Yin Zhiping didn't quite see why Huang Rong had suddenly changed the plan and set him against the enemy's Innate—but he had made his declaration already, and that left no grounds for refusal. He nodded and accepted the task.
Looking down at the Mongol host arrayed and ready below, Yin Zhiping felt his blood stir despite himself.
This was a real battlefield.
A battlefield of the age of cold steel.
The Mongols had marched fifty thousand this time, commanded by Batur, a great general under Ögedei, the Mongol Great Khan. Whether Guo Jing knew the man was anyone's guess.
Perhaps Batur simply hadn't thought Xiangyang worth his respect—hence only fifty thousand.
As for Yin Zhiping's own opponent—would it be that Golden Wheel Dharma King, or some other master of the Esoteric Sect?
To his own mild surprise, Yin Zhiping found himself faintly looking forward to it.
Below, General Zhang was moving men and matériel up onto the walls—great timbers, sheaves of arrows.
The consumables of a siege defense.
Then a single rider on a black horse walked his mount forward from the Mongol lines.
"Guo Jing! Our Golden Blade Consort! Today the Mongol host stands before you—yet in memory of old bonds, our Great Khan extends his mercy one final time. Open the gates and welcome our army in, and when the Song dynasty falls, a share of the merit will be yours."
Guo Jing stepped up onto the wall and looked down at the speaker. The face rang no bell at all.
"Save your breath. I am a man of Song. I will die in battle. I will not surrender."
Batur hadn't truly expected Guo Jing to yield. A man who could be bought would have been bought long ago; he'd never have held out to this day.
"Stubborn to the end. So be it—the day this city breaks is the day you die. CHARGE!!!"
The war drums thundered: the Mongol assault had begun.
Yin Zhiping's grip tightened on his green-steel sword. What churned in his chest—excitement or nerves—he couldn't have said. Likely both.
Mongol soldiers beyond counting surged toward Xiangyang's walls, scaling ladders held overhead.
If they gained the parapet, they could open the gates from within—and then the Mongol host would pour through unchecked, and Xiangyang would have no resistance left in it.
Nor was that all. A squad of twenty came on bearing an enormous tree trunk, making for the gates.
They meant to simply batter them open.
But the gates had been manned and braced long since. Breaking them would take far more than wishing.
Behind the charging front ranks, the Mongol rear lifted their bows, arrows nocked and drawn, sights set on the defenders atop the wall.
Covering fire—to ease the climbers' way up and thin the price they paid.
Nor was Yin Zhiping's side idle.
The enemy wanted ladders on the wall; the Song troops had no intention of watching them climb.
Braving the long-range arrows, men shoved ladder after ladder away from the parapet, while others shot down at the Mongols below, dropping them steadily around their siege lines.
Yin Zhiping did not move. All this was the appetizer. The true battle waited further in.
The masters on the other side hadn't moved either.
The fighting ground on that way until mid-afternoon. The base of the wall bristled with spent arrows—and with corpses, all of them Mongol.
There were bodies on the parapet too. But set against the Mongol losses, they scarcely counted.
The masters from the intelligence reports never once appeared.
At last, the assault having gone nowhere, the Mongol army sounded the gong and withdrew.
So it had been a probing attack after all.
As the Mongols pulled back, Guo Jing set men to clearing the aftermath. As for sallying out in pursuit—out of the question.
Not unless they were forced to.
***
The Mongol attack had been all thunder and little rain. To put it unkindly: both sides had spent some rank-and-file soldiers, and the larger board hadn't moved at all.
Most likely they'd wanted to take Xiangyang's measure—see how hard the city would kick.
Whether that was really it, Yin Zhiping couldn't say. Either way, he'd had no chance to lift a finger today—neither side's masters had moved at all.
Coming down off the wall, he found his junior brothers, told them to keep to their quarters and touch nothing, and followed Guo Jing and Huang Rong to the hall with the sand table.
A good number of people were already there when they entered—General Zhang of the garrison, and the jianghu contingent headed by Zhu Ziliu.
"Today was only a probe. Tomorrow will likely not be so gentle. I hope everyone will make ready."
Guo Jing's face was grave. Probe or not, the day had left its pressure on him.
Fifty thousand Mongol troops were nothing to shrug at. Xiangyang, counting every soldier and every jianghu volunteer, mustered barely thirty thousand—and the court's reinforcements had yet to arrive.
"Rest easy, Hero Guo. We understand. We'll move exactly as planned."
Zhu Ziliu answered for the jianghu men.
Guo Jing cupped his fist.
"And this, I take it, is Taoist Master Yin. Your name has traveled far."
It wasn't only Zhu Ziliu—every eye in the room had settled on Yin Zhiping.
An Innate. The world held only a handful. The only one anyone here saw with regularity was Guo Jing; the Old Urchin, Huang Yaoshi, Hong Qigong—those were divine dragons glimpsed by head and never by tail, immortals of rumor.
A battle as loud as this one at Xiangyang, and neither Huang Yaoshi the father-in-law nor Hong Qigong the master had shown—that told you how hard those two were to find.
There was the mad Ouyang Feng, of course.
But who would dare go strolling in front of that one? Was life so long it needed shortening?
And now the world had one more—and a Quanzhen man at that.
The Quanzhen Sect had been sliding downhill since Wang Chongyang, for the simple reason that after Zhou Botong, no new Innate had ever risen in it.
Now one had. In all likelihood the sect would climb back to its old flourishing—"first sect under heaven" was no idle phrase; the foundations had been there all along.
"This humble Taoist is Yin Zhiping, disciple of Qiu Chuji, Master Changchun of the Quanzhen Sect. I greet you all."
Yin Zhiping kept his manner scrupulously courteous. He stood here as the face of the Quanzhen Sect; the bearing of a great order was obligatory.
"With Taoist Master Yin here, Xiangyang is certain to come through unscathed."
"Indeed! When this affair is settled, we must drink the Taoist Master properly under the table."
"The Quanzhen Sect will surely flourish in Taoist Master Yin's hands."
Yin Zhiping let it all wash past his ears. Take flattery at face value and you'd already lost.
Nod, smile, and keep the mouth running its litany of thank you, you honor me, it's only proper...
Pleasantries exhausted, the room dispersed.
Yin Zhiping was the last to remain.
"Hero Guo—Chief Huang, is she...?"
What he meant to ask after was Huang Rong's health.
Only days had passed, yet though her color had a little more red in it, her face was still worn and drawn.
Huang Rong mattered too much right now. Without her behind Guo Jing plotting and provisioning, all his prestige notwithstanding, he could never have managed this many people in one city.
Guo Jing hesitated, saying nothing, his eyes going soft with worry toward his wife.
"Taoist Master Yin—after your advice last time, we did call a physician. There is nothing wrong with my health. Only... I am with child, and haven't been resting well."
It was Huang Rong who explained.
Yin Zhiping blinked—then understood at once. So Guo Fu was on the way?
"Why, that's a joyous thing! This humble Taoist congratulates you both."
A joyous thing indeed—at the very least, a good omen.
"We would ask the Taoist Master not to speak of it. Better this not spread about."
Huang Rong had no intention of letting her own condition ripple through Xiangyang's great battle.