Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

"That's his head?" asked Noble Lion.

The Tiger turned the bloody chunk of ice, and nodded. The eyes were agog. The mouth was agape. And most importantly, the ramp was now unguarded.

"Well," said Noble Lion, "what are you waiting for? Take the wall."

The assembled warlords looked at each other.

Noble Lion stood and leaned over the map-table, all the clay and sand figurines crushing to dust as his fists settled onto the surface of the Land Under Heaven. "I said…ATTACK!"

The Coalition of lords leapt to their feet as one, some stumbling or bumping into one another. Orchid Mantis stopped and turned suddenly causing Golden Goat to trip over his flowery robe. The Tiger of the Southlands, however, had been out the door in one fluid motion. Eventually, the rest of them managed to follow.

I picked up my ivory tablet and continued rearranging the officers on my roster without rising.

Something passed between the three brothers and in moments, two of them left, leaving me alone in the command tent with the imposing man called Carver and the head he had taken.

"Can I offer you some wine?" I asked without looking up. "I'm sure I could find someone to heat it back up for you."

"No. Thank you," said Carver. "It's still warm enough."

He poured himself a steaming goblet and took a moderate sip. I could almost see the tension pouring off of him as my gaze flicked up from my work.

"You're not going to help take the wall?" I asked.

"I won't do anyone any good if I can't feel my hands." He moved the cup to his other hand and flexed his fingers. I saw that they were cold and blue, the skin splitting in places.

"The Frost Giant may be dead," he continued, "but there's still a damned big block of ice out there. And it's still damned cold up in these mountains."

He had entered the tent like a Hero of the Times, made a spectacle of an already monumental feat. Perhaps he had a singularly powerful Mandate from Heaven. But there was still a man beneath it all. He was still flesh and blood.

"What about you?" he asked.

I wiped the backside of the ivory slate clean and continued tallying the figures where I had left off. "I have a relatively small force compared to them. And it's built for open plains, not sieges. I'll be little help until we've broken through."

"Every fighter counts though, no?"

I looked up at that and raised my eyebrows. "Clearly not every fighter. It'll take a moment for Lion to have another ramp or two up the ice-wall. In about half a watch, he'll have enough ramps and enough men mobilized to spread the defenders thin. By the end of the watch, he'll have thought to widen those ramps enough for carriages and horses. Only then will my two thousand cavalry, archers, and a hundred or so trappers will be able to make an impact in an army of a hundred thousand strong. I'll be ready by then."

"I take it you're not new to this, then?" said the oak of a man, leaning back in his chair, still cupping his hands around the warmed wine. He made the goblet look like a child's toy.

"Don't try to tell me that you are." I circled a number on the near-final calculations, beginning on the next set.

"Fighting? No. I've been fighting all my life. But a war like this, with real armies on both sides…" He looked off into the distance as the sounds of thousands of men simply walking – boots crushing gravel and armor rustling – was enough to be heard from a li or more away. "How'd you learn it all?"

I looked up again to study him. His size had fooled me. He was far younger than I had expected, perhaps ten or fifteen years my junior. Little more than a child in the profession of war, perhaps newly named and as of yet unbearded.

"Allow me to introduce myself," I said, mocking the formal phrase after having been speaking casually for so long already. I flicked my pendant of simple iron across the sand-strewn table toward the hero.

He glanced at it casually, then scowled, no doubt making sure that he had read it correctly. I knew what had given him pause. My identification pendant read:

SPARROW

RANK 9: Noble Officer

WORTH: 450 dan

CLAN: Silver Falcon | STAR: Black | FATE: Fire-Water "Verge of Destiny"

MANDATE: None

"No Mandate?" he said. "Yet you're a noble?"

I raised my eyebrows. He thought about that for a while, then got up and walked around the table. He bowed low – lower than decorum would have required – and proffered his own pendant.

"Allow me to introduce myself! I am Guan Yu of Old Mulberry commandery, called Carver!"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

I studied the young man for a long time.

There were many reactions to a noble without a Mandate. The first was always wry disbelief, as if they knew you must have one, it was simply a very subtle and secretive Mandate that you kept in reserve to surprise your enemies, either politically or on the battlefield.

The second reaction was dismissal, as if I had gotten lucky to make it up eight ranks and survive here without any gift from Heaven, but it wouldn't last, and I certainly wouldn't rise any higher.

This… this was a new one. It was as if this Guan Yu, this Carver, had walked into a grove to see a lion sitting with a tiger and a dragon and a wolf and all manner of other vicious beasts. And he had surmised, correctly in my humble opinion, that a monster who survived among monsters was ordinary. But a little bird that could hold its own…

I smiled and took the man's pendant, made of simple wood.

