Authors: Troy Denning
“You were skeptical,” Wu corrected. “At least until the imperial chamberlain’s assistant arrived.”
Hsuang ignored his daughter’s admonishment. “He offered to escort us to your new home. Before we could leave, however, another messenger arrived. This one was from Ju-Hai,” the noblemen said. Using the Minister of State’s given name was pretentious, but, when it came to politics, Wu’s father was given to affectation. “The minister wished to warn us that Kwan is jealous of your favor with the emperor.”
“When we arrived, the house was guarded by Kwan’s troops,” Wu said, slowly stroking Batu’s temples.
“I sent them away immediately,” Hsuang recounted, pointing an accusing finger at Batu. “Then you came sneaking in here like a murderer.”
“A murderer!” Batu snapped. “This is my house. Where did you expect me to sleep?”
“We did not expect you back so soon, my love,” Wu said. She moved her fingers to the sides of Batu’s neck and began rubbing it gently. “The messengers said you had been sequestered with the emperor all afternoon, and that you might be with him all night.”
Tzu Hsuang regarded Batu with an appraising eye, then asked, “Exactly what passed between you and the Divine One? The last battlefield report said you had lost your army and were retreating before the barbarians.”
“Before that, we had already given you up for dead,” Wu added. “Your letter from the sorghum field sounded as though the enemy had his sword to your throat.”
“I turned his blade,” Batu said, irritated. Tzu Hsuang’s observation concerning the loss of his army had pricked the general’s ego, as he was sure Hsuang had intended. Though the general and his father-in-law enjoyed cordial relations, Hsuang rarely missed an opportunity to abuse Batu’s pride. The aging nobleman would never quite forgive his son-in-law for stealing Wu away from the Hsuang family.
As Tzu Hsuang’s only legitimate child, Wu had rarely been refused anything during her early years. Her father had afforded her many privileges usually reserved for noblemen’s sons. Sitting at her father’s knee, Wu had learned to administer accounts and issue orders with a commanding presence. Fascinated by the military, she had also spent much of her time following the commanders of her father’s army. As a result, she had learned the basics of military doctrine, how to handle a variety of weapons, and had begun her study of kung fu.
Unfortunately for Hsuang, his early indulgence resulted in a defiant daughter, at least according to the standards of Shou nobility. By the time a young officer named Batu Min Ho had come to her attention, Wu had become an independent and headstrong young lady. She had also blossomed into a woman of incredible beauty. Despite their great difference in social standing, Batu had set his heart on earning Wu’s love.
As it turned out, winning her heart had been the easiest part of the conflict that followed. Batu’s rugged features, forthright manner, and determined courtship had appealed to Wu, so she had found many pretexts to enjoy his company. Eventually, she had fallen as deeply in love with the young officer as he had with her.
However, as a man of high standing, Hsuang had possessed no desire to wed his daughter to the son of a minor landowner, especially one only three generations removed from barbarian ancestors. The lord had forbidden his daughter from seeing Batu, then tried to arrange several marriages more appropriate to her station. Each time, Wu had chased away the suitor with her stubborn, disrespectful manners. The animosity between the nobleman and his daughter had eventually become more than Hsuang could bear. The lord had consented to the marriage, but only if Batu Min Ho could elevate himself to the rank of general.
Both Batu and Wu had soon realized that Hsuang was stalling, hoping Wu would outgrow what he considered an infatuation with a low-born soldier. However, the lord had underestimated the young officer’s determination and his daughter’s love. Batu had left Hsuang’s private army and taken a commission in the imperial military. Fifteen years later, he had become one of the empire’s youngest generals.
For her part, Wu had resisted her father’s repeated attempts to arrange alternative marriages. As a man of his word, Tzu Hsuang had been forced to allow the wedding when Batu returned wearing the armor of a Shou general.
The young general had expected relations with Hsuang to remain cold. To his surprise, the noble had treated him with a grudging respect after the marriage. The lord had made it clear that he would never be happy Wu had married outside of the aristocracy, but Hsuang had also expressed his admiration for the young man’s determination in winning her.
Wu stopped stroking Batu’s neck. He was surprised to find that the pain had lessened, though he still felt less than steady. “How long before I can return home with the children?” she asked, helping Batu to his feet.
