Before dawn

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The bronze bell rang fiercely, its piercing, lingering peals like the repeated cries of an eagle facing danger. The sound penetrated wooden planks and stone bricks, reaching the ears of every sleeping knight.

All of Sand City jolted awake. When the visiting merchants were blasted out of their sleep, they lay stunned for a while before finally realizing that this would not be a peaceful night.

Intense unease swept through them. They began gathering their belongings, bundling up the livres they had earned over the past days and tying them around their waists. They scrambled upstairs and downstairs, seeking hidden rooms and cellars where they could shelter, lest they be caught in the bloody clash between the two armies.

The entire camp sprang to life. Knights seized their weapons and mounted their warhorses. With a flick of the reins, they raced through the firelight and galloped away like the wind.

Kanni had slept soundly that night, but at the bell's second peal, his eyes snapped open. He woke staring past the tip of his nose at the roof.

As he rose, he donned the helmet beside him, then dashed out the door, grabbed his weapon, and leaped onto a warhorse that had long been waiting. Leading the men who followed him, he headed toward the city gates.

He knew Sand City's strengths, weaknesses, and terrain well. Although he had received no orders directing him to a particular gate, he knew perfectly well that the eastern gate was the most vulnerable, and immediately made for it.

All of Sand City came alive. Dark shadows overlapped on the ground, converging and moving beneath the slanting silver needles of rain. Yet there was no confusion. Instead, they raced in orderly ranks toward the gates specified in their orders.

Every soldier of the Holy Temple could be called a knight, for those born on this land spent their entire lives with horses. A soldier who enlisted without knowing how to ride would be laughed out of the ranks.

They lived on horseback, so every knight was equipped with a fully armored warhorse. In battle, they could use sweeping weapons such as long halberds and curved blades to pierce enemy defenses and carve a bloody path through them. When their numbers were equal or superior, the Holy Temple's cavalry could devour everything as easily as black flames.

But tonight, not every knight rode a horse-or rather, not every knight could.

Although Han Ling and his companion's earlier scheme involving the Black-Feathered Sparrow and the Yellow Sand Diamondback Snake had not unfolded perfectly, it had still produced tangible results. The Knights' Order, originally more than two thousand strong, had been thinned by deaths and injuries. Now, Sand City's entire force had only 1,223 combat-ready knights, less than half the strength of the Seven Kingdoms Coalition.

The elemental traps had drained a considerable portion of the enemy's strength, but the gap remained far from easy to bridge. Besides, the darkness before dawn was the deepest of all. On such a night, even experienced knights could not properly control warhorses whose vision had been halved, greatly reducing the fighting strength of the entire Knights' Order.

A reckless sortie would only worsen their disadvantage. Thus, Yetos's order tonight was: "Hold the defenses!"

"Loose!" His powerful voice thundered across the sky like vast ocean waves.

Cold gleams gathered amid the beacon fires on either side. Pairs of fingers rubbed and trembled slightly as they drew bowstrings taut. Arms rose high, as though aiming for the stars and moon. The instant the fingers released, humming currents of air brushed past their ears and swept over the walls, hurtling toward the firelit ground in the distance.

Arrows fell thick as rain, blotting out the silver needles and filling the space between heaven and earth as they slanted mercilessly toward the men and horses below.

The rain of arrows, bearing the bloody wind of death, seemed to achieve little. Round shields, long shields, square shields, diamond-shaped shields, and triangular shields blocked them completely. Not a single shield-bearing soldier was hurt.

Seeing this, the soldiers in the army's middle ranks immediately relaxed. They quickened their charge, turning their attention back to the city gate so close ahead.

Elite though they were, they had overlooked one fatal detail: the wind's direction.

With the wind having shifted westward in the latter half of the night, the arrow fletchings spun faster and their range increased. They nearly skimmed the thick clouds before reaching their apex and streaming downward in swift succession.

Whoosh!

The rain of arrows plunged like eagles diving from the highest heavens to hunt, catching the soldiers in the Seven Kingdoms army's middle ranks off guard.

As elite troops, they naturally had the skill to match. However fierce the arrows overhead became, they did not panic. Instinctively, they swung their blades to protect their heads, chopping the whistling shafts to the ground as though cutting through columns of water.

At that moment, barely any of the coalition's unshielded soldiers in the middle ranks could be seen falling beneath the arrows. Clearly, an attack of this level was merely an appetizer to them.

The same was true for the archers beside Yetos.

"Loose!" Yetos swept his broad hand forward and shouted again.

The rushing wind beside their ears grew louder. The twang of releasing bowstrings seemed to touch the clouds in an instant, and the arrows howled toward the distant enemy, carried by unseen currents in the night sky.

The rain of arrows became continuous, falling without pause onto the soldiers' blades and armor. Sparks burst forth like stars, as though meteors were striking the earth and covering the battlefield.

The relentless, lethal shafts and their shrieking fletchings grew fiercer still. Even the shields held by the coalition's front ranks began to give way.

