Chapter 199: Guizhen Stone Forest

Commandant Sun asked, “When do we move out?”

“What’s the rush? He’s sitting on a large army and convinced we’ll make a play for Wei City, so he’ll lie in wait for the rabbit to hit the stump. He’ll be sitting tight and waiting for us to walk right into his hands.” The man rested his palm on the crenellations. “Let him wait a while. This is just the season for sleeping rough in the open.”

The generals chuckled. In late autumn on the Panlong Wasteland, nighttime temperatures plunge to -3 to -4°C. Stand watch on the flats all night, and the wind and sand will peel half your face off. If their opponents had come straight from Baling proper, tonight they would get a real taste of how pitiless the wasteland could be.

Only after roughly four hours did the Gale Army, rested and ready, receive the order to march.

“Commandant Sun, Commandant Liu, take five thousand men to Wei City. Fly my banner. Be as loud and conspicuous as possible.” The commander finally gave the order. “If you hit stiff resistance, don’t cling to the fight. At that time, fall back to Puxi Gully and hold. He appears to be a firm believer in speed being most important in war, wagering over ten thousand men on catching us off guard. With a gamble that bold, if he stumbles, he’ll have no reinforcements and no supply. That’s his fatal point. Jab it as hard as you can. Oh, and if any of you have a spare moment, shoot down those giant eagles. Blind their eyes, and our follow-up gets easier.”

Both men’s eyes lit up. “Yes, sir!”

“Colonel Xiao, take the Baling uniforms you prepared. We will continue to proceed according to the original plan. We will steal Wei City.”

A quarter-hour later, Puxi Gully’s gates swung wide, and the Gale Army thundered out, scarlet armor blazing.

Several great banners snapped in the wind, each bearing a single, vivid character in scarlet: 红 (Hong)!

* * *

The air turned damp the moment they entered the Guizhen Stone Forest.

Autumn on the Panlong Wasteland was bone-dry. A single spark could scour a swath of land bald. However, the Guizhen Stone Forest was filled with holes and hollows, high cliffs and low gullies. The cliffs blocked the harsh sun, and the gullies hoarded rain. Though the river changed its course long ago, the forest stays far wetter than the rest of the wasteland.

By fall, much of the greenery still gleams with oil-slick luster.

On the shaded backs of certain rock walls, pools and rivulets have even gathered. Tiny shrimp and fish hid in the cracks between stones.

The vegetation breathes out a soft, humid vapor. No sooner had He Lingchuan stepped in than he saw wheel ruts pressed into the wet mud.

This won’t do.

“Is the road ahead all this boggy?” In the valley where they had entered, the air was heavy with moisture, perfect for Baling trackers to follow prints without breaking a sweat.

To avoid a pitched fight and buy time, General Nanke had decisively ordered the army to head into the Guizhen Stone Forest. He knew the place well. The paths here crisscrossed like a net, broad in some stretches and pinched to bottlenecks in others, the whole maze untouched by human hands. Forcing the entire convoy down a single track was out of the question.

So he split the convoy into four, numbers uneven, each detachment escorting a share of the merchants and wagons.

Each of the four chose a different route to mislead the enemy and minimize losses.

Fortunately, the Guizhen Stone Forest lay on every caravan’s beaten path, so each detachment could be assigned a guide who knew the ground.

On He Lingchuan’s route, Squad Leader Liu Tong’s luck was rotten beyond belief. Sixteen squads had to draw lots for two rear-guard assignments. Every draw ended in cheers, except Liu Tong’s. One glance at his stick and his face turned the color of old ash.

There was no need even to ask what they got. Their nine-person squad would be staying behind to cover the retreat.

Doorboard glared at him, cursing loud enough to raise dust. “Did you squat, skip washing your hands, and then march straight over to draw lots?”

Liu Tong had no comeback. He hurried forward to haggle and, at last, wrangled a guide for them.

The guide looked like he was headed to a funeral—sour-faced and tight-lipped, clearly unwilling. Who knew how he had rubbed people wrong in the convoy to get thrown in with the rear guard? What was the difference between that and being sent to die?

He Lingchuan patted him on the shoulder. “Show us the way properly, and you’ll live.”

The guide sighed. “Please, all of you. I’ve an eighty-year-old mother and a two-year-old at home.”

“So your whole household’s only got four or five mouths,” Doorboard said, jerking a thumb at Skinny. “He has over ten, all counting on him alone.”

“Enough. Cut the chatter,” Liu Tong said, face set. “This spot will do. Let’s lay some traps.”

With just ten of them trying to stall the Baling army, every crafty trick had to be brought to bear.

They had gone a little over thirty-three meters when the path opened into a bamboo grove. Bamboo was a rarity on the Panlong Wasteland. Though the air here was swollen with moisture, these stalks were nothing like the thick southern kind. The ones here were thin and long instead, like whips.

Willow had been a hunter before she took the bow; snare-setting and trapwork were her bread and butter. In several of He Lingchuan’s dream hunts, he had gone out monster hunting and learned a fair bit from her, so he pitched in now.

Working in concert, they knocked together five or six traps in short order. The simplest set involved shaving a bamboo stalk to a spiked tip, bending it back under tension, and stringing a tripline close to the ground. The moment an enemy brushed the line, the bamboo would snap forward and lash him across the face.

With a spike on the end, it promised to be exquisitely painful.

Once the traps were in place, they crept back another thirty-odd meters and hid themselves behind solid rock.

When the first wave blundered into the snares, they would watch how the Baling moved and plan the next scare.

