The provinces of Yongzhou and Liangzhou were famously stingy when it came to rain. The land was a harsh stretch of yellow earth and rough hills. As if the heavens had simply gotten bored halfway through painting the region. The day before had brought a brief teasing drizzle of spring rain. Just enough to dampen the very topsoil before the clouds decided they were done and vanished.
By the time the army struck camp on the second morning the sky had already cleared into a brilliant piercing blue.
Zhuge Liang sat tall upon his horse and adjusted his signature feather fan. He reined in his mount and turned back for one last look at the ruins behind him.
The Wuzhang Plains spread out before him. Desolate. Scarred. Blackened. Crumbling ramparts stood as silent witnesses to endless clashes. Wind howled across the empty plateau carrying the faint echoes of battles long past.
For one fleeting moment the very air seemed to shimmer.
A strange cold shiver crept up Zhuge Liang's spine. There upon the ruins a shadow took shape. A lone weary figure sat in a wooden wheelchair draped in that familiar crane patterned cloak. He faced the blazing sunset. The man coughed softly. He bore the whole crushing weight of a fading dynasty upon his frail shoulders. And the shadow sighed. A sigh so deep and heavy it held all the regret in the world.
"Oh vast heavens..."
Zhuge Liang whispered those very words aloud. The sound of his own voice broke the spell. The shadow dissolved like morning mist.
He blinked and let out a quiet breath.
It had been himself. Another version. One from a different path. A timeline where sickness had worn him away. Where his body had failed. Where he had fallen short right here upon these same plains. A Zhuge Liang who marched north and dreamed of restoring the Han yet died with his life's work unfinished.
But that was not him. Not now.
He stood alive and strong. His armies were winning. Whatever dark fate had once waited for him here lay broken and cast aside. He had rewritten his own story.
He gripped his riding crop and snapped it sharply against his palm. Then he drew his sword and pointed the gleaming blade straight east. Toward the ancient capital. Toward Chang'an.
"MARCH!"
---
While Zhuge Liang stood pointing his sword toward his ultimate prize the men standing guard atop that prize were drowning in pure dread.
The walls of Chang'an were a colossal feat of engineering. Towering high. Impossibly thick. Built to display absolute imperial power and make any invading army feel no bigger than ants. Yet right now to the men standing upon them those mighty walls felt less like a fortress and more like a very tall tomb.
Zhong Yao stood near the western battlements his face set hard as carved stone.
He gazed out across the wide horizon searching for any sign of friendly banners coming to their aid.
Behind him stood General Zhu Ling looking thoroughly wretched.
He had barely managed to lead the broken remains of his force back within the gates. His troops were exhausted. Demoralized. And still shaken to their cores by the sight of those enormous siege engines being assembled in the distance. He stood stiff and straight. His face burned bright with shame.
"Still no word from General Xiahou?" Zhong Yao asked. His voice was flat and devoid of emotion.
He didn't specify which Xiahou he meant. He didn't need to. There was only one man who mattered right now, and it wasn't some random garrison captain.
Zhu Ling swallowed hard and nodded to confirm the disaster. "Nothing."
He shifted his weight nervously before continuing. "General Zhang He sent a courier with a grim report. Chencang fell with terrifying speed. It was a complete collapse. By the time General Xiahou Yuan receives the intelligence, it will be far too late. He's likely trapped deep inside the Wei River valley right now, being relentlessly squeezed by a two-pronged assault."
Zhu Ling fell silent. A heavy hush settled between them. Wind whipped cold and sharp across the stone walkway. A cold dread settled deep in his chest. To keep dwelling on such thoughts felt like accepting defeat before the battle had even begun. He decided to rapidly change his phrasing. He needed to pitch a proactive solution.
