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Winter, Fourteenth year of the Tianzhong Emperor First year of the Jingyu Emperor
It was a bitterly cold day, and the snow around Anping was stained red with blood and black with ash. As the sky began to brighten and turn blue then red, a large city gate cracked open and shadowy figures slipped out. It was a powerful contingent, two dragons, three phoenixes, eight qilin, a score of guardian lions, twenty seven oni, and two hundred and forty humans, a sixth of which were archers, a sixth shenjiying gunmen, a third swordsmen and a third spearmen. The sun barely rising over the horizon soon illuminated the faces of the two longs leading the sortie: Qing and Baiji, scarred, exhausted, battered but determined. These two veterans had managed to survive everything thrown at them over two months, and they were now unafraid of anything.
The dragons had an important assignment today: infiltrate through the siege lines at Yu Spring, work their way through Mount Huangtu, and destroy the Elut supply depot at Wanggong. It was a dangerous mission, but danger had become a fact of life during the siege.
After the initial attacks had been repulsed, the enemy had settled into besieging the capital. What followed were weeks of bloody stalemate: the nomads were unable to storm the city but they could cut off the supply lines and try to starve out the garrison, while likewise the garrison was unable to drive off the invaders while reinforcements slowly trickled in and amassed nearby for a relief attempt. So the conflict settled into an exhausting series of skirmishes, raids and sorties. Both dragons were now quite accustomed to it.
Lulin was dead: she had taken down the leader of the giant eagles early in the fighting, but had been mortally wounded in the process, succumbing to her dreadful wounds three days later. Huei was also dead, devoured by a wurm. So was Chi, decapitated after taking down an entire zuut of armored horsemen. Finally Lan was unfortunate enough to be captured alive. The nomads affixed him to a giant scaffold facing the walls, and cruelly tortured him over the course of a day before Qing and Baiji finally could bear it no longer and sortied out, reaching their friend after a long and bloody battle to finally put him out of his misery. One by one their friends fell until the blue long and the white one were the only ones left. For a long time Qing wept every night, embracing Baiji and falling into a fitful sleep in his arms, before waking up the next day, putting on her armor and taking her weapon and plunging right back into the blood and gore.
Even that finally stopped.
She had no more tears to shed.
They had no more friends to give.
As dawn began to break the strikeforce worked its way through the snowy banks of the Western hills and towards the depression where a large spring flowed. The nomads had been unable to build barricades here on sodden ground, so if the Imperial strikeforce moved quickly they could break through the enemy lines and reach the relative safety of the mountains before launching their raid on the enemy rear.
As they advanced through the no-man’s land, Qing and Baiji came across corpses in every direction.
Enemy dead lay scattered before the walls of the capital, unable to be recovered for burial, frozen stiff into dark logs. Further onward the gruesome tableau changed; some remains had been recovered, but too large for easy removal- fallen eagles, wurms and muu shuwuus- stay lay where they fell, like stones in a stream. Further onwards, the strikeforce found the human, alma and equine dead buried in ring shaped cemeteries, the horses buried in central mounds with the humanoid burials radiating outward into the horizon.
As she stared upon the circles of simple wooden markers covered in beads and feathers Qing reflected upon these enemy peoples with a slight twinge of sadness over their deaths, mixed with a tired sense of relief that the more of them were here, the less of them she would have to face elsewhere.
The strikeforce continued onward.
Reaching the large bubbling spring, the soldiers warily set up a perimeter while filling their canteens and drinking, then pushed on to the hill above. They had just reached the abandoned village of Yu when some of the qilins in the party stopped, scanning the air. At the same time the phoenixes took to the sky. Immediately the strikeforce began assembling into battle formation, Qing and Baiji summoning water in preparation for the fight.
With minimal warning an entire zuut of horse archers appeared, galloping through the streets of the abandoned town and unleashing a storm of arrows upon the strikeforce. Though the swordsmen quickly raised their shields and Qing quickly threw out a protective barrier, several warriors were struck down even with qilin luck.
