The army moved, though no one sang. Fifty banners should have flapped like wings, but the air was too heavy. Drums struck only when commanded; the rhythm never rose on its own. Twenty thousand Black Tigers, a spine of the Lord Protector's veterans, and General Sun's steel-eyed host marched under my command. And yet, they marched as though the soil beneath them doubted their weight.
Men did not glance at me directly. They looked at the ground, or the sky, or the road's edge. Only General Sun dared meet my gaze, and even he did so with the cold caution of a man staring at a flame he is not sure will stay in the brazier.
At night, the whispers came. That lamps leaned inward when I passed. That torches guttered though no wind blew. That shadows beneath my tent were deeper than they had any right to be. None spoke of it in my hearing, but I knew. Soldiers speak even when their lips remain shut.
Shen Yue rode beside me most days, her horse dark with sweat, her hands steady on the reins. She did not smile, did not speak except when counsel demanded. Her silence was not mine—it carried doubt, not inevitability. When she did glance at me, her eyes weighed not whether I could win, but whether the man she had chosen to follow remained human enough to recognize her.
Once, she broke the quiet.
"Winter kills gardens," she said.
"Rot kills them faster," I replied.
She did not argue, but I saw her jaw clench.
General Sun reported without embellishment: "Rations low. Arrows half their count. Men restless." His voice betrayed nothing, but his posture—rigid, precise—spoke the truth. He was afraid of me. He followed orders as a man obeys thunder: not out of loyalty, but because one does not argue with the sky.
Still, the march did not falter. Fear moved them where loyalty would have stumbled.
The villages along our road emptied at our sight. Farmers took children and oxen and left fields to the crows. Dogs howled, then went silent. Ash circles were found in the dirt at crossroads—signs drawn by hands unseen. The men whispered that the South watched us through the cracks. I did not correct them.Far ahead, Huailing sharpened its teeth.
Wu Kang rose each morning against his wound. The gash I had left along his side bled anew whenever he moved, but he bound it tight and walked the walls anyway. His face was pale, his jaw set, his eyes alive with the kind of fire that feeds on its own smoke.
"Hold the gates," he commanded, voice grinding through pain. "If the city falls, cut me down before you let him set foot inside. If you must burn Huailing to its stones, burn it. But do not yield. Not to him. Not to the thing he carries."
The captains bowed, though their shoulders shook. They feared him more than the wound, more than death. Because Wu Kang had nothing left to lose, and nothing is the easiest weapon to follow.
Behind the walls, fifty thousand Golden Dragon soldiers swelled like a sea. Siege towers leaned against the courtyards, waiting to roll. Priests painted wards on the gates, but the wind licked them away. Black banners with gold scales hung down, drinking the torchlight as if hungry for it.
Wu Kang stood at the highest parapet, his hand clenched on the stone until the skin split. He looked south—toward me.
Between us lay the plain. Honest distance. No lies.
The march pressed forward. My men kept their eyes on the road. The silence under my ribs listened, patient.
War was not waiting. War had already chosen its hour.