First Battle

When Xueya led the main force of the Wolf Tribe to catch up with the fleeing caravans, he reined in his horse and glanced back at the northern horizon. There, the dust had not yet risen, and the pursuers had not yet appeared, but he knew it was coming soon.

"Chief!" A scout galloped up, dismounted, and practically tumbled and crawled to Xueya's side, his face pale.

"The Horse Tribe is here! Six hundred cavalrymen, each with two horses, and they're less than two hours away!"

Xueya's pupils contracted sharply. Six hundred cavalrymen, each with two horses, were the elite of the Horse Tribe. He turned to look at the slowly retreating column beside him—a line of people stretching for miles. The Charcoal Fire Tribe, the Firewood Tribe, the Mole Burrow Tribe, the Firefly Marsh Tribe, the Boat People Tribe, and a dozen or so smaller tribes, totaling at least four thousand men, women, and children.

They brought their families, carried grain, and herded cattle and sheep. The elderly could not walk fast, the children could not walk, and the livestock ran wildly. The whole group was like a tired giant python, slowly crawling across the wasteland.

At this rate, it will take at least five more days to reach High Pointed Mountain. Five days?

Xueya gripped the Jiangsheng tightly and said, "Yexiao, Duyan."

"Exist."

"You choose a thousand men (over six hundred of whom are cavalry) to come with me." Xueya paused, looking at the long migrating caravan. "Shichui, you stay here. Take the remaining infantry and these... these people, and continue south. Have them discard unnecessary items and speed things up. You take some men and organize the supplies to transport back first. If they can keep up, great; if not, they'll just become targets for the Horse Tribe's venting! My men will only delay things by a day or two at most!"

"Chief!" Shichui cried out urgently, "You want to fight alone? Let me go with you!"

"You stay." Xueya didn't look at him, his gaze fixed on the north. "Your mission is to take these supplies and people and leave, as far as possible, and as quickly as possible."

Shichui opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end he just punched his own thigh hard.

Xueya said no more. He turned his horse around, raised his whip, and lashed the rump of the black pony hard.

"Follow me!"

More than 600 cavalrymen and nearly 400 infantrymen followed him, resting here and waiting for the arrival of the Horse Tribe's forces. Xueya stared ahead, ahead of the Horse Tribe's pursuers, ahead of a tough battle that he did not want to fight but had to fight.

Two hours later, the Horse Tribe's pursuers arrived. Xueya squinted, surveying the opposing formation. The Horse Tribe's cavalry was even more elite than he had anticipated! Six hundred men, twelve hundred horses, all fully armored, their ranks impeccable. At the very front, a middle-aged man riding a chestnut horse and wearing black armor was coldly staring at him. That was Junfeng, the leader of the Horse Tribe.

Xueya had long heard of Junfeng's great name, but now that he saw him in person, Xueya had to admit that this man was even more imposing than he had imagined.

It wasn't the kind of ferocious baring of teeth and claws, but rather a Chenwen and restrained sense of oppression, like an old leopard crouching in the grass, ready to pounce and tear its prey apart at any moment. The two men stared at each other from two hundred paces apart, without shouting, without trying to persuade each other to surrender, without any superfluous words. They both knew that this battle was unavoidable.

Xueya slowly pulled the bone knife from his waist.

"Kill."

Without horns or war drums, six hundred cavalrymen charged towards the opposite side like arrows released from a bow.

Junfeng also drew his sword at the same time.

"Rush."

The two armies clashed head-on on the wasteland like two surging tides. Xueya did not charge at the forefront; he led a dozen or so guards, patrolling the edge of the battle formation, searching for Junfeng's figure. But Junfeng did not rush forward rashly either; he kept sending out signals to adjust the cavalry's charge direction.

This was not a contest of individual bravery, but of formation, teamwork, and willpower. Xueya's cavalry numbered over six hundred, while Junfeng's cavalry numbered around six hundred. However, the Horse Tribe's cavalry had superior horsemanship, better teamwork, and were more skilled in archery and horsemanship.

As for the Wolf Tribe's cavalry... nearly a hundred of them were not particularly skilled at riding. Xueya quickly discovered the problem. Although his cavalry outnumbered his own, they lacked impact. The Horse Tribe's cavalry were like sharp scalpels, each charge precisely cutting through the Wolf Tribe's cavalry formation before quickly disengaging and never lingering in battle.

The Wolf Tribe's cavalry, on the other hand, appeared somewhat clumsy; they couldn't catch up or surround them, and could only eat the dust behind the Horse Tribe's cavalry.