An instant later and a half dozen giant eagles descended with screams, devouring a pair of phoenixes, tearing off the head of an oni and shredding a score of humans under their beaks and talons. The dragons immediately riposted: Baiji leapt at one avian, splitting its skull with his guandao, while Qing knocked another from the sky with a well aimed water projectile, sending her opponent smashing into the buildings below. Meanwhile the rest of the team had recovered, the shenjiying shooting down a third great eagle while the spearmen brought down a fourth in a bloody carnage of blades. Now the last phoenix pounced, systematically tearing at and singeing the feathers off a remaining eagle until it lost the ability to fly and tumbled down to earth. Baiji then took to the air. The final giant eagle turned to face the white dragon, and the two opponents dueled in the frigid sky, beak and talons against teeth and claws and polearm. Blood half frozen into flakes showered down, sprinkling the snow capped roofs below before finally Baiji struck down the giant eagle, sending it crumpling into the local yamen.
Meanwhile fighting on the ground had expanded; the enemy cavalry had wheeled away from the Imperial contingent only to attack again from an unexpected direction, throwing out another storm of arrows before charging in with lances and sabers, now joined by almas and muu shuwuu bursting out of the houses of the abandoned town to smash into the Jiangshan infantry. Soon all was chaos: Projectiles flew in every direction, bodies fell like millet seeds being harvested, while Imperial and Elut troops engaged in brutal combat, riders trampling, hacking down and impaling footmen while the latter used a flurry of polearms to impale the horsemen or pull them from their horses to be dispatched. Qing joined the fighting here, standing her ground and thrusting her ji a charging nomadic rider with such force that he flew from his saddle, then swinging out to amputate the arm of an approaching alma, before using her water balls to throw back a muu shuwuu attempting to pierce the long’s skull with her steel beak. Eventually with the support of the blue dragon, onis, qilins and guardian lions, the human infantry managed to drive back the Elut forces with heavy losses on both sides.
The enemy horsemen regrouped and attacked a third time, but now the Imperial infantry responded quickly, firing back at the Eluts with a hail of arrows, bolts and bullets, striking down several men and horses. At the same time the guardian lions countercharged, supported by the qilins. Despite losses sustained by Parthian shots, the pursuers soon caught up with the fleeing horsemen, taking down several mounts and riders, and the Elut cavalry formation collapsed as unhorsed enemy troops and almas fought the foo dogs and horned equines hand to hand, smashing through doors and windows and rolling through the streets of Yu while locked in mortal struggle.
Those Eluts still mounted went back to support their comrades, but archers and shenjiying now had the upper hand in the exchange of fire, dispatching nomadic bowmen with ruthless efficiency. Jiangshan footmen quickly followed up with a fierce counterattack, sweeping the enemy away like pebbles before a tide.
Finally the onis entered combat, charging through the abandoned town and ending multiple confrontations with powerful blows from their clubs: a skilled nomadic warrior could be fast enough to stab a guardian lion through the snout or lucky enough to evade a qilin horn and slit its throat, but they could do little against a towering humanoid whose swings with their kanabōs could bring down an entire house upon their opponents. In short order the town of Yu was cleared of enemies, and the surviving Elut forces, about a dozen in number, fled.
Baiji had just rejoined Qing in the battered settlement when the ground began to rumble and Leiyan, the leader of the qilin force, neighed loudly.
The white dragon swore.
“Scatter!” The blue dragon called out. Everyone did so: they all knew what it was.
A giant wurm burst out from the middle of the village, catching two unlucky oni in its maw along with three houses. The sightless reptile crunched down with its razor sharp teeth, sending blood and metal and wood pieces raining down.
The shenjiying troops fired their gonnes while Qing and Baiji charged the enemy from opposite directions. The death worm turned to the blue dragon and sprayed venom at her, which Qing neutralized with a wall of water, precipitating the poison out from the air and into caustic raindrops. Then the wurm charged, barreling towards the long with maw opened, smashing houses and walls to pieces as it slid past. Qing charged as well with her ji tilted. At the last moment the blue dragon skipped into the air and then below her opponent’s all encompassing jaws, slicing deeply into the wurm's flesh with her polearm. The giant creature screamed and lashed out to bite its opponent, but now Baiji had his opportunity, leaping atop the wurm and sending his guandao thrusting through the giant reptile’s skull. The wurm writhed violently, throwing off the white long, before collapsing dead in the middle of the ruins of the village.
