Sun Ji’s White Horse Rangers, who had roamed invincibly beyond the Pass for over a decade, had dwindled to just over sixty riders by the time summer turned to autumn.
Blocking their path ahead were two hundred fully combat-ready Black Fox Scouts under Lin Fu’s command, along with another two hundred Black Fox Scouts lurking unseen in the distance, moving stealthily.
Pursuing them from behind were three hundred Raven Scouts and four hundred elite Long Pass Horse Scouts.
This was, in fact, the entirety of the Northern Barbarians’ border scouts.
Of course, if one included the second- and third-tier scouts of the Northern Barbarians, the total numbers could easily double.
Two weeks prior, the Northern Liang border army’s rangers had numbered over twenty-six hundred riders. After this battle, if Sun Ji’s unit were completely annihilated today, only the forces under the command of Li Hanlin and Wei Tumu would remain—barely a thousand riders.
Suddenly, as Lin Fu’s Black Fox Scouts unknowingly reached the edge of the Dragon’s Eye Plain, the sixty-odd White Horse Rangers turned their horses around. They no longer attempted to break through but instead turned their backs to Tiger Head City, to Liangzhou, to Northern Liang.
When the Northern Liang rangers collectively made this bewildering move, Yelü Chucai sensed something amiss but did not hesitate. He led the charge, believing that even if unforeseen events occurred beyond this battlefield, eliminating this remnant force would be the right move. His brother-in-law, Dong Zhuo, often said that the only true treasures in the world were those safely in one’s pocket. Anything else, no matter how close, was worthless if not obtained.
In close-quarters cavalry combat, both Liang and Barbarian riders drew their sabers and clashed head-on.
At that moment, two mournful horn calls sounded from different directions, solemn and stirring, as if mourning the fallen—comrades whose corpses had all been stripped of their heads.
Horns were not meant to sound on a scout battlefield.
Lin Fu and Yelü Chucai, the commanders of their respective scout units, turned their attention to the unexpected horn calls, looking in different directions.
Lin Fu looked to the distant right flank, where a blood-soaked cavalry unit charged toward them.
A burly Northern Liang rider raised high the severed head of a Northern Barbarian scout and roared, “Northern Liang Ranger Wei Musheng is here! Two hundred Black Fox Scouts are dead!”
Yelü Chucai’s gaze fell upon a solemn cavalry unit of about five hundred riders, breaking through the dust and sand as they galloped forward.
At their head, a young cavalry officer muttered, “Captain Sun, as promised, I, Li Hanlin, will slaughter every last Raven Scout for you.”
Beside him rode comrades who had once stormed the Southern Dynasty’s Junzi Fortress and destroyed countless Northern Barbarian signal towers along the way—Lu Dou the Double-Pupiled, Li Shiyue, and Fang Hutou.
At this moment, Lin Fu and Yelü Chucai understood perfectly. Even if they encountered other large-scale Northern Liang cavalry, even tens of thousands of lightly armored border troops, their Raven and Black Fox Scouts could retreat unscathed.
But against these two White Horse Ranger units, there was no escape, no retreat.
Yelü Chucai glanced at a peculiar unit of scouts mixed within his own forces. They carried no bows or sabers, wore no armor, and had not lifted a finger during the pursuit of Sun Ji’s rangers.
They were warriors from the Northern Barbarians’ Five Great Sects—specifically, the personal retinue sent by his brother-in-law Dong Zhuo, the son-in-law of the Tipping Mountain Sect.
These hidden martial arts masters were his confidence in daring to lead his troops close to Tiger Head City.
Yelü Chucai had initially preferred to keep these martial artists out of battlefield affairs, but now it seemed that without their involvement, his brother-in-law’s Raven Scouts would suffer devastating losses.
Without a word, Lin Fu led his two hundred Black Fox Scouts to engage Wei Musheng’s White Horse Rangers, while Yelü Chucai charged toward Li Hanlin’s five hundred border rangers.
The four hundred Long Pass Scouts were tasked with eliminating the remaining sixty riders of Sun Ji’s unit before reinforcing the outnumbered Black Fox Scouts.
If a main force from Liangzhou arrived and entered the battlefield, the three Northern Barbarian scout units would retreat at great cost.
But in this evenly matched skirmish, even after realizing they had walked into a counter-ambush by three White Horse Ranger units, Lin Fu and Yelü Chucai refused to retreat.
As Lin Fu led his Black Fox Scouts into a head-on collision with Wei Musheng’s rangers, he glanced back at Tiger Head City.
He waited to see who would have the last laugh.
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind—but who knew if there was yet a slingshot beyond?
Without a doubt, today’s battle would see one side’s border scouts wiped out entirely.
Lin Fu’s patron, Liu Gui, one of the four frontline commanders in the second Liang-Barbarian war, had stationed his troops far from Liangzhou’s battlefield, outside the Gourd Pass of Youzhou, to avoid repeating past mistakes. Thus, his forces were too distant to relieve the urgent crisis beyond Liangzhou’s borders.
Lin Fu had brought Yelü Chucai’s Raven Scouts into this grand hunt for two reasons: first, to encircle and annihilate Sun Ji’s rangers—a task impossible for just the Black Fox Scouts and Long Pass Scouts—and second, to deliberately cede the credit to Yelü Chucai, currying favor with Dong Zhuo, the former Southern Court King.
To persuade the ever-cautious Dong Zhuo to commit eight thousand of his personal cavalry to shadow the scouts from afar, Lin Fu had aimed to counter any rapid deployment of Liangzhou’s light cavalry into the Dragon’s Eye Plain—such as the garrison cavalry from the Willow Bud and Poria military towns flanking Tiger Head City.
