Chapter Eight: One Hundred Riders Storm the Camp
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Deng Ai swept his long sword through the air, and the Wei army’s war drums thundered like a storm. Thirty thousand armored soldiers trampled across the snowy plain, surging toward Fucheng’s walls of ice like a black tide.
Upon the battlements, Liu Chen’s silver armor gleamed against the snow. His twelve-foot spear angled toward the heavens, and his gaze seemed to cleave through the driving storm.
“Loose the arrows!”
A rain of arrows poured down. The splintering of wooden shields mingled with the shrieks of the wounded, piercing the frozen air. Ladders slammed against the ice wall, only to sway helplessly upon its slick surface. Gritting their teeth, Wei soldiers hacked shallow footholds into the ice with iron chisels, climbing upward with their comrades’ corpses beneath their feet.
“Royal Guards, follow me!”
Liu Chen gave his spear a sharp thrust and charged first into the Wei soldiers scaling the wall. His spear flashed like drifting pear blossoms. Three soldiers had barely shown their heads before he sent them tumbling from the battlements. A bearded colonel roared and swung his saber at him. Liu Chen twisted his wrist and swept the shaft across, smashing it into the man’s knee. The colonel cried out and fell to his knees. Before he could raise his head, the spearpoint had already pierced his throat.
Meng Qi’s twin blades whirled, creating a barricade of flesh and blood along the western wall.
“Brothers, His Majesty will live and die alongside us!”
With one stroke, he split a Wei soldier’s skull. Hot blood splattered across the ice wall and froze at once into dark-red blossoms of ice. Dozens of royal guards formed a spear formation, their long weapons stabbing and hacking like a forest, knocking down every soldier who reached the top.
Below the wall, Deng Ai saw the assault faltering and personally drew his sword to urge the troops forward.
“Ram the gate!”
Dozens of burly men carried an enormous iron-bound beam through the storm of arrows and charged toward the gate.
Liu Chen saw them clearly. Seizing a jar of fire oil from the battlements, he hurled it down with all his strength. The clay vessel shattered, and flames leapt thirty feet into the air, engulfing the gate-crashing squad in a sea of fire.
Amid the screams, Deng Ai’s eyes reddened as he roared, “Forward! Anyone who retreats will be executed!”
“Your Majesty, look out!”
Yan Ming suddenly threw himself forward, his shield taking a stray arrow head-on. The arrow pierced the wood and tore open a bloody wound across his shoulder blade.
Liu Chen caught him and shouted, “Those who die in battle today shall have their families supported by the royal household for life! The wounded will receive ten strings of coins, paid immediately!”
A thunderous cheer erupted from the walls. Commoners carried bundles of arrows and stones up to the battlements, while old women pressed bowls of hot gruel into the soldiers’ hands. The Wei army attacked wave after wave, yet was held back beyond the ice wall.
The battle continued until dusk, when the snowfall grew heavier. Beneath the walls, corpses lay piled like hills. At last, the Wei army sounded the signal to withdraw.
Leaning on his spear, Liu Chen gasped for breath. The bloodstains on his silver armor had frozen into hard clots.
Meng Qi wiped the blood from his face. “Your Majesty, we have lost more than five hundred men, with over four hundred wounded.”
“Bury the fallen with full honors.” Liu Chen gazed toward the Wei encampment and spoke in a voice as cold as frost. “Deng Ai’s provisions are running low. He will surely risk everything tonight.”
“Both armies are exhausted. How could there still be a night battle?” Yan Ming asked in astonishment, clutching his wound.
Liu Chen gave a cold laugh, his eyes sweeping over the wounded Wei soldiers moaning below the walls.
“Precisely because we are exhausted, we must fight tonight.”
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He clenched his spear.
“Prepare the horses! Gather everyone still fit to fight!”
Inside the Wei army’s command tent, Deng Ai stared at the snowstorm beyond the canvas, his knuckles white with tension. Tian Xu said in a low voice, “General, we have suffered nearly two thousand casualties. Our provisions will last only one more day.”
“Liu Chen… did he truly say he would spare the lives of the soldiers?” Deng Ai asked suddenly.
All the generals in the tent stared at him in shock.
Duan Zhuo hurriedly said, “General, think this through!”
“I am thinking of a way for these thirty thousand young men to survive.” Deng Ai closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.
Tian Xu snorted. “Shu-Han’s fate is already sealed. Surrender would only mean certain death!”
Duan Zhuo stepped forward. “The enemy has also suffered heavy losses today. They will surely relax in the latter half of the night. If we launch a silent night assault, we can certainly breach the city!”
Deng Ai’s eyes flew open.
“Give the order! Cook at the third watch, attack at the fourth!”
Upon Fucheng’s battlements, wind and snow lashed their faces with pellets of ice. Liu Chen gazed at the scattered lights of the Wei camp, then suddenly turned around.
“Meng Qi, are the warhorses ready?”
“Your Majesty, one hundred and eight riders, all hardened veterans of a hundred battles!”
