The moment had been electric when Mengnu shouted the name of their world. Her eyes had blazed emerald green, ivory jutting beneath her lip; the purple aura surrounding her had seemed supernatural, yet he'd not been afraid this time. In a way, he still loved her, and now it was said she would be Empress over all of them.
Lui-Pang watched her ride alone up the mountain trail until the glow that accompanied her disappeared in trees at the edge of the cliff. His courage rose. One girl, supernatural or not, was riding alone to lead a small force against an army of unknown strength, and he was left with a far greater force in defending the city.
Still, there were rumors that the enemy camp had been examined from space with the instruments on the mother ship, and that the number of invading soldiers was at least three times their own. There was also the matter of experience; none of them, young, old, even their officers, had ever known battle. What was the experience of those who would come at them from the valley to the north?
Lui-Pang pondered these things as he mounted up with the other young troopers at the rear of the long lines of cavalry reaching from the gate to far beyond the barracks where the dome intersected the mountain. Hours earlier, before Mengnu's arrival, the Moshuguang's elite guard had gone out on foot, leading their horses to dig in along the valley slopes and establish a cross-fire against approaching infantry. Each man carried an extra power pack, giving him a capability of six hundred bursts, but against a sizable force it would surely not be enough. It would serve mainly to deplete the capability of an enemy on foot or horseback to return laser fire when charged by Hansui cavalry.
He looked for Master Yung, but couldn't find him. He'd said that Mengnu was no longer his student. The student days were over. Today they would be soldiers, and veterans if they survived.
It was still dark, and two hours after Mengnu had left they all filed through the gate and out of the city, marching hundreds of meters into the fields to form their companies of three hundred in twelve blocks four wide and three deep across the valley. Somewhere in front of them, up on the slopes, the Moshuguang were dug in, lasers poised. Lui-Pang looked for a sign of them and saw nothing.
Their wait was not long. The first sign was a dull sound, like heavy breath, coming up the valley towards them. Lui-Pang's horse snorted, hooves stomping nervously. Far ahead an officer shouted, but he couldn't make out the words.
The second sign was more dramatic and nearly drove their horses into a panic. A flyer hummed behind them, lifting out of the dome and heading straight west towards the cliffs. Even at this distance, he could see it was full of men. A few troopers cheered them.
The sky was lit up by a single, blinding flash that came over their heads from the stars in the northwest, and the flyer was gone, leaving a ball of sputtering gas that settled slowly to the ground and seemed to explode there. But the sound was drowned out by the crack of a horrible thunder that shocked his ears and made his horse jump, screaming. Lui-Pang fought to control it; the closeness of their ranks was all that kept it from running.
Weapons in space. More rumors, now verified. Weapons that could destroy an army in a flash, and they were sitting there, in the open, a target much larger than the flyer.
Everyone was looking up, waiting for death to come from the sky, some still fighting to control their animals. Lui-Pang had never felt so vulnerable and watched the stars, waiting for one to suddenly brighten.
Calm returned slowly. If space weapons would be used against them, it should have happened by now, and hadn't. The flyer was the target, not men on the ground. Even his horse was settling down. Lui-Pang tried to do the same, and failed. The dull roar still came up the valley, the sound of many feet, many horses. Getting louder.
They were coming.
The sound was soon loud enough to distinguish hoofbeats from the armor-clanking steps of men, then there was a loud whine and seven flyers rose through the opening in the dome. This time, nobody cheered. Seven flyers, with laser cannon and crews of three, formed into a vee and came over their heads at low altitude, turbines screaming as they headed down the valley. Half a kilometer, then one. Lui-Pang held his breath, then cried out as the light came out of the sky from a point further east than before, seeming to come right towards him but striking only the flyers with terrible precision. Three flyers went down in fiery ruins to crash and explode, while the others were only balls of ionized gas popping and sputtering. A column of air clear out to the stars glowed eerily red and green. The thunder was as before, and again Lui-Pang fought for control of his terrified horse. With the shock and fright came a strange relief. The flyers were indeed the targets, not ground troops. The thing he had to fear was on the ground, not in space, and an hour later laser fire began coming from the valley slopes northeast of him. The Moshuguang had opened up. The enemy was within laser range.
