Chapter Text
Huaisang brought Wen Qing’s notes on her uncle’s war promptly the next morning. They were good, detailed, likely out of date. They could still be useful, especially some of her recollections regarding the interior of Nightless City, which was known to be a labyrinth for outsiders. The sketched maps Nie Mingjue ordered two copies of, just to be safe, and sent one to Lan Xichen in case their leadership structure was compromised.
She was also forthright regarding Wen Ruohan’s failing health. The Yin Iron took a toll on him, she wrote, and without her medical intervention he would become more unstable, more paranoid. He was barely able to use traditional cultivation now, his meridians were so desiccated. The only treatment that could stop the core decay at this stage was wholesale removal, a treatment he would never consider even though he had Wen Zhuliu.
Shame it wouldn’t kill him, Nie Mingjue thought, after consulting with the most seasoned doctor in the Unclean Realm about what this intelligence (he did not share the source) meant. The interpretation confirmed that this complication would just complicate their war.
“It will only impact his mind and classical cultivation. Even then he may still gain immortality if he uses the Yin Iron as the ancients once did, to siphon life from the living. A ghost immortal,” he clarified, as if Nie Mingjue needed extra help comprehending what you got when you put a soul sucking artifact and a power hungry man together.
Tucking the sheet of paper back into his sleeve, Nie Mingjue nodded. An unpredictable enemy wasn’t welcomed, though this development was not unforeseen. Wen Ruohan had once been brilliant, glittering, a cultivator his father had respected, and over the years all that shine had worn away revealing the shoddiness to his character. He had lost control in pieces, not all at once. “Thank you, Bao-daifu.”
“Nie-zonghu,” Bao-daifu said before he could turn. He was bobbing like a disturbed heron, jumping from foot to foot like a man half his age, “Nie-zongzhu, is it true that Wen Qing is here?”
News travelled fast in any camp, this one just had the misfortune of being lodged in very close quarters. The men would gossip; as long as they were saying what Huaisang whispered to them, that the Wen woman was a hostage, a noncombatant caught up in war and spared in case she might be useful later, their chitchat meant little. Nevertheless, it made Nie Mingjue uncomfortable to have her name spoken so easily inside his home. “She is our prisoner.”
“Ah,” Bao-daifu glanced at the ground. “It’s just, I was wondering if she could visit our infirmary and look over our preparations. Under guard, if necessary, though I’ve met her before and have faith in her honor. I think she might be able to make some suggestions regarding our herb stock and surgery.”
Nie Mingjue was not in the habit of questioning his doctors. They’d done their best with his condition, saved his life on numerous occasions, and knew much more than he did when it came to their profession. Now he was tempted. Did anyone in Qinghe have any sense, were they all prepared to put their lives in the hands of the enemy without a second thought?
“You want her treating the war wounded? Those injured fighting her people?”
Bao-daifu’s piggy nose wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sure she would act with honor, her reputation is first rate. She helped Jim Guangshan’s nephew last cultivation conference and he’s healed splendidly, no scarring at all. And I would like to ask her opinion on some of our storage methods, one of her earliest treatises was on the keeping and preparation of medicines but her recommendation for wet and dry storage has always puzzled me. She would be well supervised, zongzhu, I promise.”
There might be benefits to keeping her under watch— at least if she wasn’t in the infirmary he’d know that she was not slinking about more vulnerable corners of the keep. Nie Mingjue remembered her keen eyes, her quickness. The Unclean Realm kept few maidservants but she could easily blend in with the handful wandering the halls. Her face was sweet but not remarkable.
“You will watch her at all times, and keep a record of the times she comes in and leaves your presence,” he ordered. “And make sure all your staff know who she is.”
Bao-daifu clapped with joy and bowed, hurried. “I won’t be able to keep it a secret that we have the Miracle Worker from Dafan in our midst. Thank you, Nie-zongzhu!”
It was as if none of them have ever heard of prisoners before, he grumbled when he saw Bao-Daifu, head bowed in consultation with their turncoat. The medics clustered around her eagerly, the pharmacists handed her precious ginseng; when he toured the sick rooms the next day to check in on progress he saw her set a dislocated elbow without even cursory supervision.