Battered and wounded, Baiji and Qing looked at each other: their raid had already failed; the strikeforce had been caught only a short distance behind enemy lines, and their troops were already badly bloodied and exhausted. Soon the entire Elut army would be alerted and descend upon the team.
Still, to fall back through the lines, past the sodden ground of Yu Spring surrounded by hills, would be a death warrant. The ruins of the town at least gave a better chance at survival. Instead of retreating, the team would hunker down in Yu and hopefully fight off all further attacks until nightfall, when they could safely retreat back to Anping.
Redeploying in the middle of the town the Imperial infantry fixed ranks, sword and shield men in front, shenjiying loaded and ready, close spearmen behind in the case of cavalry. The onis formed into a heavy reserve, the guardian lions screening the flanks, while the qilins and phoenix dispersed to spread their luck and detection. Finally Qing and Baiji took up position in the center of this arc, polearms and water abilities primed and ready. They were prepared for anything, be it on ground, in the air or from below ground.
The early morning was illuminating everything under a harsh light. The blue dragon silently glanced back at the sun. There would be hours before it set.
The force was likely doomed.
Of course, Qing and Baiji could fly. They could order the striketeam to scatter and retreat, then simply soar back to the capital, leaving their forces on the ground to their fate. The dragons would be defeated, they’d be humiliated, but they’d survive to fight another day.
But Qing and Baiji were longs: they were proud, and they were honorable. The thought never entered their heads.
They would share the fate of their soldiers.
A fight to the death.
For half an hour the strikeforce kept formation, waiting for the devastating Elut counterattack.
But there was no further action.
The strikeforce sensed no enemy reinforcements riding in, attempting to counterattack, to destroy or even just block them from their mission. After a while, the two dragons looked at each other.
“That was a rearguard.” Baiji stated the obvious, as if unsure it was actually true.
“Can it be?” Qing asked.
Baiji waited for confirmation from the qilins and phoenix. The fenghuang Huocai spread its wings and scouted for a half hour, coming back shaking their heads. After a brief assessment, both Leiyan and Huocai nodded. “They're gone.” The white dragon declared for everyone, before raising his guandao into the air. “We did it. We won!”
The weary soldiers cheered, also lifting their weapons to the sky.
Qing joined in the festivities, raising her ji into the air and cheering as loud as she could.
“Victory!”
It was finally over.
Losses had been heavy. The strikeforce had lost about a fourth of its strength in their minor skirmish at Yu. For the entire two month siege, nearly eight thousand defenders, including a hundred dragons, were dead. Backlit by the ruins of Yu, surrounded by the bodies of friends and foes, the blue dragon certainly felt the triumph rang a bit hollow.
But it didn’t matter.
The enemy had retreated.
They had won.
The order of Heaven had been rightened.
Despite all the pain and suffering, she had survived.
She looked back upon Baiji, a great warrior and a great companion, with gladness. He returned her wary, exhausted smile.
Her love had survived as well.
They could make a future together.
The storm had passed; things could only get better.
Richard Beddow, Simon Ravn, Richard Birdsall, and Tim Wynn - Scorched Earth (Total War: Three Kingdoms Soundtrack)
From
Chickenzaur!
Original: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/63104532/
It was a bitterly cold day, and the snow around Anping was stained red with blood and black with ash. As the sky began to brighten and turn blue then red, a large city gate cracked open and shadowy figures slipped out. It was a powerful contingent, two dragons, three phoenixes, eight qilin, a score of guardian lions, twenty seven oni, and two hundred and forty humans, a sixth of which were archers, a sixth shenjiying gunmen, a third swordsmen and a third spearmen. The sun barely rising over the horizon soon illuminated the faces of the two longs leading the sortie: Qing and Baiji, scarred, exhausted, battered but determined. These two veterans had managed to survive everything thrown at them over two months, and they were now unafraid of anything.
