A special thank you to my patrons:
—Jacob Mooe, kevin Williams, ZaberZ, Archer, Acedia, kurtis newman, Fredrik Dahlman, Nithin Samuel, Little Sand, Dradin Hebrhal, Luca August, Kyle.S406, Alin Kadas, Sarah Ann Thomas, sediaz, Xanex44.
You can read 50 chapters ahead of everyone on p@treon.
P@TREON - [email protected]/lessaservantofcosmos
(just replace the "@" with "a")
ps: Please support me on P@treon. I can really use your help!
————————————————————
Sun Jian was no fool. Even when leading troops out on a sortie, he kept a contingency plan in place, bringing only Huang Gai along with him.
Cheng Pu, being the eldest and the most steady-tempered, remained in Yangren City in command of the remaining troops. Han Dang, a skilled rider, was placed in charge of their sole eight hundred cavalrymen, held in readiness as a mobile reserve, to be committed to battle or not depending on how the situation developed.
After slipping out of the city gates under cover of darkness, Sun Jian led his foot soldiers, each man with a wooden bit clenched between his teeth, creeping forward slowly. Han Dang, meanwhile, waited inside the city with the cavalry, awaiting further orders…
××××××××××××××××
All human beings fear death, for death is the greatest of unknowns, and therefore the greatest of terrors.
It is not that a man ceases to fear death simply because he enlists and steps onto a battlefield. Rather, under relentless training, under the iron constraints of military discipline and the articles of war, soldiers learn to submerge themselves in mechanical motions, in the interplay of formations and coordinated action, so that for a time they forget the fear of death—until the moment hot blood sprays forth…
Whether it is their own or the enemy's.
After that instant, fear loses all utility. It is not that the emotion of dread vanishes entirely, but that in the seconds that follow, every man understands that the only way to stay alive is to cut down the enemy standing opposite him. That is the one and only path.
Being afraid, giving in to cowardice, will only hasten one's own death…
But when they pull back, when the rush of adrenaline fades and the deep silence of night descends, fear slinks back like venomous vermin lurking in the darkness, creeping out through the fissures and cracks that have split open inside the heart, coming forth with faint, skittering sounds, and beginning little by little to gnaw at a man's soul.
In the encampment that Hu Zhen had hastily thrown together, many soldiers had already sunk into deep slumber. Yet there were those whose sleep was not so profound—men who, to put it another way, bore some measure of psychological scar tissue from war.
Such men slept poorly. There was grinding of teeth, muttering in dreams, ceaseless tossing and turning…
Wei Xu quietly lifted a tent flap and crept in, making his way over to Lü Bu. He gave a faint nod but spoke no words.
Lü Bu nodded back in silence, simply motioning for Wei Xu to find a spot and rest.
Wei Xu and Song Xian exchanged a glance and a knowing nod. Song Xian then closed his eyes, appearing to drift off to sleep, though his hand tightened its grip on the combat saber resting beside him.
It was nearly the hour before dawn, the time when men are most desperately weary. A spring mist was beginning to coil around the camp, the moisture clammy and clinging unpleasantly to the skin.
The torches throughout the camp guttered one by one, their flames gradually dying. Dampened by the soaking mist, they slowly went out, each sending up a thin wisp of bluish smoke…
All of a sudden, a shriek of agony tore through the camp: "The bastards have come out of the city!"
That voice was so loud that in the previously silent night it struck like a thunderclap, instantly jolting the entire camp into chaos, like a beehive whose lid had been ripped off. An uproar burst forth, the entire place seething and boiling over…
Soldiers startled awake had no grasp of what was happening and blundered about in blind confusion.
"The bastards have come out of the city!"
From somewhere else in the encampment, a second frenzied bellow rang out…
This time, more soldiers heard the words clearly. By reflex they began repeating and shouting them, and in a heartbeat all order in the camp collapsed…
Men started running and yelling in mindless panic…
Horses, terrified, reared and screamed, bolting in every direction…
Common soldiers had no idea to whom or where they belonged…
Even the officers themselves were too dazed and rattled to take control…
Hu Zhen's entire force had already been abnormally exhausted. They had lacked both the energy and the time to properly lay out and fortify their encampment, and so in truth, many of the cagey veterans from Xiliang, though they had kept their mouths shut, knew full well in their hearts just how flimsy the camp's defenses really were.
