Dragon's Soul Chapter 82: Shifting Tides

Editor/Proofer= Nyx

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Zhang’s men crept through the woods and positioned themselves only a short distance away from the Heavenly Sword Army’s camp. Three quarters of the army were dismounted and armed with either bows and arrows, swords and shields or spears and pikes. To raid the fort and rout the enemy an army of only horsemen would not be efficient.

Zhang had decided that once the moon had risen he would initiate the raid.

They did not have long to wait because the sun was setting and soon it would be night.

“Advance carefully, kill every single soldier in purple armor that you will encounter.” Zhang said softly to the men around him. Soon to follow was a murmur from one man to the next.

As silent as possible Zhang's men trekked through the woods, luckily their feet and weapons had been wrapped by cloth or perhaps lots of unnecessary noises would have been made.

After a few hours, the sun was completely gone and the moon slowly made its ascent. Shrouded in darkness, Zhang’s army split into two and positioned themselves in the woods near the enemy fort. The Heavenly Sword Army fort’s defensive wall was completely made out of wood and built in a manner that it completely sealed off the entrance or exit to the Beast’s Gorge. Dozens of tall guard towers loomed over the walls peering out into the woods.

After splitting into two groups, the one hundred fifty thousand archers, swordsmen and spearmen were standing towards the east of the fort. To the west, nearly  fifty thousand horsemen were awaiting the signal to charge into the enemy camp.

Few of the soldiers stationed to the east were currently making torches by wrapping the cloth wrapped around their boots and weapons to dry tree branches. While the archers ripped their cloth and wrapped it on the arrowheads. After making hundreds of torches, Zhang’s men made their way to the fortress.

When the walls of the fortress were in view, Zhang could spot hundreds of soldiers stationed in the guard towers with brightly lit torches illuminating the dark night.

“Archers ready.” Zhang commanded to the row of archers behind him, whom had all been broken up into squads.

Each squad was given a small pot of thick oil. To which upon hearing Zhang's order, every single archer dipped their arrows in the pots. While thousands of swordsman could be seen starting one fire after another preparing for the assault on the fort.

“Fire at will!” Zhang yelled once he saw that all of the arrows were now lit. The archers ignited their oil soaked arrows with the flickering flames.

“Hold your formation!” Zhang said while standing in the center on one of the many tortoises made by shields and spears that had been making their way toward the fort.

The instant everyone came to a halt in front of the gate, Zhang stuck his hand out into the air and shot two green flares into the sky.

This was the signal for the fifty thousand cavalry to begin their assault on the western side of the fort. By now, majority of the soldiers within the fort had been moved to eastern wall leaving the other side undermanned.

As soon as the flares were shot in the sky, thousands of hooves pounding against the ground could be heard. The neighing of countless steeds rang in everyone's ears as the less than fifty thousand cavalry moved in toward the western walls.

Hundreds of horsemen moved to western walls and hurled hundreds of clay jars splashing oil everywhere.

The horsemen leading the charge carried small clay jars tied on the side of their steeds.  Before they break off from the main army, Zhang had ordered them to carry the pots of oil. They were given orders to attack if a single green flare was shot into the sky, but if two flares were shot it meant that they had to use the clay jars.

“You think you’ve won? Ha! If we hold out just a bit longer our reinforcements will arrive and you will be the ones in trouble.” Qian Long laughed. As a matter of fact his words had a hint of truth in them. Qian Long and Tong Zhao still had roughly a quarter of their original forces, while Xiahou Yan still had most of his one hundred thousand soldiers. This meant that if they focused their attacks on Zhang’s soldiers and totally ignored and let Gan Ning rampaged, then perhaps they’d be able to wipe out Zhang’s forces and then regroup with their reinforcements and face off with Gan Ning.

Chapter end