The retreat began as a victory march under a cold, indifferent moon.
Scar Wang rode at the head of the diminished column, blood still wet on his scarred face, two captured horses laden with grain sacks and the precious extra matchlocks. The surviving bandits, only sixteen now, down from twenty-three, moved with the swagger of men who had cheated death twice in one night. Gunpowder smoke clung to their robes like a victory shroud. They laughed roughly, passing a skin of stolen wine, boasting about the weight of the loot and the softness of Black Ox's throat when Scar Wang opened it.
Feng Kuan walked among them, silent, the baby bound so tightly to his chest that her tiny heartbeat thrummed against his ribs like a second, frightened pulse. His wounded arm burned with every step. At forty-eight, the night air cut into his lungs like broken glass. He kept one scarred hand cupped protectively over the child's head, feeling her faint, exhausted breaths.
For the first mile the plan held. The dry riverbed offered easy ground. The watchtower camp was only two li away. Scar Wang's raid had succeeded despite Black Ox's hidden guns. They had grain. They had powder. They had more muskets than they started with.
Then the moon betrayed them.
It crested a ridge and spilled silver light across the hills like molten mercury. And in that pale, beautiful glow, the horde revealed itself.
Hundreds of them.
Jiangshi spilled over the ridges in a silent, grotesque tide. Pale corpses glowing ghostly white under the moon, skin stretched tight and greenish over bones, arms locked straight forward like supplicants to hell. Long black nails curved like hooks. Milky eyes reflected the moonlight like dead pearls. They did not run. They hopped, rigid, unnatural, legs locked at the knees, yet the rhythm was relentless: thump… thump… thump… A sound that vibrated in the chest, in the teeth, in the soul. Each hop kicked up small clouds of dust that caught the moonlight like sparks of bone.
The bandits' laughter died.
"Gods below," one man whispered.
Scar Wang reined in hard. "They followed the guns. All that noise… the bastards followed the guns."
Feng Kuan felt the Berserk weight crash down on him again. This was no small swarm. This was a legion born of famine graves and unburned battlefields, pulled across miles by the thunder of matchlocks and the rich scent of fresh blood. The Mandate of Heaven had truly failed. Heaven itself had sent its cleaners.
"Fire!" he shouted, voice raw. "Form a rearguard! Use the riverbank for height, don't let them surround us!"
The retreat became a running battle under the silver moon, a scene of terrible, cinematic beauty and horror.
The bandits turned and fought in disciplined pockets, just as Feng had taught them. One man knelt and fired a captured matchlock, the boom cracked like lightning, blowing a hole through the lead jiangshi's chest. The creature staggered, black ichor spraying, but kept hopping forward, the wound already bubbling closed. Feng lunged past him, dao trailing a flaming rag he had ignited with gunpowder sparks. The burning blade sliced across the creature's neck. Fire hissed and cauterized. The head toppled. The body collapsed in a twitching heap.
"Burn the wound!" Feng roared, voice carrying over the growing thunder of hops. "Guns only slow them! Fire ends them!"
The night turned into a living painting worth millions, moonlight glinting off black nails, flames blooming like orange flowers against pale corpses, dust swirling in silver eddies around hopping legs. A bandit screamed as long nails tore into his shoulder. Feng spun, drove his flaming dao through the jiangshi's eye socket, twisted, and yanked the blade free in a spray of burning ichor. He dragged the wounded man back behind the line.
"Keep moving!" he ordered. "Don't stop! The watchtower is close!"
The baby began to cry again, sharp, piercing wails born of terror and the constant jolting. The sound cut through the night like a blade. More moans answered from the flanks. The horde shifted, drawn to the living heat and the small, helpless voice.
Scar Wang rode up beside him, eyes wild. "Shut that thing up or I'll cut its throat myself!"
Feng Kuan turned on him with a look that made even the scar-faced brute hesitate. "Touch her and I burn you with them."
They pressed on. The riverbed narrowed into a rocky defile. Here the terrain favored the living for a moment, steep banks on both sides forced the jiangshi into a funnel. Feng directed the men to soak rags in the last of the captured wine and gunpowder mixture. They created a wall of flame along the ridgeline. Corpses hopped into the fire and burned like torches, limbs twitching in grotesque silhouettes against the moon.
For one heartbeat the line held.
Then a jiangshi, an old woman in tattered burial robes, hair streaming like black smoke, leapt with unnatural strength from the bank above. It landed among the bandits. Nails raked across two men's faces before Feng drove his flaming blade through its spine. The creature shrieked, a sound almost human, and collapsed in flames.
But the damage was done. Three more bandits fell screaming, dragged down into the hopping mass. The line broke.
Feng ran now, legs burning, the baby's cries vibrating against his heart like accusations. He saw Little Sparrow's face in every pale corpse. He saw his dead troop. He saw himself, the Black Maiden, the bearer of ash, leading men to slaughter once again.
A young bandit, the same boy who had asked nervously during training, stumbled beside him. "Captain… I can't… I can't run anymore…"
Feng grabbed his arm without slowing. "You run or you burn with them."
The boy looked at him with eyes full of the same lost innocence Little Sparrow once had. Then a jiangshi snatched him from Feng's grip. Nails sank into flesh. The boy's scream cut off as the horde swallowed him whole.
Feng did not look back.
They reached the watchtower at the breaking point of night. The survivors, only nine men now, including Scar Wang, staggered through the gate and barred it with the last of their strength. They set the courtyard alight with every scrap of oil and powder they had left. Flames roared up the wooden palisade, turning the tower into a beacon of desperate defiance against the silver lit horde outside.
The jiangshi pressed against the burning barrier, hundreds of them now, hopping in place like a sea of pale, rigid puppets. Their moans blended into a single, endless dirge. Moonlight painted them in ethereal, horrifying beauty, a legion of the dead marching under heaven's cold judgment.
Inside the tower, Scar Wang rounded on Feng Kuan, chest heaving, face twisted with rage and fear. "Your whelp's cries. The guns. All that noise. You brought this on us, old soldier."
Feng Kuan sank to the stone floor, back against the wall, the baby still strapped to him. She had gone quiet again, tiny fists clutching his torn robe as if he were the only safe thing left in the world. He stared at the flames beyond the gate, at the endless hopping shadows.
He felt the Berserk spiral pull him under, deeper than ever. He had survived the temple. Survived the monks. Survived the raid. And every step had only fed the darkness more.
"Damn you, little ghost," he whispered, voice cracking. Tears hot, ugly unbidden cut, tracks through the blood and soot on his face. "I should have left you in the temple. I should have let them take you. But I keep carrying you… and everything around us dies."
Outside, the horde waited. The fire would not last forever.
And somewhere beyond the flames, the moon watched it all, beautiful, cold, and utterly indifferent to the last sparks of a dying empire.