Meixiu VI

PA 1.3

When Meixiu had first started sieging Pháo đài Song, she’d hoped that she’d get at least manage to take the one city if nothing else. It was a sort of hope that the enemy army would care more about taking out the Two Oasis’ than they would stopping her. Unfortunately, it seemed she’d miscalculated, as it wasn’t even a week later that the enemy army was upon her.

Fortunately, she did have warning for this, as her scouts had seen the army coming over a day before they arrived, giving her enough time to gather up her troops and position her army accordingly.

She’d had her army move around Pháo đài Song, so that they were between the Song army and the city. Mostly, this was to deny the enemy the defensive advantage and the supply that the city would grant them—if the army took too long to attack her, it would force it all the way back to the previous city. It also, crucially, granted her the defensive advantage, as the army couldn’t go around hers—they couldn’t risk getting flanked after all. She’d also repurposed her navy, dragging the boat onto dry land and flipping them over, creating makeshift barricades for her soldiers to hide behind and hopefully control the flow of battle.

All of this, however, wouldn’t help her if she lost this battle. She was deep in enemy territory, on the wrong side of a city, with the only place to retreat to a captured city over a day’s march away that had every reason to rise up against the garrison she’d left there and deny her access.

If she lost this battle, she might as well have lost the war.

There was a nervous type of energy building up within her. One she hadn’t felt since her first conquest. That feeling that bubbled up when you were one wrong move away from either victory or defeat.

She hated that feeling, and so always did her best to stack the deck so thoroughly in her favor that she’d never feel it again. But, unfortunately, that wasn’t something she could always do. And that left her here, waiting impatiently for the enemy to come to her.

Hours went by as she waited. At first she wondered if her information was wrong, but she shook away the thought. If that were the case, then the worst that would happen was some time wasted. But if she broke formation and it turned out the enemy was just later than she’d expected, then she’d be in trouble.

And, it turns out, it was right of her to wait. It was early afternoon, less than an hour after she’d had that thought, that the enemy army faded into view through the desert heat, marching their way across the marshy floodplains.

And then, for some reason, they stopped.

‘What are they…? Oh, oh no.’

“Shields up!” she roared, bringing her own shield to bare above her head. And just in time, too, as the sky before them was suddenly blotted out by hundreds of arrows flying overhead. They seemed to sit there for a moment, hanging in the sky as though time had frozen, before they tilted down, and like a flock of angry crows descended on them.

Meixiu flinched as the first of the arrows hit her shield, bouncing off and landing by her foot. Unfortunately, it seems that not everyone had been as lucky as her, as screams of pain and fear echoed around her.

It made her wince, but there was nothing they could do for now besides wait—with them pinned like this, the enemy wasn’t coming any closer until they’d run out of arrows.

Luckily, that was what she was banking on. Bows had only been invented, what, three months ago? Four? They simply didn’t have the time, the production lines capable of producing that many arrows, nor the space to carry them. Already at least a hundred must have been fired, if not double that, and soon they’d be firing more. All they had to do was just wait it out.

Another volley of arrows took to the skies, and she swore she could almost head the twangs of the bowstrings. It almost reminded her of their attack on Dàhé, this time under the scorching sun as defenders rather than attackers. An endless volley of arrows raining down on them as they desperately found any cover they could.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone break formation, the man dropping his shield and turning to run. With a curse she turned to berate him, only to wince as she saw three arrows slam into his back.

“Don’t run!” she shouted, steadying herself. “Don’t break formation! If you run, you will die.”

Another volley came down, and she scowled, wincing as more screams of pain cropped up around her. Surely there was something else they could do to—wait.

‘Fuck, I’m an idiot.’

“Grab the boats!” she shouted at them, “Once the next volley is over, get under them and use them as cover! Quickly!”

Some people ignored her advice to wait, slipping under as quickly as they could. Most of them made it before the next volley hit, but she saw at least one person get hit in the leg as they slipped under which—well, they wouldn’t be helping in this fight anymore, but at least they weren’t dead.

But then her soldiers began climbing under the boats enmass, lifting them over their heads in the directions of the arrows like massive shields, cramming themselves under the too-little boats as they waited out the storm.

Meixiu did not do that. She was immortal after all, and someone needed to keep an eye on the army. If it started moving now, they’d be doomed.