Tzu Hsuang answered for his wobbly-kneed son-in-law, “Your home is now with the emperor’s court. Daughter.”
Despite the lord’s disgust with Batu’s present condition, Hsuang’s voice was proud.
“My home is in Chukei,” Wu answered, guiding her husband toward the couch. “Even my husband’s love of war cannot change that.”
In any other family, her retort would have been seen as surprisingly disrespectful. Hsuang, however, had long ago stopped trying to impose any sense of propriety upon his stubborn daughter.
Instead, he looked to Batu and asked, “Can’t you control your wife’s tongue?”
“No better than you can control your daughter’s,” Batu replied, his lips upturned in a faintly roguish smile.
Wu withdrew her support and dropped the general roughly onto the couch. “You’d both do well to remember that the children and I are not chattel.”
The sharpness of his wife’s tone surprised Batu, and he realized that she was deeply concerned over something she had not yet discussed. “The barbarians may cut Chukei off from the rest of Shou Lung,” he said, trying to find a comfortable position for his sore body. “You’ll be more secure with the emperor until the danger passes.”
Wu met Batu’s gaze with the hard eyes of a dragon. “Then end this war quickly, my husband. Our children will never be safe in the emperor’s court, and it is selfish to put them in so much danger.”
Tzu Hsuang frowned. “Don’t be absurd, Wu. I’ll leave my steward to look after your safety, but there is no need to worry. The barbarians will never reach the summer palace.”
“I am not concerned about barbarians,” she retorted, glancing toward the hall where the children slept.
When her father’s and husband’s faces remained blank, Wu said, “Don’t you see? We are hostages. If Batu fails, or even if he offends the wrong person one time too many, we will certainly die.”
The wind came from the west, and it was as arid and as dusty as the barren plains of Chukei. It blew steadily, leaving Batu’s face dry and gritty.
He stood in a meadow several miles from Tai Tung. No plaza in the city could hold all the armies the emperor had summoned, so Batu had assembled them here. More than one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers blanketed the hills surrounding the field. Coming from as far south as the cities of Seikung and Sental, the pengs were from five provinces and the private armies of twenty-five nobles.
Save for the unit colors on their armor trim, the men of the provincial forces were attired and equipped similarly. Most pengs wore leather chous on their heads and lun’kia corselets, with water-buffalo hide girdles to protect their lower abdomens. They carried crossbows and chiens for weapons.
The only variations occurred in the small units of heavy infantry and archers. The heavy infantrymen carried pao shous, twelve-foot-long glaives with double-pointed blades, and for close combat, short swords called pai p’is. For protection, they wore complete suits of lamellar armor made of hundreds of overlapping steel plates. The archers were equipped like those Batu had commanded in the Army of Chukei, with wooden shields, lun’kia armor, double-edged swords, longbows, and forty bamboo arrows each.
Each private army was armored and equipped according to the tastes and wealth of its lord. Some consisted primarily of archers, with small contingents of heavy infantry to protect their flanks. Other armies were organized for versatility and were almost entirely light infantrymen armed with crossbows and chiens. One army of five hundred men was even composed entirely of heavy cavalry. Each rider wore a fine suit of lamellar armor and carried a sword and a heavy, two-pronged lance called a ko.
Despite their differences in appearance and organization, all the armies exhibited the legendary Shou bearing. So great was their discipline that every soldier stood at strict attention. Batu did not hear a single peng talking. As he studied the vast assemblage of soldiers, the second-degree general thought that they did not resemble a gathering of men so much as the bare trunks of a crowded, but silent and stark, forest.
Below the hills, the meadow itself was nearly empty. Batu’s new purple pavilion sat in the middle of the dry field. One hundred feet away, the Rites Section of the Palace Bureau had built an earthen pyramid. It was from the top of the pyramid that the Divine One would ask the spirits to bless the army.
Batu’s sole companion, a beardless Shou with his right arm bound in a sling, said, “It is a magnificent army, sir.”
“Yes, Pe,” Batu replied. “It is the most magnificent army Shou Lung has ever seen.”