"As of this moment, General Zhang He is certainly entirely pinned down by that brat Ma Chao." Zhu Ling took a step forward, trying to inject some fire into his voice. "Please, General Zhong Yao. Give me authorization. Give me a detachment of your garrison troops. I will ride out immediately. I can launch a rapid relief mission. I'll smash into Ma Chao's flank and drive him back. Once I relieve the pressure, General Zhang He and I can combine our forces. We can launch a vicious counterattack, tear down the walls of Chencang, and carve a bloody path to extract Xiahou Yuan from that broken place."
It was a desperate plea. It was the only viable tactical option Zhu Ling could conjure in his panicked brain. As to whether the plan was actually realistic or completely suicidal? Zhu Ling couldn't guarantee a single thing. Besides, who could guarantee any plan would work one hundred percent? Only scammers made promises like that.
That report from Zhang He was already two days old. Things had almost certainly grown worse since then. According to that last message, Zhang He held together little more than a broken remnant. Barely one thousand horsemen and perhaps three thousand foot soldiers, worn thin by endless hardship.
On paper four thousand men was still a respectable force. But numbers told only half the story. Zhang He was currently being hunted down by Ma Chao and nearly seven thousand fierce tribal riders. Those Qiang warriors were born in the saddle. They lived for the thrill of battle. Zhang He was caught fast in a nightmare of endless raids and sudden strikes. He was not yet wiped out but he was barely treading water. And every hour that passed drained him further.
Worse still the entire Wei River valley was thick with enemy troops. Their momentum was overwhelming. Zhang He had no way of knowing where the main army waited. He dared not move south. He dared not move east. His final message spoke of slipping away toward Duyang in the northeast. He hoped to find high ground and a strong defensive position. There he would rest his weary men and watch for the smallest opening to turn and fight back.
Yet neither Zhu Ling nor Zhong Yao truly believed he would succeed.
The Qiang knew this harsh land as well as they knew their own homes. They had learned to ride these jagged ravines and hidden valleys before they could even walk. If this were happening out on the wide open plains of the east Zhang He's plan might have worked. But here in this rugged unforgiving wilderness? It was little better than a march toward certain death.
Zhong Yao stayed silent for a very long time. Seconds dragged by like minutes. He gazed out toward the horizon until his eyes stung.
At last the old man let out a long weary sigh. He opened his mouth to speak.
And the moment his words came forth the sheer weight of despair in them struck Zhu Ling to his very bones.
"If we manage to successfully defend Chang'an right now, it will be a blessing from the heavens themselves. Sending a single soldier outside these walls is a guaranteed permanent loss."
Zhu Ling felt his heart skip a beat. His mind reeled.
He stared at the old official in disbelief. "You're telling me they're actually going to attack Chang'an? Are they insane? Don't they know these walls have been standing for centuries? Did their strategist skip the chapter on siege warfare?"
Military scholars constantly claimed that Chang'an possessed no natural geographical choke points.
It was situated on an open plain.
But that academic trivia completely ignored the physical reality of the city itself. Chang'an's walls were man made mountains. Built by dynasties to stand firm even when the world fell apart. Just staring straight up at those towering stone ramparts was usually enough to make any invading general turn around and go crying all the way home.
Perhaps the old man had carried the weight of court politics for far too long and his wits had simply worn thin. Or perhaps he simply no longer cared who might overhear him now that there were no imperial spies watching nearby.
Zhong Yao, a man rapidly approaching his sixtieth birthday, let out a laugh. A rough unvarnished sound heavy with pure bitterness.
"All the way back in the twelfth year of Jian'an. Right after Lord Cao Cao had firmly established his capital at Yecheng and handed out rewards to all his men. I sent him a formal memorial."
He shook his head slowly.
"I begged him. I told him to march west without delay. I told him to bring Yongzhou and Liangzhou to heel before turning his attention anywhere else. I told him to station troops here to learn this harsh land. To resettle the people. To restore the fields. And to move with deliberate care. I told him then that a steady and careful campaign in the west was the very foundation upon which the whole realm could be secured."