There was shouting from the front ranks, and word was passed back. "No lasers! String your bows! Ready an arrow! They're a kilometer out, infantry coming on the run! No cavalry! First shot at two hundred meters!"
A burst went over his head, sizzling air, and there were screams from the front. An officer galloped back to stand several meters from him, and raised his sword.
"Two hundred meters! Ready! Fire at will!"
All the training, now applied, arrow nocked, bow elevated to the proper angle, the pull smooth, release, re-nock rapidly, smoothly. Laser fire was streaming from the hills and first rank in rapid bursts, was returned. Grass blazed.
His heart was pounding. Laser fire from the Moshuguang was swinging near their front ranks.
Screams, and howls, like demons coming at them, and now the first glow in the eastern sky. Lui-Pang fired again and again, until the officer screamed.
"Cease fire! Prepare for cavalry! Second and third ranks hold! First rank! At the gallop, charge!"
The ground trembled with the charge of the first rank, the oldest of the troopers. Lui-Pang couldn't see past the others, but heard the clash of blades, the howls, the screams.
"Second rank! At the gallop, charge!"
A last volley from the hills, and the laser fire ceased. The sky was paling now, and standing in his stirrups, moments later, Lui-Pang could see troopers returning, and beyond them, far out, a black mass of enemy horses moving over a slope towards the valley floor.
Riders raced south along the hillsides. Laser fire over, the Moshuguang elite now hurried to establish a final defense line for the city, less than a kilometer away.
The orb of Tengri-Khan rose above the mountain at that moment, and it was suddenly quiet again. Lui-Pang stood in his stirrups for a better look, and saw movement far out, a flow of enemy cavalry up a slope to higher ground in the valley, where it curved northwest.
There was cheering from the front rank. An officer rode back through their formation, waving his sword. "We've mutilated their infantry, and given their cavalry a taste of our steel! They pause to give themselves courage again, so stay alert!"
Lui-Pang had doubts. First cavalry action was traditionally a probe of the enemy's skill. The infantry had been clearly sacrificed to deplete all laser fire at long range, and the next action would certainly be a charge of massed cavalry. The enemy was only preparing for it, forming their ranks. Even at this distance, he could see a wedge-shaped phalanx developing on the high ground.
They waited and waited for something to happen, and suddenly there was a low rumble, like thunder, and everyone looked up, again expecting death to come out of the sky. Nothing happened. The rumble continued for minutes, but its source was distant, somewhere to the west. Another battle was raging there. Kati, he thought, be alive.
For the next hour he sat on his horse, getting hot and impatient, and the officers told them nothing. Tengri-Khan moved higher in the sky, and they were all wet with perspiration beneath their armor. The enemy cavalry had formed a single phalanx shaped like an arrowhead, yet the defending forces remained spread out, vulnerable to penetration. Lui-Pang fidgeted in his saddle, anxiously awaiting the call to change formation. Finally it came.
"Second rank left, third rank right, form phalanx and close up, move!" an officer shouted.
The movement was familiar and rehearsed. They formed three wedge-shaped phalanxes, overlapping to make a single mass when seen from the front, but leaving room for independent maneuvers by three distinct units. Within each phalanx, the flanks of the horses were touching, but Lui-Pang found himself at an edge near the point of his unit, with a clear view ahead.
For hundreds of meters, the field of barley stubble was littered with the bodies of small, bare-skinned men. Most were blackened by laser fire, others bristling with arrow shafts and stained red. Some had nearly reached the Hansui ranks before being killed, and their tusked mouths were still open in a silent scream. They had the faces of demons.
The enemy phalanx remained where it was, its point halfway down the slope leading to the distant edge of the barley field. And as the horses around him quieted down, Lui-Pang again heard that dull sound, like heavy breath, coming up from the valley behind the invaders.
Many feet, many horses; it was the sound he'd heard that morning, before the enemy first appeared.
More were coming.
