Chapter 73 - Dub Tuag

Silence had already settled over the village, and every eye was fixed on Dong Bongsu. It was as though time had stopped...

A moment later, he reached the center of the village and stopped.

"You have half a watch. All of you will form ranks outside the village before then."

His voice was as flat as ever, but it was not quiet.

And time began to move again.

Having finished speaking, Dong Bongsu slowly made his way back to the village entrance. The messenger had yet to leave and was still staring blankly at him. Dong Bongsu looked at him and said,

"The commander will be waiting."

"Ah, y-yes, sir! Sal—"

The messenger had nearly saluted Dong Bongsu. Something about what Dong Bongsu had shown him in those few moments had utterly overwhelmed him.

Half a watch later.

The messenger had returned to Liangcheng, where Lee Jasong was, and roughly a thousand mercenaries had gathered outside Daihai Village. About five hundred had died in the capture of Fengqian, Xin'an Village, Tiancheng Village, and this village, and one more had died half a watch earlier. That left barely a thousand mercenaries in all. Yet the savage air they exuded was by no means insignificant.

At first glance, their ranks appeared disorderly, but that was not the case. They had lined up strictly according to their pecking order, with Dong Bongsu at their head.

As mercenary captain, Dong Bongsu was no longer the Ear Ghost they had known. Ear Ghost had always been frightening, but now he was a consummate leader, a general. He never retreated, fighting like a mad tiger at the very front and leading them to victory. His approach looked exceedingly crude, but nothing could have been more fitting for a mercenary, more fitting for a vagabond. Over the past few days, that sight had either overwhelmed the mercenaries or utterly captivated them.

"We march for Mount Manhan now."

"Anyone who doesn't want to die on Mount Manhan, step forward now."

Naturally, no one did. They already knew that stepping forward meant death. Dong Bongsu was not telling them to leave if they did not want to die.

He meant that anyone who did not want to die on Mount Manhan would be killed right now! Right here!

"If any of you don't like me, or want to go home right now, kill me. Then you can become mercenary captain or return home safely."

"Do not hesitate. Abandon mercy. Toward me, toward the enemy, and toward yourselves."

With that, Dong Bongsu turned northwest. A fairly tall mountain rose above the plain, blocking the setting sun. Mount Manhan.

As he headed toward it, he said,

"Any bastard who thinks he can do it is welcome to stick a sword in my back. But draw your sword only when you're truly sure of yourself. Otherwise, you'll regret it."

When Dong Bongsu had been a horse handler, he had been an excellent one.

For the past year, he had been a flawless mercenary.

And now he was a mercenary captain.

Dong Bongsu set out for Mount Manhan, and a thousand mercenaries followed him.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

As Dong Bongsu headed for Mount Manhan, drums sounded in Guishui, announcing the army's departure. A massive force of twenty thousand stood in formations of ten thousand before the outer walls of Guishui Fortress. Yet despite so many mounted men standing in ranks, there was not a sound save the occasional snort of a horse.

They were traditional nomadic cavalry, equipped with light armor rather than heavy iron armor and armed chiefly with bows, swords, and sabers. Though this type of soldier was best suited to hit-and-run tactics on the open grasslands, the northern barbarians' cavalry excelled at close combat even in light armor. They were not called the scourge of the steppes for nothing.

All of Guishui's leading figures had gathered atop the outer wall.

The fortress lord, the garrison commander, and the various generals. But ahead of them all, in the very center, stood an old man with a head full of white hair.

The way every eye watched his mouth made it easy to see that he outranked them all.

In stark contrast to his white hair, his physique seemed untouched by the passage of time. His powerful frame stood a full eight feet tall, and his back was perfectly straight. Moreover, the domineering presence emanating from him easily surpassed that of the twenty thousand troops arrayed before the fortress.

The old man was known by many names.

Overlord of the North, God of the Steppes, Northern Yuan Conqueror.

Timur Khan.

Long ago, there had been a Great Khan who united the north and set his sights beyond the Central Plains, toward the very ends of the western skies. Timur Khan was that Great Khan's last descendant. But he had not become ruler of Northern Yuan merely because of his descent. Society among the northern barbarians was not so forgiving that bloodline alone could determine a person's life.

Timur Khan had risen to his position by overcoming every rival with his own overwhelming martial might, political skill, and extraordinary judgment. Before he ascended to the rank of khan, there had been several other descendants of the Great Khan. Every one of them had stood above Timur in the line of succession.