He’d retract the privilege if she didn’t seem harmless enough. Military history taught him to keep her away from their food; the kitchen and quartermaster both had her description, but by a sickbed her potential damage was limited. Bao-daifu swore her medicines were marvels, her hastily appointed guards said she did nothing of note, moving peacefully from her prison room to the infirmary and back again. Even if he was unable to believe the attestations to her character, her talent and compliance were clear enough.
Lan Xichen wrote back. Hidden amid war reports, warnings that Wen Xu had paused to collect an extra battalion of men from the Yingchuan Wang before looping north for an approach at their rear, updates on the successful retaking of Cloud Recesses, came more testimony.
I remember Wen-guniang . Xichen’s steady, sparse manner of speaking shone through in text. Lan laconicity was reinforced by the lack of physical presence, without the warmth of Xichen’s expressions his words became more clinical, sharper. I would not mark her a traitor, she was willing enough to do Wen Ruohan’s work. I did not consider her an enemy either, except by circumstance. She loves her brother and respects her craft . This does not make her trustworthy but if you trust her I cannot fault you.
A neutral stance, reporting back the facts without picking sides. In truth Xichen would probably love to see Wen Qing turned to their cause, he had a soft heart and anyone with a younger brother pricked at it. He was simply too wise to speak such hopes aloud, for disappointment always struck him deep.
Even if he remained a buried optimist, Lan Xichen was also wise. Only twenty percent of his opinion of the Wen woman could be discounted as general good faith and Lan politeness. Nie Mingjue took the rest as truth, for he held few other opinions as highly as he did Lan Xichen’s.
They needed all hands on deck, they couldn’t waste soldiers brooding over a prisoner of unmartial leanings, whose lethal potential was almost entirely defanged by her position of helplessness here. He went to relieve Wen Qing’s keepers on their posts. Though he found them standing guard in the sick bay, he couldn’t locate the crimson strand that was the Wen, though her pomegranate red dresses usually kept her at high visibility. For a few more moments he searched for her bloody tell, only to be taken off guard by a little cough at his elbow.
“Nie-zongzhu,” she bowed less deeply than another might, but with a stiffness, hands forward, back perfectly straight. Swathed in starling brown, a soft knit tailored for someone with more height and slightly broader shoulders, it sent a different kind of lance through Nie Mingjue’s chest.
He hadn’t seen that set of robes since the beginning of the summer.
When he finished explaining the shift of supervision he fled, with only cursory reminders that if she was found where she shouldn’t be it would be her head first on the walls. Inevitably, his route took him to Huaisang, who had some explaining to do.
“You gave her clothes in our colors ?”
Huaisang flicked his brother’s loose hair out of his ink painting, back over his shoulder. “She was so obvious in red, it was starting to be a bit awkward!”
Nie Mingjue threw up his hands, if only so that he wouldn’t grasp at Baxia’s hilt for comfort. “That’s the point!”
In Wen red she was the enemy, marked out, a snake in their midst. Hidden in whatever hand me downs Huaisang found for her, helpless looking, nonthreatening… a slight polite woman up to her elbows in medical potions, people would let down their guard around her. They’d make mistakes that could not be afforded
“Forgive me for not wanting to incite panic on the eve of battle, da-ge,” Huaisang pouted, clearly itching to get back to his painting. Though Mingjue knew he’d been handling much of Qinghe’s logistics since his return from the indoctrination camp to a household in chaos, that this still life (mountains and river) was a brief break from the ledgers piled haphazardly on the corner of his desk, Huaisang’s eternal insouciance made it difficult not to resent him. Overwhelmed by the emotional effort of not snapping at his little brother, Nie Mingjue conceded the sartorial problem.
“Just— make her wear a signal talisman. A note that says PRISONER in very large strokes. Something.” He begged as he collapsed to a very soft cushion.
“She’s wearing the necklace from when I was a baby, the bell that starts ringing if you leave the inner keep? Speaking from experience it’s very hard to take off.” Huaisang did go through of phase of escape attempts after niang died. He always claimed he was looking for Mingjue, but then he’d end up two layers down in the basement, or halfway to town, or in a stranger’s cart screaming because he didn’t recognize anybody. Eventually it just became easier to let him tag along to every lesson and play date.
When Mingjue got old enough to accompany their father on nighthunts Huaisang’s fondness for playing fugivitive resurfaced, but by then he was old enough to be disciplined for his stubbornness.
“That’s something.” He grunted, a bit of the tension in his neck loosening, though he still felt like a brittle old branch about to break.
