river, clinging to bundles of reeds. Aside from a steady stream of wounded stragglers, the other three-fifths of the Army of Chukei lay in the sorghum field. Blood had turned the yellow soil to the color of rust. With his army scattered, Batu had nothing to do except watch the battle. He and Pe remained near the bottom of the hill, thirty feet above the marsh.
The fight began to turn in favor of the Shou. The barbarian charge foundered as horses began to stumble in the mass of dead bodies. The Shou archers fired volley after volley into the churning horde. Small groups of Tuigan tried to mount assaults up the hill. Each time, they met a hail of shafts. The riders in the rear were unhorsed as their dead fellows came tumbling down the slope. The barbarians could not escape the fatal rain across the sorghum field, either, for the valley was engulfed in fire. Nor could they return the way they had come, for their fellows continued to press forward, unaware of the gully of death ahead.
Batu was as amazed at the effectiveness of the minister's plan as he was bitter about the sacrifice of his army. He had never expected the old man's trap to function so efficiently. Though Kwan had sacrificed one small army, it appeared that he would destroy the largest part of the barbarian force without exposing the Armies of Shengti and Ching Tung to a single assault. The battle was an incredible feat of tactics, and the general had to admire his superior's planning.
Batu's thoughts were interrupted by a deafening roar from the hilltop. Again, the ground began to quiver. Fifteen thousand Shou infantrymen rushed over the crest, screaming at the tops of their lungs. As they passed the catapults, they swept the astonished artillerymen along with them and started down the slope. Hundreds of men fell and were trampled by their fellows, but the mass did not slow. When the mob reached the archers, it smashed into the bowmen's line as if crashing a hedge. Batu had never seen such a mad charge.
A moment later, he saw the reason for the crazed rush. All at once, twenty thousand horsewarriors crested the hill. They raced past the catapults and started down the slope, firing as they rode. The horizon turned black with their arrows. Hundreds of Shou fell every moment, and the survivors rushed forward like a herd of panicked horses.
Instantly, Batu realized what had happened. The Tuigan had been playing games with them since the initial skirmishes. The early assaults had been little more than tests of strength and organization. The tentative attacks had been a diversion designed to keep the attention of the Shou commanders focused on the sorghum field.
While Batu and the others concentrated on the skirmishes in the sorghum field, the barbarians had been circling around the Shou armies, probably at a distance of many miles to keep from being observed. When the attack on the Army of Chukei had finally come, it had only been a diversion designed to lull the Shou into thinking their scheme was working. In the meantime, the Tuigan armies had been sneaking forward. After Kwan had finally committed the Armies of Ching Tung and Shengti, the horsewarriors had charged. By the time the minister had realized what was happening, it was too late. The horsewarriors were already in full gallop.
This whole incredible chain of events became clear to Batu as he watched the barbarian riders drive the panicked Shou down the hill. 'Magnificent planning,' he whispered to himself. 'Magnificent execution.'
'What did you say, General?' Pe inquired absently, not looking at Batu as he spoke. He was nervously watching the Shou refugees rush down the hill. The fastest runners were less than fifty yards up the slope from their position. Fifty yards beyond that, the first rank of horsewarriors was cutting down stragglers. The riders in the rear ranks were advancing more slowly, pouring a rain of arrows into the fleeing armies.
Batu took a step down the hill. 'It's time for us-'
A Tuigan arrow hissed past the general's head, lodging itself in Pe's left shoulder. The adjutant screamed and grasped at the shaft, then his knees buckled. Batu threw out his arms and caught the boy before he hit the ground.
'No, General,' Pe gasped, looking up the hill. 'There isn't time.'
'Be quiet!' Batu ordered. He broke off the shaft, then roughly heaved the youth over his shoulder. 'You don't have permission to die. I still have need of an adjutant!'
The steady patter of Tuigan arrows now sounding all around him, Batu rushed down the last ten yards of hill and entered the marsh. He dropped Pe onto a reed bundle at the edge of the river, then hazarded a glance over his shoulder.
The first of the panicked soldiers from Ching Tung and Shengti were almost at the bottom of the hill, less than fifteen yards away. The horsewarriors were only another dozen yards behind them, steadily hacking and slashing their way closer to the front of the fleeing mass.
If he wanted to meet the Tuigan another day, Batu realized, there was no time to fasten Pe to the makeshift raft. He grasped Pe's wrists and guided the boy's hands to the rope securing the reeds together. 'Hold on,' he ordered.
The general pushed Pe and the bundle into the river, then waded out behind the awkward raft. When his feet began to lose contact with the bottom, he locked his wrists into the rope and kicked with all his might. The swift current grabbed the raft and quickly pulled it farther away from shore.
Behind Batu, a chorus of guttural yells sounded. The general stopped kicking long enough to glance over his shoulder. The barbarians had caught the Shou refugees in the marsh that he and Pe had just escaped. Batu glimpsed one thousand flashing blades and heard one thousand agonized cries. A moment later, the current spun the raft around so that Batu could not see the burning sorghum field, and the river dragon carried him toward safety.
3
'State your business in the Hall of Supreme Harmony,' the chamberlain commanded.
The bureaucrat stood before a set of gilded doors that opened into the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The majestic hall stood in the emperor's summer palace, which was located in the city of Tai Tung, over thirteen hundred miles southeast of the Dragonwall. The palace had been converted into a temporary command center for the war against the barbarians.
Batu Min Ho bowed, scrutinizing the chamberlain with a single glance. The man had thin lips, narrow eyes, and a disdainful expression. He wore an orange maitung-a floor-length tunic with a high, buttoned collar. On his chest, blue and white embroidered sparrows soared across the silk sky, slowly descending around his body in a lazy spiral.
In contrast, Batu wore the same chia he had worn during the battle. It was now cracked and shriveled, with dozens of stitches popped at the seams. The general himself looked as worn and as haggard as his armor.
It was no wonder. The two weeks since the battle in the sorghum field had been the most trying of his life. After escaping the Tuigan massacre on their reed rafts, Batu, Pe, and less than two thousand Shou soldiers had regrouped fifty miles downstream. Batu had sent Pe and the rest of the wounded south with a small escort. The other survivors he had organized into the semblance of an army.
The general's next move had been to start an orderly retreat. As he moved south, Batu had fanned out his forces, conscripting all able-bodied males from every hamlet his men encountered. The other villagers he had forced to flee, and the makeshift army had burned everything it passed-villages, food stores, grain fields, and even wild grasslands. By seven days after the battle, the wall of smoke had stretched over a front of two hundred miles. Nothing but scorched earth had remained behind.
Batu's strategy had been simple. He had intended to slow the barbarian advance not through combat, but through hunger. Without an ample supply of food, such a large cavalry force would be forced to spend much of its energy foraging. As long as the Tuigan were scavenging, they would not be fighting.
The plan had worked well, and Batu had sent several messengers to Tai Tung reporting his successes. He had been able to slow the enemy's advance to a crawl. At the same time, he had avoided fighting the Tuigan, save for a few minor skirmishes with advance scouts.
So, when he had received an order recalling him to Tai Tung, the general had been surprised. He had also been disappointed. Contrary to what Batu had hoped, Kwan Chan Sen had escaped the slaughter at the sorghum field, probably with his wu jen's help. The recall to Tai Tung had come from the minister. It was in response to that
