“But most clouds also have silver linings.” - Old folk saying.

“Watch out, Jiangjun!” yelled another of Lu-Shih’s adjutants as he was about to cross paths with the odd enemy cavalry. He had angled his horse to pass between two of the bulky armored beasts his enemies rode, and was hoping to be able to stab at them as he passed. That turned out to be so much wishful thinking, however.

Even before he got close enough to strike with his spear the riders on the backs of the beasts already swung their extra-long polearms – each one must be at least a good three meters long – towards him, and it was all Lu-Shih could do to defend himself. He managed to deflect one of the strikes with his spear and block the other on the shaft, but the power behind those blows nearly threw him off his horse even so.

In fact, the strike that he blocked left a deep groove on the hardwood shaft of his spear, one that went almost a third the shaft’s thickness. That caused cold sweat to form on his back as he realized that if he had angled his block wrong the strike might well have cleaved right through his weapon and into him instead.

He was fortunate, as he saw that more than a few of his escorts had been cut down from their saddles by the passing enemies. On the other hand, what few blows they managed to land mostly failed to go through the enemy’s armor, and while a few managed to dismount their opponents, the short, stout foes just stood back up after the fall, seemingly none the worse for wear.

There was still a second row of the armored beast cavalry behind the first, but Lu-Shih managed to duck underneath the swing of the one opponent that struck at him, while at the same time returning the favor with a thrust of his spear. He was disappointed to find out that his spear only struck solid armor, however, the impact almost numbing his hand from the force involved, while his opponent was not even unhorsed.

Only then did Lu-Shih notice that behind the armored beasts were more of the enemy cavalry, many more, in fact. At least ten thousand or more of them hidden from sight behind their bulkier, armored compatriots at the front. The enemy cavalry still had the same short, stout figures on the mounts, but this time their mounts looked more like large rams with gray to black wool.

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Kang Lu-Shih only had moments to adjust himself before he met the first of the enemy cavalry that rode straight towards him and his steed. He stabbed forth with his spear, but his opponent used an axe to push away his strike to the side, while at the same time returning the favor with the wicked lance they held in their other hand.

Lu-Shih managed to avoid the deadly blow, though it stuck his shoulder plate’s edge and tore the piece of armor off, but unfortunately for him, his foe wasn’t done. Instead of passing by him as was normal when opposing cavalry ran into each other, his opponent’s ram went directly at Lu-Shih’s horse. The ram’s horned forehead slammed hard against the horse’s chest with bone-breaking force, and with a pained whinny, Lu-Shih felt his steed faltering beneath him.

Try as he might, he was unable to extricate himself from his faltering steed in time, and as the horse fell to its side, Lu-Shih felt something give in his left leg, which was trapped between the horse’s body and the ground, followed by a dull pain. Once again, he was fortunate in that his foe had not bothered to finish him off and instead continued to charge ahead, yet the sight he saw also made him sweat with worry.

The way the large ram just leapt over Lu-Shih’s fallen horse – and him as well – while quickly transitioning into another gallop as it landed was something that made him realize that while the rams these foes rode did not seem to be as fast or maneuverable as the horses the Imperial cavalry preferred, they had their own advantages. That ability to explosively speed up from a standstill alone eliminated one of the cavalry unit’s biggest flaw already.

Typically a cavalry unit relied a lot on the momentum they built up to charge and strike and then escape to repeat the process all over again. A cavalry unit that was caught in a quagmire was as good as dead, as they would be reduced to large, slow targets unable to move effectively. Yet these foes had mounts that eliminated that worry, since Lu-Shih could tell that if the ram could pull off such a jump from a standstill, it could also burst forth with devastating force if it chose to ram everything in its way.

More and more of the enemy cavalry galloped past where Lu-Shih lay, one leg trapped beneath his horse and in no state to pry himself out. He lost sight of the ongoing battle due to his position, and could only guess from the noise he heard behind him. The way the fighting kept going further away from his position didn’t bode well, however.

After what felt like an eternity he saw some of the enemy cavalry on the bulky, armored beast return to where he was. The enemies spoke in a language he didn’t understand, but he noticed how the one seated at the forward position pointed at him. One of the other riders, the one in the middle, said something back then leapt down from the back of the beast.

Then that rider walked over to where Lu-Shih was, held his shoulder with one large hand and the saddle on the back of his dead horse with the other. With a grunt, the short, stout enemy rider lifted the dead horse’s carcass enough that he could pull Lu-Shih’s broken leg out from underneath it, then he tied Lu-Shih’s arms behind his back and carried him over to the armored beast where he was laid across its bag like a piece of luggage.