Zhu Ling ran the numbers quickly in his head. The twelfth year of Jian'an. He remembered it well. That was exactly one year before the catastrophe at Red Cliffs. Cao Cao had turned his back on the west, marched south instead, and watched his great fleet burn to ash upon the Yangtze.
Zhu Ling wisely kept his silence. There was nothing he could safely say about that colossal mistake.
Zhu Ling stood there awkwardly saying nothing. And seeing that Zhong Yao simply lost all desire to keep speaking. The rush of feeling faded away. All that remained was crushing exhaustion. The bitter satisfaction of having been proven right felt completely empty. He waved the matter aside.
"General Zhu. Have your men strengthen all barricades. Bring forward every stockpile and piece of defensive gear. The enemy vanguard has already reached Wuzhang Plains. Barely two hundred miles away. If my reckoning holds they will stand before these gates in six or seven days."
Zhong Yao did not wait to see how Zhu Ling took it. He drew his heavy embroidered robes tighter around his frail shoulders. Then he turned and walked away along the wide paved stretch of the ramparts. The walls were disturbingly still. Hardly a soul stood watch. And he left nothing behind him but a long heavy sigh.
---
Zhong Yao had honestly lost count of how many years he had been chained to this city. At this point, he was pretty sure he'd been standing on these walls longer than some of his soldiers had been alive.
If the fall of the Han was a raging hurricane, then Chang'an was the eye of the storm. The dead center where everything went to hell. He had stood upon these ramparts and watched the world burn so many times he'd started taking it personally.
He remembered Dong Zhuo, the monster who stripped the realm bare and set the old capital on fire like it was a bonfire party nobody asked for.
He remembered Li Jue and Guo Si, two thugs who inherited Dong Zhuo's army and treated the Emperor like a hostage dog they forgot to feed.
He remembered Wang Yun, the scholar with big dreams and zero practical skills. The kind of guy who could plan a grand strategy but couldn't find his own shoes in the morning.
He remembered Lu Bu, the greatest warrior of the age, who was used as a weapon, passed around like a toy, and discarded by everyone who ever held his leash.
He remembered Han Sui and Ma Chao, the fierce warlords of the northwest who turned the entire region into one never-ending slaughterhouse.
Violent, arrogant men had swept through Chang'an like seasonal plagues. They tore the capital to pieces, starved the people, and eventually drove the Emperor himself battered and broken all the way east just to survive.
Zhong Yao had stood alone in this shattered city for twenty years. A single wooden pillar trying to hold up a collapsing sky. He was tired. The kind of tired that sleep couldn't fix. He didn't care about court politics anymore. He just wanted someone to win. Anyone. Just one overwhelming force to end the bleeding and let him retire in peace.
For a while, he actually believed Cao Cao would be that man. But Cao Cao was stubborn. The kind of stubborn that made you want to bang your head against a wall. He only remembered the value of Guanzhong after getting his teeth kicked in elsewhere.
And now look at the board.
In barely two years, Liu Bei had shoved his foot through the door. He had slipped into the west with terrifying speed. And now his presence had spread like a stubborn rash that wouldn't go away no matter how much you scratched.
Zhong Yao understood the shifting tides better than most. He saw the kind of men standing beside Liu Bei. These weren't opportunistic raiders. These were builders. Grand architects who planned ten moves ahead before they even touched a single piece on the board.
Look how they left Guan Yu to hold Jingzhou all alone. They stripped the east nearly bare. Why? Only one answer made sense. They were throwing everything they had at the west. They wanted to swallow the whole Guanzhong region in one massive bite.
Zhong Yao let out a short, bitter laugh meant only for Cao Cao far away.
Ah, Lord Cao. You thought the west was nothing but worthless dirt. You thought you were being so clever. You made noise here while planning to strike elsewhere. You thought you were playing them.
But what if Liu Bei called your bluff? What if he took your fake attack, flipped the board, and decided to conquer the Three Qin lands for real?