The traps they were laying were not meant to kill many, but they would rattle the foe and slow their advance.

As for ghost walls or barrier spells, while such tricks would work on commoners or civilians, they did next to nothing in the face of soldiers bolstered by origin energy.

So long as the other party’s origin energy was not feeble, one look could pierce the ruse.

They held their breath and waited.

A good hunter needs a deep well of patience. Just last night, when they ran down the bear monster, they had lain on their bellies by a pond for six whole hours.

Now they stared into the bamboo, waiting a little over half an hour.

Skinny could not help muttering, “What’s taking them so long?”

“Isn’t it better if they don’t come?” Liu Tong hissed him down. “Hush!”

Soon, another hour passed.

Dusk thickened and the wind rose, setting the bamboo to whispering; leaves drifted down in sheets.

However, the place was otherwise empty.

He Lingchuan watched a fat toad toddle down the path as if no one else existed, spring neatly over the tripline, and vanish.

They could not even catch a toad.

“Another half hour and it’ll be a full two hours,” Skinny grumbled, slapping a mosquito off his cheek. “It’s a good eight kilometers of open ground. How have those troops from Baling not reached us?”

“No more waiting. We’re moving up,” Liu Tong decided. “While the wheel ruts are still visible.”

What they did not know was that the Baling army had already reached the Guizhen Stone Forest.

The large army pressed to the edge of the stone forest, yet they did not enter.

Torches had been lit along the rear to illuminate the road, but the order swiftly rippled down. “Douse every torch! I don’t want to see a single flame!”

The leading general, a scar slashing his face, was none other than Hua Mucuo, the general from Baling who had seized Wei City. He stared a long while at the stone forest’s distinctive outer stone walls before asking his aides, “You’re certain Nanke’s troops have all gone in?”

“Our eagles up above had a clear view. Nanke himself did go in, and his army split into several prongs. But the mist and shadows among the stone pillars were too dense, and our eagles couldn’t see any farther.”

“It’s good enough that he went in,” Hua Mucuo said, a strange smile tugging at his lips. “Have four thousand from the rear wing swing around to the north and hold the northern exit of Guizhen Stone Forest. Remember, no fires, not even so much as a spark. And no one is to set a single foot into the stone forest! Any Panlong soldier who comes out, kill them.”

His officers saluted and hurried off.

Gazing at Guizhen Stone Forest in the dusk, Hua Mucuo murmured, “Nanke, oh Nanke... I hope you walk out of there alive. That way, I can gouge out your eyes and flay your skin to comfort my younger brother’s spirit in heaven!”

* * *

He Lingchuan and the others continued to follow the main group while erasing the wheel marks the convoy had left behind.

But the rear remained deathly quiet. No one closed in on them.

The sun had already set, and the Guizhen Stone Forest lay in utter darkness. The troops of Baling had no reason to hold back. By rights, they should have been unconcerned with stealth and raised their torches in pursuit.

Yet behind them, there was only pitch black, with only the wind wailing.

Had no one given chase?

Or had they simply been lucky on this stretch, with no pursuers sent their way?

“Good thing I prayed to Lady Mitian before we set out,” Doorboard muttered. “Looks like it worked.”

Willow shot him a look. “You never used to do that.”

Doorboard gave a sheepish chuckle. “Well... sometimes I’m busy...”

A sharp “Shh” cut them off.

It came not from Liu Tong, but from He Lingchuan. He spoke in a low, urgent voice, “Movement up ahead.”

Another gust of wind carried it to them, and Willow, Skinny, and the rest heard it too. It was human voices.

It was distant, but it sounded like... screams?

The squad exchanged glances and began to creep forward.

Moving silently in the forest hinged on one word: slow. All the more so when each of them had a horse that they could not allow to snort or stamp in tow. After creeping a little over thirty meters, a flicker of fire showed ahead. The whinny of horses and shouts of men could be heard. The squad also began to notice fine white strands gleaming on the leaves around them.

This is... webbing?

Their guide grabbed Liu Tong’s arm and shook his head hard, signaling that they must not go any farther.

The squad ignored him.

They were the rearguard. At the very least, they had to find out what was happening.

Keeping to the downwind side, they parted the dense foliage and saw that directly ahead, a slanted slope climbed toward a rock wall. On the slope were sixteen or seventeen men and seven or eight horses.

The men were brandishing torches, and their blades were stabbing only at the ground.

They looked to be surrounded by a black, shifting tide—hissing, rustling, and fuzzy.

In the torchlight, He Lingchuan finally saw what hemmed them in, and his scalp crawled.

Spiders!

Before them was a swarm of spiders, packed as tightly as a surging tide. Each one was larger than a cat, and they were surging over the slope in a frenzy. The thousands of skittering legs scraped the stone with a sound like waves breaking on a shore.

Every moment, a dozen spiders were hacked apart, but more immediately clambered over the corpses of their fallen brethren to lunge in and bite. Some were “artillery,” pausing to prime themselves before lifting their abdomens and blasting thick ropes of web toward the humans.

The stuff was viciously sticky. Even with the aid of origin energy, their blades could not cut through it quickly. Several of the patrolmen were already festooned with sheets of web, with no time to clear themselves; the more they struggled, the more they were trussed up.

Others among the spiders were huge, nearly as big as jackals. After spitting, they would seize the silk and haul, trying to drag the men down the slope.

They showed no fear of torches, and they did not care a whit about the soldiers’ origin energy. They just came on, one after another.