The dragons had an important assignment today: infiltrate through the siege lines at Yu Spring, work their way through Mount Huangtu, and destroy the Elut supply depot at Wanggong. It was a dangerous mission, but danger had become a fact of life during the siege.
After the initial attacks had been repulsed, the enemy had settled into besieging the capital. What followed were weeks of bloody stalemate: the nomads were unable to storm the city but they could cut off the supply lines and try to starve out the garrison, while likewise the garrison was unable to drive off the invaders while reinforcements slowly trickled in and amassed nearby for a relief attempt. So the conflict settled into an exhausting series of skirmishes, raids and sorties. Both dragons were now quite accustomed to it.
Lulin was dead: she had taken down the leader of the giant eagles early in the fighting, but had been mortally wounded in the process, succumbing to her dreadful wounds three days later. Huei was also dead, devoured by a wurm. So was Chi, decapitated after taking down an entire zuut of armored horsemen. Finally Lan was unfortunate enough to be captured alive. The nomads affixed him to a giant scaffold facing the walls, and cruelly tortured him over the course of a day before Qing and Baiji finally could bear it no longer and sortied out, reaching their friend after a long and bloody battle to finally put him out of his misery. One by one their friends fell until the blue long and the white one were the only ones left. For a long time Qing wept every night, embracing Baiji and falling into a fitful sleep in his arms, before waking up the next day, putting on her armor and taking her weapon and plunging right back into the blood and gore.
Even that finally stopped.
She had no more tears to shed.
They had no more friends to give.
As dawn began to break the strikeforce worked its way through the snowy banks of the Western hills and towards the depression where a large spring flowed. The nomads had been unable to build barricades here on sodden ground, so if the Imperial strikeforce moved quickly they could break through the enemy lines and reach the relative safety of the mountains before launching their raid on the enemy rear.
As they advanced through the no-man’s land, Qing and Baiji came across corpses in every direction.
Enemy dead lay scattered before the walls of the capital, unable to be recovered for burial, frozen stiff into dark logs. Further onward the gruesome tableau changed; some remains had been recovered, but too large for easy removal- fallen eagles, wurms and muu shuwuus- stay lay where they fell, like stones in a stream. Further onwards, the strikeforce found the human, alma and equine dead buried in ring shaped cemeteries, the horses buried in central mounds with the humanoid burials radiating outward into the horizon.
As she stared upon the circles of simple wooden markers covered in beads and feathers Qing reflected upon these enemy peoples with a slight twinge of sadness over their deaths, mixed with a tired sense of relief that the more of them were here, the less of them she would have to face elsewhere.
The strikeforce continued onward.
Reaching the large bubbling spring, the soldiers warily set up a perimeter while filling their canteens and drinking, then pushed on to the hill above. They had just reached the abandoned village of Yu when some of the qilins in the party stopped, scanning the air. At the same time the phoenixes took to the sky. Immediately the strikeforce began assembling into battle formation, Qing and Baiji summoning water in preparation for the fight.
With minimal warning an entire zuut of horse archers appeared, galloping through the streets of the abandoned town and unleashing a storm of arrows upon the strikeforce. Though the swordsmen quickly raised their shields and Qing quickly threw out a protective barrier, several warriors were struck down even with qilin luck.
An instant later and a half dozen giant eagles descended with screams, devouring a pair of phoenixes, tearing off the head of an oni and shredding a score of humans under their beaks and talons. The dragons immediately riposted: Baiji leapt at one avian, splitting its skull with his guandao, while Qing knocked another from the sky with a well aimed water projectile, sending her opponent smashing into the buildings below. Meanwhile the rest of the team had recovered, the shenjiying shooting down a third great eagle while the spearmen brought down a fourth in a bloody carnage of blades. Now the last phoenix pounced, systematically tearing at and singeing the feathers off a remaining eagle until it lost the ability to fly and tumbled down to earth. Baiji then took to the air. The final giant eagle turned to face the white dragon, and the two opponents dueled in the frigid sky, beak and talons against teeth and claws and polearm. Blood half frozen into flakes showered down, sprinkling the snow capped roofs below before finally Baiji struck down the giant eagle, sending it crumpling into the local yamen.
