The warhorses had been groomed, fed high-grade feed, and rested through the afternoon; they were as brimming with vigor as the men.
Every soldier carried three days of dry rations, three days of fresh water, and led two fine steeds. The army traveled light, with no supply train.
They had to cover hundreds of li and launch a surprise assault on the Xiji capital, taking the enemy sovereign.
There was no alternative. Speed was everything.
***
The Crown Prince of Xiji was inspecting the new robes made for his coronation.
An elder courtier came forward with counsel: the beacon fires at Dragon Throat Pass had flared up on their own twice now. He feared enemies were probing in secret, plotting treason under the cover of the grand enthronement ceremony.
Huyan Zhao asked him, "Then what do you propose we do?"
"The grand ceremony should be postponed." The old man was nothing if not blunt.
Huyan Zhao's face darkened at once.
Who didn't know that delays breed complications? Ever since his father died, he had counted the days and stars, finally waiting until tomorrow to take the throne. Now this old fossil wanted him to delay?
"And until when should it be postponed?"
The old courtier hesitated. "Postponed for... a few days. So long as West Mountain remains secure, all will be well."
"And if we postpone it a few days, and the beacons flare again just as I am about to be crowned, what then?" Huyan Zhao said coldly. "Do I postpone it again? A few wild monkeys light a fire at Dragon Throat Pass, and I must delay taking my throne? Well?"
Ask any crown prince alive to wait a few more days before being crowned king, and see how he answers.
"It doesn't matter how many days Xiji goes without a monarch on the throne, so long as no beacons burn in the west—is that it?"
The barrage of questions left the old courtier prostrate on the floor in mortification.
"Your servant only meant... that more troops should be dispatched to Dragon Throat Pass..."
"Granted. Send more men to Dragon Throat Pass." Huyan Zhao waved him away dismissively. Every single one of them was an expert at causing frustration, yet none knew how to share his burdens. "Someone take the order! Tomorrow, inside and outside the capital, within the palace and without, tighten security to the utmost! If anything goes wrong, I will have your heads!"
The guards outside shouted their acknowledgment, and the order was passed down through the ranks.
The Commandant of the Palace Guard summoned his officers: "Tomorrow, double the guard both inside and outside the city, inside and outside the palace, or I will hold you personally accountable!"
The officers summoned their subordinates: "Strictly control all entry and exit during the ceremony and reinforce the guard, or I will hold you personally accountable!"
Down it trickled until it reached the gatekeeper, where his superior drummed it into his ears: "...or I will hold you personally accountable!" Then the superior walked away.
Yet with the grand ceremony imminent, security had already been planned down to the bone, with every man assigned a post. Where were they supposed to double anything? After racking his brain, the gatekeeper merely added one extra squad of patrolmen.
The following day, the coronation ceremony proceeded on schedule.
From beginning to end, everything went smoothly, without a single hitch.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
***
It was the night of the new moon—windy, with not a trace of moonlight.
Jittery from the false alarms over the past few days, the sentries at Dragon Throat Pass kept their eyes glued to the beacon tower, subconsciously glancing back over their shoulders every few steps for fear of another mishap.
A person's focus was limited; looking backward too much meant overlooking what was in front. None of the three noticed a squad quietly creeping closer under cover of darkness.
Nor had the two outposts situated more than a hundred fathoms beyond Dragon Throat Pass raised any alarm.
A startled bird flapped through the dark. A sentry on the pass wall poked his head out to look, only for an arrow flying from the flanking shadows to pierce him straight through the throat.
At the same moment, He Lingchuan and the others vaulted down from atop the gatehouse, noiselessly slitting the throats of the remaining two.
The sentry shot through the throat swayed, about to tumble down the high wall. He Lingchuan reacted swiftly, snatching him in midair and laying him gently on the ground.
Otherwise, the thud would have been far too loud in the dead of night.
Two squads from the Gale Army were operating in tandem, the other led by Commandant Sun.