Huaisang gingerly reached over and patted his hand, “I promise, we’ll survive Wen-guniang, da-ge. She’s not that ill tempered.”
“It’s all the other Wen I’m worried about.” It felt too big to admit, the words barely fit out of his mouth.
“They’re not here yet,” Huaisang pointed out. It might be wise if it weren’t Huaisang, clearly trying to keep Nie Mingjue’s slowly disintegrating form away from his delicate mulberry paper. “Until then, get some sleep! And get out of my room!”
Wen Xu came with an army, as expected. Because he did not want his enemy to entirely define the fight, Nie Mingjue took a moderately sized force north to meet him in Hejian. In battle the Wen favored flashy military maneuvers, curved bows, and cavalry. Their horses, round bellied western steeds, were traditionally wreathed round the neck with talismans, a protective halo that made them deadlier on the battlefield. He once heard Wen Xu complain of the old bells and whistles; at his core he was a bully who wanted to threaten victims behind the kitchens like he did when he was young. He hated having to fight his prey. But Nie Mingjue was willing to bet he’d still taken every advantage given to him.
In turn the Nie also used all their resources. The land was not least among them. A tributary of the Hai river flowed from near Qinghe to Wen Xu’s last reported location (and among cultivators, with flying swords, reports were quite accurate and timely).
Boats were not Nie Mingjue’s first choice of weapon but a number of merchants who benefited from the Unclean Realm’s patronage volunteered their cargo vessels, fielding a small but competent navy, large enough to carry the less air-ready ⅔ of Nie Mingjue’s force, led by Nie Zonghui . They let the current take them downstream, pacing themselves until they could see the smoke of Wen Xu’s campfires at midevening. A few of the Nie warriors, disguised as soft spoken sailors, took note of the arrays patterned like liquid starlight across the dark sky, keeping out intruders. Then they slipped to the beach and lit their own fire, dusting the wood lightly with a powder from Tibet that made the flames burn green, creating a signal fire to draw Nie Mingjue and the sword fliers safely down.
Then all they had to do is get in, wreck havoc, and get out again safely. Easier said than done when your enemy had six times the troops you do, even if most of them are asleep. The protective arrays that they hoped to bring down, if they could, were located at the very center of Wen Xu’s camp. Within their bounds there was no flying, no hope of quick escape. They had to rely on surprise and the plethora of fires they lit on the way in.
As soon as the alarm started blaring and the signal flares lit up the night in red he sent the boat squadron back to the river. Even with the boats heavily enchanted, painted with carp, they’d be sailing against the current. Still trapped beneath the array, a heavy shield dome over their heads, Nie Mingjue’s aerial brigade had to venture further in before they could flee.
“Stay close!” he bellowed over the sound, the clash of swords and the outcry of waking men. “Don’t get separated!” He’d brought his best sky archers so they could make a clean escape but shooting pursuers was pointless if their own troops were broken up across the horizon, indistinguishable from enemies
They pressed forward like the tip of a spear, Baxia in front to gore whatever foes they come across. It was easy at first, the night guards were confused, the waking soldiers clutching blearily at half unsheathed weapons. Some of them were barely even cultivators, holding hastily forged spiritual swords like a schoolboy’s stick.
Wen Ruohan always accepted the broadest range of candidates for tutelage in his sect, catching some prodigies in his net but mostly scraping up useless fourth sons and desperate peasant boys. He gave his charges little actual training, then when there was a fight to be had (or a war to be won) they became cannon fodder for the more experienced members of the sect.
Nie Mingjue felt regret about killing them, the ones quaking in their undershirts, but he knew that they’d stick a sword in his back the moment they worked up their courage, and they’d be richly rewarded for it.
One of them stabbed Ma Chen in the shoulder. The wounded boy was shoved to the middle of their battle formation, a more protected spot. He had dense muscles and denser fat reserves, a potent natural armory that seemed to have deflected the wound away from anything vital, but he was still pale from shock and blood loss. A few more wounded and escape would become difficult; at Mingjue’s command they moved forward even faster, barreling through tents instead of going around them. Traveling like an arrow they quickly landed in the middle of the rousing army.
The portable array—contained in a series of great iron braziers with owl mouths and details in soft coral jade—was connected to the pinprick dotted sky and translucent barrier therein by almost invisible threads of light. It would not be easy to destroy, not the least because it was right in front of Wen Xu’s silk tent.