"Infantry!" Xueya gritted his teeth and ordered, "Infantry, advance!"

His nearly four hundred infantrymen—those young and strong men who had followed him through the northern lands for the past few days and had already acquired a fierce aura—charged from the flanks at the Horse Tribe's cavalry. This tactic worked. Although the infantry did not have the impact of the cavalry, they outnumbered the horses, were fearless, and—their spears posed a deadly threat to the horses.

Several warhorses were pierced by spears, fell to the ground with pitiful cries, and their riders were thrown off and instantly hacked to death by the swarming infantry. Junfeng frowned. He had not expected that the Wolf Tribe's infantry would be so fearless, and he had not expected that those "young men who had just been captured" in the rumors would actually have such fighting power.

"Retreat!" Junfeng ordered, "Retreat three hundred paces!"

The Horse Tribe's cavalry quickly disengaged from the battlefield and regrouped three hundred paces away. Xueya did not pursue them; he knew that his cavalry could not catch up with the enemy's cavalry, let alone his infantry. He ordered his men to regroup and take stock of their losses. In this round of attacks, the Wolf Tribe had lost more than forty cavalrymen and more than sixty infantrymen.

How much did the Horse Tribe lose?

Xueya stared at the corpses of about fifty or sixty people lying on the ground opposite him. He licked his dry, cracked lips. He secretly calculated in his mind: in a head-on confrontation, he had more men, so he wasn't afraid of being traded! One for one, he'd profit; two for one, he could accept that too.

But Junfeng on the other side clearly didn't think so. Xueya saw that the Horse Tribe's cavalry no longer attacked rashly. They maintained their distance, constantly moving around, occasionally shooting to harass them, but not getting close. They were trying to wear them down. Xueya ordered the infantry to raise their shields and form a square formation, while the cavalry waited on both flanks of the square formation, ready to counterattack at any time.

The two sides remained locked in a standoff as the sun slowly moved westward from its zenith. Junfeng, riding his chestnut horse, Yuantiao at the Wolf Tribe's formation.

Chidian forward on horseback, his face full of resentment, he cried out, "Chief, charge one more time! One more time, and we'll surely crush them!"

"So what if it collapses?" Junfeng asked.

Chidian was taken aback.

"We have six hundred men, they have a thousand," Junfeng said calmly. "Even if we break through, how many can we kill? Three hundred? Four hundred? And then what? We'll have two hundred men left, they'll have six hundred left. Who loses more?"

Chidian opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

"Moreover," Junfeng's gaze fell on the horse-riding figure in the center of the Wolf Tribe's formation, "Their leader is cunning; he has mixed cavalry and infantry together. If we charge in, we will face a pincer attack from both cavalry and infantry at the same time."

He paused, then continued, "My cavalrymen are all brothers I've raised since childhood. The death of one is a loss. His cavalrymen, just a few days ago, were farmers tending sheep and farming. If a hundred of them died, he wouldn't even blink!"

Chidian fell silent. He knew the chief was right, but when had their Horse Tribe ever fought such a humiliating battle?

"So we're just going to wait it out like this?" Chidian was unwilling to give up.

"Let's wait it out," Junfeng said. "Let's wait until dark, until tomorrow. Our reinforcements will arrive tomorrow night."

He looked south, in the direction where the Wolf Tribe's migrating caravan had disappeared. "Those old, weak, women, and children can't run fast. Once reinforcements arrive, we'll attack them from both sides, and none of the Wolf Tribe will escape."

Chidian gritted his teeth and nodded. "Understood."

The sun continued to set, and the two armies remained locked in a stalemate on the battlefield. Occasionally, small groups of cavalry would probe and harass each other, chasing for a few steps before retreating. Neither side dared to launch a large-scale charge. Xueya sat on his horse, watching the sun gradually set, silently estimating the time in his mind.

They had been fighting for most of the day. His cavalry had lost more than eighty men, and his infantry more than one hundred and twenty men, a total of more than two hundred lives, in exchange for seventy or eighty casualties among the Horse Tribe. But the Horse Tribe did not retreat or become impatient. They were like a pack of patient wolves, circling from a distance, waiting for their prey to make a mistake.

"They have reinforcements," Yexiao Owl said in a low voice as he rode up. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be so calm."

Xueya nodded. He knew that the Horse Tribe must have reinforcements, who might already be on their way and arrive in the next couple of days. He glanced back to the south, where the migrating caravan had already gone far ahead. At their speed, they were at least thirty or forty miles away and should be safe for the time being.

Xueya immediately ordered the Wolf Tribe's forces to continue their encampment and confront the Horse Tribe's forces!