Chapter 84: Tainted Blood

In a clash of battle formations, individual martial prowess and fighting will cannot reverse the tide of war.

When panic runs high enough, even knee-deep river water can drown a man.

In a full rout, not even the best-equipped and highest-morale few dozen men can hold their ground.

They could only flee in utter disarray along the western foothills of Phoenix Mountain, swept along by the routed troops and the pursuers.

Bowstrings twanged, feathered arrows shrieked out, and the pursuing banner troops scrambling for grain were shot down at the sound.

Amid the pounding of hooves, Liu Chengzong scooped a child from the ground and laid him across the saddle, then urged the woman, "Forget the grain — run!"

The woman struggled to her feet, clenched her teeth, and ran forward, her steps growing heavier and heavier, without even the breath to answer.

Liu Chengzong glanced back at the pursuers and loosed another arrow; as he drew the bow his forearm trembled, and he knew the shot would not fly true.

He shouted urgently to the woman, "Run a little farther — up ahead you can get into the mountains. Hide in there and don't come out!"

With that, Liu Chengzong could spare no more attention here; like a firefighting captain, he pressed on to rally the starving refugees and exhausted soldiers behind him, while urging them to drop some of their grain to slow the enemy.

At the very end, he even came across a man who could ride and gave his own horse away.

With him taking the lead, quite a few mounted soldiers also turned back, one after another giving their mules and horses to women and children too weak to run.

They used crossbows and bows to hold off the enemy even as they fled for their lives.

Even so, many who fell behind were still caught by the government troops.

Liu Chengzong ran as if his life depended on it, and Liu Chengzu was sprinting full-out on the other side as well.

"Move, move — no one fall behind! Move!"

On the mountain-foot official road, wide enough for only three men abreast, the border troops, the Black Dragon Mountain village soldiers, and the bandit fighters from Tiger's Hollow had combined into one force, marching swiftly in two columns with their weapons on their shoulders.

They moved at a blistering pace; more than a few who could not keep up stepped off onto the waste ground on the far side of the roadside ditch, leaning on their weapons as they trudged onward.

They stretched a tail winding four or five li along the official road.

At intervals, mounted border troops rounded them up, letting them catch their breath along the way before pressing on.

Liu Chengzu, leading his horse on foot at the very front of the column, was burning with anxiety.

Plans never keep pace with change.

The Yan'an Guard had reacted far too quickly, and Liu Chengzong had not withdrawn along the originally planned route.

By the time Liu Chengzu got word, it was already too late; he had to choose a different route, and the ambush position they had prepared beforehand was rendered completely useless.

One can hardly imagine how frantic he was.

He ran all the way to the northern foothills of Phoenix Mountain before he saw dust and smoke billowing from the western slopes.

Only then did Liu Chengzu finally let out a breath of relief.

The defeated troops were not in as bad a state as he had imagined.

Up front, there were even two large squads, led by a headman at the front and guarded by a headman at the rear; apart from being too exhausted to speak, they were basically not in disarray.

The situation at the rear was not as good, but even there, each group had its own headman leading it.

But immediately, Liu Chengzu's brow furrowed again — the soldiers' condition was decent, but what about the commanders?

Liu Chengzong, Cao Yao, Li Wanqing — the major leaders of the band — and even Cheng Yun: he had not seen a single one of them.

In an instant, a thousand dreadful speculations flashed through his mind, stoking Liu Chengzu's fury into a blaze.

Then, he spotted his father.

Old Master Liu was riding a little donkey, flanked and guarded by Cai Zhongpan and several escaped convicts in plain-colored prison garb.

The little black donkey's hooves went clippety-clop all the way, bouncing Old Master Liu on its back until he was utterly dazed and reeling — and running along with the greatest delight.

"Father, where is my brother?"

Old Master Liu had already vomited once on the donkey's back, bringing up every last drop of the morning's prison gruel; seeing Liu Chengzu, he grew so agitated he could not speak at all and could only turn and point behind him.

The dense mass of people streamed past on either side; when Liu Chengzu looked back, all he could see were layer upon layer of heads.

No order was needed — with a casual point from Liu Chengzu, the border troops with him understood exactly what he meant.

The men cleared the official road; the horse column formed up on the waste ground beside it, leading their mounts, while swordsmen and spearmen also fell into formation under the border troops' direction, preparing for a counter-charge.

A few farm lads from Black Dragon Mountain, shouldering hoes and shovels, dug into the earth on the spot, piling up a small earthen slope to support and fire their squatting-tiger cannon.

Several others ran along with the stream of refugees, rounding them up.

Only now did Old Master Liu finally recover enough to speak a little, and he hurriedly told Liu Chengzu, "Chengzu, the pursuers number four or five hundred — they've fallen behind too. Zhang Xiong is also back there."