In the end, Timur alone survived the bloody political struggles and wars, becoming the Great Khan's last heir.

Timur Khan's eyes were such narrow slits that his pupils were scarcely visible. Yet through those barely discernible eyes, he watched every cavalryman without missing a thing.

The cavalrymen all knew just how terrifying he was. None dared breathe or cough loudly. Even the horses were the same.

It was as though the world had come to a standstill. How much time passed like that?

"March!"

Suddenly, Timur Khan's voice thundered out. His lion's roar, laden with internal power, rang clearly in the ears of every cavalryman. His departure ceremonies were always like this. What need was there for a lengthy speech before marching to war?

Go. Fight. Those were the only two words needed.

"Raaaah!"

The soldiers' cheers were enough.

Roaring at the tops of their lungs, the cavalrymen turned their horses one after another. Then they began galloping toward the vast expanse of the Hetao Plain.

RUMBLE!

The clamor of twenty thousand horses' hooves shook the earth, and the breath streaming from the mouths and nostrils of men and horses rose like mist.

Was he smiling? As Timur Khan watched them march out, his narrow eyes quivered faintly.

A giant of a man stood watching him from right beside him. More than a head taller than Timur Khan, he must have stood at least nine feet tall.

A little later, once the cavalry had crossed the plain and vanished completely beyond the horizon, the giant turned to Timur Khan and spoke.

"Brother. Will those men alone be enough to relieve Liangcheng and Mount Manhan?"

The giant had called Timur Khan his brother. Vast as the great steppes and desert were, stretching beyond all reckoning, only one man in this land could address Timur Khan that way.

Mamorota, the War Giant. As Timur Khan's tiger fang, he had ranged across the north for decades, a general who had taken thousands upon tens of thousands of heads. Indeed, until recently, he had been locked in fierce combat with the Uyghurs who had invaded from the northwest. Immediately after that battle, an urgent message from Timur Khan had brought him rushing here.

Timur Khan remained utterly motionless at Mamorota's question, then quietly spoke.

"Those men are not going to Liangcheng or Mount Manhan."

"... What did you just say?"

In truth, Timur Khan was facing the greatest crisis of his life. Several powers were pressing him simultaneously from every direction. The Uyghurs, who had amassed enormous wealth through intermediary trade between the west and the Central Plains, were invading relentlessly from the west. In the north, the Tatars' great chieftain, Jayarka, had raised a rebellion. Above all, the greatest problem was that forces from the Central Plains were steadily extending their reach northward, just as they were now.

At a time like this, a single moment of misjudgment could cost him everything. It was much like standing one wrong step away from plunging down a thousand-fathom precipice.

Amid these circumstances, Mamorota's efforts had barely managed to repel a major Uyghur invasion. Yet the rebels were still running rampant across the northern steppes, while here, the Hetao Plain faced a grave crisis from the encroaching forces of the Central Plains. Nor could anyone know when the Uyghurs might regroup and cross the border again.

Thus, Mamorota had assumed Timur Khan would put out the fire here first, then head north to execute Jayarka. He believed that was both the natural course and the best one. To do so, they first had to relieve Liangcheng and Mount Manhan. Both lay right on Guishui's doorstep. Losing those two strategic positions would naturally mean handing the enemy their own front yard. If things went wrong and Guishui came under siege, it would be completely isolated. In the worst case, they might be unable to lift a finger while the Tatars overran the north. Once the Tatars' great chieftain Jayarka seized Northern Yuan, they could expect no more reinforcements, and Timur Khan would inevitably lose his entire power base.

That was why Mamorota found Timur Khan's answer so difficult to understand.

If he intended to abandon Liangcheng and Mount Manhan and fight to the death at Guishui, he should never have sent out twenty thousand elite cavalry. Come what may, Mamorota thought, they had to settle matters here on the Hetao Plain.

As though he already knew everything on Mamorota's mind, Timur Khan gazed at him expressionlessly, then slowly spoke again.

"Salakat will feign a march toward Liangcheng and Mount Manhan, then circle around and cross the Great Wall. After that, he will strike Datong."

Salakat.

He commanded one of the ten-thousand-man divisions in the cavalry force that had just departed, as well as the force as a whole. And he was to lead his cavalry across the Great Wall? At a time like this? To Mamorota, this deployment and the order behind it were utterly incomprehensible. Attacking south of the Great Wall now would achieve nothing but Guishui's isolation.

"... I must be going hard of hearing in my old age. Would you say that again?"