Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

"Incredible what gifts the Heavens see fit to grant mortals," I said, looking out over the pass.

Snow capped mountains rose up to either side of us, a wide gravel field nestled in between, Lofty Mountain presiding over it all in distance.

A month ago this would have been the most scenic point in the route from my father's northeastern plains to the capital districts at the heart of the Land Under Heaven. When I had last made this westbound trip, it had been a milestone in my life, a moment of almost unbridled hope for the future. Not only did this stretch of the pass signal the beginning of the downhill toward the City of Lanterns, but when I had last come this way, it was as a boy, having just passed his cadets exam, and about to begin my career as a Rank 3: City Guard.

Now, thanks to one man called the Frost Giant, this was a place of chaos and bitter struggle.

His immense wall of ice had outlived him stretching the length of the gravel field at the height of the pass, and though it wept without his Mandate to sustain it, Dreadwolf's men still had high ground where none should be. Without any real toil or planning, without workers or engineers, they still looked down on us from eightyspan high.

It would have been the end of the war if it weren't for our own Grand General.

Even as I watched, Noble Lion – shirtless and sweating despite the chill of the mountains – threw himself to one knee and thrust a palm into the gravel at his feet. The stone beneath our feet responded to his touch, rumbling like a caged beast. The dust around him seemed to swirl with his residual power, scree jumping as the quaking of the earth intensified. Then, some hundred span away, a spire of stone shot up, cleaving close enough to the Weeping Wall to shave off sections of ice as large as a horse that crashed to the ground and exploded.

Noble Lion may not have been a literal giant of a man, but when it came to powers granted by Heaven, he was a colossus. And, by Heaven, the control he wielded over his element!

Another spire followed his first, then another and another. Each was just shorter than the last, and just a bit closer to where he crouched, honed muscles bulging with effort, until finally there was a crude staircase from the top of the wall to where a contingent of his own infantry had amassed.

With a sharp twisting of our general's hand upon the earth, the tops of the spires seemed to flicker before my eyes, each crunching into a ramp in quick succession.

The moment the ramp finished assembling itself, the men waiting in golden armor began rushing upward in a column barely two men wide. Gray-clad heavy infantry began rushing down. Where they met, swords and pikes flashed, metal rent, men screamed and fell from the edges.

There were a dozen such siege-ramps of stone, gray soldiers clashing with gold where ice met stone. On some, the golden infantry hovered just shy of gaining the wall itself. Others seemed perpetually locked in a stalemate, gold unable to push up and gray unable or wisely unwilling to push further down. On one side, some of Dreadwolf's men made the mistake of spilling down the ramp and onto the wide, stoney field below, only to get mopped up by red-clad cavalry in a perfect flow-staunching cavalry maneuver. On another side, there was a crack like a tree being felled, and the top spires of a ramp gave way. Some smarter lieutenant on that corner of the wall had made the tough choice to break the siege ramp at its apex, sacrificing some of his own men upon the ramp in the process. Gray bodies as well as gold fell with the ramp.

None of it mattered. To White Stallion's point back in the command tent, the advantage lay overwhelmingly with the defenders of the Weeping Wall, and no Mandate that I knew of within our Coalition could overcome this monstrosity of a fortification alone.

No, what mattered, was that Lion's Mandate – perhaps the most powerful gift bestowed by the Yellow star – allowed us to put pressure on twelve – now, only ten – points upon the wall simultaneously. But Gray Wolf banners still flew all along the length of the Weeping Wall. And our Grand General couldn't keep this up forever.

I watched Noble Lion intently as, chest heaving, he rose up, surveyed the wall, then pushed through the many attendants and warlords who crowded him with praise, with criticisms, with recommendations.

He ignored them all as he took refreshment, wiped his brow, and gave me a look across the open distance of the high stone field.

"Alright," I said to my officers assembled around me. "He's going with the plan. Which means this next one will be his big push. Flashammer and River, you're with me in the van. Windstopper and Tongs, follow when you can. Castellan…"

I looked around, not finding my actual cousin, the head of my guerilla trappers anywhere. "Keep doing whatever it is you're doing, wherever it is you're doing it. Right, let's take the field."

***COALITION MISSION BRIEFING: BATTLE FOR THE WEEPING WALL***

Primary Objective: Gain the far side of the Weeping Wall.

Secondary Objective: Break the army defending it.

Bonus Objective: Push the Gray Wolf forces all the way out of Wolf Cage Pass.

Fail Condition: Gray Wolf forces still hold the wall by sundown, or take the main ramp.

