Chapter 13: First Battle

Dawn broke over the northern frontier with an ominous red glow that veteran soldiers would have called a blood sky. Zhao Yang's squad had marched through the night, reaching the border settlement of Willow Creek just as the first light crested the eastern mountains. The village—little more than a cluster of sturdy farmhouses around a central well—lay peacefully unaware of the danger approaching from the northern plains.

"Scouts report the Northern Di raiding party is less than two hours behind us," Jun Yi informed him as they assembled their twenty-soldier detachment at the village edge. "Approximately fifty warriors, primarily cavalry, with light armor and composite bows."

Zhao Yang nodded, surveying the terrain with the tactical eye he'd developed under Seventh Sister Qin Shuoyue's ruthless training. "Defensive advantages?"

"River to the west provides flank protection. Those terraced fields to the east would slow mounted charges. The village itself has a partial wooden palisade, though it's designed for keeping out wolves, not warriors." Jun Yi pointed to a low hill just north of the settlement. "That's our biggest vulnerability—archers positioned there would have clear lines into the village center."

As they spoke, the village headman approached—an elderly man with the weathered face of one who had spent decades working the harsh frontier soil. Behind him, curious and increasingly alarmed villagers gathered, perhaps sixty in total, many clutching farming implements that would serve poorly as weapons.

"Soldiers of the Emperor," the headman bowed respectfully. "What brings Imperial forces to our humble village?"

While Zhao Yang explained the situation and began organizing the evacuation, Jun Yi dispatched four soldiers as forward scouts to track the raiders' approach. The remaining sixteen prepared the village's hasty defense—reinforcing the palisade, digging shallow trenches at likely approach vectors, and preparing emergency fallback positions.

"We need more time," Jun Yi reported after assessing their progress. "The villagers are gathering essentials, but the elderly and children cannot move quickly. At least three hours for full evacuation."

"Then we give them three hours," Zhao Yang replied, studying the map they'd sketched in the dirt. Five years of training in Xuanqing Palace had taught him to analyze energy flows in spiritual environments; now he applied that same methodical assessment to the physical battlefield.

"Here," he indicated the hill Jun Yi had identified earlier. "We don't have enough forces to hold the village against direct assault, but we can delay them. Six archers positioned behind these rocks with orders to target their leaders specifically. The rest of us create a bottleneck here, at the bridge."

Jun Yi studied his proposed deployment, adding refinements from her lifetime of military training. "They'll expect us to focus defense on the village itself. An outer defense line might surprise them, forcing a reassessment of their approach."

As they finalized their strategy, one of the scouts returned at a full run, face streaked with dust and urgency.

"Raiders approaching faster than expected! Northern Di cavalry, but—" he paused, catching his breath, "—they're being led by Crimson Hawk mercenaries. At least a dozen, with their captain."

This news changed everything. The Crimson Hawks were notorious professional soldiers-for-hire, former Imperial troops discharged for excessive brutality who now sold their services to whoever paid best. Unlike the tribal raiders of the Northern Di, the Hawks brought sophisticated tactics and formal military training to their battles.

"Evacuate everyone now," Zhao Yang ordered, adjusting their plan instantly. "No time for possessions beyond what they can carry on their backs. Jun Yi, take twelve soldiers and escort the villagers south along the river path. I'll take the remaining four and delay the raiders at the northern approach."

Jun Yi's expression darkened. "That's a suicide position with only five defenders."

"We don't need to stop them, just slow them," Zhao Yang countered. "Make them cautious, convince them to take time for proper reconnaissance instead of charging straight through."

"Then I should command the delay force. I have more combat experience—"

"And more knowledge of evacuation protocols," Zhao Yang interrupted firmly. "The villagers need your expertise more than I do."

Their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills, broken only when a village child's cry reminded them of the stakes beyond their competitive dynamic. Jun Yi finally nodded, though her reluctance was evident.

"Survive, Zhao Yang," she said quietly. "That's an order from your tactical partner."