CARVER

RANK 4: Cavalry

WORTH: 200 dan

CLAN: None | STAR: Green | FATE: Iron-Leaf, "Considerable Greatness"

MANDATE: Unstoppable Blade

The young man still bowed before me as I surveyed his pendant and I was about to give it back when the words etched into the wood suddenly shifted in a flash of verdant light.

CARVER

RANK 998: Hero of the Times

WORTH: 500,000 dan

CLAN: Green Dragon | STAR: Brilliant Green & Silver | FATE: Leaf-Iron "Cutting Through"

MANDATE: Unstoppable Blade

My eyes flicked up, surprised that the young man hadn't lept back at the light. But, no. His pendant was probably only glowing green to my eyes, as only I could see the change in the text. Carver probably hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, other than how long it took me to read the characters on the simple wood. I offered it back to him and he took it with a curious look, perhaps trying to figure out what was special about it.

"My father has an iron essence," I said to him, by way of explanation. "He would have wanted nothing more for me. He's the Imperial Protector of the Plains of the Falcon. Or was. There's some debate about all of our standing within the empire just now." I gestured outside to where the sounds of battle had begun, the earth rumbling with Noble Lion's powerful Yellow star Mandate.

The young man looked back to his pendant, still, no doubt, wondering what had intrigued me so, before looping it back around his neck. I did the same with my own.

"You're only a cavalryman?" I asked.

"Mounted archer," he shrugged. "It's what I was assigned."

"You won't be for long. I can promise you that," I said, with a smirk. Then gestured to the side table piled high with food and drink. "Take the wine. And the meat, too. This is war-time. Officers could do with a little less and heroes with a little more."

The young man laughed and began to demure. "I'm no-"

I waved a hand, dismissing him. "I have work to do. Troops to mobilize," I said, picking my stylus back up and resuming my calculations.

He didn't move, and I looked up to see him studying me again.

"It happens here…" I gestured to my calculations and then to my head, "...and here. Before it happens out there. That's the first lesson. Has anyone ever told you you'd look good with a beard?"

Carver cocked his head at that.

I smiled and returned to my work.

After a long moment, he finally left, taking the food and wine with him.

***

A moment later I heard footfalls at the entrance to the tent. I glanced up to see a soldier in my Silver Falcon clan's livery, an ancient winged helm on their head. They crossed to me and tossed the helmet on the table, revealing long flowing black hair, and a face gorgeous enough to belong to an Imperial consort. The woman known as River had been part of the Emperor's harem.

Then she had become my wife.

"That boy looked lost in a haze. What did you say to him?"

I finished the calculations, double circling the final-final number and tossing the tablet onto the table next to River's helm. Well, it had been my father's helm, but now it was my "cousin's," the previously unknown "Cao Hong" from a minor offshoot of the Silver Falcon clan no one had ever heard of before… because my father had written it into existence on the day he sent the two of us off to war with what was left of his armies.

"He's got a head on his shoulders. Maybe even a good heart. I tried to help him avoid becoming a tool."

"So he is the one who beat the Frost Giant?"

"Did you want to ask?" I gestured to the massive, grizzly head on the table that had begun to thaw.

"No, no. This Carver's the genuine article. I just wonder who this Poorboy is to command such loyalty from one you so clearly hold in very high esteem. And after only one meeting, no less."

"Just a feeling."

"Oh, one of your feelings, huh?" She kicked me with her boot.

"Not all of us are brilliant. Some of us have to rely on such things."

"Luckily you married well. Should I call them in?"

I took a deep breath and looked toward my tablet again. "Yes. Time for the real work."

"You know," said River, pushing her hair aside as she rose so she could bend closer, her lips less than half a span from mine. She flicked her chin toward my tablet of numbers. "Some people consider that the work, and this the fun part."

Her lips danced across mine and suddenly everything I had been thinking about, everything I had been working on went fluttering out of my head. Seeing that I was now lost in a haze, River smiled and made to depart.

"You do that on purpose don't you?" I grumbled.

She smiled again and I swear I would fight wars over that smile, conquer kingdoms, sack cities. I'd drown the whole world in shadow and chaos if it meant getting to see that smile everyday for the rest of my life.

She paused just outside the tent-flap and turned, her smile disappearing.

"What was the number?" she asked.

"Oh. Um," I picked up the tablet, reminding myself of the results that a few day's-worth of strange inquisitions and feverish calculations had produced. "For our little force? Twenty-nine hundred horse. And seventy-four thousand jin of wood and bronze." I sighed. "It might as well be a trillion trillion of each. There isn't any combination of available lands and logistics I can think of just now that can support a plan like this."

River nodded, her lips a thin line. Probably seeing my disappointment, she flashed a smile. "And a lot of tea."

I snorted a laugh. "Yes. And a lot of strong tea."

"I'll go assemble the men."

"I love you."