He remembered reports from the southern campaigns. At Jingzhou and Xiangyang, Liu Bei's engineers had built floating fortresses. Warships so big they could smash walled cities into rubble.
If they could build those monsters on the water, what was stopping them from building something equally terrifying to crack Chang'an's walls?
Zhong Yao paused mid-step. He leaned against the cold stone parapet and let out a dry, humorless chuckle.
None of this mattered to him anymore. He was done.
Let Liu Bei come. Let Cao Cao send his armies to take it back. What did an old, exhausted man care? One thought alone brought comfort: the end of this chaos was finally approaching. The final act was at hand.
And honestly? That was enough.
---
Down below in the military encampments, Zhu Ling was miserable. He sat hunched over his desk, staring at the supply ledgers until his eyes blurred.
He rubbed his temples and looked up at his quartermaster, a thin nervous man named Chen Wei who looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
"Tell me again," Zhu Ling said, his voice dangerously calm. "How many professional soldiers do we actually have?"
Chen Wei swallowed hard. He flipped through a bamboo scroll with trembling fingers. "Four thousand, sir. More or less. Depending on whether you count the men currently recovering from dysentery."
Zhu Ling's eye twitched. "And how many of those four thousand can actually hold a spear without stabbing themselves?"
"Perhaps... three thousand five hundred?" Chen Wei offered weakly. "The rest are still learning which end of the weapon is which."
Zhu Ling slammed his fist on the desk. The ink pot jumped. "Three thousand five hundred men to defend walls that stretch for miles! Do you know what the regulations say we need? Fifteen thousand minimum!"
"We had a full garrison six months ago, sir," Chen Wei pointed out carefully. "Before General Xiahou Yuan took half our men to reinforce the western front. And before the supply convoy got ambushed. And before—"
"I know!" Zhu Ling snapped. He stood up and paced around the small tent, his boots crunching on the dirt floor. "I know exactly what happened. What I need to know is what we're going to do about it."
He stopped pacing and looked at Chen Wei with an expression that made the quartermaster take an involuntary step back.
"Deploy the press gangs," Zhu Ling ordered.
Chen Wei's face went pale. "Sir? The civilian population!!!."
"I don't care about the civilian population," Zhu Ling cut him off. "I care about not being slaughtered in my sleep. Round up every able-bodied male in this city. Farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, beggars, if they have two arms and can stand upright, they're going on the walls."
"But sir, these are civilians. They've never held a weapon in their lives. Some of them are barely sixteen. Others are old men who remember when the Han dynasty actually worked."
"Then they can remember what it was like when it worked while they're dying for it," Zhu Ling said coldly. "Do it. Now."
---
The press gangs hit the civilian districts like a plague of locusts.
Twenty soldiers led by a grizzled sergeant named Ma Feng kicked down the door of a small bakery. Inside, a young man no older than seventeen was covered in flour, pulling loaves of bread from a clay oven.
"By order of General Zhu Ling, you are conscripted into military service," Ma Feng announced, his voice flat and bored. He had done this a dozen times already that morning.
The boy dropped the bread. "What? No! I can't! My father's sick, my mother can't run the shop alone, please!!!"
Ma Feng stepped forward and grabbed the boy by the collar. "Congratulations. You're now a soldier of the Cao empire. Your new duties include standing on a wall and not dying. Let's go."
The boy's mother burst out from the back room, her face streaked with tears. "Please! He's just a boy! Take me instead!"
Ma Feng looked at the elderly woman, then back at the boy. For a moment something like pity flickered across his weathered face. Then it was gone.
"Grab a spear, kid," he said, shoving a crude wooden weapon into the boy's hands. "And try not to get killed. You'll make a terrible ghost."
Across the district, the scene repeated itself over and over.
In a blacksmith's shop, a burly man with arms like tree trunks was dragged away from his forge mid-swing. His hammer clattered to the ground as two soldiers hauled him out by his leather apron.