With that, she turned to organize the evacuation, her efficiency impressive as she transformed frightened civilians into an orderly procession moving southward. Zhao Yang selected his four companions—all strong archers with steady nerves—and led them to the defensible position he'd identified at the village's northern approach.

"We hold until we hear Jun Yi's signal horn," he instructed them, positioning each soldier carefully among the rocky outcropping that overlooked the narrow bridge. "Aim for officers first, then horse handlers. Even if we only delay them thirty minutes, that's thirty minutes more for the evacuation."

As his small team prepared their position, Zhao Yang faced a complex calculation. His mission required maintaining his cover as an exceptional but ordinary soldier. Yet actual lives now depended on his performance. How much of his true cultivation abilities could he reveal without raising unanswerable questions?

He had little time to ponder this dilemma before dust clouds on the northern horizon announced the raiders' approach. Through the morning haze, the attacking force materialized—Northern Di tribesmen on sturdy steppe ponies, their faces painted with traditional war markings, carrying curved swords and compact bows.

Leading them, immediately distinguishable by their discipline and superior equipment, rode the Crimson Hawks. Their leader—a massive man with a distinctive red-plumed helmet—directed the advance with confident hand signals. Even at this distance, his calculating assessment of the village's defenses was evident.

"Steady," Zhao Yang cautioned his nervous archers. "Let them come within optimal range. We need every arrow to count."

The raiders approached the bridge at a cautious trot, clearly suspecting potential defense. The Crimson Hawk captain raised a closed fist, halting the main force while sending two scouts forward to test for resistance.

"Not yet," Zhao Yang whispered as his archers tensed. "Wait for more valuable targets."

The scouts crossed the bridge unchallenged, growing visibly more confident as they entered what appeared to be an abandoned village. Signaling an all-clear, they beckoned the main force forward. As the Crimson Hawks and the first wave of Northern Di warriors crowded onto the bridge and its approaches, Zhao Yang gave the command.

"Now!"

Five bows sang in unison. Four arrows found their marks with lethal precision—two Crimson Hawks toppled from their mounts, another Northern Di clutched at his throat, and a fourth raider fell as an arrow pierced his eye. Zhao Yang's own shot struck the Crimson Hawk captain's helmet, deflecting but startling the leader and causing momentary chaos.

The sudden ambush achieved exactly what Zhao Yang had hoped—confusion and caution. Rather than charging forward, the raiders scattered for cover, returning fire more from instinct than accuracy. Their captain, recovering quickly, barked orders that reorganized their approach into a more methodical advance.

"Reposition!" Zhao Yang commanded, leading his archers to their secondary location as arrows pelted their previous hiding spot. The carefully planned fallback positions allowed them to maintain harassment fire while presenting elusive targets.

For twenty minutes, this deadly game continued—strike, reposition, strike again—creating the impression of a larger defensive force. Two of Zhao Yang's archers sustained minor wounds, but they maintained disciplined fire, targeting officers and anyone who attempted to organize an effective counter-assault.

The Crimson Hawk captain, however, was no ordinary opponent. Analyzing the pattern of attacks, he divided his forces, sending flanking teams to circle behind the defenders' positions. Zhao Yang sensed the maneuver just in time.

"They're encircling us! Fall back to the village center!"

His small team retreated through pre-planned paths, maintaining harassment fire to cover their withdrawal. At the village center, they found their final defensive position—a sturdy grain storage building with thick walls and elevated firing platforms.

As they secured this last redoubt, Zhao Yang calculated their impact. Nearly thirty minutes had passed since the raiders' arrival, and eight enemies lay dead or seriously wounded. More importantly, the cautious advance had given the evacuation party a valuable head start.

"We've done what we can here," he told his team, noticing their dwindling arrow supply. "Time to extract ourselves while possible. Sergeant Liang, lead the others through the eastern creek bed. It offers cover most of the way to the southern forest."

"What about you, sir?" the sergeant asked, recognizing Zhao Yang wasn't including himself in the escape plan.

