Chapter 68: First Attack |
The cavalry's reserve camp sat three li west of Chianji village.
We had ridden in with the vanguard at the second watch, broken off from the main column at a bend in the road where the trees gave cover from the south, and made cold camp inside a stand of pines at the foot of a low ridge. No fires, no torches, six riders and five cultivators, with the horses tethered at the western edge of the stand and the saddles dropped at the eastern edge under the lowest branches. Commander Xu had set the camp under the command of a cavalry captain whose name I had not been told and did not need to know. The captain's orders were simple, to hold the position and wait for the signal, and when the signal came, to send a rider back to the column so the column could march.
The signal was mine to give.
I assembled the cohort at the third hour before midnight at the centre of the stand of pines, on a patch of ground I had cleared with the heel of my boot. The four of them stood in a loose half-circle around the map I had scratched into the dirt with the point of a stick.
I traced the two outposts on the south road.
"The eastern outpost has five guards. The western has four. We take the western first because it is closer and smaller, and because the eastern outpost cannot see the western from the watchtower at this hour. The moon is hidden tonight. The cloud bank is moving east, and I read another hour at least before it lifts. That is the window."
Lin Zhi nodded. She was watching the dirt map, not me.
"We move as one unit. Each man knows his entry. Each man knows his target. When the western post is clear, we leave the torches in their brackets and the watchtower torch where it is. The eastern outpost will see the same light pattern they have seen all night. We circle north along the ditch and enter the eastern from the back. When the eastern is clear, I move the torch on the eastern watchtower from the north end of the rail to the south end. That is the signal Commander Xu is watching for. The column marches when the torch moves."
Cao Yan looked up from the map.
"He cannot be permitted to shout."
He nodded.
Mu Renshu stood with his arms folded. He was the tallest of the four and the heaviest, and his shoulders were already set forward the way they had been every morning at the practice yard before the breath cycle. He carried his dagger flat against his right thigh, sheathed and wrapped in oilcloth to keep the steel from catching the lantern light.
I looked at each of them.
"Are you prepared to kill men in their sleep?"
A beat passed. Lin Zhi spoke first.
"We saw you execute the Pei Yan faction at the autumn river, Squad Captain. We will have the same resolve."
Cao Yan spoke without looking up from the dirt map.
"It is simple. We will do what must be done."
Sun Hai and Mu Renshu both nodded.
They have steeled their resolve.
"I am thankful for you," I said. "Rest until half-watch. No fires, no movement outside the stand. Eat what is in your pouch and drink what is in your skin. I will wake you."
They went to their bedrolls.
I sat at the eastern edge of the stand with my back against a pine and my eyes on the dark above the southern road and waited for the cloud to thicken.
We moved out at half-watch.
The southern road ran along a low ridge above a shallow ditch. The trees on the eastern side gave us cover from the village, and the ditch on the western side gave us cover from the outposts. We crossed the ditch in single file. The chain on my hip had been wrapped in cloth the night before so the links would not chime against each other, and the dagger at the end of it sat flat against my thigh under the wrap. The disciples' daggers were sheathed at their belts under cloth wraps of the same kind, all four blades short enough to clear at the chest in a single draw. I had recommended daggers over swords at the briefing the night we left the Outer Garrison. Swords were unwieldy in tight spaces and would catch on doorframes and ladder rungs, and a sword at the throat was not faster than a dagger at the throat. The disciples had taken the recommendation without argument.
The western outpost was a square timber structure two storeys tall, with a watchtower at the north corner and a single door on the southern face. The window on the western wall was a slit cut into the timber at chest height for an archer. Four torches burned in iron brackets on the outside walls, and one torch burned at the watchtower platform thirty feet up the north corner.
I had drilled the cohort on entry order at the practice yard, and the assignments had not changed. Lin Zhi and I would take the door. Sun Hai would climb the watchtower ladder from the eastern side, where the guard's back would be turned. Cao Yan would take the guard at the western window from behind, working through the western side of the structure. Mu Renshu would take the two sleepers at the eastern cots.
We crossed the open ground to the southern wall in a low run. I lifted the latch on the door without sound. Lin Zhi was at my left shoulder. I went first.
The guard at the western window turned at the sound of the latch. Cao Yan was at his shoulder before he had finished turning, the blade going in under the jaw and out cleanly, and he caught the man's weight against his chest and lowered him to the floor in one motion. The two sleepers at the eastern cots did not stir. Mu Renshu was on the first before the man's eyes had opened. The second was a heartbeat behind, his eyes open and his hand half-reaching for the dagger at his belt, and Mu Renshu put a hand over the man's mouth and finished the work cleanly. Sun Hai dropped from the watchtower ladder a moment later, his dagger wet and his breath steady, with no sound made on the climb or the descent.
