The monk had the secret doors open, and he stood back and watched the Swamplings flood through the great opening, squirming in a very inhuman way, to vanish onto the steps which ran up and up into the ridge. He watched for a mont, and then sothing slamd into his head.
He started to fall. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see so sort of spike. In a mont of vertigo, he realized it had to be through his head. He tried to move, and couldn't. Sothing hurt more than his back.
Slowly, like a tree falling, he went to the ground. He tried to pray, but he could not because they pressed all around him and he scread, trying—trying to die before they began to eat him.
✶ ✶ ✶
Guan had risen with the dawn and managed to get himself to the main hall to pray. He remained on his knees for a long ti in the morning light, unaware of anything except the pain in his side and the crushing sense of his own failure.
But, eventually, he roused himself when he heard the soldiers bellowing for every Warrior to get mounted. He rose and then walked as steadily as he could manage out the door of the hall, and hauled himself in front of Yun Ming.
"I can ride," he said.
Yun Ming shook his head. "He didn't say the wounded," Yun Ming said. "I'm not riding, myself. Stay here."
Guan was minded to disobey. The longer he was on his feet, the better he felt. "I can ride," he said again.
"Ride tomorrow, then," Yun Ming said. "Baijian's got all the Warriors already. If you want to be a help, arm yourself as much as you can and walk around looking confident. It's bad out there." Yun Ming pointed into the courtyard of the fortress, where the farm won and the pavilion ladies stood in knots, silent. Most of them were watching the plains below.
"We've perhaps forty n to hold the fortress, and the ladies feel they've been abandoned."
"Sweet heavens," Guan swore. "Forty n?"
"Young Master is trying to win the day," Yun Ming said. "This is stupid. All we had to do was sit tight in the fortress and let the king do as he would. But the little master always has to have things his way. He needs more glory"
Guan gave the older man a lopsided smile. "Family affliction," he said, and went to do his share.
It took him long minutes to find his armor, left unpolished in a heap and not in the healing hall but in a closet off the apothecary. But he couldn't seem to get into it. He kept trying.
"I'll help you, if you'll let ," said a voice.
It was the novice. The one whose appearance made his brother happy. The one who had used power to heal him.
"You are—"
"Liwei," she said. She nodded at an archer, who stood quietly across the room. He looked tired and unhappy.
"He was left to guard , but he's bored. Stop moving."
Her hands were curiously confident and strong.
"You are using Qi," he said.
"I'm giving you so strength," she said. "Sothing evil is coming – I can feel it. Sothing of the demonic Wild. We're going to go and stop it." She sounded fey, terrified, and overly bright. Brittle.
Guan took her assertion at face value. He looked at the archer. "What's your na?" he asked.
The boy wouldn't et his eye. "Xuanxian Luo, my lord," he said sullenly.
"Xuanxian Luo, can you fight?" Guan asked.
"Anything," Xuanxian Luo said assertively. He looked away. "Only thing I'm any good at fighting, and look at – left to guard young master's woman."
The fingers on Guan's shoulder armor stiffened.
Xuanxian Luo looked at the two of them from under his eyebrows. "Sorry. I know you aren't. But I'd rather be with my brothers." He shrugged. "This is the big fight. I've never been in one.
All the old people talk big about this fight and that fight, but this is the biggest the group was ever in, and I want my part of it by havens." He looked away. "Want to have my glory."
Guan laughed. He surprised himself with the purity, the unforcedness, of his laugh. ", too," he said. He slapped his shoulders. He couldn't bear the weight of his armor on his arm, but he had a breastplate and backplate. She put the armguards on his hands, and then, with Xuanxian Luo's help, they put his head protector on his head.
He considered saying sothing flirtatious – Best looking attendant I've ever had. But at the thought of attendant, he choked. He rembered how they were killed by foreign nobels.
While Xuanxian Luo pulled and fixed down his back armor, she did sothing – sothing that started as a word, rose in pale yellow fire, and ended like the pop of a soap bubble.
"Heavens," she said, and crossed herself. "They are here. Right here. In the fortress. Follow !" she called and ran for the door.
Xuanxian Luo followed her, leaving Guan to find his sword resting in a corner, pick up Xuanxian Luo's shield, and follow.
✶ ✶ ✶
Whatever his other failings, Wuyi's borrowed young horse had a great heart, and he loved to fight. The horse swung back and forth – pivoted on his forefeet and kicked with his iron-shod back hooves, half-reared and pivoted on his back feet, punching with his front, keeping Wuyi in the center of a carefully cleared circle devoid of standing foes.
Swamplings who tried to get under the horse to hamstring him or worse were trampled to sticky ruin or simply kicked clear.
Wuyi had long since lost track of how many of the creatures he'd killed. His arm was tired – but then, he'd started the action almost too tired to lift his weapon. But, as they had practiced, the companions were drawing together – horse to horse, man to man.
Wuyi swung from the shoulder, nipped both arms off an enemy on the foreswing like a farr pruning vines, leaned well forward using his stirrups for balance, and cut back into another creature's head, clearing his front. Sowhere in the combat, Wuyi had nad his horse Baihu – backed a few paces.
The horse was not a spirit beast, but Wuyi could feel it had a special bloodline and could be transford into one.
And tucked in behind Baijian, who was like a millwheel of destruction.
He let Baijian do it. Thumbed his mask, raised it, and drank in great gouts of fresh air. Baihu wanted to be back at it.
Wuyi stood in his stirrups and looked over the battle line. His people had ford up well, and although there were gaps, there were not many. His people were going to get buried. He had summoned the red Daoist who was cleaning the demonics, but there were way too many of them.
He had no sense of ti—no one did in a hand-to-hand fight. But at his back, the purple and yellow robes had flowed all the way down the trench to Master Zhenying's rchant warriors, and a sturdy line of scarlet was filling in behind them. And beyond them, just crossing the bridge, was solid green. Archers of the Royal Hunt.
"Zhen!" he roared.
His Attendant was two horse lengths away, fighting for his life. "Yushen Feng!" he roared.
The Horn Blower didn't even look around.
"Damn," Wuyi said. It was a ga of seconds and hard-fought inches, and he was losing ti. They needed to ride clear. He gave Baihu his head and sent the war horse crashing into one of Zhen's adversaries. A ton of war horse versus a hundred pounds of duskreavers was no contest at all.
His sword took another, and then Zhen almost went down as his horse fell—killed by one of the dozen creatures under its hooves. That quickly, Zhen would have died, but soon another warrior ca up to support. Zhen jumped on the horse, and the two started fighting together.
Wuyi turned, cut at the duskreaver under Baihu's feet, and watched a spear catch Yushen Feng under the jaw, killing him instantly. Down he went, with his horn, and with it, their chance to cut their way free. Wuyi cut down, his sword beheading a Swampling even as the hideous thing bit into another warrior's throat who had just fallen. He roared and looked for help, but there was none.
✶ ✶ ✶
Guarded by five royal warriors, the Princess's group started up the long and twisting road to the great gate of the fortress.
While princess's group moved up the king had ordered his warriors to form a compact group behind him.
"Once more, my lord," the lead royal warrior said, "I'd like to remind the king that if our leader were alive, he would never allow this."
At the word "allow," all sense left the king's head. "I'm the king," he said. "Follow !"
Most of the warriors and their retainers had ford in a thick knot, almost dead center in the field. The king aid his horse's head at the group.
"Follow !"
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