Grassland, rivers, the sound of hooves. Horn bows, arrows, the hiss of air being split. Livestock, crowds, shouting. And then the palisade came crashing down. Cavalry flew in, loosing shrill whistling arrows and roaring their charge. A brutal slaughter struck in a morning suddenly shattered, like a morin khuur string snapped in one fierce pull—the opening note was a fight to the death!
"Who is it? Who's the enemy?!"
"It's the Hebian Tribe! Their mounted archers!"
"Impossible, absolutely impossible! Those are armored men! Armored men!!..."
Forest Tribe chieftain Taigun, barefoot, clutching his best bow and spear, rushed alone from the chieftain's tent at the center of the camp. He could not spare even half a thought for his wife and children. Only after vaulting onto his warhorse did he barely manage to see past the yurts thrown into chaos, the surging heads of men and horses, and catch sight of the enemy charging and hacking through them!
"Twenty suits of armor, forty... at least a hundred-household of armored cavalry?! Eternal Heaven! How is this possible? This can't be possible!..."
Taigun trembled all over, terror bursting from his mouth in a shout. As a chieftain who had gone south to fight before, no one understood the power of a great tribe's armored cavalry better than he did!
The grassland never lacked lightly equipped mounted archers skilled with the bow. But when two forces of mounted archers circled and shot at each other, chasing back and forth, it was very hard to decide victory or defeat. Often, even after they had shot their arrows dry, few men would die, like two strips of oxhide sinew tangled together. Only charging armored cavalry could settle things with one blow—the hammer that smashed through sinew and bone, the very root of a great tribe's control