Chapter 41: The Assassination

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The clatter of approaching hooves caught Wang Dayong’s attention. He raised his head and saw a man in close-fitting martial attire riding toward them. Drawing rein, the man asked, “Are you residents of this city?”

Wang Dayong studied him. With his many years of experience, he could tell at a glance that the man had a military background. Instinctively, he grew wary.

“No. We are merely passing through and taking shelter from the wind here. And who might you be, brother?” Wang Dayong replied, looking at the young man.

The man did not answer his question. Instead, he cast a casual glance over the crowd behind him. At a rough estimate, there were several hundred people, both men and women. They did not look like bandits, so he asked, “We are traveling merchants, also camped here temporarily. Where are you headed?”

“That is not something I can conveniently say. Is there something you need, brother?” Wang Dayong had no intention of letting anyone know where they were going, much less that they belonged to Prince Yan.

The young man was not angered. He merely said indifferently, “Since you would rather not say, I will not press you. But tonight, keep your people under control. Do not let them wander about, lest there be any misunderstandings.”

“Rest assured, brother. We will stay here for only one night and leave tomorrow,” Wang Dayong said.

“Very well.”

The young man turned his horse around and rode back the way he had come.

Upon returning, he hurried to report, “Your Highness, I have investigated the matter. There are several hundred people over there, but they are not residents of the city. They appear to be refugees, men and women alike, merely passing through and taking shelter from the wind.”

After confirming that there was nothing unusual about the group or anywhere else in the city, Prince Heng and his men chose a place within the city and made camp. The journey had been exhausting. After supper, they arranged for men to take turns keeping watch through the night, and many of them crawled into their tents and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, a shadow suddenly emerged from a dark corner of a house in the city. It vaulted over the ruined, collapsed wall and vanished into the darkness.

In a dense woodland not far beyond the outskirts, more than a hundred men in black lay concealed, each gripping a long saber. The shadow flashed into the trees, and a soft voice sounded from within.

“My lord, I have returned.”

One of the men in black asked quietly, “How did it go?”

“Prince Heng is every bit as vigilant as rumored. Before making camp, they searched the streets and houses throughout the city. I nearly got discovered.”

“Prince Heng has spent years commanding troops in battle. If he could not even manage that much, he would have died on the battlefield long ago.”

“You are right, my lord. However, the group of civilians who passed through earlier has also made camp in the city.”

“Heh heh. Then things could not be better. I was afraid they would not spend the night here. A crowd of unarmed civilians will make the perfect witnesses.”

The man in black smiled sinisterly.

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“My lord, what do you mean?”

“Go. Arrange for two men to shout loudly when we make our move: ‘By order of Lord Xue, leave no one alive! Ten ounces of silver for every man killed!’”

“Yes, my lord. I understand.”

Taking advantage of the moonlight, more than a hundred men in black crept toward the city. As they climbed over the collapsed wall, one of the guards on night duty happened to be relieving himself at its base.

He turned his head and saw the group of men in black. At that very moment, their leader also spotted the guard. Both sides froze, and neither made a sound.

The guard slowly turned back toward the wall and finished putting himself away. The group of men in black stared blankly at Prince Heng’s guard. Once he had straightened his trousers, the guard glanced back at them again.

The men in black: “Huh?”

The guard: “Oh!”

He spun around and shouted, “We’re under attack! We’re under attack!”

“Damn it! Kill them all!”

The dozen-odd men keeping watch immediately sprang to alert. Following the sound, they saw a group of people charging down the street beneath the hazy moonlight. One guard instantly struck the bronze gong in his hand and shouted, “We’re under attack!”

The caravan had been traveling for several days, and most of the drivers were utterly exhausted. They slept deeply. Only Prince Heng’s twenty-odd personal guards reacted quickly, but there was no time to put on their armor. They seized their blades and rushed out of their tents, forming a defensive ring around Prince Heng’s tent.

The distance was not great, and the men in black soon stormed into the camp. They collided with Prince Heng’s guards, and cries of battle erupted on every side.

In theory, the caravan had far more men than the attackers. With two drivers assigned to each cart, plus the more than twenty guards from the prince’s household, there were over two hundred people in all—twice as many as the men in black.

Yet the numbers able to react and join the battle immediately were, quite perversely, the exact opposite. The guards could only defend the area around Prince Heng’s tent, while the more than one hundred attackers poured into the camp. Some set fires in every direction; others stormed into tents and hacked wildly with their blades. Screams and wails rose from within the tents.

Amid the fighting, two men repeatedly shouted, “By order of Lord Xue, leave no one alive! Kill them all! Ten ounces of silver for every man killed! Kill!”

