Chapter 74 - The Outbreak of War

"You heard me correctly. Follow me."

Leaving the bewildered Mamorota behind, Timur Khan leaped straight down from the ramparts. No one nearby was surprised. A khan of Northern Yuan who lacked even this much martial skill would no longer deserve the title.

Questions still lingered on Mamorota's face, but he trusted Timur Khan's judgment. How could he not? They had weathered countless crises, yet Timur Khan had always emerged the victor, and Mamorota had reached his present position by faithfully following him. There had never been a single exception. Timur Khan was a born gambler who could find a way to survive amid a crisis. This time would be no different.

Without the slightest hesitation, Mamorota jumped down from the ramparts and followed him.

Timur Khan led Mamorota out of Guishui Fortress and toward its outskirts. Their guards tried to accompany them, but he dismissed them all and ventured onto the Hetao Plain with Mamorota alone.

They raced along using Qinggong. Despite their enormous builds, not a single blade of grass was bent beneath their feet. Such was their mastery of Qinggong that Flying over Grass came naturally to them.

How long had they been running? Upon reaching a certain spot on the plain, Timur stopped.

It was a bleak stretch of earth where only the cold wind brushed the grass and sand. Nothing but desolate grassland, an empty expanse with nothing remarkable to be seen in any direction.

Except for one thing.

A large pit, seemingly dug by someone, lay alone in the field. That was its sole distinguishing feature.

Without a word, Mamorota walked past Timur Khan toward it. He suspected that whatever had brought them here lay inside.

TAP.

Mamorota stopped at the very edge of the pit, crouched, and peered inside. It was much deeper than he had expected—easily five or six zhang. And down at the bottom...

Things lay piled in a haphazard heap, their decay sending a terrible stench out of the pit. The sight was very familiar, as was the smell. He had made countless things like these throughout his life, and would make more in the years to come.

He sniffed lightly, then grimaced.

"Aren't those corpses? What's so special about them? Well, they do seem to stink a bit worse than most."

Before Mamorota realized he had approached, Timur Khan laid a hand on his shoulder and looked down into the pit. The corners of his narrow eyes quivered faintly at the sight of the corpses. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly as well. Faint though it was, he was unmistakably smiling.

"Do those look like mere corpses to you?"

"Of course they're corpses. What else would they be, monsters?"

At Mamorota's mention of monsters, Timur Khan's faintly trembling eyes opened wide, fully exposing what his eyelids had concealed.

Uncanny eyes. His eyes were different colors: one blue, the other black. In the Central Plains, people called them cursed eyes, but here in the north, things were different. Those born with such eyes were said to be destined to rule all under heaven. According to the tales, the Great Khan himself had been born with them.

"Monsters? Monsters, you say..."

Mamorota turned and looked up at Timur Khan's murmuring face. It had been a very long time since he had last seen that blue eye.

"Yes, you're right. Those are monsters. Black monsters that are not easily killed, nor easily made to disappear."

"What are you talking about, brother? I haven't the faintest idea what you mean. Explain it so I can understand."

"Dub Tuag."

Timur Khan uttered the two words in a low voice, his blue eye gleaming an intense blue.

"Dub Tuag...?"

Mamorota echoed the words, and Timur Khan offered a little explanation.

"That monster once accomplished what even the Great Khan's hundreds of thousands of cavalry could not."

"A monster that accomplished what even the Great Khan's hundreds of thousands of cavalry couldn't...? Don't tell me! Surely not? That? Are you really talking about that?"

Rather than answering, Timur Khan nodded.

Finally realizing what Timur Khan meant, Mamorota hastily backed away from the pit. Paying him no heed, Timur Khan remained where he stood and spoke as he looked down inside.

"One of those came from Liangcheng. And I killed everyone who had even the slightest contact with him."

"Another came from Mount Manhan. So once again, I killed everyone who had so much as touched him."

"And finally, every last one of the men who dug this pit is rotting here as well."

Though Timur spoke calmly, his blue eye still flashed with a cold blue madness. Watching that eye from beside him, Mamorota spoke.

"... Then Salakat really is..."

