The gray shadow atop the ridge descended—not dust stirred by the wind, nor some beast moving through the woods. It was a flag, black with red trim, its torn edges like flames. Hoisted on a thick iron pole, it had been planted in a crack in the highest rock.
The firewood cleaver in Chen Wuya's hand froze midair. He had just finished sharpening its edge; stone grit still clung to his knuckles, and the old wound in the web of his thumb prickled faintly. He looked up, his gaze sliding down the flagpole to the bend in the mountain path—the ground had begun to tremble. Not heavily, but without pause, as if many people were stamping the earth in the same rhythm.
He did not look at the flag again.
Three steps away, he yanked the bone whistle hanging beneath the eaves with his right hand. It had been ground from the leg bone of a dead horse from the refugee camp, and its shrill, piercing cry could carry for two li. The whistle tore through the morning mist. Bai Zhi immediately rose from the herb field, a flexible sword already in her hand.
Chen Wuya kicked over the bamboo mat used for drying herbs, revealing three hemp ropes beneath it. Their ends had been nailed into the ground, stretched across the open space before the courtyard. He had added these horse-tripping lines last night, originally to guard against wild boars. Now, they would come in handy. He tucked the cleaver into his belt, then drew the longsword from his back. Its blade had never truly been sharpened; it was merely a piece of scrap iron hammered straight and ground into an edge line. But his grip was steady.
When the first group of foreign soldiers appeared at the mountain