Chapter 49: The Steed Like Fei Kuai of Lu, Part Two

The hooked-lance cavalry had already split into two groups, sweeping in from the flanks like an open cloth bag.

The riders on the left flank drew their bows in unison, their arrows cutting cold streaks of light through the snow. Ahead of them, Song soldiers crashed to the ground; riders were thrown into the snow, and before they could even scramble up, they were trampled into a bloody paste by the hooked-lance cavalry charging from the right.

The Song troops roared as they counterattacked, but the enemy was too fast. The moment their arrows left the bowstrings, the foe was already upon them, sabers whistling through the air as they slashed downward.

"Follow me through! Their weakness is right in the center!" the veteran cavalryman roared. He swept his looped spear horizontally, the sheer force of the wind pushing back two hooked-lance riders attempting to encircle them. "Don't let them entangle us!"

Li Xiao followed closely behind, his iron spear held level like an arrow. He finally grasped the tactics of the hooked-lance cavalry: the front rank of riders thrust with long spears, while the rear rank continuously harassed them with volleys of arrows. The cavalry on the flanks darted in and out like vipers striking with their tongues, biting before retreating.

"Clang!" The iron spear collided with a long lance, sending a numbing vibration straight up Li Xiao's arm.

The hooked-lance rider grinned, revealing yellow-black teeth, and violently yanked his reins. His warhorse pivoted on the spot, and the long lance swept toward Li Xiao's flank. Li Xiao blocked horizontally with his spear, but the enemy spearhead slid along the shaft. Thanks to the thick iron-scale armor that absorbed a significant portion of the force, he managed to withstand the blow.

"Don't get bogged down in a melee! Charge forward!" Blood bubbled in the veteran's roar as he spoke. An arrow had grazed his left arm, slicing open his leather armor, and blood streamed down his limb.

Yet the hooked-lance cavalry had no intention of giving them a chance to break through. The riders on the left swung around en masse, sweeping behind the group like a dark tide, while those on the right slowed their pace to maintain pressure with a rain of arrows.

The pincer movement had barely formed when the center squadron of hooked-lance cavalry abruptly accelerated, creating a wall of sabers that suffocated those trapped within.

Panicking, a soldier whipped his horse, attempting to charge out, but within two paces, he was pinned to his saddle by an arrow. It was the hooked-lance cavalry's "throat-locking arrow," loosed by expert marksmen at vital targets, specifically designed to pierce defenses thrown into disorder.

"Follow me through the gap!" The veteran cleared the path ahead. The enemy failed to check their momentum in time, leaving a break in their formation. With a flick of his looped spear, he batted away the flashing blades ahead and plunged straight through the opening.

The others followed closely. Li Xiao whirled his iron spear into a circle at his side, knocking away two stealthy spearheads. Glancing back, he saw that the five riders who had failed to keep up were already surrounded by the hooked-lance cavalry. Amid the rising and falling of sabers, mists of blood burst like red plum blossoms across the snow.

The foremost Song soldier desperately raised his weapon, but three hooked-lance riders simultaneously caught him on their spear points, hoisting him high into the air like a paper kite before crashing him heavily to the ground.

"Don't look back!" the veteran roared furiously. A deep gash had been slashed into his warhorse's rump by a saber, and blood streamed down its hind leg, dragging a long red trail across the snow.

The horn of the hooked-lance cavalry sounded behind them. Before long, these light horsemen would pick up the scent like wolves smelling blood, regroup, and pursue them once more. The small band continually searched for gaps amidst the encirclements and pursuits, desperately snatching at a thread of survival as they fled in terror into the gathering gloom.

From the southeast, the sound of rapid hoofbeats rose once more. Jin cavalry surged like a torrential river, splitting into three columns to envelop them. Arrows whistled from three directions, and Song soldiers continually tumbled from their saddles, struck by missiles. The snowy trail was instantly stained dark red with corpses and warm blood.

The patrol cavalry deployed by the Jurchens had long since made arrangements at all key positions.

The driving snow was filled with the sound of pounding hooves, beating like dense drumrolls against everyone's hearts. They drove wherever they found a gap, those behind following blindly and desperately. The crisp sound of hooves shattering thin ice blended into one continuous din, impossible to distinguish as their own or the pursuers'.