"I'll create a diversion to cover your withdrawal," Zhao Yang replied. "Then follow when you've reached safety."

The archers exchanged concerned glances, but military discipline prevailed. As they prepared to depart through the building's rear exit, a thunderous crash announced the raiders' arrival—the Crimson Hawks had brought a improvised battering ram against the storage house's main door.

"Go now!" Zhao Yang ordered, taking position at the front window with their remaining arrows.

As his team slipped away, Zhao Yang faced his first true combat decision since leaving Xuanqing Mountain. The door would not hold much longer. Once breached, he would face overwhelming odds. Conventional military training offered no viable survival strategy.

But he was not merely a soldier of Great Qin.

The door splintered inward. Through the opening charged three Crimson Hawks, weapons raised, with more visible behind them. Zhao Yang loosed his final arrows, then drew his sword and accessed a carefully measured portion of his cultivation energy—enough to enhance his speed and strength without appearing overtly supernatural.

What followed would later be described by the survivors as "a demon's dance." Zhao Yang moved with precision that bordered on prescience, his sword finding gaps in armor, his body flowing between attack angles with impossible grace. He maintained the facade of extraordinary human skill, though in truth he was operating at perhaps thirty percent of his full cultivation capability.

Five attackers fell in the first exchange, their coordinated assault disrupted by combat techniques they had never encountered. The Crimson Hawk captain, observing from the doorway, barked new orders, and the next wave approached more cautiously, attempting to surround Zhao Yang with overlapping attack vectors.

This more disciplined approach might have overwhelmed an ordinary soldier, even an exceptional one. But Zhao Yang had spent five years sparring against Seventh Sister Qin Shuoyue, whose battlefield genius was legendary even among immortal cultivators. Reading the pattern of their attack, he controlled the engagement's flow, creating a sequence of one-on-one confrontations instead of allowing himself to be overwhelmed by numbers.

The captain, recognizing the unusual threat before him, finally entered the fray himself. Standing nearly a head taller than Zhao Yang, wielding a massive war hammer that had shattered the skulls of countless opponents, he attacked with surprising speed for his bulk.

"You fight well, boy," he growled as Zhao Yang evaded his first crushing swing. "Join us instead of dying here. The Hawks pay better than the Emperor."

Zhao Yang didn't waste breath on response, focusing instead on analyzing the captain's fighting style. The man was genuinely skilled—likely a former elite Imperial officer before turning mercenary. His technique combined formal military training with savage frontier adaptations that made him unpredictable.

Their duel intensified as the remaining Hawks formed a circle around them, turning the fight into a spectacle. The captain's hammer created air currents from near-misses that Zhao Yang could feel against his skin. One glancing blow caught his shoulder, sending pain lancing down his arm. A normal soldier's arm would have shattered; Zhao Yang's cultivation-strengthened body merely bruised deeply.

Recognizing he needed to end this quickly as more raiders joined the gathering, Zhao Yang implemented a complex technique adapted from one of Lin Shuoyue's ice-step maneuvers. Feinting vulnerability on his injured side, he drew the captain into overcommitting to a powerful swing. As the hammer whistled past, Zhao Yang executed a spinning move that placed him inside the captain's guard, his sword finding the gap between breastplate and backplate.

The Crimson Hawk leader's eyes widened in shock more than pain. "Who trained you?" he gasped as Zhao Yang withdrew his blade. "No regular... army..."

He collapsed before finishing his question, blood pooling beneath him. The remaining Hawks stepped back, reassessing this seemingly ordinary Imperial soldier who had just killed their legendary captain in single combat.

That moment of uncertainty gave Zhao Yang his opening. Grabbing a fallen raider's cloak, he tossed it over a lamp, creating an instant fire that spread to the dry grain husks littering the storeroom floor. As smoke filled the space, he executed a cultivation-enhanced leap to an overhead beam, then through a small ventilation opening in the roof.

