Wang Ping's stubborn refusal drew a short scoff from Meng Huo.
"General Zhao Zilong serves under Lord Xuande. Last year he struck a force of tens of thousands with barely a thousand riders in a night raid and shattered them."
"Zhang Wenyuan serves the Cao bandits. Beneath Hefei's walls, eight thousand of his men broke an army of a hundred thousand."
Meng Huo looked at Wang Ping.
"Which one of them can you beat?"
Wang Ping fell silent at once.
---
Unlike the other two passes, the southern gate that connected toward Runan had seen battle first.
Gan Xingba, with a mere hundred riders, had torn the nerve from the Cao camp.
Zhao Zilong, with a thousand horse, had smashed through their formations, men and mounts soaked in blood.
After that great victory the year before, Cao's forces had withdrawn of their own accord, abandoning Yiyang and Pingchun.
Gan Ning had been elated at the time, thinking they could press straight into Runan. Yet just as Zhao Yun had predicted, once they advanced east from Pingyang, their momentum died.
Wen Ping held Beiyichun in the north.
Cao Zhen stationed troops at Xinxi to the east.
And across the broad plains around Anyang and Meng County roamed Zhang Liao and his Bingzhou cavalry, a force even harder to deal with than before.
---
Standing atop the walls of Yiyang, Xiang Chong faced the rising sun, turning a strange object over in his hands again and again, unable to put it down.
It was called a telescope.
He had heard that even among Lord Xuande's officers, only commanders entrusted with an entire front were issued one. The one he held had only been lent to him because General Gan Ning had taken a liking to him, and because his uncle Xiang Lang had long served Xuande diligently.
Remembering Gan Ning's instructions, Xiang Chong pointed the wider end outward, shut his left eye, and carefully pressed his right eye to the narrow lens.
As before, the distant world leapt forward.
What lay a thousand paces away now seemed almost within reach.
Through the lens, the two cavalry forces showed no obvious killing intent at all. They chased and wheeled across the wide plain, and to someone ignorant of war, it might have looked like a race.
But Gan Ning had told him before that cavalry combat often looked exactly like this.
Riders drove their mounts hard, searching for weaknesses in the enemy formation, while concealing their own. Then they waited for the briefest opening. When that instant came, victory and defeat would be decided in a blink.
Gan Ning had once said with some frustration that Zhao Yun had already fought Zhang Liao once before and even defeated him. Unfortunately, they had failed to capture him, and he had instead learned from them the use of double stirrups.
Every time the matter came up, Zhao Yun lamented it deeply.
Xiang Lang would always comfort him, saying that even without capturing Zhang Liao, driving him back into Yu Province and lifting the danger over Jing Province had already been a great achievement.
Xiang Chong thought his uncle was right.
But now he also understood Zhao Yun's regret.
He himself had tried double stirrups before. They steadied the body, strengthened the grip on weapons, and conserved strength. Each advantage was small, but for elite cavalry, a small difference could decide life or death.
If Zhao Yun's Youzhou riders and Zhang Liao's Bingzhou riders were now nearly equal, how would victory be decided?
Xiang Chong kept watching.
He watched until his eyes ached, yet the two forces never truly collided even once. He began to feel that today would likely end without result again.
He lowered the telescope, stretched, and suddenly frowned.
"Why hasn't the mist cleared yet today?"
It was already mid-October. Autumn had set in. A thin morning mist was normal enough, but once the sun rose it usually burned away quickly.
The sun had been up for quite some time now.
So why was the mist still lingering?
---
Cavalry duels drained not only the horses' endurance, but the riders' strength as well.
Leading his men through another wide arc, Zhang Liao's gaze swept Zhao Yun's formation, hungry to find a weakness.
The longer the stalemate dragged on, the more vividly he remembered the unit under his deputy that had been hacked apart by that massive blade. The more he remembered, the more fiercely he wanted to defeat Zhao Yun.
He turned his horse again.
Something about the air smelled wrong.
He lifted his gaze past Zhao Yun's cavalry and looked farther out.
Beyond them lay what should have been dispersing morning mist.
No.
That was not mist.
In that instant Zhang Liao remembered the stories that had spread among Cao's soldiers after Cao Ren's defeat, rumors that Guan Yu's iron cavalry rode through clouds and fog like spirits.
Almost instinctively, Zhang Liao hauled his horse around and raised his arm to signal retreat.
But before he could shout a single word, the cavalry that had been circling him for days suddenly threw themselves forward and crashed into his line.
There was no longer any choice.
They were already caught. If they tried to break away now, they would be hunted down and destroyed.
To live, they could only fight.
"Men of Bingzhou!"
A roar answered him.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
A great general's bellow rolled like a tiger's roar.