In the torchlight, more than a hundred cavalrymen stood in battered armor, their eyes gleaming like cold stars. Liu Chen swung into the saddle, his silver armor radiating a chilly sheen beneath the moonlight.
“Tonight we raid the Wei camp. We have only one objective: burn their provisions! Withdraw immediately once the task is accomplished. Do not become entangled with the enemy!”
The city gates opened without a sound. Cloth wrapped around their horses’ hooves muffled every step as the hundred riders slipped into the snowy wilderness like ghosts. Sheltered by the curtain of snow, they followed a hidden mountain path, drawing ever closer to the Wei camp.
Liu Chen leaned over his horse’s neck. As the cries of wounded Wei soldiers drifted on the wind, his grip on the reins tightened.
“There are scouts ahead,” Yan Ming whispered.
Fifty paces away, two Wei soldiers huddled around a fire, rubbing their hands for warmth. Liu Chen gestured for the riders to go around them, and the column glided into a side path like a serpent.
By the third watch, the Wei camp lay directly ahead. Tents crowded the enclosure, while patrols hunched their shoulders and stamped their feet against the cold.
Liu Chen drew his sword and pointed it straight at the camp.
“The Han army is mighty!”
“The Han army is mighty!”
The hundred riders shouted as one, and the thunder of hooves erupted. Before the Wei scouts could even raise their heads, galloping horses sent them flying. The palisade shattered with a crash, and the cavalry drove into the camp like a dagger. Yan Ming flung a jar of fire oil behind him, instantly setting a haystack ablaze.
“Enemy attack!”
The shrill cry tore through the night, and chaos engulfed the Wei camp.
Liu Chen led the charge into the grain stores. His spearpoint tossed two guards into the air, and he leaned down, seized a torch, and hurled it onto a haystack.
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The instant the flames surged skyward, he saw Wei soldiers awakening inside their tents and hurriedly throwing on their armor. He shouted, “Yan Ming, take the left wing! Meng Qi, take the right! Meet at the eastern gate in fifteen minutes!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The two commanders split their forces and rode away. The brittle crackle of hooves trampling tents mingled with the soldiers’ screams. Liu Chen leveled his spear and swept aside more than a dozen Wei soldiers charging toward him. Then he suddenly caught sight of shadows gathering in the northwest corner—the general’s personal guard was forming ranks to meet them.
“Excellent!”
He wheeled his horse around, his spearpoint aimed directly at the enemy formation.
“Charge with me!”
The cavalry cut into the formation like a silver line. Between thrusting spears and hacking axes, the personal guard’s ranks collapsed in an instant. One guard recognized Liu Chen and roared as he swung his saber.
“Protect the general!”
Liu Chen twisted aside from the blade. His spear shaft coiled around the man’s wrist, and he wrenched it with tremendous force. The guard screamed and released his weapon, only to have his chest crushed beneath the horse’s hooves.
“Where is Deng Ai?” Liu Chen demanded, his spearpoint already pressed against the throat of another captive.
The prisoner trembled violently.
“He’s—he’s in the central command tent…”
Before he could finish, a dense volley of arrows suddenly came from the west. Liu Chen bent low against his horse’s back as arrows hissed past his armor. In the distance, beneath the torchlight, he saw Tian Xu directing archers into formation. Liu Chen gave a cold laugh.
“Withdraw!”
The hundred riders streamed out of the camp like a receding tide, while flames licked at the night sky behind them. Deng Ai stood before the central command tent, staring at the roaring fire consuming the grain stores. His graying beard trembled violently.
“Pursue them! Pursue them!”
Wei cavalry thundered out through the camp gates, only to find that the Shu riders had already vanished into the snowstorm. Liu Chen reined in and glanced back. Firelight reddened half the sky. Then he suddenly raised his bow and shot down the standard-bearer of the pursuing Wei cavalry.
“Your Majesty, the provisions are destroyed. Deng Ai’s army will surely lose heart!” Meng Qi shouted as he caught up.
Liu Chen nodded and turned his horse.
“Back to Fucheng. The real show has only just begun.”
The snowy night stretched endlessly, and the hoofbeats of the hundred riders faded into the distance. Amid the flames of the Wei camp, Deng Ai stared at the provisions reduced to ash and suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood. Tian Xu hurried to support him, only to see a crazed fire burning in the old general’s eyes.
“Ready the army! At dawn, launch a full assault on Fucheng! I will personally cut down Liu Chen!”
The bitter wind swept sparks across the snowy plain. Under the moonlight, Fucheng’s ice walls gleamed with a cold radiance. Upon the battlements, Liu Chen watched the returning riders. Suddenly, he drew his sword and pointed north.
“Tonight we burn their provisions; tomorrow we destroy their army! The survival of the Han lies in this battle!”
“The Han will prevail!”
The soldiers’ cries pierced the wind and snow, mingling with the distant wails of disorder in the Wei camp, sounding the overture to the battle that would decide the fate of Shu-Han.
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