Chapter 53: Try Again

Mahashide roared furiously, and the junior officers under him began adjusting their formations with grim faces. An officer wearing a primitive-style kulah helmet and carrying a great banner ran to the front row.

The kulah helmet is a typical Persian-style helmet, made of a steel bowl shape, with a neck guard of small iron rings woven together at the sides and back.

At the front there is a movable "nose guard," and on the crown there is a spike and two thin tubes on the left and right for inserting plume ornaments.

This type of helmet only became popular after the thirteenth century, once the iron-smelting industry had developed.

The Arab-Persian style helmet appearing now has no nose guard, and the aventail hanging from the helmet to protect the neck is larger in area, almost covering the entire shoulders.

And this shift in the overall equipment of the Western Regions peoples from the Tang-Turkic style to the Arab-Persian style is precisely one of the signs that, after the Great Tang withdrew from the Western Regions, the region gradually became Islamicized in politics, economy, and culture.

"The dihqan appoints Aimanduo as banner-bearing squad leader! If the banner does not fall, no one may rein in their horse, no one may loose arrows. Whoever disobeys orders gets no spoils of war!"

The officer holding the great banner was one of Mahashide's trusted men. Ordinarily, of course, there was no need for this. Most of the time when traveling merchants encountered them, they either came out to negotiate and pay road tolls, or they were scattered in a single charge.

This was the first time Mahashide had encountered something as troublesome as today, but he had made up his mind: he would slaughter that band of traveling merchants, because they had insulted the noble dihqan Mahashide.

Ma Yaozi, who had just finished pissing and was still shaking, yanked his trousers up in one motion. He scrambled back in a few quick strides and began hurriedly pulling on his ring-mail armor, calling out to Zhang Zhao as he did so.

"Young lord! Those dog thieves didn't go after Fan Quan on the sand dune, and there's a banner-bearing officer at the very front of their formation. Looks like they mean to fight to the death!"

"It's been about two quarters of an hour since Bai Congxin and the others left, hasn't it?" Zhang Zhao glanced at the incense stick on the ground, nearly burned out, and asked. If they wanted to keep these reckless fools here, they would still need Bai Congxin's cavalry to get into position.

"It has!" Yan Jin nodded.

"Old Zhong, send the signal for Yin Yaozi and the others to get ready. If the enemy cavalry can't break through us, they'll likely dismount and shoot at us on foot, relying on their numbers. Have the lads of the Hanshan Company rest up well — when they charge out, they need to be fast!"

Old Zhong had just left to carry out the order when dust rose again in the distance. The remaining forty-odd riders came on slowly under the steadying presence of the banner officer, their formation tighter and neater than in the first charge.

Zhang Zhao was on the left, Yan Jin on the right. Neither of them had even picked up a bow. Zhang Zhao gripped the short lance that had crossed over with him, while Yan Jin held a modao glaive glaive glaive gleaming with cold light.

"Twang! Twang!" Behind the two of them, Fan Shun and four others loosed arrows at maximum speed. But with the banner officer steadying the enemy ranks, although two more riders tumbled from their horses, the overall formation barely wavered!

Thirty meters! Twenty meters! Very close now!

"Dunzhu!" Zhang Zhao shouted. The dense thunder of hooves and the swirling dust made his chest tighten.

"Die!" Just as Zhang Zhao yelled, Dunzhu picked up the javelins lying on the ground, took two running steps, and hurled them out with all his strength, one from each hand in quick succession!

The flying javelins wailed eerily through the air, like missiles soaring skyward!

Crack! Zhang Zhao even heard a grinding sound that set his teeth on edge.

Dunzhu was a big, tall man with tremendous strength, and the two javelins flew with terrifying speed. One pierced a horse's chest; the warhorse screamed and threw its rider to the ground.

The other was even more spectacular — it skewered a rider clean off his horse.

A cold sweat suddenly broke out on Mahashide's forehead. These were no ordinary sons of Tang traveling merchants. What traveling merchant would bring along a javelin thrower of such strength? And with bows and crossbows fully equipped? Could it be... A sudden sense of foreboding seized Mahashide!

The two out-of-control horses greatly impeded the cavalry's charge, even causing a degree of congestion.

At this point Mahashide's banner officer no longer cared whether the distance was right. He swept the great banner, and twenty or thirty bows loosed the same number of arrows at Zhang Zhao and his men.

However, although the distance was only a little over twenty meters, the killing power was still not great, because apart from Zhang Zhao, who wore mingguang armor from a later era, the rest were all wearing infantry armor or ring-mail armor.

Zhang Zhao even had leisure to glance at Ma Yaozi, who was grimacing in pain. It certainly hurt — his belly was probably pierced — but it was far from a real wound!

"Hiyah!" Yan Jin roared, and he and Zhang Zhao parted almost simultaneously, revealing behind them the small spear formation made up of Ma Yaozi and the others.

The spearheads, a full zhang and eight chi long, glittered with cold light. The charging horses, seeing a row of gleaming spear points before them, were naturally unwilling to crash straight into them.

And the riders on the horses were equally unwilling to crash into them. Horse and man, with perfect tacit understanding, turned left and carved out an arc.

Zhang Zhao and Yan Jin had parted precisely to let them turn left smoothly. But once they turned left instead of charging the formation head-on, what happened next was no longer under their control.

The roaring Yan Jin twisted his waist, his whole body turning as if rotated ninety degrees, and brought his raised modao glaive glaive glaive sweeping horizontally from right to left.

A flash of white light, and blood shot skyward. A warhorse that happened to run past Bai Congxin had its left foreleg sheared clean off.

As the horse's massive body crashed to the ground, the riders turning left frantically wheeled their mounts — some trying to flee straight back, others trying to avoid the fallen horse carcass.

Zhang Zhao picked out a rider in a leather robe. The rider held a curved saber, and as he leaned low, the saber swept past Zhang Zhao's neck.

Scrape! A shower of sparks flashed, and Zhang Zhao's neck was completely unharmed. The rider, however, had a problem: the tool-steel spearhead in Zhang Zhao's hand stabbed straight into his waist, easily piercing the iron plates inside the rider's leather robe.

And once Zhang Zhao and Yan Jin had made their move, Ma Yaozi and the others came up as well. Seven long spears and one modao glaive glaive glaive — eight men stabbing and slashing in a frenzy, sending blood flying from men and horses alike.

What the hell! Mahashide, falling back once again, was both shocked and furious. After that charge, they had once again failed to touch a single hair, and already one man was dead and five wounded!

He was about to explode in anger, but then he looked up and saw Bayish lying not far away, hair disheveled and face covered in blood, the light already gone from his eyes. A great bloody hole in his waist was still pouring out blood.

"Dihqan! These sons of Tang are uncanny. We should withdraw. They don't look like traveling merchants at all — they have the air of soldiers!"

Mahashide's banner officer rode over and urged him. It truly wasn't that they hadn't tried their hardest — they simply could not break through!

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