He Lingchuan flashed him a hand signal, indicating the sentries were eliminated.
Commandant Sun nodded, cast two glances downward to confirm the position of the gate winch, and tossed down a pair of palm-sized bronze puppets.
The two objects struck the ground, transforming with a dull thump into ten-foot-tall bronze guardians!
Clad in thick plates of armor, the pair scrambled up the moment they landed. Their first act was to shove the winch and raise the gates!
Dragon Throat Pass was Xiji's primary barrier against Panlong City, and its most crucial one. Great effort had gone into the construction of its gate. Four feet thick, it was forged from layered composites of ironwood, refined iron, and rhinoceros hide, controlled for opening and closing by the winch.
It took eight burly men or four horses just to budge the winch, but how could human strength compare to bronze guardians?
As they threw their weight into it, the winch began to creak into motion, clearly long overdue for oil and maintenance. It spun faster and faster, and the gate sunk into the ground began to rise amid grinding mechanical groans.
The garrison stationed at Dragon Throat Pass was not dead; how could such heavy rumbling and vibrations escape their notice?
Frantic shouts of "Enemy attack!" and shrill whistles pierced the night. Garrison troops poured out of the barracks to repel the invaders, only for a volley of arrows to rain down from the heights above.
The Gale Army guards who had been lying in ambush finally made their move.
At that moment, the door of a chamber atop the pass was kicked flying open from the inside. Had anyone been standing right outside, they would have caught the wooden plank square in the face.
The garrison commander burst out brandishing a spiked mace, roaring, "Take the winch! Get up on the gatehouse!"
Retaking the winch meant saving the pass; clearing the enemy from the gatehouse would allow the defenders to handle the army outside at leisure.
Door Plank was right beside him, slamming into him with a shield bash.
The commander did not flinch, swinging his spiked mace to smash back—three consecutive bangs that knocked Door Plank back two feet.
Yet Door Plank's role had always been to draw his fire.
While the commander swung with abandon, a string of arrows whistled from the dark in rapid succession: one aimed at his throat, a second at his ribs, and a third at his knee. It was Willow making her move.
The commander's reflexes were exceptional. He knocked aside two arrows with a sweep of his arm, then raised his leg so that the shot meant for his knee struck his shin instead.
He grunted, but origin power protected his body; the shaft penetrated only a fraction of an inch into the flesh, failing to cause an open wound.
Willow had split the force of one draw into three shafts, which naturally limited their piercing strength.
Yet her three arrows were merely a feint.
The true lethal stroke came from behind him.
He Lingchuan drew his saber without a sound.
When a battle hung in the balance, who cared about fighting one-on-one?
A sudden chill raced down the commander's spine, as though something terrifying were lunging for him. Without thinking, he threw himself into a lateral roll, swinging the spiked mace backward in a backhand arc.
His dodge was quick, but He Lingchuan was quicker. The blade's trajectory shifted, slicing ahead of him across the arm clutching the mace.
The commander felt a fleeting coolness at his wrist, followed by sharp pain.
The hand was severed clean at the wrist, the cut perfectly smooth.
Only when the severed hand and the spiked mace hit the ground did the agony truly register, drawing a ragged scream from his throat. Several of his personal guards rushed forward to shield him, but Willow picked off one with an arrow, Hu Min drove a dagger into another, and He Lingchuan finished off the last.
The commander had reached the edge of the wall, preparing to vault over and leap down.
He Lingchuan raised his arm, and a sleeve arrow shot out, hooking into the man's shoulder and dragging him back.
Beside them, Commandant Sun, who was directing the bronze guardians, could not resist rushing in to sever the commander's head with a single slash of his saber.
"Hey, hey, hey! That kill wasn't yours!" Hu Min shouted, annoyed at the man for stealing the credit.
Commandant Sun flashed him a grin of brilliant white teeth, then hoisted the severed head toward the yard below and bellowed, "Hu Bin is dead! Hu Bin is dead!"
