October, Ningxia.
The snow line on Helan Mountain had crept lower still.
The Yellow River curved through the great bend. Wind off the river swept sand onto the city walls, struck the battlements, and shattered into scattered sobs.
In "The Old General's Song," Wang Wei wrote: Beneath Helan Mountain, battle lines massed like clouds; feathered dispatches raced back and forth, heard morning and night.
But now, beneath Helan Mountain, no battle lines massed like clouds.
There was only a lonely city, a handful of old soldiers, and smoke above the beacon towers that dwindled, day by day, into a thin thread.
October's north wind was like knives and swords.
Beyond the frontier wall, the hoofbeats of the Tangut horses sounded now distant, now near.
Within the frontier wall, the old soldiers grew more white hairs with every passing day.
Zhou Quan arrived in Ningxia without fanfare.
There was no honor guard, no music, no ranks drawn up to welcome him.
A hundred mounted personal guards, coated in windblown sand, rode straight into the Garrison City.
He merely had a message sent ahead: "Zhou Quan has arrived to assume his post by imperial decree. General Peng, sorry for the trouble, but please hand over the official seal."
Peng Ding was waiting in the commander-in-chief's residence.
He had been stripped of his post and ordered to face interrogation. The decree required him to surrender his seal, then be taken in chains to the Capital.
As a defeated general, he should have been escorted away in a prison cart, yet he was still at the garrison.
The two met in the hall.
Peng Ding was older than Zhou Quan had imagined.
His hair and beard were half white, his back stooped, his armor worn.
Peng Ding said nothing. He simply lifted the