Thus, when the sudden stampede erupted, many of these old Xiliang campaigners began instinctively pulling back. Even without explicit commands, these soldiers understood that a camp in this state was absurdly easy to overrun; only by falling back a ways could they have any real chance to regroup—or simply to survive.
What these men failed to reckon with was what their instincts looked like in the eyes of all the other soldiers…
And so even more men started sprinting. They did not bother to grab their armor or snatch up their weapons; all they knew was to follow the backs of the soldiers ahead of them and flee toward the rear of the camp.
The men, at least, could still conceivably be reined in, but the warhorses, once panicked, ran wild, trampling through the chaos and magnifying the pandemonium.
By the time Hu Zhen had thrown on his armor and burst out of his command tent, aside from the few personal guards who remained somewhat level-headed, every other soldier was dashing and shouting like a headless fly, a cacophony of noise so overwhelming that it completely drowned out whatever orders Hu Zhen and his small circle attempted to give…
Meanwhile, Sun Jian stood in stunned disbelief, staring at the enemy camp that had suddenly exploded into chaos. He turned his head and exchanged a glance with Huang Gai; the two of them just stood there a moment, stupefied…
The camp was still over a li away!
And they themselves had not yet lifted a finger!
Sun Jian cocked his ear and listened for a moment, then it dawned on him. He let out a great laugh, threw up his arm, and roared: "This is Heaven itself aiding us! We can strike right now and exploit the disorder! This is the very moment to slaughter the foe!"
In an instant, Sun Jian's soldiers all spat out their wooden bits, drew their blades and spears, loosed a fierce battle cry in unison, and surged forward like a tide toward Hu Zhen's encampment!
For Sun Jian and his men, what lay before them was a victory so beyond doubt, so effortless and natural, it was like plucking ripe fruit from a tree…
For Hu Zhen, however, it was nothing short of a waking nightmare—or rather, a chain of nightmares, each one unfolding upon the heels of the last.
Just when Hu Zhen had barely managed to rally a handful of men, he received a report from Ye Xiong: Sun Jian was attacking at the head of his soldiers and was on the verge of breaching the camp's defensive wall!
The news struck Hu Zhen like a thunderbolt, searing him inside and out.
"Commander! Withdraw the troops at once and fall back! I will hold the rear guard!" Ye Xiong stepped forward, his chest thrust out. He knew that at a moment like this, if every man thought only of escaping, the most likely outcome was that in the end, not a single one would get away.
Hu Zhen hesitated for the briefest of moments, then said: "Then I entrust this task to you, Infantry Commander Ye. I will pull back first to reorganize the troops, and then I will return with reinforcements at once!"
Ye Xiong cupped his fist in salute. He took a step backward, drew his war saber, and yelled: "Veterans of Xiliang, follow me!" With that, he led a group of soldiers charging toward the front of the camp.
Hu Zhen watched Ye Xiong's figure disappear, agony twisting in his chest. He knew the odds of this mission were dire, and that Ye Xiong might well not make it out safely. Yet he himself had no choice at present but to do everything in his power to gather the scattered men—only that fragile sliver of hope remained!
"Kill—!" Sun Jian shoved aside a soldier in front of him, roaring. In one fluid motion, he executed a diagonal slash that hacked aside an incoming spear. With a flick of his wrist, he let his blade slide down the length of the spear shaft, and with a single stroke sliced off the spearman's fingers. Then, taking advantage of the spearman's howl of agony, he slit his throat wide open…
In that same instant, two more spears stabbed at him from left and right, aiming to catch Sun Jian in the moment his blade was extended and his guard was open. But Sun Jian's personal guards bashed the spears aside with their round shields, and in the same motion cut down the two pikemen who had been brought within close quarters.
By the time Ye Xiong arrived, the situation was already on the brink of spiraling completely out of control. There was no time whatsoever to assign positions or issue tactical commands. He could do nothing but act on sheer instinct, fighting his way directly toward Sun Jian.