With a scream of whistling arrows, the trap was sprung.
Xiao Shaojin and Yan Chuanzhi led two thousand riders, charging straight at the rear of the Wu army near Wood Sheep Lake. At the same time, signal arrows screeched into the sky, summoning the Iron Pagoda from the north and Xia Bin's forces from the northwest.
"WIND! WIND! WIND!"
The roar of thousands of soldiers shook the mountains. Five thousand Iron Pagoda heavy cavalry, clad in black steel, smashed into the Barbarian lines like a hammer hitting glass.
Their double-shot bows rained black-feathered death, blotting out the dim light of the storm. The Wu rear guard was torn apart instantly. Like starving dogs, the Iron Pagoda riders hunted down anyone who broke formation.
A Barbarian general, realizing the rear was under attack, rallied his men. A giant of a man wielding a massive battle-axe, he roared and charged at the Iron Pagoda, trying to buy time for the Grand Preceptor.
Steel clashed against steel. Horses screamed. Blood turned the muddy ground crimson, mixing with the relentless rain.
It was a stalemate. Twenty thousand men on each side, locked in a meat grinder.
Xiao Shaojin watched the chaos. Schemes and tricks were useless now. Only blood would decide the victor. But he needed to break the deadlock fast, or the Wu vanguard would breach Yangtai Pass.
He rode up to the prison cart.
"I need to borrow you for a moment," Xiao said to the body double. "If you cooperate, I might let these 20,000 soldiers live."
At Yangtai Pass, General Zhu Yu was covered in blood.
The defense was crumbling. A Barbarian soldier leaped from a siege ladder, a dagger in his mouth, aiming a bow at Zhu Yu's throat.
Zhu Yu raised his arm too late. But a young guard—the farm boy from the Zhang family—threw himself in the way. The arrow hit the boy, and the impact sent both him and the Barbarian tumbling off the wall to their deaths.
Zhu Yu roared in fury, his saber hacking at the enemy until the blade chipped.
He remembered the boy's parents begging him to take their son. Generals, please take him. We have three scoops of rice left. We can't feed him.
"Zhang boy," Zhu Yu muttered, tears mixing with rain and blood. "I knew you had the face of a short-lived ghost. I tried to save you... but I failed."
"General!" his deputy screamed. "Five more battering rams! We can't hold!"
Zhu Yu snapped back to reality. "Abandon the pass! Retreat to the ambush point!"
Back at Wood Sheep Lake, Yan Chuanzhi carved a bloody path through the enemy lines, dragging the prison cart to the center of the battlefield.
"THE GRAND PRECEPTOR IS CAPTURED!" Yan bellowed, his horse-lance dripping with gore. "Surrender or he dies!"
At first, the Barbarians ignored him. But as Yan's soldiers chanted in unison—"THE PRECEPTOR IS CAPTURED! SURRENDER OR HE DIES!"—the Wu soldiers hesitated.
Seeing their leader in the cage, the Barbarian formation wavered. The old man in the cart shouted in his native tongue: "Ignore me! Keep fighting! Attack!"
Hearing his voice, the Barbarians fought harder, convinced it was truly their leader.
The battlefield fell into a strange lull. Both sides pulled back slightly, staring at the cage in the middle.
Xiao Shaojin rode forward, laughing.
"Why care about what is real or fake?" he said to the old man. "If it works, it works. The Sage follows the Yang, the Fool follows the Yin. Old man, order them to retreat to the North."
The body double spat at Xiao Shaojin. The saliva landed inside the cage, but the insult was clear.
Xiao's face went cold. "I gave you a chance for dignity."
He turned to Yan Chuanzhi. "Chuanzhi. Cut out his tongue."
Yan Chuanzhi leaped onto the cart. He grabbed the old man by the hair, forcing his mouth open. A guard clamped onto the tongue with iron pincers.
SHING!
Yan's dagger flashed.
A spray of blood. A gargled scream.
The guard rode to the Barbarian lines and threw the severed tongue onto the mud. The Wu soldiers recoiled in horror.