And so came another volley. And another. The screams had lessened to almost nothing, her soldiers’ flimsy shields replaced with just as flimsy but much larger boats.

An arrow hit her in the leg, and with an agonized groan she reached down to yank it out. The next volley came, and she was barely able to get her shield up in time. An arrow managed to hit a crack in her shield, the arrow-tip scratching her arm as it broke partially through.

Another volley came down. And another. And another. And then—!

And then, they stopped. Staring with bloodshot eyes across the floodplains, she saw the Song army put away their bows, and begin to march.

And despite the coming battle, Meixiu couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief that that part was, finally, over.

“Get back into position!” she shouted, yanking the arrow out of her shield. “They’re done shooting, and their coming for us now! Get back into position!”

The Song army marched forth, and despite it being impossible to tell, she could almost swear they were marching smugly. Like after those pathetic volleys they were already so certain of their victory.

Ah, but she had her own revenge waiting for them.

“Archers!” she shouted, an unpleasant grin growing on her face. “Ready! Aim! Fire!”

And arrows flew from their side at the enemy’s unprepared army. They saw the arrows, of course, and many managed to raise their shields in time, but just as many did not.

With faint screams, she saw people trip and fall as they were hit, the army’s march disrupted so as not to trample their own men.

“Ready!” she shouted again, “Aim! Fire!”

Her own archers weren’t well trained. They’d only had a week to figure this out, after all, and she only had about two-dozen bows besides. But on the battlefield, they didn’t need to be accurate, just accurate enough. About a third of the arrows fired missed the army entirely, hitting too close or too far. Another third was blocked by enemy shields. But enough hit, and hit hard, that it made it worth it.

“Again! Ready, aim, fire!”

And so their third—and final, since they’d only had so many arrows themselves—volley hit. She didn’t see anyone fall this time, but that didn’t matter as much. The goal wasn’t to kill them, but to spook them. To shake up their confidence a bit when they saw their enemy using their supposed ‘secret weapon’ against them.

That surprise wouldn’t last forever, but it lasted long enough for her own soldiers to reclaim their positions, for the boats to be repositioned, and for her medics to swoop in and drag the wounded away.

And then, after what felt like both an eternity and no time at all, the Song army was upon them.

When the two armies collided, it was less of a clash and more of an awkward shuffle. Her own army was divided into two groups, with the boats set up as barricades before them. The idea was to funnel the enemy soldiers between her two columns, allowing her army to flank and surround the other army. Unfortunately, the enemy commander realized that, and instead of continuing the charge forward they had their army split apart, moving around her two columns to hit her from the sides and putting her in the position of being surrounded.

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Luckily the boats weren’t heavy, and so her soldiers were able to quickly shuffle them between themselves and the advancing army. But that was about all they were able to do before the soldiers started flooding in.

From her position calling the shots at the back, Meixiu could easily see how the beginning of the battle was playing out. At first it looked like the boats were doing well as crowd control, forcing the enemy to only come at her soldiers two or three at a time. Unfortunately, their little shuffle earlier showed the enemy how light their barricades really were, and so a couple of enemy soldiers, protected by enemy shields from her own soldiers’ spears, ran forward and grabbed the reed boats, shoving and lifting and dragging them away.

Within seconds that advantage had been pushed aside, and finally the front lines crashed in earnest.

Meixiu grimaced as chaos unfolded along the eastern flank. The western lines were still looking good for now, but it would only be a matter of time before they collapsed as well.

Glancing to her side, Meixiu nodded at her archers—who by this point had replaced their bows and arrows with slings and stones—ordering them to fire on the enemy’s backlines. They were a bit too late to hit their frontline without risking hitting her own people, but the least they could do was break up the backline a bit.

Still, glancing back out over the clashing armies, Meixiu realized there was nothing left she could do from the backline. The chaos of the battlefield was taking over, and even all the way back here she could barely hear her own voice. There were better places she could be now.

And so, readying her spear, Meixiu joined the fray.

Running along the side of her column, she reached the enemy army attacking her western flank. The soldiers, barely keeping together a standard Phalanx formation, were wholly unprepared for her to slam into their right—unshielded—side.