Across the field Wen Xu (hair down, beltless, but holding his sword steadily) and Nie Mingjue made eye contact. Then more soldiers attacked from the right, rough farmers covering up their fear by shouting. The battle whirled them apart.
Nie Mingjue handled the flanking cultivators while his fellows destroyed the array. They hacked at the priceless jade, and dented the iron with their hilts, tipped over the pots, stomped out the fires. They screamed when Wen Xu, with well trained quickness, cut blood loss dizzy Ma Chen open from navel to neck, then turned his sword on An Liang, who preferred the bow to the sword and met his blow at an awkward angle.
Damn him. What was the point of leaving your back intentionally open if it wasn’t going to distract your foe?
With one hand Nie Mingjue hurled Baxia at Wen Xu’s head, with the other he knocked back a Wen guard coming at him with a spear. Wen Xu dodged the blow and smirked; when Baxia flew back, returning to Nie Mingjue’s hand and nicking his shoulder on the way, the smile disappeared.
He opened his mouth for some witticism but Nie Mingjue had no time to trade banter. This was not a rivalry, it had not been a rivalry since Nie Mingjue’s father died. War was never a charming back and forth.
The array above them began flickering, the stars fizzing amid strange illusory smoke. When Nie Mingjue drove Baxia into the ground with both hands the damp riverside earth rippled, like a great blanket being shaken out. Soldiers stumbled and the anchor point of the array was upended, pots spilling cinders onto the cold night ground.
The sky securing spell finally gave out.
“Up!” Nie Mingjue bellowed, charging forward. The members of his team able to obey did so, mounting their swords, but Ma Chen was dead and An Liang was still locked sword to sword with Wen Xu. Nie Mingjue could at least save one of them.
A sharp pain sliced into his thigh on his first stride. Baxia lashed out before he could look, a backwards glance told him that one of the soldiers he downed was still alive enough to stick a sword in him from the ground.
Even the jagged agony couldn’t stop him, he stumbled one step then shifted his weight behind his good leg and lunged on. Wen Xu disengaged to meet Baxia’s downward arc with his saber. Holding his foe at arm’s length— he always had a penchant for offhand daggers and side stabbings—Nis Mingjue snarled wordlessly and hoped An Liang understood he meant Fly .
His hope went unanswered—An Liang ran in and jabbed at Wen Xu’s back, a bold effort at assistance that only earned him a knife in between the fourth and fifth ribs. The wound wheezed, never a good sign, as young An inhaled, shocked and pale. Then, likely because he just tried to breath through a hole in his side, the poor boy fainted.
Nie Mingjue took advantage of Wen Xu’s distracted glee, pressing closer then kicking him square in the chest. The angle meant he has to use his injured leg, which tore in a new way as he tensed and extended, but he didn’t need muscle to knock Wen Xu across the clearing, just a burst of well directed qi.
There was no time to spare. He scooped up An Liang, wan but still alive, and threw himself onto Baxia. The weight of the young soldier and the pain, now at the forefront of his mind, forced him to one knee on his sword’s thankfully broad blade. This stance also minimized his bulk, which became helpful when arrows started whizzing through the air a few minutes later. At first, they were few and tentative, then the attacks became a deluge, then, finally, Nie Mingjue was out of range.
As soon as his commanders noticed his state, Nie Mingjue was ordered back to his own fortress. Someone had to take An Liang or he’ll perish, they argued, and Mingjue had extensive experience flying fast at night.
So he took the quick way back while the others lingered, coaxing Wen Xu closer, keeping him on their trail, preventing him from harrying the vulnerable peasants all around. As long as he stayed furious he’d focus his energies on the Unclean Realm, as long as he was insulted he wouldn’t think to win this war by attrition.
In the courtyard Nie Mingjue found himself swarmed with the retainers, and of the mob the doctors were the loudest. The blood pooling at his foot and the bluish tinge to An Liang’s lips had them squawking like chickens. Bao-daifu took the young An and tried to corral Nie Mingjue into his custody as well, but Nie Mingjue instead asked that medicine be sent to the guard station atop the walls. He was going to begin the long watch, waiting for Wen Xu to arrive.
Medicine was sent, along with the Wen woman. She matched Nie Mingjue’s unimpressed expression, fold for fold, and passed him a slip of paper.
Nie-zongzhu: She is the best surgeon since Hua Tuo! Huaisang-gongzi has promised that if she poisons you he will personally bother her to death with poetry.