Dense clusters of arrows struck them. As their weight mounted, the shafts shook violently, forcing their sharp tips to puncture tiny holes in the shields. After dozens of impacts, those holes became narrow cracks that rapidly widened. Finally, the shields, already bristling like hedgehogs, could bear no more and began to split apart. In an instant, soldiers protected just a moment before were engulfed by flying arrows. Sparks sprayed from their armor, jolting their entire bodies. Before they could make more than a few defensive swings, arrows found the gaps and pierced their flesh.

The soldiers in the coalition's middle ranks fared even worse. Without shields, they could no longer withstand this black tide of arrows. The slightest slowing of an arm sent the sparks away from their blades and onto their armor, crashing over them like towering waves.

In that instant, a soldier would stiffen where he stood. Red raindrops filled his vision, and an amplified buzzing flooded his ears. After two seconds that felt both endless and brief, his body, riddled with holes and bristling like a hedgehog, would crash to the ground and lie in a pool of blood.

Warhorses in the vanguard screamed in anguish, while cries from the middle ranks surged like a breached dam. The scent of defeat before battle had even begun spread through the army.

Both contingents stopped advancing altogether. Some soldiers even showed signs of retreating, but with the troops behind still pushing forward, they could only keep moving ahead, crushed shoulder to shoulder.

"Charge! Charge, damn you! Anyone who retreats will be killed without mercy!" The shout carried through the army, overpowering the howling arrows. The cold, resolute voice reached every soldier's ears.

The speaker was naturally Qin Zihui, who had been wounded and escorted by Han Ling and the others to the rear, beyond the arrows' reach.

His face was still deathly pale, his lips dark, and his breathing rapid. Only with Han Ling supporting him could he barely remain standing.

A wall of men surrounded him, immediately cutting down any stray arrow that fell weakly from above.

"General, are you all right?" Han Ling asked, his eyes flashing with panic.

Before the panting Qin Zihui could answer, Han Ling spoke again. "Was that an elemental trap just now? A trap made from three different elements? How is that possible?"

Qin Zihui nodded and answered reluctantly, "That's right. It seems the Holy Temple sent two Elementalists as reinforcements."

"Two Elementalists..." Han Ling's lips trembled and twitched. "If that's true, how could we have received no word at all?"

"Hmph, you useless fool. Can't you tell from the force behind those arrows? Yetos has solved the water shortage. Those two must have brought the water with them."

"Damn it, how could it be such a coincidence? How did they know about the third hidden move behind your scheme within a scheme, General?"

Qin Zihui gave a soft, self-mocking laugh. "Man proposes, heaven disposes. They got damn lucky this time."

"Then what should we do now? Withdraw?" Han Ling's heart sank.

Swish! A blade flashed and came to rest against Han Ling's neck.

Qin Zihui said coldly, "Say 'withdraw' one more time, and I'll cut off your head."

"Yes, yes, yes," Han Ling hurriedly murmured, his voice abject, almost pleading for mercy.

Qin Zihui sheathed his sword and raised his voice, reminding those around him, "Even after our losses, we still outnumber them. Besides, their arrows cannot last forever."

Just as Qin Zihui had said, half a minute later, the rain of arrows abruptly weakened, its density halved. Clearly, their supply was nearly exhausted.

Bwooo! A mighty charging horn rang out. The Seven Kingdoms Coalition, which had begun to show signs of collapse, pulled together once more and advanced toward Sand City.

When Kanni reached the eastern gate, a crowd of knights had already gathered there, packed tightly against it.

Braced wagons, crossbeams, iron frames, chevaux-de-frise, and walls of men formed a single defensive whole behind the thick, sturdy gate. Together with the towering walls and the soldiers standing densely atop them, the position truly seemed impregnable, easy to defend and difficult to assault.

Kanni dismounted and slapped his horse's belly. The horse gave a low whinny, turned, and ran back to camp along the route it had come.

Zeng Mu, who had loosed several arrows, sensed his presence. Looking down over his shoulder and confirming that it was indeed Kanni, he shouted, "Five hundred meters from the walls!"

Kanni looked up at the shout and raised a hand to acknowledge Zeng Mu. The knights around him also lifted their heads, looking toward Yetos's mountainlike figure.

None of them betrayed any emotion. Their faces were remarkably calm and composed, showing no sign that they were about to rush into a bloody battle. Yet the hearts pounding in their chests and the blood heating throughout their bodies said everything.

Zeng Mu turned his gaze back, his arm tracing a crescent as he sent another arrow toward the distant firelight. A heavy sword stood upright before Yetos, his hands resting lightly atop it, the lines of his palms gradually drawing together.

The sound of arrows faded, and the sound of raindrops grew louder. Once not a single whistle remained beside their ears, the rain returned with a roar fiercer than before. It struck the ground and shattered, leaving only a pattering like pearls falling onto a jade plate.

Zeng Mu lowered his longbow and reached for the sword hilt on his back. Slowly, he drew the Fish-Scale Sword, its blade slicing through the rain, and held it horizontally before him as he watched the black tide charging toward the walls.

Dawn was approaching. Sadly, only one side was destined to enjoy the crimson horizon in peace today.