The first soldier went down with a scream, barely able to turn his head to look at her before he went down. The next she knocked to the floor with her shield, before thrusting her spear into the shoulder of the man next to them. The soldier behind him was faster, though, and thrust his spear forward before she could close the distance. The blade bounced off her collarbone painfully, but she ignored it—pain would only stop her if she let it. Rather than attack back, she left her own spear in another soldier and grabbed the one he’d thrust at her, yanking it out of his hand and stabbing it into another. Another two spears thrust at her, one tearing through her shoulder and the other impaling her stomach, but with a grunt she slammed her fist down on each, snapping off the tips of the spears. With a deep breath she yanked out the one in her stomach, stabbing it into the side of the closest soldier, before grabbing the one in her shoulder and using it as an improvised dagger. Within seconds, the wounds had already healed, and the pain was merely a dull throb. Behind her, as she tore through the frontline of the enemy, her own soldiers rushed in to fill in the gaps, curling around the enemy army from their weaker side. No longer alone, more of her soldiers charged next to her, and with the soldiers no longer able to properly shield themselves the frontline began to collapse.

Not quickly enough, though. Her soldiers were still dying, and she still had the other side to deal with. So, rather than stay where things were going well, she pulled back, turning to run to where things weren’t.

The eastern flank wasn’t doing as well as the west. Already at a disadvantage thanks to their barriers being removed early, the two frontlines had by this point dissolved into an all-out melee, with any semblance of order long since abandoned.

In this case, rather than jump into the melee herself, she instead grabbed a new spear and ran between her soldiers, stabbing at enemies and generally acting as a meat shield for her soldiers. It wasn’t particularly glamorous or strategic, but it saved the lives of her men and that was all it needed to do.

The battle raged for a long while, but in the heat of it it was impossible to tell how long that was. Minutes or hours, she soon stopped thinking entirely, instead falling into the steady rhythm of stab-block-stab-get stabbed.

Eventually, though, the battle ended.

Later she would learn that the western flank, after she’d torn through the enemy’s frontline, was able to push further and hit them from both the front and sides, slowly but inevitably carving through the army. Eventually, between her slowly approaching soldiers and the slingers still firing at them, one of the soldiers lost their nerve, and turned to flee the battle. And like a dam had been broken, dozens more followed, until the whole column broke, and her soldiers were left fighting nothing but the dead and dying.

After that her western army had turned around, marching around and flanking the other army, which inevitably yielded the same results. A full rout, leaving only those too injured to move.

Or it would have, if the fleeing soldiers hadn’t revealed something else. In the middle of the chaos, one soldier stood stable, shouting orders and trying to rally the fleeing soldiers back into something coherent.

A general? Or the King himself? It was impossible to tell, but it let her know immediately who she needed to deal with.

And so, charging ahead of her own soldiers, Meixiu shoved her way around fleeing and panicking enemies until she was right in front of the enemy leader, who only had the time to raise his shield before she was upon him, thrusting her spear at his chest.

The shield blocked the thrust in time, and rather continue down that path she instead dropped the spear, lunging forwards and grabbing the shield, grappling with the enemy leader. There she got a better look at him, and saw—

White skin. Definitely a God-King.

With that knowledge in mind she pulled herself forward, throat-punching the man before swinging herself around behind him as he was dazed, grappling onto his back. Latching onto him like an octopus, she threw all her weight on him, dragging him to the ground with a grunt.

The man tried to get her off, waving his arms about wildly and stabbing behind himself blindly, but she managed to hold on tight enough to stop him from actually hitting her. Perhaps, if he’d had more time, he could have utilized his greater size to eventually shove her off.

But it was too late. Her soldiers were swarming in besides her, yanking away the God-King’s shield and spear before joining her in dogpiling him.

It was then, only once the enemy God-King was secured, that she took a step back to breathe.

The battlefield was a mess. Corpses littered the sands, interspersed with injured soldiers on both sides. Broken and bloody boats were being used as crutches by those who could no longer stand, and up in the sky, what could only be vultures circled ominously.

Meixiu took a deep breath, the stench of blood and corpses filling her nose.

They’d won.

--

The God-King they’d captured hadn’t been the one they’d expected. King Tobias, King of the Wustenreich, was a man they hadn’t thought much of. He was just so far away, being two whole kingdoms away from their nearest border, and beyond the vague knowledge that he was German, they didn’t know much about him.

