“Get off the road! All of you, get back into the snow on the flanks!”
White-Tiger Warlord Hu Ba stood up in his iron stirrups at the mouth of Three-Fork Ridge, waving his three-hundred-pound Tiger-Head Battle-Axe until the cold air whistled.
His face was dark purple with anger—and suspicion.
He had fought humans for thirty years along the southern border. Whenever human sects built something neat and pretty in the middle of a mountain pass, it was ALWAYS a trap! Either there were poison fire-mines buried underneath the stone slabs, or a thousand flying swords were waiting to drop out of the clouds the moment his army crowded together!
“Listen to my orders!” Hu Ba roared, circulating his Rank 6 Early Golden Core Qi so his voice echoed for ten miles down the snowy column. “This black stone road is a human formation trap! Look how warm and flat it is! Why would anyone waste precious fire-spirit stones heating an outdoor road in the middle of a wasteland unless they wanted to boil our hooves off?! Left wing, climb the icy ridge! Right wing, march through the snow-ditches! Anyone who keeps his mount on the black stone will get twenty lashes!”