"Datong is currently guarded by twenty thousand untrained rabble. Salakat's men may be cavalry, but if they assemble catapults at Datong itself and attack, they should have little trouble taking it."

"Brother. But if the enemy occupying Liangcheng and Mount Manhan turns back toward Datong..."

"Do you think they can remain unscathed during that march? Most of the enemy are foot soldiers. By the time they reach Datong, the monster will already have savaged their entire bodies."

"But then Salakat and our brothers left in Datong could be in danger too."

"Yes. If things go wrong, our brothers may be swept up by the monster along with the enemy. But their sacrifice will give us another chance to conquer the north. And while we bring Northern Yuan back under our control, those fertile Central Plains will become prey for the black monster."

A strong gust carried away the stench rising from the pit, but an even fouler smell soon rose to assault Timur Khan's and Mamorota's noses.

"Mamorota."

"Go on."

"There is nowhere left on these steppes to escape that monster. In that case, we must at least exploit it to the fullest. Just as the monster has no eyes, there are times when we, too, must close ours and swing our swords."

"And the monster has already swallowed Liangcheng and Mount Manhan. All we need to do now is abandon those two places. Nothing more. That is what will lead us to victory."

Timur Khan's eyes remained wide open as he gazed down into the pit, his blue eye still emitting its uncanny gleam. Mamorota could only watch him in silence...

Before Mount Manhan, a parched field dotted with sparse grass stretched endlessly into the distance. As everywhere on the steppes, Guishui included, fierce winds blew here too.

Braving that wind, roughly a thousand mercenaries stood in ranks opposite the mountain.

"Looks like about five hundred."

A mercenary standing beside Dong Bongsu spoke. The strong wind readily scattered his voice, but not enough to keep Dong Bongsu from hearing him.

"Four hundred seventy-seven."

Dong Bongsu corrected him at once.

Five hundred, or 477. That was the number of Northern Ghosts who had come out to meet them. Before the mercenary had even spoken, Dong Bongsu had already counted every one of them.

He had led the mercenaries here in a single day's march. Having crossed the wide-open plain, they could hardly have escaped the Northern Ghosts' notice.

And so the Northern Ghosts had come out in a mass to greet them. Presumably, they intended to let the mercenaries come no closer. In fact, they had sent an emissary just a short while ago.

The emissary's message: lay down everything you have and pass through, or quietly return the way you came.

Dong Bongsu's answer had been to lay the emissary's head down for good.

His objective was to annihilate the forces on Mount Manhan. Negotiation was meaningless anyway. He had no intention of paying them, and turning back had never even crossed his mind. For now, he was simply leading the mercenaries as Lee Jasong had ordered.

This was the steppe, and as the sun sank toward the horizon, the temperature dropped enough for every breath to mist in the air. It had probably—no, certainly—fallen below freezing. Dong Bongsu exhaled another deep breath and counted the enemy once more.

...475, 476, 477.

Still 477. Far fewer than he had originally expected. As far as he knew, the Northern Ghost Corps had at least 600 members, perhaps as many as 800. Yet only 477 had appeared here.

Should he be pleased there were so few? No. Any deviation from expectations carried danger. It meant roughly 220, or perhaps 520, blades he had not accounted for were hidden somewhere. A warning sign.

Where?

Even on the way here, Dong Bongsu had continually sent mercenaries far out in every direction to scout the terrain.

For a start, the terrain made an ambush impossible. Not only was there nowhere to hide on this parched grassland, but they had found no man-made hiding places either.

Then the rest of the Northern Ghosts must be...

Dong Bongsu raised his head slightly. His gaze naturally shifted to the ocher mountain towering behind the Northern Ghosts. Mount Manhan.

'Does that mean the rest stayed up there? Why? Why on earth didn't they move together?'

He could not understand it. They had come out onto the steppe to meet their opponents head-on, yet left roughly half their strength at their base? That was a little excessive for a force assigned to defend their mountain stronghold. After all, if they could simply send everyone out and wipe out the mercenaries, they would have no need to guard it in the first place.

This was neither a siege nor a battle to defend a fortress. Though it was part of a border conflict, strictly speaking, it was a fight between martial artists. Only a fool would commit an excessive number of troops to guarding some mountain stronghold.