"Black clouds bore down on the city, threatening to crush it-"
Shen Le stood beside the High Shaman on the western wall of Ying Capital, gazing toward the Qin army with a grave expression.
The histories had recorded it, and the battle reports said the same: Bai Qi had invaded with only tens of thousands of men. Why, then, did they feel so overwhelmingly oppressive-
Their advancing formations bore down like a mountain. The dull thunder of their footsteps seemed to travel from the ends of the earth all the way to the battlements, shaking him to his core-
Even real black clouds rose from the western horizon-no, black smoke. Beside Shen Le, the soldiers clenched their teeth so hard they chattered, while tears of blood streamed down the young officers' faces.
Leaning on his long staff, the High Shaman strained onto tiptoe to look west, his voice grief-stricken and hopeless. "Our former kings-our former kings-"
In that direction lay Bear Family Mountain, where later generations would unearth countless Warring States tombs and artifacts. In other words, it was where Chu's royal family, its nobles, and the people of Ying Capital had buried generation after generation of their dead!
The Qin army had burned Chu's royal tombs!
And the Chu troops, the last defenders of Ying Capital, could only stand on the walls and stare westward, furious and helpless. Defeat after defeat had left them unable to venture outside for a field battle-
Even now, a great many of the defenders on the walls were clearly farmers hastily conscripted from nearby.
Their weapons were mottled with rust, and their leather armor-if they were lucky enough to receive any-was in tatters.
Yet no one fled. Not because they did not want to, but because there was nowhere left to retreat. Behind