Promise and Betrayal: A Mo Dao Zu Shi (the Untamed) Story

Chapter 18

We see our first soldiers the next day. Per our plan, our force is divided into teams to secure the entrances and exits to Nightless City. I am assigned to the unit commanded by Jin Zuxian. Today, it would seem, I will not be testing our theory about Wei Ying. The clan leaders were not quite sure what to do with him, as his skills lay elsewhere now, so they did not give him an assignment. Knowing him, he will show up wherever he deems fit and surprise whatever unit happens to be there. I am not sure if I wish for him to appear in front of my unit or not.

Our mission is to secure the roads that lay in the mountains. There are two of them, close to us, but out of sight. As we reach the fork in the road where the two split, Jin Zuxian designates me the head of one team, with him heading the other. We quickly split off, our pace just shy of a run as we lead our teams up the slope to the beginning of the road.

Once we reach that road, we find that there is not a soul in sight. I do not even hear the twitter of birds, or the faint scampering of ground animals. The silence is eerie and unnatural. I signal for us to stop. Many of the others also feel the irregularity, the silence that is too quiet to be natural. Something waits for us on this road, but I do not know what, nor I do not know where.

"Eyes and ears alert, men," I say quietly, drawing my swords as soundlessly as I can. The other follow suit, and I curse silently as the hiss of steel on leather drowns out any quieter sound. We would not hear footfalls if we are ambushed. The moment of deafness passes, but I cannot shake the feeling that whatever awaits us knew we were momentarily deaf and took advantage.

I flick my swords. The cultivators fan out, circling a small span of road, their heads roving the tree line for anything unfamiliar, their ears alert for any abnormality. I take a direct side, deducing that an ambush from the trees would be most appropriate in this situation. We stand in utter silence for a moment, scarcely allowing ourselves to breathe as we study the landscape.

A great wind shakes the forest out of nowhere. Every leaf rustles, stirring up a grand racket that will surely mask any footfalls. Movement catches my eye, a flick of shadow on the ground, detached from any visible object. I glance upwards. Dots speckle the sky like locusts, slowly becoming larger and larger as they approach the ground.

"Above you, men!" I shout, gesturing to the sky. They collectively look up, the dots now close enough to make out as people. My unit scatters, breaking formation in an attempt to avoid the impacts of our incoming adversaries.

I curse out loud this time, scrambling to the tree line to avoid being squashed like a bug by the landings. I glance up again. They are life-sized now. As they land, legs crunch in some places, and backs crunch in others. Some have the sense to roll. But as we watch, the ones with broken legs rise, the ones with broken backs move, and the ones who rolled look as able-bodied as ever. They twitch strangely, a faint growling emanating from all of them at once. I dash to one, noticing her cloudy eyes and mussed hair.

I shout Puppets!" to my team, whirling to ruthlessly stab one in front of me. I pierced her heart; she will not recover. As she crumples before me, I scan the scene, dismayed to find that my men are not faring as well as I had hoped. It may fall to me to win this battle.

I face the horde, rolling out my shoulders. I level my swords at one, then pounce. I set to work, soon realizing that the puppets have little capacity to fight back. Their only advantages lay in surprise and sheer numbers; they are easy to cut down. If they stay down, however, has yet to be discovered, but first I must cut them all down. And I nearly do. I spin through their haphazard ranks, a whirlwind of steel, cutting one here, slicing another there.

Soon I am standing around a pile of still-moving-but-stunned bodies. Still, more come. My breath comes in heaves, and I can feel myself growing weary, but I have the rest of them to fight. My endurance is not so fragile as to break after a battle has just begun.

The cultivators around me have found their balance and now begin their scything, finding it just as easy as I do to cut them like stalks of grass. Heartened by the backup I now have, I begin my onslaught of unforgiving steel once more. Soon I am standing on the other side of the road, having cut a line all the way through their ranks. Yet our work is yet to be finished.