As my eleven-hundred horse trotted down to what had once been the edge of the killing field before the ice-wall, a few hundred span wide and crowded with a garden of melting ice-sculptures for the last hundred span before the wall, Flashammer and River flanked me in the lead.

The red-clad cavalry that had mopped up the flow down one of the lost ramps, wheeled and, at length, drew near enough to start falling in beside us.

"Joined us at last, huh, little Sparrow?" It was the Tiger of the Southlands, already streaked in blood and grime.

"Oh, you're still alive?" I retorted with a smirk. "Figured you would have taken a frozen rock to the head by now."

"Not yet. Had ourselves a full morning of killing already. Isn't that right, lads?"

"HURGH-RAGH!" The tiger roar response came in unison from the throats and diaphragms of every rider behind him.

The leader beneath the red banner himself, had his sword laid across his saddle, blood and tissue clinging to it. He hadn't bothered cleaning it to return it to its sheathe.

"Not if it's just going to get dirty again," my father would have said. He was fastidious between battles, but in the midst of one, the gore never bothered him.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The Tiger, more a contemporary of my father than myself, pulled his horse up alongside mine, his wizened generals shoulder to shoulder with Flashammer and River behind us. Behind them, our two relatively small forces spread out to either side like wings. The Tiger's wing was crimson, black, and the red-brown of those big bloodbays they bred in the south. My own wing was silver and white, with a motley assortment of stolen horses mixed in among them, all flying my father's Silver Falcon sigil.

"You still don't have your own banner?" asked the Tiger.

"Haven't gotten around to it," I said.

"Even with all this waiting?" he asked. "No flag-chariot either?"

I shook my head. "Been busy."

"Don't worry," said the Tiger, gripping his reins and rolling his shoulders as Noble Lion bent to the earth with both hands. The earth beneath our hooves started to rumble. "You won't need one," the Tiger went on. "I don't plan on leaving any loot for you anyway."

"So confident for someone who was beaten out by a boy on the yellow plains," I said, patting my dapple gray's neck. "We've only gotten faster since then. And old men tend to get slower."

Windshear knickered as the columns of stone started rolling up out of the earth, two at a time, a double-wide ramp. Lion roared with his effort, beseeching his Yellow star above, while he tapped into every last ounce of stamina his body could lend him. Veins bulged in his neck. This was it. Our only shot. He would be spent after this one.

"When the last pillar is sloped?" asked the Tiger.

"Not a moment before," I said, leaning lower in my saddle and wrapping the reins tighter around my gauntlet.

Brown and red flashed in my peripherals and the Tiger was already gone, his officers streaming past me, snickering.

I snarled and kicked Windshear. "Fly!"

"Aiaiaiaiaiaiai!" came the trills of the elites behind me.

And we were off, a bit before I had expected us to be but so be it. No one flies faster than the falcon. Not even the Tiger of the Southlands.

As the first fifty horse behind me screamed with their riders' Silver star Mandates, our hooves ate up ground. The mountains blurred by at the edges of the killing field. Stone-dust rose up behind. On the five ramps to either side, infantry still jockeyed, still making their presence felt, still demanding the attention of the defenders, soaking up arrows and men. But just before us, the Weeping Wall loomed, and before it, Lion's stone spires were still rising up out of the gravel to meet us.

I saw that although the Tiger had left early, he had at least judged the distance and slope correctly. The last pillar would appear right in the spot he was headed, and after a moment of pressing lower in my own saddle and urging Windshear on, I was neck and neck with the Tiger.

I leaned over and rammed my shoulder into his, just to let him know I was there.

He half-smiled, half-snarled and for a moment I thought he'd draw his blade, his eyes flashing red and his Mandate pouring off of him like a wave of heat and iron-tinged blood.

The Bloodlust was upon us.

In the last moment before the ramp, I surged ahead of him, Windshear's hooves hitting the first pillar of stone even as it compressed in place, shifting from a flat top to a sloped one. Lion, Heaven bless him, must have seen us leave early, and had begun turning the pillars to ramps starting with the nearest first, so we could keep our momentum. That was the right way of doing it if he wanted us to actually take the wall, anyway.

Even as Windshear climbed higher and the Weeping Wall loomed bleak and cold dominating the backdrop, the stone ramp beneath us snick-snick-snicked in an ascending line. But Windshear, one of the fastest horses in the realm – according to the Imperial ranking system, before everything had gone to shit – was quicker to ascend than even a Mandate like Lion's could keep up with.

