- Return — Discipline on the Road
The White Dragon cavalry descended the official road without haste.
Along the narrow artery that threaded between the leaning mountain ranges, iron and leather moved in a slow, deliberate current. Hooves pressed into the dry earth with heavy resonance, and though their formation was loosened, their discipline was not. The tension of battle had not yet drained from the men or their mounts; they were soldiers who had only just stepped away from killing.
A little over a hundred riders, fully armed.
Shields, sabers, long spears, bows, complete armor, warhorses clad in leather barding.
They bore no resemblance to the slack provincial infantry commonly seen in the counties. These were men who had just returned from slaughter, still wrapped in steel and blood, not yet wholly descended from the battlefield.
Dust rose ahead.
Two mounted men and roughly thirty infantry came rushing forward, spears raised. Their equipment was mismatched, their armor ill-fitted, their horses winded. In their eyes was not discipline, but swagger.
The leading junior officer shouted without slowing.
“Who are you! Identify yourselves!”
He used familiar speech.
Li Hui’s eyes narrowed.
Without raising his voice, he pointed toward the banner. It hung worn and frayed, bleached by desert wind and thick with dust.
Grand General Jin Muguang, Commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army.
The characters were faded, the silk torn—hardly imposing in appearance.
“So you’re the ones who crushed Gateulip’s host?” the officer asked again, still in the same tone.
Li Hui’s horse stepped forward.
The movement was unhurried. He merely lowered his center of gravity slightly in the saddle. The next instant, the back of his hand brushed the first rider’s neck. It felt almost like a casual touch, yet the man’s head snapped backward and his body slid from the saddle without even managing a cry.
With an open palm, Li Hui pressed against the chest of the second rider. It seemed a push, yet the man’s breath vanished as though pierced through. He flipped backward off his horse and struck the ground hard.
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The junior officer opened his mouth to shout, but Li Hui’s ankle hooked beneath his jaw, twisting him down. The officer’s face smashed into the dirt of the road.
Li Hui dismounted slowly and pressed his boot against the back of the man’s head.
“Your speech. Your bearing. Your eyes. None of them are acceptable.”
His foot drove into the officer’s abdomen. Though armored, the impact forced the air from his lungs in a broken gasp. The man lifted from the ground and fell again, saliva and blood spraying from his mouth.
Behind them, spears were raised at once.
Li Hui lifted his head.
That single glance halted the spearpoints midair.
He walked forward among them, empty-handed.
He seized the wrist of the first infantryman and twisted. A short crack sounded—bone snapping—and the spear fell. His elbow struck upward into the man’s chin. Teeth scattered.
The second man’s thigh met Li Hui’s knee; the leg folded instantly beneath him.
A third lunged forward. Li Hui shifted half a step aside, seized the spear shaft, and wrenched it upward. The weapon twisted and drove into the throat of the soldier beside him. Blood sprayed in a thin arc.
The movements were economical.
Strike. Break. Turn. Press.
One exchange—one man down.
Those who fell did not rise again.
A few attempted to flee, but White Dragon cavalry silently blocked the road. They did not even lower their spears. They merely watched from horseback. That was enough.
Li Hui stood before the final five.
His breathing had grown slightly heavier, but his composure had not shifted.
A hand-blade struck one man’s temple; consciousness vanished.
A kick shattered another’s knee.
A fist crushed the third man’s solar plexus.
He seized the fourth by the collar and drove him face-first into the fifth.
Both collapsed.
Silence settled briefly over the road.
Thirty men lay scattered in the dust. None remained standing.
Li Hui shook his hands free of tension. Not a drop of blood clung to him.
These were the hands that had cut through thousands on the plains of Haran. This was scarcely exercise.
He dragged the junior officer upright and forced him to kneel.
“You said we were fellow officers.”
“I… I was mistaken…”
“You rob travelers on this road.”
The officer did not answer. Li Hui’s fist struck his jaw again. Another tooth broke loose.
For a fleeting moment, something colder passed through Li Hui’s gaze.
The frozen plains of Haran. The stiffened corpses. The fallen men of the White Dragon unit—half their number gone.
He spoke quietly.
“Do you know what those men who died at the front were?”
The officer trembled, unable to respond.
“While you plundered here in safety, my men were drinking blood.”
The words were not shouted. They fell sharp and cold, like a blade laid across the throat.
What followed was not rage, but correction.
They were ordered to wash and mend the banner, to prepare food for one hundred men, to draw water, to gather fodder for the horses.
The so-called soldiers ran until the skin of their feet split. Some crawled on all fours. Some struck their foreheads to the earth. They quickly learned that being sent on errands was preferable to standing idle beneath Li Hui’s gaze.
By dusk, the banner of the Northern Army was clean and repaired. Torn seams were stitched. Dust was gone.
It rose in the wind once more.
Like a tiger cutting through the sky.
The White Dragon cavalry ate, washed, and cleaned their weapons. The horses fed deeply.
When they mounted again, they carried no outward sign of what had transpired—yet the lesson had been carved into the road.
And the black soldiers of Shan’yin would never again look lightly upon a battle-worn banner.