I exhale heavily, for the first time wondering if this is a fight we can win. We have no trouble cutting them down, but if they rise again—I cut the thought off as I see the ones we have disabled stirring, their hands groping for purchase on the rough dirt, their legs folding under them, preparing to rise. I growl in frustration. We cannot win this fight if our foes will not stay down.

I brandish my swords, adopting my battlefield voice as I shout "To me!" My team responds, altering their course to cut the most direct path to me. Once we are together again, I share my observations. "The ones we cut down rise again. Against this kind of foe, we cannot hope to win with our numbers. We must retreat. This route cannot be secured. I also have a suspicion that our enemies will leave us with only one way to enter Nightless City." I glance at the puppets. "They do not seek to kill. It feels as if we are sheep, and they are the shepherds. Come." We break for the downward slope, encountering little difficulty in cutting a path. The puppets do not make any moves to cut us off, yet they pursue us. I fear I am correct: we are being herded.

We catch sight of Jin Zuxian's unit as we reach the crossroads. They appear to be in a similar situation, fleeing from just as many puppets. Our units skid into each other when we meet at the fork. The puppets do not stop, however, so we are forced to gather ourselves and continue down the path to the main road.

The main road is scattered with more cultivators from our army, locked in melee combat with some particularly violent-looking puppets. Other split-offs filter in, providing some relief for the main body, but not much. Again, I notice the puppets only fight to tire. Few cultivators lay dead on the ground. Most only look exhausted. Among the chaos, I need to find the clan leaders so I can tell them my suspicion.

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen headed their own expedition; Jin Guangshan was to stay behind in a worst-case scenario. I scan the road for a flash of black, white, or tan, but I only glimpse those that belong to cultivators of their clans. The clan leaders themselves remain hidden by the battle.

We are slowly losing ground, the entire body of our army—supplies and all—being herded up the main road to Nightless City. We have no choice but to follow; puppets press in from all sides, save the road up the mountain. We are terribly close now, I sense, close to Nightless City, close to Wen Ruohan, close to the end of this long campaign.

The ground grows more treacherous as we ascend to the summit of the volcano, the air now thick with burning heat. It is not the humid heat of a summer's day, but the oppressive heat of a raging fire, and it grows only hotter and more intense and we climb. I can feel myself giving in to exhaustion, and to the heat that causes it. My swords sag in my hands, my breath coming in short pants. My limbs feel like lead. Still, I do not stop; none of us can afford to stop.

We lose more cultivators the farther we are pushed. Some stumble, trampled by the puppets' relentless pursuit. Others stagger onto a puppet's weapon, skewering themselves in their exhaustion. Other simply stop, to be enfolded by the stampede. Still, we continue to march.

I lose my sense of surroundings the farther we are herded. Bodies mash together, sweat and blood mingling into one metallic, tanged scent. I cannot see any of my friends, let alone the clan leaders. We are a mess, ruled by the chaos of retreat. And still, we continue to march.

By the time we reach the gate to Nightless City, we have lost nearly a fourth of our force, either to the puppets or to exhaustion. As we spill into Scorching Sun Palace's courtyard, I finally catch a flash of Baichen, then a ripple of a white robe. Lan Zhan and his brother are across the yard, fully alert amidst the staggering cultivators. Jiang Cheng is surrounded by Jiang Clan cultivators, clad in royal purple. Jin Zuxian stands with his delegation, their swords bloody, their tan robes stained with dirt, blood, and sweat. I do not see Jin Guangshan or Nie Minjue, and neither do I see Wei Ying. But we have arrived. We are in Nightless City, the seat of the Wen Clan's power, and Wen Ruohan is just beyond our fingertips.

The sun sinks low over the horizon, night's curtain sweeping across the city, contrary to the city's name. The darkness blankets the courtyard with silence, the stars shrouded by clouds. The lava in the volcano's caldera glows with eerie, orange heat against the black sky. And as the night deepens, we wait expectantly.

We wait for the climax of our campaign. And with it, we wait for the harbinger of our salvation or the harbinger of our doom.