Black Wolf Kills

Howler monkeys cried, vipers scattered in alarm, and distant wolf howls drifted on the wind. In Hand-Snake City, deep in the southwestern mountains, the noble chiefs were thrown into panic.

Half a day earlier, more than a thousand Tecos fighting men transporting grain north had encountered the enemy thirty li north of the city. Thousands of northern barbarians had rushed out from the rolling mountain forests and ambushed the tribal fighters on the march. They had dyed their hair red and let out chilling wolf howls, terrifying the conscripted tribesmen. They loosed precise feathered arrows, killed the leaders at the head of the column, and sowed chaos and fear. They came sweeping in from the flanks, gathering in greater and greater numbers, striking the weakest side. The fighters had resisted for only a quarter of an hour before the entire force collapsed!

More than four hundred men in the vanguard were caught by the barbarian soldiers and either killed or forced to surrender; more than three hundred in the middle column scattered into the mountain forest after the rout, left to be hunted down; only the two hundred-odd men in the rear fled at full speed, hurrying back into the city with the terrible news of an enemy attack.

"How could northern barbarians appear here?!"

"They were shouting that the great chief was defeated and dead, and that tens of thousands of kingdom troops are marching south to punish us—"

"Impossible! The great chief only set out half a month ago. How could he be defeated so quickly? This is a howler monkey's angry cry, just a frightening trick!"

".But the tribesmen are terrified and uneasy. The great chief took all the elite warriors with him. The city is frighteningly empty!"

"Send out messengers at once and conscript the fighting