Meanwhile fighting on the ground had expanded; the enemy cavalry had wheeled away from the Imperial contingent only to attack again from an unexpected direction, throwing out another storm of arrows before charging in with lances and sabers, now joined by almas and muu shuwuu bursting out of the houses of the abandoned town to smash into the Jiangshan infantry. Soon all was chaos: Projectiles flew in every direction, bodies fell like millet seeds being harvested, while Imperial and Elut troops engaged in brutal combat, riders trampling, hacking down and impaling footmen while the latter used a flurry of polearms to impale the horsemen or pull them from their horses to be dispatched. Qing joined the fighting here, standing her ground and thrusting her ji a charging nomadic rider with such force that he flew from his saddle, then swinging out to amputate the arm of an approaching alma, before using her water balls to throw back a muu shuwuu attempting to pierce the long’s skull with her steel beak. Eventually with the support of the blue dragon, onis, qilins and guardian lions, the human infantry managed to drive back the Elut forces with heavy losses on both sides.
The enemy horsemen regrouped and attacked a third time, but now the Imperial infantry responded quickly, firing back at the Eluts with a hail of arrows, bolts and bullets, striking down several men and horses. At the same time the guardian lions countercharged, supported by the qilins. Despite losses sustained by Parthian shots, the pursuers soon caught up with the fleeing horsemen, taking down several mounts and riders, and the Elut cavalry formation collapsed as unhorsed enemy troops and almas fought the foo dogs and horned equines hand to hand, smashing through doors and windows and rolling through the streets of Yu while locked in mortal struggle.
Those Eluts still mounted went back to support their comrades, but archers and shenjiying now had the upper hand in the exchange of fire, dispatching nomadic bowmen with ruthless efficiency. Jiangshan footmen quickly followed up with a fierce counterattack, sweeping the enemy away like pebbles before a tide.
Finally the onis entered combat, charging through the abandoned town and ending multiple confrontations with powerful blows from their clubs: a skilled nomadic warrior could be fast enough to stab a guardian lion through the snout or lucky enough to evade a qilin horn and slit its throat, but they could do little against a towering humanoid whose swings with their kanabōs could bring down an entire house upon their opponents. In short order the town of Yu was cleared of enemies, and the surviving Elut forces, about a dozen in number, fled.
Baiji had just rejoined Qing in the battered settlement when the ground began to rumble and Leiyan, the leader of the qilin force, neighed loudly.
The white dragon swore.
“Scatter!” The blue dragon called out. Everyone did so: they all knew what it was.
A giant wurm burst out from the middle of the village, catching two unlucky oni in its maw along with three houses. The sightless reptile crunched down with its razor sharp teeth, sending blood and metal and wood pieces raining down.
The shenjiying troops fired their gonnes while Qing and Baiji charged the enemy from opposite directions. The death worm turned to the blue dragon and sprayed venom at her, which Qing neutralized with a wall of water, precipitating the poison out from the air and into caustic raindrops. Then the wurm charged, barreling towards the long with maw opened, smashing houses and walls to pieces as it slid past. Qing charged as well with her ji tilted. At the last moment the blue dragon skipped into the air and then below her opponent’s all encompassing jaws, slicing deeply into the wurm's flesh with her polearm. The giant creature screamed and lashed out to bite its opponent, but now Baiji had his opportunity, leaping atop the wurm and sending his guandao thrusting through the giant reptile’s skull. The wurm writhed violently, throwing off the white long, before collapsing dead in the middle of the ruins of the village.
Battered and wounded, Baiji and Qing looked at each other: their raid had already failed; the strikeforce had been caught only a short distance behind enemy lines, and their troops were already badly bloodied and exhausted. Soon the entire Elut army would be alerted and descend upon the team.