Four men, in under twenty heartbeats.
We dragged the bodies to the centre of the outpost floor and stacked them behind the storage bins on the western wall. We took their cloaks and folded them over the bodies so the blood on the floor would not be visible from the door. The torches stayed in their brackets. The watchtower torch stayed where it was. The light pattern from the eastern outpost would read the same as it had at the first watch.
We circled east through the ditch.
The eastern outpost was wider than the western and held five guards: two at the south door under the lantern, one up at the watchtower, and two asleep at the back of the room under the western wall. The cohort moved without instruction the way I had told them they would.
Lin Zhi took the door guard on the left. Sun Hai took the one on the right. They did not look at each other. Both blades went in on the same beat, the bodies came down between them, and they laid the men on the floor in a single motion that none of us had needed to drill because both of them had drilled their own halves of it a hundred times and the meeting of the two halves was the thing the practice had been for.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Cao Yan was already past them at the watchtower ladder. He climbed without a rung sounding, and the guard at the platform did not finish his turn. The body slumped against the rail, and Cao Yan held it there until I gestured for him to leave it standing in the corner with the torch in its hand. From the village it would still look like a man at watch.
Mu Renshu took the two sleepers. The first he handled the way he had handled the cots at the western post, clean and unhurried. The second was a young one with a half-grown beard, no older than the disciples themselves, and Mu Renshu paused for a long beat over him before he moved. I did not say anything. Mu Renshu gritted his teeth and slid his dagger across the man's throat, being sure to finish it as quickly as possible.
Five men. We stood for one beat in the quiet, then began moving the bodies.
We dragged the four from the floor to the back of the outpost and stacked them behind the supply chest. The body at the watchtower stayed at its post in the corner of the platform, with the torch in its hand and the cloak pulled high to cover the cut. The torches at the south door stayed in their brackets.
I climbed the watchtower ladder. The dead man at the platform leaned against the north rail in the position Cao Yan had set him in. His torch was braced in the iron sleeve at his right hand. I lifted the torch out of the north sleeve and walked it across the platform to the south sleeve and set it down. The flame did not gutter.
From the ridge three li west, Commander Xu would see the torch on the southern rail, and the column would march.
I climbed down the ladder.
The column reached the southern road at first grey light.
The Hekou militia came in behind the cavalry vanguard. Twelve carts followed, with sacks of rice and millet and salt under tied canvas, and four oxen at the head of the cart train wore green sashes the quartermaster had hung from their yokes the night before. Commander Xu rode at the centre of the column with Fei Liao a length behind her on the left. Administrator Wen rode at the rear of the carts.
The villagers were awake. They had heard the marching boots an hour before the column appeared. They were not in the road. They were at the doors of their houses and at the edges of the commons, holding water jars and bread baskets and children, watching the column come in without moving. The elder of the village stood at the western edge of the commons in a worn brown robe with his hands at his sides and his face still.
I rode up to the side of the small castle at the centre of the village.
It was a square stone keep four storeys tall, with a flagstaff on the north wall. The Shen banner sat on the staff in the morning grey, dark blue with a white river crossed by a black sword. I took the Western Reaches green from the satchel at my saddle, climbed the wall to the staff, took the Shen down, folded it under my arm, and ran the green up in its place. The Western Reaches green was the colour of new rice in the third week, with the white character for reach at the centre and a thin gold border at the edge. The morning wind caught it before I had finished tying off the line. It opened at the top of the staff above the keep.
I walked back across the commons to my horse without looking at Commander Xu and rode past her toward the southern road.
Behind me, Commander Xu dismounted at the centre of the commons. Fei Liao dismounted behind her. The soldiers at the carts began to break the canvas and stack the sacks on the stones of the square, and Administrator Wen's men moved through the gathered villagers and began to hand out rations. A child took a bread loaf from a soldier's hands and looked up at him as if waiting to be told he had taken wrong. The soldier put his hand on the child's head and said something I did not hear and let the child go.
Commander Xu walked to the elder.
"Elder Hua. The Lord of the Western Reaches sends provisions. The army has not come to take what is yours. The village has been brought into the protection of the Western Reaches as of this morning, and this is the first act under that protection."
The elder did not speak for a beat.
"Commander."
"Provisions for a full quarter. Salt and rice and millet. If you have wounded or sick, the army's healers will see to them at no cost. If you have grievances against the previous administration, the army's clerk will hear them today."
The elder bowed once.
"The village is honored. If Commander Xu will allow it, we will hold a feast at midday for her and her officers."
Commander Xu bowed deeper than the elder had bowed.
"We will be honored."