From this elevated position, he had a clear view of the battlefield—and what he saw changed his calculations instantly. A new dust cloud approached from the south, too large to be Jun Yi's evacuation party returning. Either significant Imperial reinforcements had arrived far earlier than expected, or...

A chill ran through him as the wind shifted, carrying the distinct sound of Northern Di war horns. This was not a small raiding party. The force approaching appeared to be a full Northern Di war band—at least two hundred mounted warriors, with the distinctive banners of a tribal chief among them.

The scattered raiders below noticed it too, abandoning their pursuit of Zhao Yang to regroup with this larger force. Whether they had known reinforcements were coming or were as surprised as he was remained unclear, but the tactical situation had deteriorated dramatically.

Zhao Yang moved across the rooftops to gain a better vantage point toward the south, where the evacuation party had headed. Through the morning haze, he spotted a terrible scene unfolding. Jun Yi's group, with the villagers in tow, had encountered Northern Di scouts. A running battle had ensued, with the Imperial soldiers forming a protective ring around the civilians as they retreated toward a defensible hillside.

Even at this distance, Zhao Yang could see they were drastically outnumbered, with more Northern Di riders converging on their position from multiple directions. Without reinforcement, they would be overwhelmed within minutes.

The mission parameters Wei Lan had established suddenly seemed irrelevant. Lives—including those of his fellow soldiers who had fought beside him and civilians under Imperial protection—outweighed concerns about maintaining his cover. Decision made, Zhao Yang accessed a deeper layer of his cultivation energy, accelerating his movement to speeds no ordinary human could match.

He crossed the intervening distance in a blur, appearing at the periphery of the battle just as the Northern Di closed their encirclement around Jun Yi's defensive position. The Imperial soldiers fought valiantly but were clearly flagging, their formation contracts breached in multiple locations. Jun Yi herself stood at the center, her sword bloody, protecting a cluster of village children with ferocious determination despite a visible wound to her thigh.

Zhao Yang struck like lightning. Five Northern Di warriors fell before they registered his presence. Another three dropped from precisely thrown daggers that found the gaps in their leather armor. Moving with cultivation-enhanced speed, he carved a path through the surprised attackers, creating momentary confusion that disrupted their coordinated assault.

Reaching Jun Yi's position, he found her pale from blood loss but still fighting. "Reinforcements?" she managed between labored breaths.

"Just me," he replied, taking position beside her to shield the exposed flank of their formation. "But sometimes one is enough."

Something like recognition flickered in her eyes—not of him personally, but of what he represented. Even through the haze of pain and battle focus, Jun Yi recognized that Zhao Yang was demonstrating abilities beyond those of any regular soldier.

"You're not just a recruit, are you?" she whispered.

Before he could answer, a massive Northern Di warrior—clearly a tribal champion by his elaborate headdress and superior weapons—charged their position, targeting the apparent leader of this unexpected resistance.

Zhao Yang met the charge, abandoning most pretense of normal human limitations. His sword moved in patterns taught by Murong Qingxue herself, cutting through the champion's defenses as if they were mist rather than hardened leather and steel. Three precisely placed strikes, and the champion fell, his shocked expression frozen in death.

The psychological impact was immediate. The Northern Di, already unsettled by Zhao Yang's sudden appearance and the death of several warriors before they could react, now witnessed their champion defeated in seconds. Superstitious by nature, many interpreted this as an ill omen. Their cohesion fractured, with some continuing the attack while others hesitated.

Into this moment of uncertainty came an unexpected sound—war horns from the eastern ridge, bearing the distinctive three-note call of Imperial cavalry. Actual reinforcements had arrived, their timing impeccable as they charged down the slope into the disorganized Northern Di forces.

Leading them was a figure that commanded immediate attention—a general in ornate armor atop a magnificent white stallion, his banner identifying him as General Jun Wei, Commander of the Eastern Frontier Forces. The Northern Di, recognizing this legendary opponent whose campaigns had bloodied them for a decade, began a hasty retreat.