Hu Bin had been the commander's name.
The Xiji garrison looked up, and seeing their leader slain, their ranks fell into chaos.
Door Plank immediately followed up with a roar: "Surrender and live! Open the gates and live!"
A moment earlier, the garrison soldiers had rushed to attack the two bronze guardians, but the automatons merely kept their heads down and pushed the winch with all their might, offering no retaliation whatsoever.
Protected by bronze skin, iron bones, and origin power, the guardians deflected weapons in showers of sparks; only strikes aimed at their joints had any effect.
A few fierce warriors among the garrison had pounded furiously on the bronze guardians' knee joints with heavy weapons, and their efforts had yielded some result.
At least the bronze guardians' progress had slowed.
At the same time, the Xiji troops used tents and cheval-de-frise for cover to return fire against the archers on the peaks.
However, the gate had already been raised two feet off the ground. Outside, Panlong City soldiers cradled their weapons and rolled underneath into the pass.
Just as the defenders prepared to repel them, the sudden sight of Hu Bin's severed head broke their morale, allowing the Panlong soldiers who had slipped inside to secure a firm foothold.
What followed was a steady retreat by the Xiji forces. The bronze guardians opened the gates wide to let the main army flood in, bringing a predictable end to the struggle.
Fifteen minutes later, the defenders of Dragon Throat Pass threw down their weapons and surrendered.
Throughout the entire engagement, the beacon tower was never lit. Some soldiers had tried to drag off the sand cover to light the hearths, but the tarp had been plastered with mortar and buried under sand and gravel; it was far too thick and heavy for one or two men to move.
The archers on the peaks paid special attention to the beacon tower, feeding anyone who approached an arrow.
Braving that hail of shafts, no one could pry the sand-coated cover loose.
General Red walked up to He Lingchuan and Commandant Sun, nodding in approval. "Well done. You have bought us at least two shichen."
The two squads had executed their duties flawlessly, allowing the Panlong army to breach the gates of Dragon Throat Pass at minimal cost.
Those two shichen were not to be underestimated; the foundation for victory or defeat might well have been laid right here.
The Dragon Throat had been breached, but what of the Dragon's Tail?
General Red wasted no time, ordering the entire army forward to swiftly seize the last formidable obstacle in Xiji's western mountains—Dragon Spine Ridge.
Because the Gale Army's elite squads were already lying in ambush, coordinating from inside and outside once more, this engagement took an extra half-shichen, but the position was ultimately taken.
However, Dragon Spine Pass managed to light its beacon tower!
The elite squad had silenced the artillery cannons beforehand, so the defenders had never managed to fire a single shot, but the fire had been set.
In warfare, perfection was impossible; this slip had already been anticipated by General Red. She offered no harsh reproaches, granting everyone a fifteen-minute rest before pointing her sword toward the Xiji capital across the eastern plains.
Her battle cry was brief and unyielding:
"This battle, we conquer!"
***
On his first night as Xiji's new king, Huyan Zhao took his pleasure with two beauties.
He was sound asleep in his bed of indulgence when an attendant burst in with an urgent report: enemy forces had arrived and breached the capital's gates!
"What?" A buzzing roar erupted in Huyan Zhao's mind, and he blurted out, "How is that possible!"
Where had enemy troops come from? Where had they breached the walls?
"The First South Gate and Second West Gate have fallen! The First East Gate is under furious assault!" the attendant cried. "The beacons in the west were lit—it must be Panlong City attacking!"
Huyan Zhao kicked him to the floor. "Then why did no one respond!"
The words had barely left his lips when he remembered that several shichen ago, someone had indeed reported that the western beacons were burning again.
After two consecutive nights of false alarms, and with today being the glorious occasion of his coronation, Huyan Zhao had hardly taken the matter to heart, merely dispatching scouts to probe the truth of the situation. Besides, although the beacon was lit, no cannon had fired; it seemed far more likely to be another false alarm.
Chapter 428