The gap between us and our own comrades widened, and Windshear leapt over the last few pillars before they could even finish rendering.

His iron-shod hooves crashed down atop armor, blades, bodies, and ice, and before I knew it, my Son-of-Heaven Saber was out, slashing anyone fool enough to come near. Armored figures fell to the left and right of me, several being forced over the icy edge into oblivion, as my silver-white warbeast demanded space.

There was a crack like thunder and suddenly Flashammer, true to his name, was by my side, in a gap that hadn't been there before. The Gray Wolf soldiers who had occupied that space a heartbeat earlier had been punted far out into open air by all the force a Mandate-accelerated warhorse could impel. Flashammer lashed out with a spear, until the shaft snapped, then his warhammer was out in a blur.

River was on my left then, stabbing down with a straight-sword, cold, clinical, surgical movements finding their targets again and again. Her own pure-white horse tossing its head, but otherwise it was under perfect control. And why, shouldn't it be? My father had trained that beast himself, and Forgotten Empress, as the mare was called, had taken to River as if they had been born on the same day. Now, they fought as one beast, hooves, teeth and blade working in perfect unison as they chose their targets.

I, for my part, didn't even look down as my saber bit metal and bone to either side of me. I didn't need to aim my blows, not when Windshear had recovered from his leap and was kicking forward again. I let the practiced, near-automatic motion of cut and counter-cut take over as my eyes stayed nearly fixed on what lay ahead.

The Coalition army's rise to the top of the wall had been limited by Lion's Yellow star Mandate. His stamina was immense, but he was mortal, and all power came with a cost. His Mandate being more physical in nature than most, the cost was straightforward. The more earth he moved, the further away it was, or the more subtle the manipulation, the faster he fatigued. He achieved more than we thought possible by pacing himself, but no man could move mountains forever.

Conversely, the enemy high command – whether it be Dreadwolf himself or one of his subordinates – had wanted no such limits as they moved defenders up to their side of the ice-wall. The far side of the blockade had dozens of ramps of ice, cut into stairs, some twisting or turning or switching back chaotically.

Those ramps would be the death of the Weeping Wall's defenders, as up and down the length of the ramparts, I could see that my own cavalry spilled out to the right, cutting for the many choices of stairs down the far side, and the Tiger of the Southlands did the same on the opposite side. Even some of the golden infantry far down toward the wall's flanks, took advantage of our push and won their own ramps.

All along the Weeping Wall, gray banners fell, and while we had been bottlenecked on our way up the wall, there were no such limitations on the way down.

Windshear fought free of these soldiers packed in among the crenellations and began picking up speed to start descending the far side. The icey stairs nearest us were narrow, and slippery, and Windshear screamed in fear and frustration at having been forced onto such treacherous footing, but there was certainly no soldier – sane or otherwise – who could stand on a frozen staircase in the face of a silver charger staring down at them. Some of the Gray Wolves dove, taking their chances with a fifty or fourty span drop. Others needed to be convinced to make way.

Every muscle in my body was tensed as the staircase curved and I tried – as best I could – to force Winshear to compensate for the change in momentum we would need to keep ourselves from sliding off. Far from Noble Lion's orderly earthen path, this staircase of ice bent chaotically, and I threw myself to the side and held on with my knees as Windshear thrashed beneath me. I had a sickening moment of seeing nothing below but air, my head thrown way out over the precipice, and then Windshear completed the turn and I righted myself.

I had enough of a respite, then, to glance behind, and I saw that River and Flashammer had stayed with me, both of them talented riders in their own right. River was all control – as my father might have been had he been young enough to ride with us – but I could see the telltale blinking of Flashammer's Mandate, the former-bandit-turned-light-cavalry-officer using his gift to make minor corrections that kept his horse off-balance but otherwise on the ramp and alive.

Behind them, any Gray Wolf soldier who saw that we were taking the far ramps dropped their weapons and shields and scrambled to not be the last soldier left standing upon the doomed wall.

I smiled at that, just as Windshear jarred every bone in my body, hooves scraping stone on the far side. We had done it. We had taken the Weeping Wall. Now the only question was… how much more could we steal while our enemy reeled.

***COALITION MISSION UPDATE: BATTLE FOR THE WEEPING WALL***

SUCCEEDED Primary Objective: Gain the far side of the Weeping Wall.

PENDING Secondary Objective: Break the army defending it.

PENDING Bonus Objective: Push the Gray Wolf forces all the way out of Wolf Cage Pass.