I heard the exchange behind me as I rode south. I did not turn to watch it land. The work at the keep was finished, and the flag was at the staff, and the village was a Western Reaches village now. There was other work ahead of me.
Lin Zhi caught up to my horse at the rise south of the village.
"Where do we go, Squad Captain?"
"Past the pasture. There is open ground a few hundred paces short of the Meishan wall, on the western side of the road. We work there."
He fell in beside me. Sun Hai, Cao Yan, and Mu Renshu followed at a length behind. We crossed the rise and dropped into the flat pasture, and the Meishan wall came up on the eastern horizon as a grey line above the morning haze. The lower wall sat on a rise above a moat that had been let go to weeds in the past quarter. There was no movement on the wall I could see from the road. The six hundred inside the town were either at the southern face watching the Outer Garrison road or asleep in the barracks at the centre of the town.
We reached the open ground at the western edge of the road, past the pasture and a hundred paces short of the lower Meishan wall. The ground was flat and dry, packed earth from the long dry quarter, with no scrub and no rocks. A line of low brush ran along the western edge that gave cover from the road, and a single ash tree stood at the southern end of the open ground. The Meishan wall sat on the rise to the east at the edge of bowshot range. I had chosen the spot the night before from the map at the cavalry captain's saddle. It was within sight of the southern wall and outside the range of any archer who might come over the top of it.
I dismounted at a flat patch of earth at the centre of the open ground.
"Here."
I drew a circle in the earth with the heel of my boot, twenty paces in radius, then walked out from the centre and marked five points around the perimeter at equal spacing. I had measured the spacing the night before at the camp with a length of cord, and the cord was still in my satchel, and I used it now to set the first point and walk the chord from each point to the next. The cord measured twelve paces folded in half, and I had cut it to the chord length the night I closed the Snare at the river. I marked each of the five points with a deeper boot scrape so the wind would not lose it.
Lin Zhi watched without speaking. Sun Hai had set the saddle pack down at the western edge of the perimeter. Cao Yan and Mu Renshu had dismounted and were at the heads of their horses.
"Lin Zhi. Take the cord. Walk the chord between each pair of points and confirm they all measure the same."
He took the cord. He walked the perimeter and measured the chord at each pair. He came back to me.
"All five chords are equal, Squad Captain. Twelve paces."
"Good."
I unbuckled the satchel of river stones from my saddle. Five stones, from the riverbed at Hekou, the same five I had used the day I first closed the Snare. I had carried them in the satchel from Hekou to the Outer Garrison and from the Outer Garrison to here, and they had sat at the bottom of the satchel under my rations and under my spare cloak through both rides. They had not lost their shape.
"Sun Hai. Point one."
I handed him the first stone. He set it at the centre of the boot scrape, pressed it down with his heel until it sat flush with the earth, and stepped back.
"Cao Yan. Point two."
He took the second stone from my hand and set it the same way Sun Hai had set the first.
"Mu Renshu. Point three."
He worked faster than Cao Yan had. The third stone was in the earth before he had taken his eyes off mine.
"Lin Zhi. Point four."
Lin Zhi placed the fourth stone without speaking, pressed it down with his heel, and stepped back.
I walked to the fifth point and set the last stone with my own hand. I pressed it down until it sat flush with the earth, stepped back, and walked to the centre of the pentagon to look at the five points around me.
The loop did not close yet. The stones were the anchors. The Qi was the binding, and the Qi would come last, when the loop was meant to be used. The formation was meant to be dormant until then. If I bound it now, it would be visible to anyone who could read Qi from the southern wall of Meishan, and I had no way to know whether the six hundred inside the wall had a cultivator among them.
The cohort stood at the perimeter, four of them, with the fifth point at my feet.
Sun Hai broke the quiet.
"Squad Captain. What is this?"
"A backup plan."
"For what?"
"For if the trap closes on the main force at Meishan and Commander Xu sends us in as the contingency. If we have to hold this ground while the main column recovers, we will hold it here."
Cao Yan was looking at the five stones. "This shape does something."
"The shape catches Qi when it is bound. We will not bind it now. If we need it, I will bind it when the enemy steps inside."
Mu Renshu set his hand on the hilt of his dagger.
"What does it do?"
"Any enemy caught within this marking will be frozen in place, unable to move a finger."
Lin Zhi looked at me and did not ask anything else.
I stood at the centre of the Snare and looked up.
The morning was bright now. The grey had gone out of the sky and the first blue was coming in from the east. There was one star left, low on the western horizon, a faint white point that would be gone in another beat or two. I had stopped trying to match the stars in this sky against the stars of the one I had left.
When the last star went out at the western horizon. I mounted my horse, and the four of them mounted theirs, and we turned north on the road toward Chianji and the feast.