General Bao pulled hard on the reins of his armored warhorse, bringing his two hundred Iron-Blood cavalrymen to a clattering halt in the middle of Red-Pine Canyon.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a square, weather-beaten face, a thick black beard, and a jagged old scar running across his left cheek. Dressed in heavy black iron plate armor, he looked every inch the fierce, battle-hardened frontier commander who lived for war and the Emperor's decrees.
Yet as General Bao stared at the thirty Blood Lotus ambushers lying dead or crippled across the canyon road—including a headless Early-Stage Martial King and another Martial King pinned inside a bizarre cage of black stone—his scarred jaw dropped slightly in astonishment.