Thus, in the earlier battle, Lin Fu had reluctantly handed Sun Ji’s head to Dong Zhuo, his Black Fox Scouts appearing to stand idly by. Dong Zhuo had once asked Lin Fu if he feared his efforts would come to nothing, with all the credit going to his brother-in-law.
Lin Fu had replied bluntly: since both Liang and the Barbarians sought to annihilate each other’s scouts and blind their enemy, he trusted his instincts. He believed the Northern Liang border army, with its thinner resources, would never stand by as hundreds of rangers died before their eyes. Once the main Northern Liang cavalry entered the fray, the resulting achievements would be monumental.
Yet Lin Fu regretted that only Dong Zhuo had joined him at the gambling table. When he approached the Jiedushi Murong Baoding and the leader of the Rouran Iron Cavalry, Hong Jingyan, hoping to persuade them to join this grand hunt—one that might trigger the Liang-Barbarian war prematurely—Murong Baoding had scoffed, while Hong Jingyan hesitated.
In the end, Hong Jingyan cited the Rouran Iron Cavalry’s temporary subordination to Murong Baoding, who had issued no orders for mobilization. Thus, they could not act independently and risk disrupting the Grand Chancellor’s southern campaign strategy.
As the Black Fox Scouts and White Horse Rangers closed in, Lin Fu suddenly spotted something absurd: beside Captain Wei Musheng rode what could barely be called a teenager, perched on a large horse like a small lump of coal.
The boy wore no standard Northern Liang ranger armor and carried a Liang saber on his back instead of at his waist—an utterly bizarre sight.
Lin Fu knew better than to think Northern Liang’s cavalry had become so desperate for recruits. During the first Liang-Barbarian war, rumors spoke of a young rider who had fought alongside the Northern Liang King Xu Fengnian, slaughtering hundreds with his bare fists in the Gourd Pass outside Youzhou.
Lin Fu suddenly understood why none of those Black Fox Scouts had survived to report—this boy must have intercepted them.
He dared not take this lightly and adjusted his charge to avoid the saber-carrying youth.
On Yelü Chucai’s side of the battlefield, fifty Tipping Mountain Sect warriors surged ahead, targeting Ranger Captain Li Hanlin.
Li Hanlin did not alter his course, riding straight forward.
Once part of the infamous “Four Scoundrels of Northern Liang” alongside the Young Master, Yan Chiji, and Kong Wuchi, the once-dissolute nobleman’s face, still handsome, had lost its sickly pallor, now tanned and sharply defined.
In three years, he had risen from a lowly border ranger to a captain, commanding the world’s most formidable eight hundred White Horse Rangers.
His comrades—his old squad leaders, platoon leaders, and lieutenants—had all died before his eyes in battle after battle.
Of the familiar faces from his early enlistment, only Lu Dou, Li Shiyue, and Fang Hutou remained.
He remembered when he first met Xu Fengnian after the latter’s return from the jianghu. Back then, Li Hanlin had yearned for the martial world, listening eagerly to tales of chivalry, beauties, and grandmasters. He had considered his lack of jianghu experience his greatest regret.
Later, he left the prosperous Lingzhou for the unfamiliar borderlands beyond Liangzhou, where his world became one of military garrisons, signal towers, endless yellow sand, scorching deserts, stubborn patches of green, and the stench of horse dung. His only companions were his saber, bow, and crossbow.
Li Hanlin exhaled heavily. “Lu Dou!”
The double-pupiled Lu Dou nodded expressionlessly and charged ahead of the formation.
At the same time, another rider broke away—a young swordswoman who stood out starkly among the White Horse Rangers.
Her bearing was spirited, her looks not stunning but striking nonetheless.
She carried an unusual number of swords.
Since becoming Captain Li Hanlin’s personal guard, she had drawn much attention. But once it was learned she was the King’s first disciple, the rangers ceased their teasing, and the nickname “Sword Girl” faded away, leaving a few young rangers disheartened.
The swordswoman, Wang Sheng, glanced back at Li Hanlin.
He smiled reassuringly, signaling that he had not forgotten her master’s warning.
After the Northern Barbarian matriarch vowed to exterminate the Northern Liang rangers—especially singling out Li Hanlin by name in court—Xu Fengnian had swiftly sent Wang Sheng to join the rangers as a temporary scout, with a message for Li Hanlin.
The message was neither heroic nor stirring.
“Don’t die easily.”
Its meaning was clear: Li Hanlin could die when the time came, but it must be a death worth dying.
Li Hanlin found nothing amiss with these words. On the contrary, the hardened ranger captain, accustomed to the brutalities of war, felt such words were fitting for their twenty years of brotherhood.
Sun Ji, today I, Li Hanlin, will retrieve your body.
If I die, Brother Nian, don’t trouble yourself to retrieve mine.
※※※
A slight move in one part can affect the whole.
Both Liang and the Barbarians used their scouts as bait.
Yuan Nanting led ten thousand White Feather Guards, while Qi Dangguo commanded six thousand Iron Pagodas. Following the Huaiyang Pass Protectorate’s strategy, they entered the Dragon’s Eye battlefield one after the other.
Eight thousand of Dong Zhuo’s elite private cavalry, along with six thousand Rouran Iron Cavalry under Hong Jingyan—who had inexplicably changed his mind—also advanced toward the battlefield.
This clash, long planned by both sides yet fraught with variables, erupted abruptly, catching everyone off guard.
Jiedushi Murong Baoding’s reinforcements were too far to assist, just as the Northern Liang cavalry from the Willow Bud and Poria garrisons could not arrive in time.
Above the battered Tiger Head City, a fresh Xu royal banner fluttered in the wind.
Amid the cracks in the city walls, summer grasses that had endured the spring swayed verdantly, untouched by autumn’s withering touch.
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