Everyone heard it. Troopers were now looking nervously at each other, and suddenly the enemy phalanx was moving, a great arrow aimed at them, coming down the slope at a walk, and onto flat ground. They didn't stop there, kept on coming, a mass of bare-skinned infantry following the cavalry at a walk. Where did they come from? They said the infantry was cut up!
The enemy cavalry went to a trot, and the ground shivered. An officer appeared, riding back and forth to shout at the Hansui defenders. "Draw swords!"
Horses stomped hooves nervously, and snorted.
"The ancestors watch you! You fight for your families, your Emperor, and yourselves! Long live the Emperor!"
And our Empress Mengnu, thought Lui-Pang. He raised his sword, screamed hoarsely with his comrades, and saw the great mass of cavalry now charging towards them.
"Charge!" screamed the officer.
They leaped forward with a shout, packed tightly together. Behind them was only the Moshuguang elite left to defend the city. His pride and commitment surged with his courage, and he beat his knees hard against the flanks of his horse. So soon, so soon, and yet he'd waited half a day for this moment. They were closing fast, the enemy without armor, grinning tusked faces, muscled bodies swinging back and forth and dipping beneath the necks of their animals in a show of riding expertise. Mountain horses, smaller, and lighter than his. He aimed his horse at one man, and went straight at him as the forces came together with a sound that echoed from the hills.
The man went down beneath his horse, and Lui-Pang slashed the man next to him, opening his chest. In seconds his momentum was gone, and blades were coming at him from every direction. He twirled his horse, parrying, slashing, stabbing, felt a blade skitter off his armor. Another whipped by his face and opened a gushing wound on the neck of his horse. The animal reared, and screamed, Lui-Pang stabbing into the mouth of a grinning face. He moved forward, hacking left and right, and was suddenly in an open space. The valley ahead was empty, except for the litter of bodies, but another large force was coming down the slopes, led by a single rider. He felt despair, turned back to the tangle of men and horses, and charged into it.
Blades clattered over him, and then there was searing pain in his shoulder. He slashed left, and a grinning head toppled from a man with a bloody sword. Four came at him at once from the front. He gutted one, ducked another's thrust, but the third slashed his right leg, and the fourth thrust a sword into his horse's throat.
Lui-Pang went down, one leg pinned beneath his horse. Two men rushed by, slashed down at him, and he parried their blades, pulling his leg free and staggering to his feet. They turned their horses, and came at him again. He ducked under a blade, and slashed at the ankles of a horse, tumbling its rider. Before the man could recover, he pierced him through the heart.
There was a chorus of screams, and a rumble, an astonished look on the face of a rider prepared to strike at him. Lui-Pang took his advantage, and stuck him in the chest, then turned to look back at the city, from where the sound had come.
Armored troops of the Moshuguang elite were charging in hard, led by a trooper in golden armor. They crashed into the struggling ranks, pressing towards him, and the man in golden armor went down swinging his blade in a cluster of enemy infantry.
Lui-Pang stumbled towards him, pulling one man from his horse and opening his throat, then thrusting upwards into the belly of another. The one in gold armor was on his feet, fighting alone against one on horseback, and two soldiers on foot. Lui-Pang reached them and stabbed the mounted man in the back. He pulled him from the horse, and reached for the reins, and then there was a sharp pressure at the back of his neck. He stared in amazement at the sight of a long blade issuing forth from his throat, then withdrawing. He dropped to his knees, and saw the one in gold armor go down near him under the blades of five infantrymen.
He clutched at his throat, and his palms were filled with blood. All feeling was gone. He fell on his side, saw Moshuguang soldiers dispatch those who had killed their leader, and heard the horrible sound of a thousand more warriors coming to destroy them all.
Too few. too few, he thought.
And then he thought nothing at all.
They came down the slopes like a great wave from the sea, and those ahead could not turn to fight them, could only charge ahead to aid their comrades. The last of the Tumatsin arrows flew true, and many fell from their saddles, then swords flashed as her people screamed behind her.
