Chapter 56: We Are Coming
Wolf Skin and Civet Cat were about two miles ahead of the main group. The Cao River curved there, offering a clear view of everything ahead while concealing their own people from sight.
From a distance, Civet Cat saw more than a dozen people rushing out of the village. He turned, jumped onto his horned deer, and said, "Go back and tell Jian."
Wolf Skin touched the longbow that was as tall as he was. Staring at the men in the distance, he said, "You go back. Jian said to let me tell them that we are coming."
Civet Cat nodded, gripped the horned deer with his legs, and rode off.
Wolf Skin turned his own horned deer in a different direction and pulled a long, feathered arrow from the bark quiver on his back.
Badger had naturally spotted the lone Wolf Skin and asked a clansman with some confusion, "Is that Jian? All by himself?"
The clansmen didn't know, but they reacted as they would on a hunt. With a whistle, they spread out to both sides, forming a crescent-shaped encirclement.
When they were about a hundred steps away, several men in the lead jumped off their horned deer, because it was impossible to shoot an effective arrow while riding one. The bows were too long, and with nowhere to brace their feet for leverage, they couldn't draw with enough strength. Even if they managed a shot, it would only be accurate within a dozen steps.
Wolf Skin watched the group wrap around him. The men on the flanks were riding red deer and seemed to be trying to get behind him. He praised them silently; this was a group of good hunters.
His gaze swept around like a wolf's, but his eyes always returned to Badger. He didn't know who Badger was, but he noticed that the horned deer he rode was white, different from the others.
The enemy in front approached step by step, and several of them had already raised their bows, ready to shoot. Wolf Skin knew that at such a great distance, this tribe that had only just learned to handle a bow couldn't possibly shoot accurately, so he didn't move.
A few feathered arrows landed far from him. He glanced at them with disdain and waited. Finally, when the men were about sixty steps away, he suddenly drew his bow.
The bowstring was hooked on the thumb ring carved from an antler, and his index finger rested on his thumb. He took a steadying breath and aimed at the slowly approaching Badger. With a slight flick of his arm, the feathered arrow shot out like a falling star.
It trembled slightly in the air before its fletching straightened its path, sending it directly toward Badger's face. Badger's pupils contracted. Sensing the power and threat of the arrow, he tilted his head subconsciously. The feathered arrow flew past his forehead, the wind from its passage whispering in his ear.
He stared at Wolf Skin in the distance, shocked and inexplicably horrified.
He knew it was impossible for him to make such a shot at that distance, which made him even more certain that this man was Jian. Only such a skilled hunter could be the leader of a tribe.
Glancing back at the arrow now stuck askew in the ground, he let out a roar, his fear turning to fury, and the clansmen rushed forward. He wanted to capture Jian, the opponent who had worried him for so long. The men on the wings had already surrounded him—there was no escape!
Wolf Skin sighed with regret but didn't hesitate. While urging his horned deer forward with the stirrup, he swung himself onto its back and grabbed a long stone spear from the ropes on its side.
As Chen Jian had taught him, he held the long stone spear level with his shoulder, like a javelin for hunting, rather than holding it upright.
The few men charging from the side clearly just wanted to drive him off. They rode their horned deer and roared loudly. Wolf Skin clamped his legs against his deer's abdomen, aimed at one of them, and charged straight at him.
The man saw the long stone spear and panicked. He tried to nock an arrow, but the bow was too long, and his own knees blocked the bowstring after only a partial draw. He released his fingers indiscriminately, the feathered arrow flying off to who-knows-where.
As he fumbled for another arrow, Wolf Skin had already closed the distance, controlling his horned deer to run along the man's left side. The man was still desperately trying to get an arrow, his fingers trembling so badly he couldn't get the nock into the string groove. In his panic, he cursed this new method of carving string grooves they had learned.
Wolf Skin's eyes were fixed on his target. At the moment their horned deer were side-by-side, he half-threw, half-thrust the stone spear into the man's chest and quickly let go.
*Sshhhk…*
The momentum from the horned deer's charge and the force of his own arm sent the stone spear straight through the man's chest. After a scream, Wolf Skin was already several steps away. He let out a provocative whistle.
He shouted in a language Badger could not understand, "Jian let me tell you, we are coming!"