Yan Chuanzhi shouted again. "Retreat now, and he lives as a hostage! Fight, and we kill him instantly!"
Xia Bin added, "The Huachao Empire keeps its word! Retreat, and we will not pursue!"
The Wu army, leaderless and demoralized, began to pull back.
"Grand Preceptor! The Border Army has fled the pass!"
Inside the real Grand Preceptor's carriage, the news brought a smile to the old man's face.
"Just as I predicted. The rain destroyed their defenses. Enter the pass!"
Grand Preceptor Wu felt rejuvenated. He grabbed a sword and stood up, ready to lead his people into the fertile lands of the Central Plains. He ignored the scouts trying to warn him about the rear.
Xiao Shaojin watched the Wu army retreating north. He let out a long breath.
"Send Xia Bin to support Yangtai Pass immediately!" he ordered. "Yun Luo, take the remaining Iron Pagoda riders and ambush the retreat at the mountain pass. Don't let these elites escape easily. Kill as many as you can."
"But Your Highness," Yan Chuanzhi hesitated. "You promised not to pursue. The civil officials will use this against you—"
"Chuanzhi," Xiao smiled, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Everyone here is loyal to my father. Who will tell? As for the report... we'll write whatever we want. The Barbarians can deny it all they want in hell. Besides, after today, the Wu Tribe will be too busy licking their wounds to complain."
Casualty reports came in. The Border Army had lost nearly a thousand men, with many more wounded. The Barbarians left behind eight thousand bodies.
Xiao Shaojin nodded, exhausted. He lay down on the wet grass, closing his eyes.
It's up to Han Zhong and Zhu Yu now.
Inside the mountain valley beyond Yangtai Pass, the Wu vanguard marched into the ambush.
"Shields up!" Grand Preceptor Wu ordered, sensing the trap. "Wait for reinforcements!"
"Grand Preceptor!" a guard screamed. "The rain has stopped!"
Wu looked up. The clouds had parted. Sunlight streamed down, illuminating the blood-soaked walls of the pass behind them.
And it illuminated the hundreds of barrels of oil Zhu Yu had placed on the cliffs above.
"If there is a Gate to Hell, this is it," Wu sighed. "Break out! Send a thousand riders to open a path!"
CRASH!
Barrels shattered on the rocks below, drenching the Barbarian army in black oil.
Zhu Yu rode along the cliff edge. He scraped his arrow against the stone wall as he galloped—sparks flew, igniting the oil-soaked cloth wrapped around the tip.
He stood up on his saddle, balancing like a demon of war.
"OLD DOG OF THE WU! EAT YOUR GRANDFATHER'S ARROW!"
WOOSH!
The flaming arrow streaked toward the Grand Preceptor's carriage.
"Block it!" Wu shouted.
A guard deflected the arrow with a shield. It hit the ground.
WHOOM!
The oil on the ground ignited. In seconds, the valley floor turned into a sea of fire.
"BROTHER HAN! NOW!" Zhu Yu roared.
Han Zhong and his dozen surviving infiltrators had been waiting for this moment.
"HORIZONTAL FORMATION!" Han Zhong bellowed.
The thirteen men leveled their lances, charging through the flames like a battering ram, aiming straight for the Grand Preceptor.
Arrows flew from the panic-stricken Barbarian guards. Han's men fell one by one.
Just as Han Zhong was about to be surrounded, a javelin impaled his attacker.
"Go, Brother Han!" General Xia Bin shouted, arriving with reinforcements. "Get him!"
Han Zhong's lance was knocked away. His quiver was empty. He held only his bow.
He whipped his horse, blindfolding the beast with a strip of cloth so it wouldn't fear the fire.
He leaped his horse over a wall of flame, crashing directly into the Grand Preceptor's carriage guard.
Taking a slash across his chest from a guard's saber, Han Zhong didn't flinch. He lunged forward, looping the bowstring around Grand Preceptor Wu's neck.
With a savage twist of his wrist and an upward jerk, Han Zhong dragged the supreme leader of the Wu Tribe out of his carriage and onto the muddy, blood-soaked ground.