Twenty days later, a long convoy rolled through the eastern gate of Gulda City.
Hundreds of war wagons entered the city one after another amid clouds of dust. Their wheels rumbled over the bluestone paving beneath the gate, like a slow-flowing river of iron. The wagons came in all sizes. The largest resembled moving wooden towers, their compartments fitted with iron plates and animal hides. Iron spears several feet long jutted from both sides, their tips gleaming cold blue in the sunlight.
The smaller ones were light transport wagons, loaded with bundles of bows and crossbows and neatly stacked iron arrows. The arrow baskets aboard them bristled with white-fletched shafts, packed as densely as stubble in a harvested wheat field. Several dozen wagons specially loaded with firearms accompanied them, tightly wrapped in thick oilcloth. Each was guarded by two members of the Martial Suppression Guard, who never strayed a step.
Lin Ziwei rode at the head of the convoy. Her gray-brown steppe clothing was coated in dust from the long journey, and her face was even thinner than it had been half a month earlier, but her eyes remained bright and sharp.
Fourth Madam followed a short distance behind her, still wearing her dark green riding outfit. A small pair of silver scissors spun rapidly between her fingers as she exchanged quiet words with the Martial Suppression Guard escorts beside her, Xie Qiu and Mu Xingze, occasionally letting out a soft laugh.
Yet there was no relaxation in her amber eyes. Her gaze constantly swept every corner around the convoy, missing not the slightest irregularity.
Zhao Feng personally greeted them at the gate. He stood in the shadow of the gateway, the Nine Yang Divine Sword hanging at his waist. His gaze passed slowly over the wagons laden with weapons