"Wait! I have orders to finish these arrowheads by tomorrow!" the blacksmith protested.
"Good news," one of the soldiers said cheerfully. "You won't need to finish them. Someone else will make them. You're going to shoot them."
In a teahouse, three merchants were sitting around a table discussing the price of grain when the door burst open. They looked up to see a squad of soldiers blocking the exit.
"Which one of you is the oldest?" the sergeant asked.
The three men exchanged nervous glances. The youngest, a plump man in his forties, raised his hand hesitantly. "That would be me."
"Perfect. You're conscripted. The other two can stay and pay your taxes."
"But I have a family!" the merchant protested. "I have three children!"
The sergeant shrugged. "Then you'd better hope you don't die. Because if you do, your family's going to starve anyway. Move it."
By midday, the press gangs had dragged over four thousand civilians into the military compound. They stood in ragged lines in the courtyard, a motley collection of terrified faces. Farmers still covered in dirt, merchants still wearing their fine silk robes, craftsmen with calloused hands that had never held anything heavier than a hammer.
Some were teenagers barely old enough to shave. Others were old men with gray beards and stooped shoulders. A few looked like they might collapse just from standing up straight.
Zhu Ling stood on a raised platform overlooking the courtyard, his face grim. Beside him stood Chen Wei, who looked like he was about to be sick.
"This is it?" Zhu Ling asked, his voice flat. "This is what we scraped together?"
"Four thousand and change, sir," Chen Wei confirmed. "Though I would estimate at least five hundred of them are going to desert the first chance they get. And another thousand will probably drop dead from exhaustion before they even reach the walls."
Zhu Ling didn't respond. He just stared down at the ragged assembly.
Down in the courtyard, a grizzled weapons master was handing out spears to the new recruits. He moved down the line with mechanical efficiency, shoving crude wooden weapons into trembling hands.
"Sharp end goes toward the enemy," he droned, his voice carrying across the courtyard. "Other end goes in your hands. If you drop it, pick it up. If you break it, you're useless. If you run away, we'll shoot you ourselves. Any questions?"
A young farmer raised his hand hesitantly. "Um, sir? Which end is the sharp end?"
The weapons master stared at him for a long moment. Then he sighed heavily and moved down the line, physically turning each spear to show the recruit which way it pointed.
"This is going to be a long day," he muttered to himself.
An hour later, Zhu Ling stood on the western battlements, staring out at the empty plains beyond the walls. Behind him, the new recruits were being marched into position along the ramparts.
He could hear their footsteps, uneven and hesitant. He could hear their whispered conversations, their nervous breathing, the occasional sob that someone was trying very hard to suppress.
He turned around and watched as they took their positions.
The reality of the situation hit him hard.
The troops couldn't even form a continuous line. They were spread out so thin there were massive gaps between every group of five or six men. Some sections of the wall were completely empty. Others had just two or three terrified civilians huddled together, clutching their spears like lifelines.
They looked like a balding man's comb. Sparse. Pathetic. Doomed.
His stomach tightened.
Chen Wei climbed up the stairs to join him, his face pale. He followed Zhu Ling's gaze out along the ramparts and winced.
"It's... not good, sir," he offered weakly.
Zhu Ling let out a harsh laugh. "Not good? Chen Wei, if the rebels attack with any real force, they'll walk right through those gaps without even breaking stride. We don't have a defensive line. We have a decorative fence."
"We did the best we could, sir."
"Did we?" Zhu Ling turned to face him, his eyes hard. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like we just dragged four thousand civilians out of their homes and pointed them at an enemy army that's probably ten times their size. That's not defense. That's a massacre waiting to happen."
Chen Wei didn't respond. There was nothing to say.
Zhu Ling turned back to stare out at the empty plains. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, the rebel army was marching toward them. He could feel it in his bones.
