The frozen mudflats of the Frost Valley groaned beneath the terrifying weight of two hundred thousand armored men and forty thousand warhorses.
High upon the western ridge, Crown Prince Zhao Lie stood upon the raised dais of his Nine-Dragon War Chariot, his golden dragon saber unsheathed and trembling wildly in his white-knuckled grasp. His bloodshot eyes bulged with manic, frothing hysteria, the dark rotting veins at his temples throbbing in uneven rhythms.
“Cowards! Traitors! Vermin!” Zhao Lie shrieked, his voice cracking into a dry, ragged bark that carried over the wind. “Look at him! He dares send a lone scholar to mock my royal host! ADVANCE! Trample him! Let forty thousand iron hooves grind his bones into the frozen gravel! Burn their white silk tents! Slay every man, woman, and child who looked upon the eastern heretics!”
He stood beside the chariot rail. Grand Marshal Wu Zhan clenched his armored fists, his weathered jaw tightening in desperation.
“Your Royal Highness, halt the charge!” Wu Zhan urged, his deep voice thick with tactical dread. “The enemy hasn’t deployed an army. There are no defensive formations, no arrow screens, no barrier arrays. A lone fighter stepping forward without a weapon is either an act of supreme surrender or the prelude to an impossible to understand trap. Let the scouts probe their flanks first—”