The wolf riders of Bingzhou howled, shaking the broken clouds.
Almost at the same moment, the opposing cavalry shouted back with equal fury.
"Where righteousness leads!"
"We follow through life and death!"
The scholar-general's command rang out like thunder, and the riders of Youzhou answered with their lives.
---
On Yiyang's wall, Xiang Chong held his breath.
The thin mist drifting in from behind stung his nose and smeared across the lens, giving the struggle below a blurred, dreamlike quality.
He saw the gentle-smiling General Zhao plunge into the enemy ranks first.
Behind him rode the unmistakable figure of General Gan, and after him wave upon wave of Youzhou cavalry.
Some of those men had once been stationed at Yiyang. They had taught him to ride. They had laughed and told him he had the makings of a soldier, asking whether he wanted to join General Zhao and become their comrade.
Now he watched those same men.
He watched them press their chests into enemy spearpoints, then drive their own lances into opposing bodies.
For a moment Xiang Chong felt a pang of regret. If he had ignored his uncle's hesitation back then and agreed at once, would it really have been a loss to die beside such comrades?
At the same time, a wild anxiety surged inside him.
Where was General Guan's cloud-riding iron cavalry?
Hurry. Save them.
---
Then it came.
Iron hooves struck the earth like drumsticks.
The plains of the Central Lands became the drum.
A heavy, rolling thunder rose.
If the elite cavalry of Youzhou and Bingzhou were blades when they struck infantry, then what were these riders before his eyes now?
Their armor seemed steeped in blood.
Their hooves trampled through cloud and vapor.
They came like the blazing sun's fire, like dawn breaking after a long night, like light tearing open the sky.
The defensive wall made of horseflesh and forested spearpoints was smashed apart.
A path was forced straight through it.
Victory was decided.
The battle was over.
Just as General Gan had once said, victory and defeat came in an instant. Only this instant had been filled with lives, and so it had felt unbearably long.
---
Zhang Liao lay on the ground, breathing heavily, staring blankly at the sky, unwilling to move another inch.
The sky above him slowly brightened. The strange mist must have finally dispersed. Around him, the battlefield quieted, leaving only the faint rasp of armor.
Then a red-faced figure blocked out the sky.
"Wenyuan," the man said, "how long do you intend to lie there?"
"Yunchang… please kill me, that I may—"
Before he could finish, Zhang Liao felt himself yanked upright with brute force.
He was forced to stand.
Forced to see the lifeless bodies of Bingzhou riders whose eyes had already gone dim, and farther off the silver-armored figure who seemed unharmed and was directing the clearing of the field.
As if reading his thoughts, Guan Yu gripped his hands tightly. His voice remained as slow as ever, yet just as steadying.
"Wenyuan, the struggle of the sons of Bingzhou ends here."
"The chaos of the realm draws to a close. My elder brother seeks to pacify the northern troubles and secure the borders. Why should you throw your life away here?"
Those words stirred something in Zhang Liao's heart.
Guan Yu continued.
"You have fought without sparing yourself. For the Han, you are no different from Wei Qing or Huo Qubing. Would it not be a pity for such a man to die?"
"But urging surrender might stain your honor."
"So let this be said. Now that you are defeated, this battle need not bind you. Simply agree to rest here in Yiyang for a few days as my guest. When the wider war is decided, whether in victory or defeat, none will hinder your coming or going."
"What you say?"
Zhang Liao's thoughts churned.
He glanced aside and saw the surviving Bingzhou riders, dismounted and disarmed, their eyes full of an unhidden longing to live.
At last he bowed deeply.
"Yunchang's kindness toward me is heavy indeed."
"How could I refuse?"
Guan Yu exhaled quietly in relief, privately thinking that the method he had learned from his elder brother really was quite effective.
Once that was settled, the tension across the battlefield eased.
Yet when Zhang Liao saw the rows of neatly laid bodies of his fallen men, his chest tightened again. Before the feeling could overwhelm him, a figure in silver armor stepped into his view.
"General Zhang," Zhao Yun said with a respectful clasp of hands.
"My earlier victory relied on the great blade. This victory relied on General Yunchang. Both were matters of fortune."
"The chaos of the realm will soon end. One day, you and I shall decide matters by merit instead."
Without waiting for Zhang Liao to answer, Zhao Yun went on.
"After this war, Lord Xuande will surely build a Shrine of Pacified Peace to honor the heroic souls of the Han, offering them blood sacrifice."
"The sons of Bingzhou will stand among them. General, do not grieve."
With that, Zhao Yun turned and left.
Behind him, Zhang Liao covered his face, trying to suppress the sound of his breath.
At last a single drop slid from his hand and fell into the pooled blood at his feet.