Kati had seen the Moshuguang charge from the east, but their timing was bad. They'd already engaged, and lost their momentum. Still, the soldiers of Mandughai were being forced back by the charge and into the path of their own people, with Kati right behind them. They turned to see what was coming, and she was gratified by the astonished looks on their faces when they saw she wasn't one of their own.
She opened her mouth wide for the enemy to see, raising her sword high and screaming again the instant before her people crashed into them.
"SHANJIII!"
They were a tidal wave breaking on soft sand. The Tumatsin sucked the enemy beneath the hooves of their horses, crashing through the remaining ranks of those they'd chased and into the ones sent against the city. The momentum of their charge carried them to within fifty meters of the ranks of the Moshuguang, and they fought towards each other. Many of the enemy fought on foot, their riderless horses screaming and running away, but even more were still mounted.
Kati's fury was mindless, her scream shrill and continual as she fought. How many she killed she would never know; her targets were only a red blur to her. She fought with a sword in each hand, using her old sword in her left when her horse's momentum was gone, and she was twirling him to slash and thrust in all directions. There was no thought, no feeling, though she knew she'd been struck several times. There were only the movements of her blades, until suddenly the grinning, tusked faces were gone, and still she was twirling, twirling in search of a target.
"Mengnu! Mengnu!"
A Moshuguang trooper rode up to her. All the other horses were still, their riders looking at her. None of them were soldiers of Mandughai.
"It's over! It's all over, and you're wounded!"
She didn't know him. Her head swirled, and she couldn't think. She panted to catch her breath, and held her swords defensively as he warily approached her.
"Mengnu! They've thrown down their swords! We have many prisoners here! We've beaten them!"
Physical feeling returned, and it was terrible pain in her left shoulder, both legs, and forehead.
"That looks serious! You need medical attention!"
Something warm was running down her face, but the trooper was pointing to her right leg. She looked down, saw blood flowing from a slash there, and growled at it. It was deep, but she could flex the leg. She moved her hand near it, and let the light come to her, a narrowly focused beam flashing blue from her palm, moving along the cut.
She screamed a horrible scream, but kept her hand in place until the flesh there was cauterized.
Pain brought awareness. She looked around, saw only Tumatsin and Hansui faces, many of them bloodied. "Enough," she growled. The wounds in her other leg, left shoulder, and forehead were small and shallow, and she allowed them to bleed. Let them see her blood, as she saw theirs.
"The prisoners are behind me, two hundred or so still standing, and many wounded that need care. Do we spare them, Mengnu? What is your wish?"
"My wish is for an end to this. I want no more death here. How many have we lost?" Kati ground her teeth in pain, and added to it by biting her lip.
"Many. We have no count, but First Mother has lost many more, perhaps six to our one. The numbers She sent against us was not as great as it seemed at first. She kept moving their ranks up and down the slopes to make us think there were more of them."
"I take no comfort in her losses," said Kati. She held a bloody sword over her head, and shouted.
"It's over! And the city has not been touched by war! The people of Shanji have defended it! They have fought together in its defense. This war is ended!"
Hear this, Mandughai, and now honor our agreement!
Swords were raised all around her, and the people cheered, and although the sound of a united people thrilled her, there was a terrible sadness for the life that had been lost. And then the Moshuguang trooper leaned close to her to shout over the cheers.
"There's someone you must see! He's near death and wants to see you! Over here!"
Kati followed him into the crowd, towards where the prisoners stood sullenly, surrounded by mounted Tumatsin. Someone near death, who knew her personally? Who? Her heart pounded with apprehension.
They came to a circle of Moshuguang kneeling by a prostrate man with golden armor, and she knew who it was before she even saw his face. Her face was in his mind, and she was smiling at him.
It was Shan-lan.
She dropped to her knees beside him. His pants were saturated with blood from a wound just below his armor, near the groin, and his face was grey. "Oh, Shan-lan," she murmured, and caressed his forehead. His eyes flickered open, and he smiled.
"We could do nothing, Mengnu. He acted as Emperor, and led our charge," said a trooper. "He would not remain in the palace."
"I could not," said Shan-lan. "Mengnu, you're alive!"