The horn of the hooked-lance cavalry chased relentlessly from behind, growing sometimes distant and sometimes near, like a serpent flicking its tongue.

At times, a patch of torches would flare up on the left, and the group would scramble to turn right, barely escaping before the sound of sabers cleaving the air echoed from the right as well. They had no choice but to violently jerk their reins and plunge deeper into the blackness.

Li Xiao no longer knew what pattern his iron spear was tracing; he only knew to swing it mechanically, parrying the spearheads that lunged without warning from the shadows.

The number of companions by his side dwindled. Sometimes, as they ran, a space would open up beside him, and a glance backward would reveal only a patch of blood swallowed instantly by the darkness, leaving no time to even see who had fallen behind.

Not knowing how long they had fled for their lives, the sky grew pitch black, with even the stars veiled behind clouds.

The scraping of leather armor, the snorting of horses, and shouted commands surged from all directions, making it seem as though the entire world had been surrounded by enemies, leaving only this endless path of escape stretching out beneath their feet.

After running for an unknown length of time, even the pounding of the hooves grew numb.

The survivors knew only to follow the swaying black shadow ahead—the silhouette of the veteran. The smell of blood in the wind grew heavier, mingling with sweat to become the only distinct scent in this pitch-black night.

"We've escaped!"

The horns of the hooked-lance cavalry seemed a bit more distant now. Yet no one dared to stop; they simply ran for their lives, searching for that single thread of survival in a land shrouded by an iron net.

The warhorses could run no further. Pointing ahead toward a ruined village, the veteran shouted, "Into the village!" Most of the houses in the settlement had collapsed by half, leaving only crumbling walls.

Li Xiao and the others charged into the village, instantly scattering to take cover behind the houses. Even if the pursuers' arrow volley reached the village entrance, it would be blocked by broken walls, forcing them to circle the perimeter.

"Catch your breath!" The veteran leaned against a crumbling wall, his chest heaving violently. "They won't dare rush in rashly. The terrain here is complex and unsuited for mounted archery."

Li Xiao reined in his horse and looked around. "It's not yet time to rest easy."

Though they had temporarily shaken off their pursuers, they were like prey trapped in a hunter's enclosure. Enemies surrounded them on all sides, and a single misstep meant certain death.

The shaken survivors counted their numbers, and though they had expected the worst, their hearts still sank to the depths: only twenty-three riders remained, every single one of them wounded. Furthermore, their mounts had run so hard they were utterly spent. In other words, for the time being, they could only remain trapped here.

Ma Xiaowu squatted on the ground, burying his face in his hands as he grieved, "Cheng Sancai, Sun Potuan, Zhou Tie... they're gone!"

Cheng Sancai was the dark-faced fellow who rarely spoke, missing a piece of his ear. Tall and thin Zhou Tie had simply vanished somewhere along the run...

During the flight, mishaps had occurred incessantly.

Warhorses tripped over hidden traps, instantly flinging their riders into the air to crash heavily onto the icy ground, their fates unknown. Other mounts were struck in vital spots by Jurchen arrows, collapsing with mournful whinnies and casting their riders into the dirt, only to be hacked down by the following Jurchen troops. Still other horses lost their footing during the frantic gallop, sinking into snowdrifts from which they could never be pulled, leaving the riders to watch helplessly as the Jurchen soldiers closed in, utterly powerless.

The men had long since grown accustomed to such partings between life and death. On this cruel battlefield, living one more day was pure profit; death had become an everyday occurrence, hardly worth mentioning.

Suppressing his grief, the veteran surnamed Chen quickly organized the defense. "Don't panic, everyone. We must find a way to survive this night."

"Tend to the horses first, find a place for them to rest. We must be able to defend from the front and escape from the rear."

The men split up to search for fodder to feed the mounts and to inspect the surroundings for hiding spots.

"Let's not crowd into a single direction," the veteran continued. "I'm afraid of being wiped out entirely."

He pointed toward the eastern and western ends. "Liu Wang, take five men to guard the east. There are many houses over there, and wall cracks provide good hiding spots. Suo Fei, take five men to guard the west; there are plenty of ruin mounds there for setting up ambushes. The rest will hold the center with me. No bunching up!"