Zhao Yang used this opportunity to reorganize the defensive circle, getting the wounded to the center and positioning their remaining archers to cover the withdrawal of the most vulnerable civilians. As the Imperial cavalry swept the field clear of lingering enemy forces, he turned his attention to Jun Yi, whose wound required immediate treatment.

"That was extremely reckless," she said through gritted teeth as he applied pressure to her injury. "Attacking a war band single-handedly."

"Says the woman who placed herself between enemy blades and village children," he countered, tearing strips from his uniform to bind her leg.

A shadow fell across them as General Jun dismounted nearby, his concerned gaze fixed on Jun Yi. "Report, Soldier," he commanded Zhao Yang while kneeling to examine the young woman's wound.

"Sir. Northern Di raiders with Crimson Hawk mercenaries attacked Willow Creek village. We split our forces—delay team and evacuation team. The situation escalated when a larger war band appeared. Soldier Jun organized a defensive position protecting civilians despite being wounded in the initial engagement."

The General nodded, his experienced eyes assessing both Zhao Yang and the tactical situation with equal precision. "You led the delay force?"

"Yes, sir."

"And then somehow covered nearly a mile of terrain to arrive here just when needed?"

Zhao Yang maintained a neutral expression, aware of the impossibility of his timing by normal standards. "Saw the developing situation and moved as quickly as possible, sir."

General Jun's eyes narrowed slightly, but he asked no further questions about Zhao Yang's implausible arrival. Instead, he turned his attention back to Jun Yi, whom Zhao Yang now realized must be the "general's daughter" mentioned in Wei Lan's intelligence briefing.

"You've done your family proud today, daughter," General Jun said with gruff affection before addressing the medical officer who had joined them. "Treat this wound immediately."

As Jun Yi was carried to the medical tent, her eyes remained fixed on Zhao Yang, filled with questions he couldn't answer. The General, noticing this exchange, placed a heavy hand on Zhao Yang's shoulder.

"Walk with me, soldier," he commanded, leading Zhao Yang away from the bustling camp now being established. When they were beyond earshot of others, the General stopped abruptly.

"I've spent thirty years fighting on this frontier," he said without preamble. "I've seen cultivation techniques from a dozen sects. You're not simply a talented recruit, are you?"

Zhao Yang remained silent, neither confirming nor denying.

General Jun nodded as if this non-response confirmed his suspicions. "I don't know your purpose here, and frankly, I don't care—as long as it doesn't endanger my troops or the Empire's interests. What I do care about is that you saved my daughter's life and those of many civilians today."

He extended his arm in formal military salute. "For exceptional bravery and tactical acumen beyond your station, I'm field-promoting you to Squad Leader, effective immediately. You'll be assigned to headquarters staff for 'special training' once we return to the capital."

This development aligned perfectly with Zhao Yang's mission parameters—a headquarters position would grant exactly the access he needed to the Imperial Library. What he hadn't anticipated was the General's next statement.

"You'll also join my family for the Autumn Gratitude dinner upon our return. My daughter clearly has questions for you, and I've found it unwise to stand between Jun Yi and answers she seeks."

With that proclamation, General Jun returned to the command center, leaving Zhao Yang to contemplate this unexpected complication. His first battle had achieved multiple objectives—advancing his cover identity, securing the position he needed for his true mission, and genuinely saving lives that mattered.

Yet it had also created new challenges, most notably the intense curiosity of Jun Yi—a perceptive, determined woman with the resources of a prominent military family behind her. Maintaining his cover while deepening his connection to the Jun family would require careful navigation of mortal relationships in ways his Xuanqing Palace training had never addressed.

As the field hospital bustled with activity nearby, Zhao Yang caught sight of Jun Yi watching him from her cot, her expression a complex mixture of gratitude, suspicion, and something else—something he had occasionally glimpsed in the eyes of his senior sisters at Xuanqing Palace, yet somehow different in quality and intent.

First battle survived, but the campaign had only just begun.