Wu Shuangren flipped his wrist and leaned forward. His saber slipped through an opening in his opponent's guard and pierced his throat with unerring precision!
The strike was clean and swift, like water finding a crack, like wind passing through a window lattice. It was simply there at just the right place, just that fast.
A half-formed, muffled gasp escaped the leader's throat. His saber fell from his fingers, and he toppled backward.
Wu Shuangren steadied his breathing. The night wind blew against his face, carrying the earthy scent of soil and the stench of blood.
The leader's martial arts were far inferior to Wei Laohei's and Luo You's. Perhaps most of his skill lay in fighting on horseback. Dismounted and fighting on foot, his strength had fallen sharply, which was why Wu Shuangren had killed him in just a few moves.
A rider spurred his horse toward him from the left, charging in for the kill.
Wu Shuangren immediately switched targets and charged to meet him.
The dozen or so paces between them vanished in an instant. The rider leaned down from his horse and swung his saber.
In the darkness, horse and rider seemed one, their enormous shadow like a giant beast.
A fierce wind bore down on him, suffocating him!
Clang-
Wu Shuangren stepped sideways to the left and struck the rear half of his opponent's cavalry saber. A tremendous impact traveled down his blade, numbing his arm!
He shifted his feet and took several steps before he could dissipate the force.
That strike had been even heavier than Wei Laohei's full-powered slash!
This was the strength of one horse!
To Wu Shuangren's relief, the Internal Skill enhancement granted by [Match for One Person] was also stronger than when he had faced Wei Laohei.
That meant the Trait counted the rider and the warhorse beneath him as a single whole, combined their strengths in its calculation, and then enhanced Wu Shuangren accordingly.
After he took that strike, another rider spurred his horse toward him before he could recover!
Wu Shuangren immediately switched his single-combat target and stepped forward to meet him again.
This rider had less distance to build up his charge than the previous one and had not reached full speed. Just as the horse's head was about to crash into him, Wu Shuangren suddenly stepped left to evade it. At the same time, he stepped forward, bent at the waist, ducked his head, and swept his saber across.
Tiger Baleful Intent Severs the Soul!
The rider's saber swept past, almost grazing Wu Shuangren's scalp, while his own blade severed one of the horse's hind legs!
Blood spurted out. The horse screamed and pitched headlong to the ground, throwing its rider clear.
Wu Shuangren rushed forward. Before the man could get up, he thrust his single-edged saber into his open mouth. The blade emerged from the back of his skull, ending his life.
"Shuangren!"
Wu Dongrong and Liao Yu, worried for his safety, had finally caught up.
"Don't chase them any farther!"
Wu Dongrong spoke sternly.
Wu Shuangren glanced at the riders ahead, who were almost at the foot of the slope, and nodded.
By now, Xu Jing, Mo Zhenglin, and Mo Zhengxing had led several of the Mo Family's best guards into the crowd.
They were killing the riders who had been shot down, along with those who had been thrown from their horses.
The torches that had been thrown out gradually burned out, and the night swallowed the hillside whole once more.
In the darkness, the sounds of blades cutting through flesh and screams rose and fell.
More than fifty riders had come, but only a little over thirty made it back down the slope alive.
53 Attack and Defense
Wu Shuangren and the others returned to the top of the slope.
Besides more than fifty archers, there were fifty militia from the local defense force at the top of the slope. All twenty veterans had come, while the remaining thirty were recruits.
Everyone had been crouching on the ground to avoid being seen by the enemy below.
Part of the reason Wu Shuangren had wanted to seize this chance to counterattack was to give the recruits some training.
More than a hundred people were gathered at the top of the slope, making it somewhat crowded. Before leaving the city, the thirty recruits had not known they were coming out to face cavalry tonight. Now they all looked tense, and some even had trembling legs.
"Raise the boards! Block the arrows!"
Xu Jing suddenly gave the order.
The veterans promptly obeyed, but the recruits still looked bewildered.
"Everyone, raise the boards over your heads!"
Wu Shuangren shouted.
During the past few days of training, the militiamen had obeyed his orders at least a hundred times a day, lining up, marching, dispersing, and gathering again and again...
So when they heard Wu Shuangren's voice, the remaining recruits obeyed almost instinctively.
They held the boards they had brought from the city over their heads, and everyone huddled beneath them.
Not long after they had taken cover, sounds came from below the slope.
The surviving riders reined in their horses, pulled bows from beside their saddles, and angrily nocked arrows and shot up the slope!
The arrows flew upward at an angle, most losing their force and sinking into the soil.
Shooting uphill was disadvantageous to begin with. Only a few arrows reached the top, and all of them were stopped by the boards.
The arrows thudded into the wood like raindrops beating against the eaves.