The styptic powder and surgeon’s case in her hands looked normal. She’d even brought him a jar of alcohol.
“Fine,” Nie Mingjue said, grudgingly, and stretched out his leg. The over hasty motion had him gritting his teeth, as did the gentle, ghosting touch he felt though his trousers.
“May I, zongzhu?” The sword sliced a short cut through his clothing, not nearly enough to allow access. Bao-daifu would just rip through the wool and start complaining about the dirt clotting in with his blood, but it seemed Mingjue had to give this woman permission for every indignity.
“Fine,” he repeated. There was a ripping sound and cool air along his outer thigh. Wen-guniang dashed the injury with alcohol, a perfunctory sterilization, he wasn’t some small child about to die of an infection, then handed him the remainders of the jug.
Though he usually avoided drinking outside of social events— excess did not always mix well with the sword spirits— Nie Mingjue was happy to sip. The ethanol vapors and the light, straightforward smell, wheat and nothing else, screwed his head on straight. This was the scent of home, it set him at ease in a way those burnt-sugar rice liquors at the Golden Scale Tower never could.
“You’ve sliced though the muscle, almost to the bone,” Wen Qing observed. “With a golden core like yours it will heal well but if you want to walk on it tomorrow you should get sutures.”
Nie Mingjue hadn’t needed stitches since the age of fifteen—they were the reserve of commoners, the sickly, and those too reckless to know when to stop. Unless they were whipped bloody or stabbed through the belly, a well developed cultivator could heal their own wounds, given time. There might not be space to meditate away a giant slash when fighting a long nailed ghost, but by the time you could get medical care you can usually afford to tap out of whatever nighthunt inflicted the wounds in the first place.
Peacetime allowed for recuperation. War did not.
He nodded another, tepid assent. “Do it, then.”
Immediately, the Wen began gathering supplies in her lap, producing a needle from nowhere and flicking miasma off with a puff of barely recognizable qi. “I’ll stitch the muscles and skin separately, that should improve your movement as it heals.”
Bizarrely, Nie Mingjue saw her pull a strand of hair—no, two— from her own scalp and begin threading the needle with it.
“You’re supposed to use silk,” he interjected, more confused than alarmed, though perhaps alarm would come later. Was this some late assassination attempt? Had she smuggled poison in, oiled it onto her comb to sew into his skin?
Wen Qing looked at him. In the pre-dawn misty grey, dressed in steely drab colors, her eyes looked exceedingly dark, like a part of the deepest night captured and kept even as the sun had begun to send finger over the horizon. “I find human hair works best for internal sutures,” she said, businesslike. “The energies of the body completely absorb it, whereas silk, a pure substance, remains intact and can become an irritant. Yours would be best, of course, however I would never presume…”
Unfilial as it was, Nie Mingjue would lop it off right there to get her to stop looking at him. He ran his fingers through his battle-disheveled do, yanked a few loose pieces at the roots, and handed them over. He was left with the uncomfortable feeling that this was what Wen-guniang intended in the first place.
Her demeanor remained professional as she packs his wound with the familiar herbal powder—which served as painkiller, astringent, and glue all at the same time. The smell of yarrow, hemp, astragalus, honey, as well as the slight menthol burn he’d come to associate with medicine; focusing on this was easier than paying attention to her hands on his leg.
Pinching the flesh together until the skin flipped outwards, she stitched the underlying red muscle fibers and tendons. It was no seamstresses work, the mass of knots she left would make Huaisang flutter his fan in sartorial embarrassment, however the interlacing, repetition of ties would ensure the wound doesn’t reopen. Mingjue could feel the expertise in her steady fingers. When he ventured a glance down, he found her already tying off the last knot of the first lacing, though it felt like she’d only just begun.
With the skin she took a more delicate hand, sparser stitches, fewer pokes with her needle. After tying five sutures she sat back and examined her handiwork, brushing the clotted black viscera and dusty medicine off her fingertips.
“You know how to circulate your qi to speed the healing process? Good. If you do that regularly this shouldn’t even scar.”
The powder and half dried blood were already doing their work, congealing together into a thick plate that would cover the injury like a dressing. Beneath that armour only the tips of the stitches could be seen, loops and spare ends of hair sticking out of the muck.