Badger didn't bother to check on his fallen clansman. He spurred his horned deer on and yelled, "Chase him! Capture Jian!"
The tribesmen galloped after him, though they couldn't help but glance at the corpse of their kinsman. The man lay on the ground with a long stone spear stuck through his body, already dead. His horned deer, not realizing its master was gone, was still nibbling at the grass nearby.
As Badger rounded the bend in the river, he heard a sound like thunder. He then saw a line of men standing neatly on the riverbank, long spears in their hands, as orderly as a distant mountain range. They made no sound except for the thunder.
At the back of the line, a man was striking a strange object with a hammer, and it was this object that made the thumping sound. The man hitting it didn't look particularly strong, nor was he riding a white horned deer.
Badger saw the warrior who had just so easily killed his clansman ride his deer to the back of the formation, jump down, and speak to the drummer, seemingly pointing right at him.
Then the drummer shouted something to his men. They began to beat their wicker shields with stone axes or slam their stone spears on the ground, letting out terrifying war cries.
The horned deer beneath Badger panicked and shifted uneasily. Seeing the rows of sharp stone spears, it refused to move forward another step.
"He's not Jian! The one making the thunderous noise is!"
The realization struck Badger. His body trembled unnaturally. He took one last look at the mountain-like, unshakable formation, knew they were no match, and turned his horned deer to leave with his tribe.
Chen Jian didn't order a pursuit; they couldn't have caught up anyway. Instead, he let everyone rest and continued to send scouts forward. Everything would be settled the next morning.
There were too many variables in a night battle. His goal was to minimize contingencies and crush them decisively.
***
In the village ten miles away, the members of the Red Fish and Badger clans gathered together. Panic filled the air, especially for those who had just seen one of their own killed. Their hearts were in turmoil.
They hadn't expected it to happen so fast, nor had they expected their best hunter, Badger, to be so shaken. How many men had Jian brought?
Badger told Red Fish that there weren't many of them, about the same number as the men in his own tribe. But the sound of that feathered arrow still seemed to echo in his ears, along with the disdainful, provocative words the man had shouted before leaving. The person who had terrified him wasn't even Jian at all—he seemed to be just an ordinary warrior!
Red Fish frowned, knowing the clansmen were waiting for her to find a solution, to give them God's guidance. She thought for a moment, sighed, and said slowly, "We should leave. Take the seeds, take the captives, and migrate to another place."
The clansmen immediately erupted in confusion. Badger stared at her and asked loudly, "Is this your idea? Or is it God's guidance?"
Red Fish looked at her people and said with solemn firmness, "This is God's guidance."
"We don't want to live through another migration!"
"Yes! The red fish that jumped in this river long ago was God's sign. This is our land! This is the river God gave us!"
"With so much food, how much can we take? It will snow soon! What will our horned deer eat in winter?"
Hearing the dissatisfaction in their voices, Badger's eyes suddenly filled with a fanatical light. The whistle of the feathered arrow in his ears seemed to fade, replaced by the thrill of blood rushing to his head. He stepped forward, standing in front of Red Fish, and shouted, "We will not leave! This is the land given to us by God. I will lead everyone to defend it! We will never move again!"
"He's right!"
"She has lost God's guidance! Just like the priest in the drought years from the stories!"
"God wants us to settle here, not be driven away like roe deer!"
Red Fish looked at Badger's back, which now blocked her view of the tribe. She sighed and silently stepped off the tiger skin platform.
Badger's status had risen ever since he brought back the captives who repaired the fence and harvested food. And unlike the priests of the past, she didn't hide knowledge, sharing everything with the tribe—how to build flue-heated beds, how to assist in the birthing of horned deer... But now, she couldn't offer anything useful. It had been a long time since she received a revelation from "God."
The last "revelation" had told the tribe to search for Jian's people along the riverbank, but that mission had been a disastrous failure. None of the five men sent had returned, and their families were already growing resentful.
Looking at the agitated clansmen, she stared into the distance in a daze. What kind of person was this Jian? What would become of her people?
When Badger returned, she had clearly seen the fear in his eyes. But in the end, that fear was washed away by fanaticism, leaving only the exhilaration of standing on the tiger skin.
"I am truly doing this for the people..." she murmured to herself, clenching her fist, but only she could hear it. If he won, the clan could certainly survive here, with the entire Cao River as their hunting ground. Even if she were no longer the Red Fish, it would be worth it.