It was the recruits' first time experiencing anything like this. Even though none had been hit, they were trembling all over with fear.
"Everyone, stay where you are!"
Wu Shuangren was also sheltering under a board as he shouted.
With his order and the veterans' help, the recruits were frightened, but nothing went wrong in the end.
Though the riders below were furious, they did not attack the slope again after shooting two volleys.
But neither did they withdraw.
After a while, fresh hoofbeats came from the darkness in the distance, and a dragon of fire drew closer.
The other fifty-odd riders had been lured in another direction by the whistling arrow, but after chasing for some distance, they had not found a single person.
Realizing something was wrong, the fifty-odd riders had immediately retraced their route and come to join the thirty-odd survivors.
"What happened?"
"Fuck, we were ambushed!"
"Huang Guan and the others must have fallen. We've been set up."
"We lost more than ten brothers..."
"Fuck!"
"..."
The men cursed angrily for a while, then discussed the matter and decided they were unwilling to leave just like that.
Hong Zhanming had spent who knew how much silver maintaining this cavalry force. Now that more than ten riders had been lost at once, none of them could shoulder the blame.
If they left in such a sorry state, their leaders would certainly be punished.
Chief Steward Hong might be a vegetarian and chant Buddhist scriptures, but he had never been a softhearted man!
"There are only a few dozen archers on the slope. Once we charge up there, they'll be chickens waiting for the slaughter!"
"All they've got to rely on is a little hill."
After discussing it, the leaders decided to attack once more!
The eighty-odd riders formed up and, holding their torches, began to move slowly around the hill beyond bowshot.
After circling it, they found that its southeastern side had the gentlest incline.
The eighty-odd riders gathered there again, then spread out. They first extinguished their torches, then simultaneously spurred their horses from every direction.
"Kill-!!!"
Every rider shouted at once.
Hooves thundered, and cries of slaughter rose on all sides!
Even the veterans of the local defense force began to panic at the sight and sound of it, their limbs turning weak.
"Archers, loose!"
"First squad, this way! Second squad, this way! Third and fourth squads, concentrate over here!"
Xu Jing pushed aside the board and stood up, shouting his commands.
Under his direction, the archers under his command began shooting. He concentrated the greatest number of them against the gentle slope to the southeast.
The enemy had indeed concentrated their greatest force on the charge up the southeastern slope. More than thirty of their finest riders came charging up in a scattered formation!
This time, the riders carried no torches, and they charged spread apart.
They all wore leather armor and crouched low over their horses.
In the darkness, the threat arrows posed to them was reduced to a minimum.
On the gentle southeastern slope, the forelegs of the two leading horses suddenly plunged down, and both animals pitched forward.
They had stepped into horse pits!
When the previous fifty-odd riders had attacked from the other side, Xu Jing had sent Wu Shuangren and the militiamen to dig pits on the gentle southeastern slope.
There had been too little time to dig many, and there were not enough to stop a cavalry charge.
But if they could take out one or two enemy riders, it was already a gain.
Seeing their companions step into the pits ahead, the remaining riders instinctively slowed their horses, and the momentum of their charge faltered.
"First squad, second squad, stand all the boards up and place them around the outside!"
Following the tactics they had agreed on beforehand, Wu Shuangren also issued a new order.
He had divided the eighty-odd militiamen into nine squads, with the first and second made up entirely of veterans.
The twenty veterans took twenty boards and formed an arc around the outer edge of the hilltop. They propped the boards at an angle in front of them, their lower edges dug into the soil and their upper edges braced with wooden poles, forming crude triangular supports.
Although it was simple work, even the veterans were prone to mistakes under such tense conditions.
Many boards were not properly secured. Some fell over, while others rolled down the slope.
Thus, a wooden wall with many gaps, looking as though it might collapse at any moment, took shape on the hilltop.
"Get the spears!"
Wu Shuangren shouted.
The twenty veterans turned and picked up the spears on the ground, then thrust them through the gaps between the boards.
"All remaining squads, pick up your spears and thrust them all out-"
Wu Shuangren ran through the crowd, ordering the remaining recruits to pick up their spears as well.
Whenever he encountered a recruit crouching on the ground, too afraid to move, he lashed out with the spear in his hand.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
"Pick up your spears!"
"Get over there!"
"Pick up your spears!"
"..."
Over the past few days, nearly every recruit had been struck by Wu Shuangren's stick. Now, as the spear struck them, the familiar pain made them instinctively straighten up and obey.
In this way, the thirty recruits were practically driven by Wu Shuangren into picking up their spears and going to the defensive line around the outside.
With a board in front of them, they felt a little safer and managed to hold their ground.
Spearpoints jutted through the gaps between the boards, pointing outward like the raised spines of a crouching hedgehog.