Nie Mingjue flexed—it felt fine, now that the pain was dulled. Some poisons were long acting… yet he suspected he’d live.
“Thank you,” he said, in quite the opposite direction. It was only the two of them out here, she’d get the point.
Waging righteous battle required being righteous—correct behavior must be cultivated in times of chaos more than times of order. They couldn’t rely on might to win them the day, they had to scrape together honor and hope the sheer brutality of their opponents won them enough public opinion to turn the tide. He didn’t need Lan Qiren to remind him that poor manners were poor strategy, even with the lowest of the enemy. This did not mean that he couldn’t be upright through gritted teeth.
Wen Qing did not respond, if any particular expression crossed her face he did not see it.
“Your physician should be up to check on you once he’s finished stabilizing the young man downstairs. If that’s all, zongzhu…”
“Rest; there will be more injured tomorrow.” If he’d decided that she was allowed to treat their wounded, even in an environment as high pitched as a battle—well, this was a war of manners, both of them were too polite to comment.
There was an etiquette to battle, at least when it’s staged straight on. No sneak attacks, no dead of the night ambushes, just two forces colliding. Perversely it was in this simplest of situations that matters become most complicated.
When both leaders were out in front, with their men behind them, there was an expectation of showsmanship . They were supposed to peacock for a bit before the blood began to flow. Strut, insult each other, make high threats they couldn’t follow through on. A battlefield might end with ten thousand dead but it started with two overdressed fools insulting each other’s sword fighting ability.
Nie Mingjue respected certain aspects of the tradition; the camaraderie earned when the men saw their leader put himself on the line, the usefulness of a good stump speech, even a threatening monologue could be well turned. And if a battle could be ended by champions without unnecessary loss of life, then he wholly applauded it. But the tradition often devolved into screaming and procrastination—and all the things that made it a powerful tool for an effective leader made it equally dangerous in the hands of a competent enemy. Psychological warfare could go both ways.
Because they were facing a larger army, all the speeches that could be made had already been said a dozen times, and there was a rather large vulnerable peasant population surrounding the Unclean Realm that he wanted to keep the Wen from pillaging out of boredom, the plan was to keep the grandstanding to a minimum in this encounter by baiting the Wen into following them on a merry chase back to the Unclean Realm. There, they had set up arrays and wards, armed all the booby traps at the gate, and resupplied the archers with arrows. Once the Wen were locked into a siege position, the plan was to bring two flanking groups down from the hills, to pinch in, slicing open the Wen force on the battlefield.
Wen Xu, determined to make Nie Mingjue’s life more complicated, halted his army on the crest of the mountain facing the fortress. The low valley, Mingjue’s planned battle site, lay between them. He showed no signs of movement; the camp thrummed with soldiers but from a distance the greatest motion was the rippling of their banners, the Wen sun on white, the dark bird on red.
Sometimes the traditional verbal bear-baiting occurred by proxy. Nie Mingjue knew what to expect when Wen Xu sent a messenger, a single rider on a ragged horse. The man was unkempt, clearly not a professional courier, but he managed to rattle off the impressive list of insults with both clarity and speed. There were invectives directed at Nie Mingjue’s mother, his father, his sword, his dignity, even Huaisang’s mother was mentioned which demonstrated a personal touch. And of course there were the taunts regarding his father’s fate. If he weren’t expecting it, didn’t know to take the message in private, Nie Mingjue thought the rage would have been worse. As it was he clenched his jaw a few times and glared forward until the burning black faded from his vision.
“If you surrender youself and return his cousin Wen Qing, the young excellency is willing to spare your brother’s life,” the battered rider finished, an implied threat that had Nie Mingjue white-knuckled and stunned speechless at the audacity.
Fortunately, it was acceptable to let counselors speak for you in these situations. He usually avoided it, he preferred the direct responsibility of orders and executions, but there were some benefits. It allowed him to keep his composure when very few dignified words were left to him. And the veiled insult, the implication that the person being spoken to did not even deserve your words, was the sort of petty power play that would drive the Wen mad.
Nie Zonghui nodded to an attendant who carried forward a plain wooden casket. Inside, Mingjue knew, was the severed head of one of the soldiers who accompanied Wen-guniang. They’d picked the highest ranked of the dead bodies and she’d confirmed (with averted eyes) that he was a disciple of rank. The head was laying on her hastily sewn wedding dress, dappled artistically with blood—that was Huaisang’s idea. Nie Mingjue refused to make threats that he couldn’t carry out; implications on the other hand…
“Take that back to Wen-gongzi,” Nie Zonghui said, “And tell him we are not afraid to add another Wen head to our collection.”
