The river was running red, and the water was freezing.
Lin Ke stood at the prow of the low-draft spirit-skiff as its twin bronze props churned the muddy shallows of the Iron River into grey foam.
Through the salt-and-sulfur mist, the thunder of four thousand iron-shod hooves shook the water until tiny droplets jumped off the surface like boiling grease.
Two hundred yards ahead, marooned on a gravel spit in the center of the rapids, three hundred vanguard shield-bearers stood locked shoulder-to-shoulder under the crushing shadow of General Ba Lie’s elite Thunder-Hoof Heavy Cavalry.
*
Ba Lie’s mounts were not ordinary beasts.
They were two-ton Scaled Thunder-Stallions, bred in the high pastures of the Great Yan Imperial Steppes. Each beast was plated in heavy dragon-scale steel, their eyes rolling with stimulant fury, their breath venting in thick jets of white steam.
At full gallop, the striking force of a single horse was enough to punch through an eight-inch granite wall.