He looked back at the ragged line of conscripts. Some of them were still crying. Others were staring blankly ahead, already broken. A few were trying to look brave, but their trembling hands gave them away.
Zhu Ling closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, his face was harder.
"Get them water," he ordered. "And food if we have any. If they're going to die on these walls, they might as well die on full stomachs."
Chen Wei nodded and hurried off to give the orders.
Zhu Ling stood alone on the battlements, watching the sun begin its slow descent toward the western horizon. The light caught the edges of his armor, turning it gold for a brief moment.
He thought about his vegetable garden behind the tent. The cabbages would be ready to harvest soon. He wondered if anyone would bother to pick them after he was dead.
Probably not.
He sighed and turned back to watch his new army take shape along the walls. It wasn't much. It wasn't even close to enough.
But it was all he had.
---
Exactly six days to the hour.
Morning sun spilled across the wide dusty plains beyond the capital. Zhuge Liang rode forward at the head of a vast orderly host. He drew rein and sat gazing up at the towering walls of Chang'an.
He noticed it at once. The defenses up on the ramparts were thin and pitiful. The city was all but emptied. Hardly a man stood watch. Great gaps stretched between every sentry. It was almost painful to look upon.
Beside him, young Jiang Wei sat straight in his saddle, burning to show off all he had learned. He narrowed his eyes toward the walls, took in the whole sorry picture in one glance, and decided this was the perfect moment to deliver a most profound and scholarly observation.
He shook his head slowly from side to side, drew himself up with all the dignity of an ancient sage, and spoke in a ringing voice the words of a classic text.
"Even the fiercest wind at the very end of its strength cannot stir so much as a single feather upon the ground. And an arrow spent in flight cannot pierce even the thinnest sheet of silk."
Zhuge Liang turned his head slowly and stared at the pleased young man. He said absolutely nothing for three full seconds.
Then, without a word, he reached over and rapped his knuckles smartly against Jiang Wei's helmet.
Thud.
Jiang Wei winced and rubbed the spot, looking thoroughly rebuked.
Zhuge Liang rolled his eyes. He had no time for flowery sayings. He had no intention of riding closer to exchange grand speeches with the men up on the walls. He cared nothing for polite siege customs.
He raised his right hand high and gave his order. Sharp. Plain. Final.
"Bring forward all heavy gear. Set up the trebuchets. Prepare to open fire."
---
The engineering corps sprang into action.
These craftsmen were no ordinary foot soldiers. They were a highly skilled elite. Zhuge Liang had personally begun training their core members years ago back in Jingzhou. When the seat of government moved to Chengdu, he brought that founding group along. He expanded their ranks generously, granted them ample resources, and taught them the deeper principles of mechanics. Now he had marched this army of master builders all the way across the dusty plains of the northwest.
These men were veritable masters of their craft. They could assemble towering siege ladders built to place troops safely atop walls fifty feet high. They fashioned the intricate gears that drove the legendary wooden oxen and flowing horses. They maintained the delicate firing mechanisms of the heavy repeating crossbows with absolute precision. They even taught regular troops how to erect sturdy water wheels for daily use around camp. There seemed nothing they could not build.
And today Zhuge Liang required them to build something truly terrifying. He wanted counterweight trebuchets.
General Huo Jun stood nearby watching. He had seen many sieges in his time, yet he observed the engineers at work with wide-eyed fascination. He was far too practical to stand apart and give orders. Whenever a massive timber beam seemed too heavy for the workmen to lift, Huo Jun would shout to his own guards and stride over to help bear the weight alongside them.
The assembly itself was a marvel of planning. It followed the exact same modular method they had perfected during the hard-fought assault on Yangping Pass. Nothing had to be shaped or fashioned from scratch on site.
All the most critical parts were already finished. The great iron fulcrums. The heavy metal brackets. The finely fashioned release mechanisms. The reinforced hinges. Every piece had been drawn in careful detail by Zhuge Liang himself, cast and forged in the iron foundries of Yizhou weeks before, and hauled here in covered wagons.