At this, Liu Xiangyu's face hardened with ferocity. "Kill him for your father!"

His father's words made Liu Chengzu freeze for a long moment; he wondered just what Chengzong had been doing in the city today — it seemed to have turned his father into a completely different man.

Immediately after, he heard Liu Xiangyu nod heavily and say, "Matters have come to this — there is no more retreat."

This was no longer about personal honor or disgrace; two generations of the family, twenty years of bitter study by lamplight, had been reduced to nothing by that garrison officer stirring up trouble over nothing.

How could Liu Xiangyu not hate him?

Liu Chengzu caught sight of his younger brother.

At the very tail of the column, the most dangerous place in the entire force.

Liu Chengzong, Cao Yao, Li Wanqing, Gao Xian, Feng Rang, and the others were all there, shielding the frailest of the refugees and fighting the most ferociously pursuing government troops.

And then fleeing.

But the moment they fled, refugees would be overtaken and killed.

Frail women, children, and the elderly were already scarcely to be seen in the column.

The government troops' pursuing force had also been stretched extremely thin and long.

At this sight, Liu Chengzu immediately ordered the cavalry to mount up and the main force to advance.

That small cannon was no longer the key to victory — fresh troops were!

Amid the pounding of galloping hooves, Liu Chengzong saw his elder brother leading a dozen-odd riders charging in across the fields and river flats.

The sight made his whole body go weak; he nearly let his spirit slacken and collapsed to the ground.

Fortunately, anger still burned in his heart.

By now he looked utterly wretched — his hair-cloth had fallen off at some point, leaving his hair loose and disheveled.

His head had been gashed by stones flung from a Crouching Tiger cannon during the river crossing; blood and sweat mingled all over his body, along with mud scraped from who knows where.

The leather belt at his waist had also dropped off at some point during the flight; his bow-quiver and scabbard had both vanished without a trace, leaving only the goose-wing saber, its blade notched in several places, still clutched in his hand.

The cavalry on the flank loosed arrows, instantly shooting down the foremost pursuers.

Then men wielding matchlock spears charged onto the official road, pinned a guard soldier against the loess slope, dropped their spears, leapt from their horses, and drew blades to strike.

Before the warhorse could run two steps, Liu Chengzong, who had turned and sprinted back, seized its reins. He hauled himself up, his legs buckling so he sprawled across the horse; only after steadying himself could he steer the mount toward the riverbank to regroup with his elder brother.

Liu Chengzong raised his saber and shouted, "Brother! That bastard Zhang Xiong is right behind — he's been chasing me for ten li like I'm a rabbit, just because he has the numbers!"

Liu Chengzu saw his wretched state, gripped his bow, and asked, "Can you still fight?"

"I can! I'm tired, but so is he — one bout is enough to kill that coward."

Liu Chengzong braced himself against the horse's back to shift his seat, glanced back at the cavalry, and yelled, "Come with me and take his life!"

The cavalrymen from Fish River Fort answered in unison, spurring their warhorses to sweep swiftly across the riverbank past the guard battalion troops scrambling for spoils, then galloped at full speed back the way they had come.

Zhang Xiong was still at the rear, urging his soldiers to keep up the pursuit. The whole way, the more he chased, the more fear gnawed at him.

The Liu father and sons were far harder to handle than he had imagined.

Had he known they colluded with both rebels and bandits and even dared to raid the prefectural city, Zhang Xiong would rather have extorted those country gentry holding office elsewhere than provoke Black Dragon Mountain!

And the more he feared, the less he dared let Liu Chengzong escape.

Otherwise, with a man like that lurking in the mountains, he would never know a day of peace again!

But the moment the banner troops saw the grain, they could not move another step. Besides, their stamina had already reached its limit — they simply had no strength or drive left to keep chasing.

Suddenly, he heard the thunder of hooves approaching from ahead.

In an instant, the hairs on the back of Zhang Xiong's neck stood on end. Instinctively, he turned and fled on foot.

A feathered arrow shot toward him at speed, striking him squarely in the back just as he turned. The armor-piercing cone arrowhead punched through the armor plates, stabbing deep and sending a sharp pain through his back.

But at a moment like this, who could still care about pain? He vaulted over the grain sacks blocking the road and fled for his life.

Just then, he heard a roar from behind, like a vengeful ghost screaming for his life: "Zhang — Xiong —!"

In that frantic instant, he only managed to turn his head halfway before he felt his body go light. His vision first drifted upward, flipped head over heels, then plunged downward.

All he saw was the back of a cavalryman on horseback, blood staining his plain tunic beneath the mail — the young man with disheveled hair turned his face slightly to the side, hatred and fury flashing in his eyes, and with a flick of his wrist shook the filth from his goose-wing saber.