed. "All you did was to lower my body count, son," he said. They glared at each other.

Master Zhang waded over to them. "Master Li Xian?"