As for the timber? The engineers simply set to work felling the surrounding forests.
Squads of master carpenters unrolled their tool kits. Saws bit deep into wood. Hammers rang out in a steady rhythm of purpose. They shaped the freshly hewn timber to fit exactly into the waiting iron joints.
Even with every part prefabricated, these engines were fearsome constructions. It took hundreds of men working together through half the day just to stand the whole line of them upright and ready.
While the crews set the frames in place, Zhuge Liang gave Huo Jun one further task. He ordered him to scour the surrounding lands and gather suitable ammunition.
Huo Jun nodded readily. He asked what weight each stone should be.
Zhuge Liang mentioned casually that every projectile ought to weigh no less than two hundred pounds.
Huo Jun froze. He blinked several times in quick succession. He honestly assumed the Prime Minister must have misspoken. Two hundred pounds? That was insane. He asked for confirmation. Just to be certain. He asked three separate times.
Each time Zhuge Liang answered with perfect calm and a steady gaze.
Huo Jun walked away scratching his helmet in utter bewilderment. He suspected the Prime Minister had lost touch with the basic laws of nature. Or maybe physics worked differently in his head. But an order was an order. He sent his men out to scour the riverbeds, roll great boulders ashore, and drag them back to camp with heavy ropes.
High atop Chang'an's walls, Zhu Ling paced anxiously back and forth.
He stood thoroughly perplexed. He stared down at the enemy encampment, unable to make the least sense of what went on below.
From his vantage, it looked no different than a great swarm of ants hauling logs about. They appeared to be building tall wooden frames of some strange design.
Zhu Ling found himself fighting the urge to cup his hands and shout down at them.
We have stood here in full formation all damn day! Our nerves are frayed to ribbons! Are you coming to attack or not? What happened to that swift and terrible momentum everyone kept talking about?
Hour dragged by weary hour. The sharp rush of alarm faded completely away. In its place settled a dull, grinding exhaustion. Standing motionless in full armor for six straight hours was a special kind of torture.
By the time the sun began its final descent toward the western horizon, Zhu Ling could barely keep his eyes open. He leaned heavily against the cold stone parapet just to stay upright.
Then a great roar rose up from the enemy lines.
Zhu Ling snapped instantly awake. His hand closed tight around the hilt of his sword.
The host below stood facing west. The sun hung low directly behind them. Blinding sheets of golden light flooded upward. Zhu Ling raised a hand to shield his eyes and squinted hard against the glare. He braced himself to see thousands of infantry rushing forward with scaling ladders.
Yet no charge came. Only one dark shape rose into view.
A single black speck appeared high above the camp, sharply outlined against the blazing sun. It seemed to hang there defying all weight and reason.
And then it grew. Larger. And larger still.
A rushing sound tore through the quiet evening air, like a gale funneled into one narrow path.
Then it struck.
BOOM..
A massive cylinder of stone. Thick as two men standing shoulder to shoulder. It slammed down exactly upon the ramparts.
It landed mere paces from where Zhu Ling stood.
A soldier had stood there but a heartbeat before. That unfortunate soul never even drew breath to scream. The stone crushed him instantly to dust and red mist.
The great boulder ground to a halt, gouging a deep jagged scar straight into the paved stonework.
The force of the blow shook the entire length of the wall. Dust drifted down from every tower and battlement.
Zhu Ling stood rooted to the spot. He stared at the bloody rock resting atop the very heart of the city's defenses. His mouth hung open.
His knees began to tremble beyond control. His teeth chattered violently together. He could not still his own body's reaction to pure unadulterated dread.
He glanced down at the dark stain upon the stone. Then he looked back toward the setting sun.
"What the actual hell..." Zhu Ling whispered. His voice cracked high and thin. "Do these rebels have gods fighting on their side? Did they summon a damn meteor?!"