The messenger was quick to go.
Once he’d been escorted from the premises, Nie Mingjue shut his eyes briefly, reveling in the peaceful darkness. “We will have to ride out to meet them,” he admitted. Wen Xu was easily baited once. He wouldn’t fall for the same trick again. Instead he’d start building up defenses, making his camp unassailable with wooden stakes and deep ditches. Or, worse, he’d go raiding Qinghe town and the vulnerable villages all around, cutting off the Unclean Realm’s financial base. He’d already cut enough of a swathe though Hejian and the south.
They had two days, maybe three, to push their advantage, and the earlier they attacked the Wen encampment the better the odds were.
“Tomorrow morning, two hours before dawn,” Nie Mingjue decided. The lightless hour would give the Nie, who knew the local terrain, an advantage.
Zonghui nodded. “And the reinforcements?”
“Tell them to time it so the arrive at first light. In that two hour gap we may be able to pull the Wen further into our preferred position, if we back up against the walls…”
“Yes, I see.” They’d be able to surround them, pin them in place and fire on them from above.
If they die they’ll die in battle, Nie Mingjue thought darkly. At the last minute, he remembered— “The Wen prisoner,” they only have the one. “It will be safest if she’s locked up until it’s over.”
Another nod, Zonghui could take care of it. He sighed, relieved.
Even just thinking about her made his mind itch, makes his healing leg tingle, his hands hot and his vision limited. There was no room for excess discomfort anymore. War did not afford idle thoughts.
Nie Mingjue wanted to kill his enemies and move on, no talking required. His enemies had their own piece to say. Every other cultivator he crossed swords with started hissing about how they’d be the one to take down the great Chifeng-zun, or about some dead friend, or their family honor. Usually he cut them down before they got very far. It felt insulting to his opponents, who didn’t deserve to have their last words stolen from them, but on the battlefield the niceties of law had to be put aside. Besides, there was always some other man ready to cross blades with him, or already swinging their sharp sword at his back.
The half-trained common cultivators fell so fast he was sorry for them, monologues dying on their lips. Their superiors, trained in swordplay since childhood, lasted longer and manage more taunts.
“How’s the baby brother?” Wen Xu laughed, voice heavy and half out of breath. He was still cocky despite being winded, perhaps because Nie Mingjue was blooded while he was fresh and bright in his sun emblazoned armor.
Mingjue grunted—he didn’t have any air to spare on this annoyance. He’d rather use his breath to bring Baxia down with enough force to cleave an ox’s spine on Wen Xu’s unhelmeted head. Metal clanged, Wen Xu knocked the blow to the side and leaped, flying back, to a hillock a few feet above them.
To be heard over the battle raging all around them, he had to all but shout, “I was ready to let him live—he seems obedient. But you’re determined to whittle your family down to the last branch, aren’t you?”
Catching an enemy who holds the higher position required concentration; rather than responding Nie Mingjue charged up the hill, using the flat of Baxia’s blade to shield his head.
When they were once more face to face, swords locked, Wen Xu made another goading attempt. This one hits closer to home. “I’ll kill him slowly,” he promised, face twisted in a rictus by mockery, “And I’ll lay your bodies side by side for the crows to pick at.”
That served its purpose. Nie Mingjue could hardly think over the rushing of blood in his ears, felt nothing but Baxia’s heft in his hand, fury surging. With a guttural scream he disengaged and whirled Baxia down, skittered off the parry and struck again, again, again. A cavalcade of blows, beating down any resistance. When he finally drew blood—a glancing bicep blow, to Wen Xu’s offhand side— the rage faded a little. Baxia was soothed by the blood, and the promise of more.
Though his fury was back under control, the determination now embedded in Nie Mingjue’s heart did not diminish. Wen Xu must not only die, he must die cruelly. Wen Ruohan would not bury his child, because there would be no body to bury.
They both retreated to opposite sides of the little hill, observing each other. Dawn had not yet arrived and the pale purple darkness made it hard to see far, hard to track movement and the subtle shifts in posture that gave away intention. At least he didn’t have to see the details of the surrounding battle, for he knew there were familiar faces lying dead on the ground, knew the numbers weren’t in Qinghe’s favor. The roiling mass around the little hill was being pushed, slowly but surely, back to the Unclean Realm’s gates.