Batu was glad to have his adjutant back, even if the boy’s sword arm was all but useless. The day after his promotion to commander of the Northern Marches, the general had sent a chariot officer north to retrieve his wounded aide. Under the care of the emperor’s healers, the young adjutant had accomplished a remarkable recovery. Though the general knew Pe was far from fully recovered, the boy did not need to be asked twice to return to battle. There would be little time to train a new adjutant, and the general knew it.
“Perhaps we have a name for your troops now,” Pe said. “The Most Magnificent Army.”
Batu grinned at the boy’s enthusiasm, then cast an eye toward the heavens. The sky was vivid blue and the morning sun brilliant white.
“Don’t you think Huan-Ti would take offense at our presumption?” Batu asked, referring to the Shou god of war.
Pe’s face grew concerned. The youthful adjutant was an ardent worshiper of all the gods, especially the Divine General. The thought of angering a deity as important as Huan-Ti was enough to make Pe pause. “Of course,” he said, casting an apologetic eye skyward, “I meant to say the Most Magnificent Army of Shou Lung.”
Batu chuckled at the tactful clarification, but did not take his eyes off the clear sky. Like any good commander, he was always concerned with the welfare of those serving him. It had occurred to him earlier that the simple act of standing hour after hour might exhaust such a vast army. He had not yet begun briefing his subordinate commanders, and the emperor had not even arrived from the summer palace. It could easily be six hours before the armies were dismissed.
Using his loudest voice, Batu addressed the thirty armies surrounding the meadow. “Relax. Be seated!” he called. Though he knew his voice would not carry to the edges of the camp, he expected his order to be relayed by the officers.
Tens of thousands of pengs began to shift their weight, but a murmur ran round the valley as their superiors quickly recalled them to attention. Even after Batu had issued the command a second time, the entire force remained at attention.
His brow raised in disbelief and shock, Pe suggested, “Perhaps they didn’t hear the order clearly.”
Batu shook his head. “The wind’s not that loud. They heard it,” he said. “The order didn’t come from their commanders.”
“You’re the general of the Northern Marches,” Pe said scornfully. “You command these armies now.”
“Yes, I do,” Batu replied, studying the assemblage. “Unfortunately, it appears you and I are the only ones who know that.”
“Shall I have their generals send word to be seated?” Pe asked.
After running his hard eyes over the hills for several moments, Batu said, “No. Let them stand.” He turned and entered his campaign tent, where the lord or commanding officer of each of the thirty armies awaited him.
The smell of eel’s oil, used to protect metal armor and weapons from rust, permeated the pavilion. Batu’s skin prickled with a palpable sense of eagerness, and the room buzzed with conversations conducted in pretentious, subdued tones.
The nobles stood in scattered circles of four or five, grouped according to their shifting alliances. Ranging in age from less than thirty to over sixty, they all wore opulent suits of armor. Each lord was accompanied by an aide whose only function appeared to be holding his master’s plumed helmet.
The five generals commanding the provincial armies had gathered in one corner. Uniformly near the age of sixty, the commanders were withdrawn and obviously annoyed by the ostentation and excitement of the nobles. The five men wore the traditional uniforms of first-degree generals: vermilion corselets of k’ai, with gilded girdles. Unlike the nobles, they were not accompanied by aides. Beneath their arms, they held their own helmets, simple conical affairs topped by vermilion plumes. Batu recognized only one of the provincial generals, a stocky man named Kei Bot Li. He remembered Kei Bot as an overly ambitious but competent officer.
The scabbards of both generals and nobles were empty. Without exception, the men in the tent were hoping for a few words with the emperor after he blessed the army. Anyone carrying a weapon would not be allowed within a hundred feet of the Divine One, and they all knew it.
In the corner opposite the provincial generals stood Tzu Hsuang and a handful of lesser nobles with whom he had strong political alliances. Hsuang’s elaborate plate armor encased his body like an oversized, enamelled tortoise shell.
Aside from Tzu Hsuang and Kei Bot Li, the only other person Batu recognized was Minister Kwan. The minister sat behind the table at the head of the tent, openly asserting his position as commander of all Shou Lung’s armies. A dozen frowning nobles surrounded the ancient mandarin, intently listening to the old man pontificate. Kwan wore a suit of battle armor that would have weighed heavily on the brittle bones of any other old man. The suit was similar to that worn by the provincial generals, save that Kwan’s corselet and helmet plume were blue, reflecting his exalted rank.