But, could they really win?
***
On the 20th day of the Fruit Month, the weather was fine. A day for victory, but also for death.
After the early morning mist dissipated, Chen Jian had the tribe leave the birch bark boats where they were, with a few men to stand guard. The rest ate breakfast and began to put on all kinds of strange-looking gear.
Chen Jian's body was covered with a piece of deerskin hardened with isinglass, and the outside was decorated with long strips of willow branches. It could block arrows from the side, but not a direct shot from within thirty paces.
The clansmen also began to arm themselves. The five-member squads had one layer of wicker armor, while the shock axe soldiers wore two layers. After two months of arduous load-bearing running, the weight was nothing to them.
In groups of two, they helped each other tie ropes or belts. The servants from the other tribes watched with some envy.
After tying the drum to a horned deer, Chen Jian mounted another, took out his flute, and played a tune the tribe had heard before. The men calmed down, looking forward to returning to cultivate the reclaimed land, or even just to see that weirdly long and huge gourd again...
The distance of ten miles was not long, but the battle would be, so they didn't need to march in a tight formation. The tribesmen walked smoothly, their lines naturally straight, like water flowing in a ditch.
When they were still a mile from the village, the column stopped. At Chen Jian's command, they began to form up, moving toward the riverbank to use the river to protect their left flank.
Ten five-member squads lined up. In each, two men holding wicker shields stood between three spearmen. They would block arrows for the men behind them and would move behind the spearmen during the actual melee.
The archers stood staggered in the gaps between each squad.
The right wing of the formation consisted of the servants. Chen Jian wasn't worried about their fanaticism, but he knew it wouldn't last long. He placed the stone axe shock troops at the junction between the main force and the servant contingent.
If the enemy were skilled fighters and chose to break through from the right wing to form a semi-encirclement, the shock troops would charge directly into the chaotic melee, cutting down enemy and servant alike, to buy time for the main spear line to counter-encircle before the servant army collapsed.
This was a contingency plan. The outcome of such a scenario would be decided by whether the right wing collapsed first or his left wing got around the enemy's back first.
The fence on the other side was opened, and a chaotic mob of people shouted as they poured out of the village, with women yelling encouragement from behind them.
Chen Jian looked at the disorganized group, a smile touching the corner of his mouth. He jumped off his horned deer, struck the war drum with a mallet, and the thumping sound began to resound across the field.
Acorn, standing on the far left of the spear line, stomped the ground hard. He felt it was too quiet, as if he could hear his own heartbeat. He didn't like the silence and wanted to mix the sound of his footsteps with the drums.
*Boom… step…*
The formation moved forward, straight and solid like a mountain, while the servants on the flank walked casually in a scattered line.
Chen Jian counted the team's steps. On the thirteenth step, the line had already drifted unnaturally. He immediately beat the drums in a quick rhythm.
Acorn, on the far left, stopped subconsciously. The entire line realigned to his position and then began to move forward again with the steady beat of the drum.
His palms were full of sweat, his body felt hot, and his mouth was a little dry. For some reason, he thought of the cold, honey-sweetened water he'd had once when he was very thirsty, and he couldn't help but swallow.
"If we win, I can drink it. I want to drink a whole jar..."
He wasn't thinking about the battle that was about to begin. He just mechanically moved forward, little by little, with the sound of the drum. He even saw a big gadfly land on the arm of the tribesman next to him, thinking that if this weren't a war, he would have swatted it. It would be dead and carried away by ants in no time.
Maybe it was because the distance was still great, and the feathered arrows couldn't reach them yet. Maybe it was because his relatives and friends were beside him, so he didn't have to worry about his flanks. Maybe it was because of the two months of relentless training. All in all, it felt very peaceful.
In the distance, Badger looked at the mountain-like formation moving toward them. He felt it was strange that they would stop every so often, and their movement was so slow.
He suddenly thought of a river turtle he had caught once. It walked the same way, very slowly, stopping every few steps to shrink its head into its shell.
What kind of battle did they think this was? Did they think he and his tribe wouldn't shoot them full of arrows? The only reason they were so neat was because they hadn't been shot at yet.
This was a fight, not a lesson in how to walk in a straight line. So he laughed, too.
---
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