"Yes," she said, moving her hands over him in despair. His aura flickered dimly, the last of his life flowing out of him, and even her own powers could not reverse it now. "I came to see my poet and friend."
"I was also Emperor—for a little while," he said weakly, "but it's not my favorite job. It's better that you do it, if what I hear is true."
"I didn't ask for it," she said, stroking his head.
Shan-lan nodded, and closed his eyes. "I know how things can be forced on us, Mengnu. I would rather we sit in the tower and watch the sunset together. I feel your hand. It's cool."
Kati leaned over, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I love you," she whispered.
"As a friend," he whispered. "I have—another poem—but —there's no time—"
He sighed, and the mental image of her that he held dearly went away with him.
Tears came to her eyes; she turned her head, and saw the face of a dead trooper lying on his side, close by, blood pooled beneath a gaping wound in his throat. Lui-Pang. His eyes were open, eyes that had once looked at her with great passion.
"Ohhh, noooo," she sobbed, and buried her face in her hands.
She knelt there, and cried, and a hand touched her shoulder. "You need rest. We'll take you back to the city when you're ready."
Kati nodded, and swallowed hard to stop the tears in the presence of fighting men. She stood up, saddened and exhausted and hurting all over, but then she saw movement from her left.
Her heart leaped when she saw who it was: Baber, waving to her and grinning from his horse where he was helping to stand guard over the prisoners. Very likely he would complain about the youngest guard members being forced to ride in the rear of the ranks and not getting in on the action before it was nearly over. She waved back to him, and felt her spirits lift a little.
For one moment she felt relief, then there was a new sound in the valley, a whine, high pitched, coming from the north. She looked towards the hills, and saw a monstrous ship, wedge-shaped, a ceramic underbelly burned by the heat of atmospheric entry, floating along the far edge of the valley and disappearing beyond the rims of the hills. As it disappeared, the rims of the hills were suddenly lined with riders as far as she could see. There were thousands of them, with sparkling armor and scattered pennants.
It was the main army of Mandughai. Untouched. Waiting to descend on them.
Men called out in dismay. Others hurried to mount up as Kati swung into the saddle. "Stay here!" she shouted. "Don't follow me!"
She rode away from them, past the bodies of her people and those bioengineered for war. When she was a kilometer away, she stopped, and looked up at the horde lining the hills. She held up her sword.
I will not fight you with this, but I will fight you! Hear me, Mandughai! My people have done what you wished. If you send more soldiers, they come against me, not my people. Not one more of my people will die, but when it's over, you'll have no army, and the ships that brought you here will be food for new stars!
The choice is yours, Mandughai. I'm here, waiting for your decision.
There was no answer. Pennants waved on the rims of the hills, and there was a high-pitched sound coming from there. It was the cries of Mandughai's horde, men bred for fighting, for dying, now awaiting a final command from their leaders.
You don't answer me, and I hear the battlecries of your soldiers. Your intention is now clear to me, but I will not wait for you to come to me. I will come to you.
Kati sat rigidly on her horse, whose neck was suddenly illuminated brightly in emerald green. A part of her was now elsewhere, physical pain forgotten, and her heartbeat slowed, all emotions drained from her. She cupped her hands, held them out to her sides and blue fog enveloped her, a thick fog that hissed and moved the hairs on the back of her neck. Laser, sword or arrow, none can come to me now, but I will come to you.
Her horse was shocked rigid with terror. She brought her arms forward in arcs, outlining the area her aura should cover, and the fog seemed to thin around her. Ahead of her a wall of shimmering blue and purple appeared as if drawn by the stroke of a great brush, a mammoth thing of roiling color in an arc across the valley and extending tens of meters up from the ground.
She pushed it, as she'd done by the sea, but more slowly this time, at the speed of a trotting horse. The explosions of bodies it passed over were only flashes of light, and even the smoke of destroyed barley stubble was consumed in the swirling colors.
I give you a few moments. I will not stop until I'm assured that our business here is finished, and your threat against us is gone.
Still there was no answer, only a dull roar resonating from the hills.
Riders still lined the rims of those hills.
Kati pushed harder, and sent her wall of death up the slopes to meet them there.