"Old Han Qian, take two men up to the northern rooftop!" He pointed toward a clay-tiled house whose roof had not yet collapsed. "Loosen the thatch! If the Jurchen dogs try to climb the wall, smash them down!"

"Wu Laizi, you're the sharpest," Old Soldier Chen stared at the thin monkey of a man with a crooked braid. "Take some men and slip around to the south of the village. Push those dead trees down to block the road! Remember, keep the noise down!"

He grabbed Li Xiao's arm, his thumb tapping against the iron-scale armor. "This hard shell of yours is good stuff. When it truly comes down to life or death, you take the front line. We'll flank them from the sides. The Jurchen dogs are deadly with bow and arrow, but once they're in this village, horses can't run, and archery loses its precision!"

Li Xiao had not expected such high hopes to be pinned on him. His gaze swept over the crumbling ruins.

Low walls, piles of firewood, half-collapsed earthen kangs—everywhere offered spots to hide, and everywhere concealed traps that could trip an unwary foot.

When they had first charged in, a rider had tripped over a doorsill and nearly broken his leg.

"Remember!"

Veteran Chen returned from a brief inspection. "Don't fight them head-on; run them in circles! The courtyard on the east side has three doors; if you circle to the end, you can squeeze out through the pigpen hole. The base of the firewood stack on the west side is hollow and can conceal two people."

"If we can hold out here through the night, we'll have a chance to live tomorrow."

The men dispersed to the edges of the village, eyes fixed intently on their surroundings while silently praying: *May those heaven-forsaken Jurchens not find us.*

Yet deep down, everyone knew that was practically impossible. There were hoofprints and blood on the ground; following the trail would inevitably lead them here—it was only a matter of time.

Snowflakes drifted down as the hour approached the early dawn, between the hours of seven and nine in the morning. The sky hovered betwixt light and dark, hazy and indistinct.

Ala Buha reined in his warhorse, his eyes narrowing to slits beneath his wolf-tail helmet.

He was a *Mouke* commander of the Xi people, leading over three hundred regular troops. They were former subordinates of Xiao Gan, the Great King of the Six Xi Tribes under the Liao dynasty. Xiao Gan, also known as Xi Huilibao, was the man who, alongside Yelü Dashi, had used a remnant force to repel a Song army several times their size, throwing Tong Guan, Liu Renqing, and others into bewildered panic.

Regrettably, when the Jin army pushed south and Yanjing fell, a rift formed between Xiao Gan and Yelü Dashi. Yelü Dashi led his forces to Jiashan (in the central Yin Mountains) to pledge allegiance to the Liao Emperor Yelü Yanxi. In the first month of the third year of Baoda (1123), Xiao Gan proclaimed himself the Holy Emperor of the Great Xi State in the ancestral lands of the Xi people, changing the era name to Tianfu First Year. To his surprise, his southward expedition to attack Guo Yaoshi failed. Xiao Gan was subsequently murdered by his subordinate Bai Denge, and his severed head was presented to the Song. Thus, the hastily established Xi state perished after a mere eight months, forcing the Xi people to submit to the Jin dynasty.

Following the founding of the Liao dynasty, the Xi people had been conquered by the Khitans and integrated into the Liao ruling apparatus—such as being incorporated into the "Xi King's Manor," with some nobles receiving official titles. However, the Xi people never entirely lost their ethnic identity; instead, under the Khitan framework of rule, they retained a degree of autonomy.

After the founding of the Jin dynasty, the Xi were further fragmented and divided, incorporated into the *Meng'an Mouke* system and intermingling with Jurchens and Han Chinese, leading to the gradual loss of their ethnic independence and the dissolution of their state-founding aspirations.

Yet Ala Buha harbored greater ambitions. Why should the Jurchens conquer the world simply because they, too, were a conquered people, while the Xi people were forced to submit beneath them?

By what logic?

In fact, the Xi lived even worse off now than they had during the Liao dynasty. Therefore, he was determined to seize military glory to climb higher, waiting for the shifting winds of the era. And right now was his moment to seize that glory.

A troop of Song cavalry had broken out of the encirclement, and he had tracked them by their clues. They appeared to have taken refuge in the village ahead. Inspecting the village, he noted its complex terrain, resembling a cornered beast crouching upon the earth.