As expected, they’re here. General Nanke asked gravely, “How many troops on their side?”

“I-I couldn’t get close enough to count, but there are at least… at least seven thousand!”

“Seven thousand?!” Faces blanched all around. General Nanke, too, was taken aback. “Impossible! The Baling garrison in Wei City numbers just over two thousand! Were your eyes deceiving you?”

The scout swore, “If anything, more, not less! If I’ve misjudged, I’ll accept military punishment!”

Just then, a sparrowhawk swept down from the sky and alighted on General Nanke’s shoulder before speaking in human tongue, “I came from the northeast[1]. Dust is billowing on the ground—nearly ten thousand enemies are approaching!”

When even a hawk in the air said as much, there was little room for doubt. The deputy generals all turned to General Nanke, eyes beseeching, while his thoughts raced like lightning.

He had guessed an ambush, but he had not guessed the numbers.

Seven thousand enemies could overturn the battle with ease.

What now? The enemy’s momentum would carry them here in no time, and the Panlong City troops were dragging several hundred wagons. They could not run even if they wanted to.

However brave the Panlong City soldiers were, they could not fight six or seven times their number on an open plain, and certainly not while protecting merchants and freight. Not even the Red General himself would have full confidence in getting everyone out intact.

General Nanke hesitated no longer. He turned and pointed toward the Guizhen Stone Forest. “Enter the stone forest at once!”

A slow-witted adjutant blurted in alarm, “General, there may be an ambush inside.”

“Nonsense, of course I know that,” General Nanke’s tone was icy as he replied. “But only in there can we maneuver to our fullest. Even if it’s a trap, we’ll have to clench our teeth and jump in!”

There was no time to lose. Orders flew down the line. The entire army wheeled head to tail and sprinted for the Guizhen Stone Forest.

Meanwhile, General Nanke fed the sparrowhawk a strip of jerky, murmured a few instructions, and patted its head. “I’ll trouble you for one more trip.”

The sparrowhawk launched skyward. Its plumage, red-brown with flecked markings, gleamed; it was larger than its kind, and once it took flight, it streaked north like a meteor. It was faster than ordinary hawks and falcons, truly wind and lightning in one.

No one noticed the two great eagles circling high above suddenly bank and slip after it, silent as shadows.

* * *

Puxi Gully.

Like the other towns on the Panlong Wasteland, Puxi Gully covered little ground and housed few souls, but years of war had honed it into high walls and deep ditches. The Baling people had attacked again and again, and still failed to take it.

Today, Puxi Gully’s gates were shut tight—no one was allowed in or out—but the city teemed with unfamiliar faces. Men were armored head-to-toe, weapons in hand, every one of them radiating a killing aura.

They neither shouted nor brawled, scarcely even spoke to the locals. They simply waited on the open ground inside the walls, whetting blades, watering horses, and resting with their eyes closed.

This army had a peculiar bearing. They stood like pines and held their breath like deep pools, yet a concealed fire seemed to smolder within them, ready to burst out without warning. The vivid scarlet of their armor drew looks of reverence from the common folk.

This was the Gale Army.

No one would have guessed it. While General Nanke was still one to two hundred kilometers away on the barren wastes escorting merchants and freight, the Gale Army had already slipped into Puxi Gully.

Xiao Maoliang was adjusting his beloved horse’s tack when a sudden thrumming of wings sounded above.

He looked up and saw a very familiar sparrowhawk fold its wings mid-flight and drop to the city wall.

It’s here.

Xiao Maoliang’s heart clenched. He took the steps two at a time to the battlement, just in time to hear the sparrowhawk monster report, “General Nanke is under attack at Guizhen Stone Forest!”

Its master stood atop the wall facing the southern region of the wasteland. Beyond the blaze of scarlet armor, all others could see was a cloak snapping in the wind.

Behind him stood seasoned officers—men who had laughed their way through a hundred battles—with hands held respectfully at their sides, faces solemn, as if they scarcely dared to breathe.

The sparrowhawk went on, “Baling’s forces number close to ten thousand. General Nanke has withdrawn into the Ghost-Needle Stone Forest and sent me to ask for your aid!”

“Close to ten thousand?” Xiao Maoliang exchanged looks with the other deputy generals.

All of Baling’s troops in Wei City numbered under three thousand. Even if they marched out to the last man, where had the extra six or seven thousand come from?

When the sparrowhawk finished its report, the man on the battlements tilted his head ever so slightly. The wind atop the wall abruptly stilled, the air seemed to congeal, and the snapping cloak fell flat.

With ease, he could bend the environment around him.

But the anomaly lasted only an instant. He raised a hand and pointed west. A cold voice sounded directly in everyone’s minds, “Prepare to move out.”

A soldier standing about two meters away on the wall did not hear a word.

The deputy generals blinked. “General, aren’t we dividing our forces to head for the Guizhen Stone Forest?”

“General Nanke can hold.” A casual sentence that sealed the southern patrol army’s next few hours in a close-quarters life and death battle.

Fortunately, the sparrowhawk received new orders from its master, “Fly back to Panlong City now and request reinforcements for General Nanke.”

Guizhen Stone Forest lies roughly a hundred and fifty kilometers from Panlong City, and even at a flat-out gallop, it would take six to eight hours for reinforcements to arrive. The tracks across the Panlong Wasteland were not all smooth, and in another two hours or so, night would fall.

That was not even counting the sparrowhawk’s flight time back to Panlong City.

