Baekin-gun looked down at the fires beneath the walls.
There were many of them. Too many.
They were not the fires of a frightened army.They were the fires of an army that knew how to remain.
He did not give the order to open the gates.Because he knew they would open them themselves.
The night assault had failed.
But that failure lay within expectation.
He tapped the cold stone of the wall with his fingers.Once.Twice.
Troops. Arrows. Horses. Provisions.
There was still enough.
His own men had died.As planned.
The enemy had died as well.That too, as planned.
Baekin-gun lifted his head.
The eastern sky was beginning to pale.
"Next," he said quietly,"let them choose."
He turned away.
Inside the fortress, there was still food.Outside the fortress, there were too many people.
The war had not yet begun.
When starlight still lingered over the plain, the allied forces went out to recover the fallen.
The first thing they saw were heaps of enemies so shattered that they were scarcely recognizable as human.
Barricades lay torn apart like butchered beasts. Between the carts and wooden defenses they had abandoned in retreat, bodies sprawled where they had collapsed—twisted, fallen like dogs.
Dust, blood, and smoke clung together, weighing down the air.
Even so, the orders came calmly.
"Recover the arrows. Recover the equipment."
The Great General's voice was cold and precise.
It made sense.
Arrows and bows were life itself on a long campaign. They were fighting on an open plain, far from supply. Once weapons wore down and arrows ran out, there would be no next battle. The number of enemies lying dead here was, in truth, the number of days they themselves might yet live.
Still, revulsion could not be avoided.
Pulling arrows from human bodies.Unfastening leather straps from the bows of the dead.Stripping armor, lifting undergarments to inspect their make.
Some covered their mouths with cloth.Some turned away and closed their eyes.
But orders were orders. An army was such a place.
Seongjin grasped an arrow.
As the black-barbed head slid free of flesh, the metal slipped out smoothly.
There was no scream.
Only a slick warmth and a sudden cold left behind on his fingertips.
The sensation churned his stomach.
Torn fabric, dried flesh, bent iron rings piled together in a heap.
Yet within that refuse—one intact bow, a handful of arrows—lay tomorrow.
Someone muttered softly,
"About a thousand. Packed in tight—wiped out."
It was a number for the report. Who could truly tell whether it was a thousand or five hundred?
A necessary figure for the record.
But to Seongjin's ears, it rang hollow.
Beyond the number, faces rose up. Breath and names overlapped and passed.
He wiped the arrow and slid it back into his quiver.
The motion carried filth and shame, disgust and necessity, all at once.
As the sun climbed higher, soldiers lifted the remnants.
Piles of armor. Broken spear shafts. Reusable straps and leather.
The debris of battle slowly transformed into utility.
Before Yoyang Fortress, only the orderly traces of a brief victory remained.
But that order rested upon a costly price.
Seongjin said nothing.
Yet he understood clearly:
That what they recovered todaywould soon keep them alive again—
and that those who had paid the pricewould never speak.
Throughout the filthy work, Seongjin's insides twisted.
No matter how much he washed, the blood and soil clung to his hands. A foul sensation lingered between his fingers.
Each time nausea forced him to turn his head, the world swayed.
O Jincheol patted his back with a gentle laugh.
"Careful there. You'll drop a fresh recruit like this."
"At first, it's always like that."
Then he added,
"Weren't you the same?"
"…I was."
O Jincheol muttered like a sigh,
"How long we'll keep doing this miserable work."
The complaint unraveled inside him like thread. It could not be spoken aloud.
Hwang Hyeonpil worked without a word.
He did not stop. He could not.
This was how they survived.
Each calculation of remaining rations tightened the chest.
When the time came to report, hunger had to be pressed down and discipline held.
Only then did Seongjin begin to understand—just a little—why plunder repeated itself,why soldiers bent their backs.
Yet something felt strange.
"They said these bastards came from the Central Plains, but they look like beggars,"O Jincheol said, rubbing Seongjin's back again as he spoke to Hwang Hyeonpil.
"Reporting in—these men are beggars. Barely clothed, let alone armored."
"Of course,"Hwang Hyeonpil replied without looking up."That's why they were cut down by arrow fire."
O Jincheol added,
"We should report this up the chain."
"Why?"Hwang Hyeonpil raised an eyebrow slightly.
"With enemies like this, we can fight more confidently."
It sounded like a joke, but the calculation was precise.
"A siege is different,"Hwang Hyeonpil said quietly."More precisely—our losses will be greater. Still, it must be reported."
The weight of that certainty settled over the camp like heavy air.
Recovery, calculation, recording—none of it stopped.
No one was happy.
But everyone knew:
One arrow picked up todaymight extend someone's life tomorrow.
And that extension would, in the end, rest in another's hands.
At dawn the next day, the crossbowmen were deployed to the front.
Orders came to shoot down any enemies still on the walls.
O Jincheol's cousin once removed, O Sun-geun, stuck his tongue out in complaint.
"Another idiot order from idiots. The army's best at turning sane men into fools."
O Jincheol muttered, shoulders slumping,
"How're we supposed to hit men hiding behind crenellations…"
Before he could finish, Hwang Hyeonpil's shout exploded.
"If I say shoot, then shoot!"
A brief silence.
O Jincheol smacked his lips.
"Of course."
Seongjin carefully pushed the cart loaded with crossbows forward.
Archers lined up on either side.
The horses were tethered beyond effective range.
Hwang Hyeonpil raised his hand toward the gate.
"One hundred paces!Advance one hundred paces!Free fire!"
"Free fire, he says…"O Jincheol grumbled."Why don't I feel very free?"
Seongjin spread his stance and replied,
"Doesn't seem like the kind of freedom that frees men."
O Jincheol snorted.
"Look at that—cracking jokes already.Yeah, if jokes come out even here, the army must be a fine place."
Before the south gate, Goryeo archers fanned out like wings.
Dozens of crossbows aligned horizontally toward the walls.
The wind was still. The morning sun rose faintly.
Everyone knew—
this would not end it.
Still, orders were orders.
The first arrow flew.
A short scream—then silence.
Then hundreds of iron bolts tore through the sky.
The air flashed with metal.
Seongjin drew the string and closed his eyes for a moment.
"If this is proof that we are alive…"he murmured inwardly,"it's an obscenely expensive proof."
The words scattered into the wind.
And upon that wind,another arrow flew.