Dozens of men in black viciously charged toward Prince Heng’s tent. Fortunately, his guards were all highly trained. Though heavily outnumbered, they did not allow the attackers to breach their defenses easily.

The battle cries grew louder. One person after another awoke from sleep, while the tents throughout the camp gradually caught fire. As the flames rose into the night, even Wang Dayong and the others on the opposite side of the city could faintly hear the sounds of slaughter.

Prince Heng emerged from his tent with a long saber in hand. The camp was in utter chaos. Some people had failed to escape their open tents and were engulfed in flames, staggering about and flailing desperately. Others lay sprawled on the ground, their faces contorted in agony.

A furious light flashed in Prince Heng’s eyes.

Two guards hurried to his side. “Your Highness, you must leave!”

Prince Heng was no ordinary man. He had fought his way through countless battlefields, and his nerve was even stronger than that of his personal guards. He shoved them aside and roared, “Leave? To hell with that! Kill these sons of bitches for me!”

The guards cried out anxiously, “Your Highness…”

“Obey my order. Kill!”

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“Yes, Your Highness! Kill!”

Though he had only one arm remaining, Prince Heng still charged forward with his blade. He brought it down in a diagonal slash, striking one of the men in black and sending him crashing to the ground.

The other guards were instantly filled with renewed courage. Fighting three enemies apiece, they threw themselves into battle.

The guards were skilled fighters, but the enemy was simply too numerous, and the attack had come without warning. The drivers in the camp were either dead or wounded, or had fled in every direction. Before long, only Prince Heng and his men remained in the camp.

Less than half an hour later, thirty or forty men in black lay dead around Prince Heng’s tent. More than a dozen of his guards had also been cut down in the fighting.

Prince Heng leaned on his saber as he panted heavily. His eyes were bloodshot, and he glared furiously at the surviving attackers. Though the men in black still outnumbered them, fear had begun to take hold as they watched their comrades fall one after another.

Their leader roared, “Do not be afraid! Attack together! They cannot hold out much longer! Lord Xue has promised ten ounces of silver for every man killed, and one hundred ounces for killing Prince Heng!”

With such generous rewards dangled before them, the men in black prepared to launch another assault.

But at that moment, the rapid clatter of hooves came from the city gate, growing louder as it approached. A sharp sound split the air, and a spear shot into the crowd of men in black.

With two wet thuds, it pierced straight through two of them.

“By order of Prince Yan: protect Prince Heng and exterminate the assassins! Kill!”

At the command, fifty mounted soldiers charged toward the men in black.

The attackers were instantly thrown into panic.

“Damn it! Retreat!”

In truth, no order was needed. The moment they saw the cavalry charging, the quicker men had already turned and fled. But how could men on foot outrun horses? One after another, they were soon skewered through the chest by the cavalrymen riding behind them.

A few of the more cunning attackers ran toward the ruined houses and courtyard walls, using the structures as cover to evade the mounted soldiers.

The cavalry commander dismounted, walked over to Prince Heng, and knelt on one knee.

“Xiao Chu, commander of the Prince of Yan’s household guards, pays his respects to Prince Heng! We arrived too late to protect Your Highness. Please forgive us.”

“Rise… rise. Clean this place up first, then we will speak,” Prince Heng said with difficulty.

“Yes.”

Xiao Chu stood and shouted to the guards still pursuing the attackers, “Do not let a single one escape! Take prisoners where possible!”

After the pursuit, most of the men in black had been killed, while eight were captured alive. The bodies were counted afterward, and there were ninety-eight men in all, though the darkness made it impossible to determine the exact number with certainty.

Prince Heng sat before his tent, staring blankly as the others cleaned up the camp. He did not utter a word.

Xiao Chu approached and reported, “Your Highness, most of the assassins have been eliminated. We captured eight alive.”

Prince Heng gave a quiet grunt. Then, as though remembering something, he raised his head and asked, “Xiao Chu, how did you come to be here?”

Xiao Chu replied calmly, “Ever since you left Yan City, Prince Yan has been uneasy, worried that you might encounter danger on the road. Early this morning, he sent us after you. I originally thought we could catch up with you within a day on horseback, but night fell without any sign of you. Afraid we would fail in our duty, I rested only briefly before leading the brothers on through the night. That is how we arrived here.”

Prince Heng was speechless when he heard this.

Under normal circumstances, a grain convoy could travel only a little over forty miles in a day. But eager to return to the capital, he had ordered the convoy to hasten its pace, covering sixty or seventy miles each day.

If Xiao Chu had not pursued them through the night, Prince Heng would almost certainly have met his end here.