By a rough reckoning, if relief arrived by dawn, they should count themselves lucky. General Nanke’s army would have to stand alone for at least eight to ten hours.

“Understood!” The sparrowhawk added, “On my way here, two giant eagles shadowed me from high altitude. I only shook them after forty kilometers.”

“You know them?”

“No. They don’t look like monsters of the wasteland.”

Six to seven thousand enemy troops appearing out of nowhere, and aerial monsters of unknown origin—those extra variables put a chill in the deputy generals’ bones.

“Shaking them off doesn’t matter.” The man told the sparrowhawk, “Panlong City lies to the southeast. Instead of flying that way, you came straight north. You’ve already told the enemy that Nanke’s support is to the north. And to the north… there’s only Puxi Gully.”

The sparrowhawk lowered its head at once.

With General Nanke’s plea for aid in its claws, it had raced here single-mindedly. Who had the time to think that far ahead?

The man flicked his hand. The sparrowhawk had no choice but to take flight toward Panlong City.

If it arrived a wingbeat sooner, General Nanke could receive help a wingbeat sooner.

“In other words, the newly arrived enemy will soon know we’re in Puxi Gully, and it won’t be hard to infer that our objective is Wei City.” After all, Puxi Gully was only a few tens of kilometers from Wei City, and that was an easy ride for cavalry.

To the Baling army, it would be obvious enough that the Panlong forces had split in two, with one prong hidden in Puxi Gully. The intent spoke for itself.

“So if we march now, we can hardly call it a surprise attack.”

The element of surprise wins many battles.

Their original plan had been to lure the grief-blinded Hua Mucuo into throwing everything at General Nanke and the convoy. At the same time, the Gale Army, concealed in Puxi Gully, seized Wei City and plucked out that perennial thorn in their side in one stroke.

Puxi Gully could not quarter several thousand troops for long, but holding out a few days was no problem.

It sounded simple, and that was the point. War thrives on spare plans and meticulous execution, woven with feint and truth to reap startling results. After taking Wei City, Hua Mucuo had come off the worse in several bouts with Panlong City and had been nursing a bellyful of rage; three days ago, his younger brother died a miserable death…

When one’s own flesh and blood is murdered, who would dare say they could endure it, that they would not rage, would not march, and would not take revenge?

When blood and qi surge to the head, that is when people most easily blunder, as well as refuse all counsel.

On the other hand, if Hua Mucuo kept his cool and did not bite, then at worst the Gale Army would turn back to Panlong City, while General Nanke successfully escorted the merchants to Puxi Gully. That alone would be a satisfactory outcome. Retaking Wei City could wait for the next round, but it was only a matter of time.

But the seven thousand-plus Baling troops that dropped in from out of nowhere blew the plan to pieces.

With General Nanke and the freight now in mortal peril as the bait, if the Gale Army stood by and ignored it—if they still slipped off to snatch Wei City as planned—two questions loomed.

First: with just over a thousand people and several hundred wagons, how long could General Nanke hold against seven thousand?

Second: could the Gale Army be certain of taking Wei City?

Xiao Maoliang’s brow furrowed. “If the enemy can spare nearly ten thousand men to intercept General Nanke and the convoy, they may have garrisoned Wei City as well. It’s no empty city anymore.”

If this turned into the fisherman becoming the bait, they would become a laughingstock.

The man before them asked, “If you were Baling’s new commander, and you knew General Nanke’s support was in Puxi Gully, what would you do next?”

Xiao Maoliang started. “A new commander?” Then he caught on. “Right, Hua Mucuo only has a little over two thousand under him. This newly appeared Baling force must be led by someone else.” Otherwise, they would not have caught General Nanke so flat-footed.

The officers considered it and shared their views. Ultimately, if they themselves wore Baling’s mantle, the choice would hinge on the numbers. With many, strike Puxi Gully; with few, dig in at Wei City and deny the Gale Army their chance.

“Where do you think this force came from?”

“From inside Baling!” This time, they did not need to debate; they were unanimous. “The western region of the wasteland is barren. It has poor soil and scarce water, and it simply can’t sustain that many troops. So this army must have come out of Baling proper.”

Is it that Baling ordinarily did not want to station more troops on the wastes? Not at all.

Baling’s strongpoints on the western wasteland, taken together, could support fewer than five or six thousand elite soldiers. Wei City was already relatively well-off.

They were not like Panlong City, blessed to be backed by the Chipa Plateau, with hundreds of kilometers of rich fields under their control, enough to support powerful armies.

So the sudden appearance of so many Baling men on the wasteland could only be a temporary redeployment from within the state.

“Do you think Baling’s new commander would come in force like this, catching General Nanke unawares, merely to hold Wei City, to avenge Hua Mucuo, or to covet that little bit of freight in Puxi Gully?”

An army must march under a banner of purpose. If the commander’s aim was not clear and fixed, how could he move a hundred thousand as one?

Xiao Maoliang drew a measured breath, understanding dawning upon him. “His target is Puxi Gully—more likely, it’s us.”

They had set their sights on Wei City, but why could Baling not be setting their sights on them?

“Perhaps he wants a look at me as well,” the man said mildly. “If he has ambition, why would he turtle up in Wei City? Whether we split off to reinforce General Nanke or lunge to raid Wei City, they won’t sit it out. For all we know, his plan mirrors mine, circling behind to take the city.”

“Fortunately, they don’t know our numbers either.”

1. Note that this or the “northwest” in the previous chapter can be a typo by the author. ☜