Though, that lack knowledge might explain why they’d captured him instead of the other King they were looking for. Maybe King Tobias was simply the better general, and so got put in charge of the army. It was impossible to know, for sure, about any of this.

But that was why they’d brought him to her tent, to interrogate, before executing him. Even if they could only get so much information out of him, what he didn’t say could be worth just as much as what he did.

Her prisoner glanced around her tent, before frowning for some reason. “Where is King Quang? Is he… did you already kill him?”

Meixiu raised an eyebrow. “King Quang? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the man. Why, was he supposed to be with you during that battle?”

King Tobias stared at her for a long moment, before his face took on a decidedly ugly look. “Yes. He was.”

“Then it seems he must have escaped,” Meixiu frowned. Damn, and to think, if they’d captured him then they could have been done with this war today. “How unfortunate. Still, we’ve captured you, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

The captured King grit his teeth, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

Shooing away thoughts of what-ifs, Meixiu turned back to the man before her. It was time to play hardball—not that she knew how to do anything else, she could admit to herself. Where was Joseph when you needed him? “Alright, King Tobias, I assume you know what comes next? We both know you had to bring your soul with you, so where is it? And I assure you, answering now would be painless for both of us.”

Tobias grimaced. “…I see. So, you do plan to kill me.”

Meixiu gave him a look. “Yes, just like you planned to kill me, my friends, and my lord. Wen tried to play the victim as well, do you know? But I hold no sympathy for hypocrites. So, King Tobias, you can either die a cowardly hypocrite, or die with honor. The choice is yours.”

“…Die with honor, huh? Yeah, I bet that’s what Quang wanted to happen to me. Die with honor.”

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt.

Whatever inner monologue the captured King was in the middle of done with, he raised his head to glare at her. “I have a proposition for you, Que—er… Lady Meixiu.”

“Call me General,” she told him dryly, before motioning him to continue. “Well, what is it? If it isn’t stupid, I might be willing to agree to it.”

The man took a deep breath and, with a pained grimace, continued. “I want to surrender to you, to the Sunset Kingdom. I wish to become a vassal of the Sunset Kingdom—to give up all of the cities I rule in exchange for my life. I will give you my remaining soldiers, to join with your army and end Quang once and for all.”

Meixiu leaned back, frowning at him. “You do know you’re in no position to negotiate, correct?”

“I’m aware,” he nodded. “But I… I refuse to die like this. As a damn pawn in someone else’s game. If nothing else, I want to beat that smug fucker’s face in before I die. As payment, for every one of my soldiers who died today just because their King was too much of an idiot to realize he was being manipulated. Surely you can at least allow me that?”

Meixiu stared at him for a long moment, before sighing. “…I will need time to think about this. Don’t get your hopes up—this isn’t me agreeing.”

“Even just the fact you’re considering it relieves me more than you know.”

“Yes, yes,” she sighed, before waving at the guards who brought him in. “Take him back to his tent, make sure he doesn’t try to escape. I’ll have some new guards sent to relieve you in an hour or so.”

The guards bowed silently at her, before each grabbing one of Tobias’ arms and dragging him out of her tent.

Alone in her tent once more, Meixiu groaned to herself, falling back on her cot. “Fuck,” she muttered to herself.

It wasn’t that his proposition was impossible, or even necessarily bad. King Tobias, as far as she knew, had three major cities under his control plus a couple smaller villages. Along with that, farmland generally tended to get better the further north you went. Taking that land for themselves would be nothing but a boon for the Sunset Kingdom. And since Tobias would still be alive, they wouldn’t even have to worry about revolts!

The issue was, however, their ally. The Two Oasis’ were going to want something from this war—even if they hadn’t done much to actually fight it. And the Wustenreich was not just closer to their lands, it was bordering it. There was no way there wouldn’t be an issue if they took his offer.

Granted, they could give Tobias to them after the war was over along with his land, but somehow that felt worse than just killing the man and being done with it. Like she was treating him like property to be given or sold instead of a person.

She shook her head. She shouldn’t be thinking so hard about this, it’s not like she’d even be making the final decision anyway. Joseph was King, and for something like this it would be up to him to decide what to do.

Nodding to herself, Meixiu called for a scout, ready to report their victory and Tobias’ offer to Joseph.

9,897 God-Kings Remain