Someone must have hammered home the maxim about irritating enemies of high temper when schooling him in strategy, for Wen Xu made one last effort to throw Mingjue off balance.
“I heard you kept Qing-mei,” at least he’d learned not to use Huaisang as a point of control, “I think I’ll give her Qinghe, even if you haven’t taken her to bed. She has a steady hand with rough sorts like you, she shouldn’t need a baby to keep—.”
The thing about needling choleric opponents was that it only worked if that opponent wasn’t more experienced than you. If they couldn’t outmatch you in a fit of rage or ignore your efforts to force an engagement, the tactic backfires. Now you’d spent energy and concentration trying to rile someone to no good effect.
Wen Xu’s prattling gave Nie Mingjue what he’d been waiting for: an opening. On “baby” he threw Baxia at his enemy’s knee and simultaneously charged. Though Wen Xu was sharp enough to block the sword blow without stopping his sentence, doing so opened up his center.
Nie Mingjue hit him like a charging bull, kneed his sword wrist, elbowed him in the stomach, grabbed his hair and forced him to his knees. He stepped around Wen Xu’s attempt to stab him, made clumsy by the recent hits, and circled so he was holding him from the back. As he did so he called Baxia back to his hand. In one smooth motion he yanked Wen Xu’s head back by his topknot and sliced his throat.
It was more awkward than his usual angle for decapitation, he was cutting towards his own body and the blood spurted more vigorously, but with another few strokes, Nie Mingjue had his head. The battle below (he almost forgot about it) stilled when he held it up, then the remaining Nie cultivators let out a collective bellow, spirits reinvigorated.
He spared a glance for Wen Xu, still blinking and moving his mouth, as dead bodies did before they realized that they’re dead. Slowly, he went slack.
Clean, too clean. He deserved a worse end. But perhaps it was better to be clean than half-way to a qi deviation. Besides, there were plenty of others to die messily before this war was won.
Finishing the battle took the better part of the afternoon. Once reinforcements arrived at dawn the tide turned distinctly in their favor. A part of Wen Xu’s army actually lost their nerve when they saw him dead. Unfortunately that chunk was too large to let run; deserters would tear through the countryside if left alive. Hunting down the runners till they were reduced to a harmless handful ate more hours than anything else.
The whole time he kept Wen Xu’s head tied at his waist—it made a good symbol and cowed more than a few men into surrender. Most of them were low level disciples or coreless recruits, mundane farm boys who could be sent back to their families once the fighting is won. Once he’d ordered the handful of prisoners to be marched to the gutted Supervisory Office, he returned home.
Hanging a head above a gate was not an especially complex task. All you needed is some rope and a deft hand at tying knots, knowledge enough to loop it through the hair but also under, around the neck beneath the chin, for hair fell out after a few weeks under the sun. Nie Mingjue set an older, butcher-trained disciple to the task. Though they were not needed the spectacle drew an entire crowd, cooks, gardeners, battle weary men and women crowded together. Everyone wanted to see proof of their victory.
As the head was being hoisted—to general cheers—he noticed a figure across the courtyard who wasn’t watching the proceedings. Wen Qing was carrying two buckets of well water, her head down. A gangly young medic was with her, and her front was dappled in gore, someone must have let her out to help with the wounded. Caught by a vicious mood, Nie Mingjue jogged to her side.
“Did you see?”
Wen Qing looked up at him, then past him, to the severed head dangling like a morbid lantern at the gate. Blood crusted and disheveled as it was, it remained recognizable.
“Yes,” she said and did not turn away.
Like a doctor probing at an open wound, Nie Mingjue pushed further. “He spoke of you before he died. Do you regret his death?” It was a challenge, as open as any of those bandied on the morning’s battlefield.
She half exhaled, then pressed her full lips into a thin line. Still, her eyes did not waver, following the slight swing of the hanging head.
“I only regret that his brother did not die here,” she said, and jerked her gaze away. As it traveled it met Nie Mingjue’s, just for a moment. His heart sped up, irrational panic flooding his system. It was the steadiness of those eyes, it was Meng Yao’s old robe wrapped around her, it was the bother of still having a Wen in his house and having to respect her, for grit if nothing else.
A doctor should not be poisoning his resolve like this.