Still, to fall back through the lines, past the sodden ground of Yu Spring surrounded by hills, would be a death warrant. The ruins of the town at least gave a better chance at survival. Instead of retreating, the team would hunker down in Yu and hopefully fight off all further attacks until nightfall, when they could safely retreat back to Anping.
Redeploying in the middle of the town the Imperial infantry fixed ranks, sword and shield men in front, shenjiying loaded and ready, close spearmen behind in the case of cavalry. The onis formed into a heavy reserve, the guardian lions screening the flanks, while the qilins and phoenix dispersed to spread their luck and detection. Finally Qing and Baiji took up position in the center of this arc, polearms and water abilities primed and ready. They were prepared for anything, be it on ground, in the air or from below ground.
The early morning was illuminating everything under a harsh light. The blue dragon silently glanced back at the sun. There would be hours before it set.
The force was likely doomed.
Of course, Qing and Baiji could fly. They could order the striketeam to scatter and retreat, then simply soar back to the capital, leaving their forces on the ground to their fate. The dragons would be defeated, they’d be humiliated, but they’d survive to fight another day.
But Qing and Baiji were longs: they were proud, and they were honorable. The thought never entered their heads.
They would share the fate of their soldiers.
A fight to the death.
For half an hour the strikeforce kept formation, waiting for the devastating Elut counterattack.
But there was no further action.
The strikeforce sensed no enemy reinforcements riding in, attempting to counterattack, to destroy or even just block them from their mission. After a while, the two dragons looked at each other.
“That was a rearguard.” Baiji stated the obvious, as if unsure it was actually true.
“Can it be?” Qing asked.
Baiji waited for confirmation from the qilins and phoenix. The fenghuang Huocai spread its wings and scouted for a half hour, coming back shaking their heads. After a brief assessment, both Leiyan and Huocai nodded. “They're gone.” The white dragon declared for everyone, before raising his guandao into the air. “We did it. We won!”
The weary soldiers cheered, also lifting their weapons to the sky.
Qing joined in the festivities, raising her ji into the air and cheering as loud as she could.
“Victory!”
It was finally over.
Losses had been heavy. The strikeforce had lost about a fourth of its strength in their minor skirmish at Yu. For the entire two month siege, nearly eight thousand defenders, including a hundred dragons, were dead. Backlit by the ruins of Yu, surrounded by the bodies of friends and foes, the blue dragon certainly felt the triumph rang a bit hollow.
But it didn’t matter.
The enemy had retreated.
They had won.
The order of Heaven had been rightened.
Despite all the pain and suffering, she had survived.
She looked back upon Baiji, a great warrior and a great companion, with gladness. He returned her wary, exhausted smile.
Her love had survived as well.
They could make a future together.
The storm had passed; things could only get better.
Richard Beddow, Simon Ravn, Richard Birdsall, and Tim Wynn - Scorched Earth (Total War: Three Kingdoms Soundtrack)
From
Chickenzaur!Original: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/63104532/
Category Artwork (Traditional) / Fantasy
Species Eastern Dragon
Size 2372 x 3495px
File Size 2.14 MB
I'm sorry to say I'm very behind, but this was a good read. I must have missed how things were going, but it seems our emperor and his forces are losing.
I also was successful in finally getting some more writing done and posted a short myself. I hope to see more from you and hear from you. Good day Clostridium
I also was successful in finally getting some more writing done and posted a short myself. I hope to see more from you and hear from you. Good day Clostridium
Thanks!
Hope you are doing well!
This is actually a flashback, dating to about 30 years before the main storyline with Morha. A different Emperor, a different time, when Qing was still an officer in the Imperial army. It will kind of put into context why Qing is the way she is.
Hope you are doing well!
This is actually a flashback, dating to about 30 years before the main storyline with Morha. A different Emperor, a different time, when Qing was still an officer in the Imperial army. It will kind of put into context why Qing is the way she is.
Starts rough: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/57908866/ , gets better, almost mentor/student: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59399483/, get closer: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/53424244/.
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