Three months. For three grueling months, we had stared at the unyielding walls of Luoyang as winter’s cold sank its teeth into our bones. The great victory I had promised my men had curdled into a miserable, grinding stalemate. The defenders, content behind their stone and iron, never offered a pitched battle. My initial rush of white-hot rage had long since cooled, leaving only a bleak, depressing ash.

  Last week, I had cooked the last of the meat from my trusty steed, a fine northern charger that had carried me through a dozen campaigns, and shared it with my men so that we would not starve. I barely recognized the faces around the fire anymore. Batu and Luo were here beside me, but the rest of the old guard who had ridden with me from the frontier were mostly gone, their bodies left at the foot of those cursed walls.

  Every night, the sky would whistle as Zhang RuLin’s fire rockets arced overhead, forcing us to maintain our main encampment a miserable five li from the city, a constant, fiery reminder of our failure.

  The summons came on a bitter wind. A guard from the Jiedushi's personal retinue appeared at my tent flap. "General Cui, your presence is requested at the Grand Command tent. You as well, Commander Luo."

  Luo Qinji, his burned face healed into a latticework of scars, met my gaze with his one good eye. We walked in silence through the sprawling, half-starved camp to the Jiedushi’s grand pavilion. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of roasted meat and expensive wine, a world away from the thin gruel our men were eating.

  There, upon a throne draped in furs, sat An Lushan himself. He was a massive figure in height and in width. His massive mustache and beard littered with the crumbs of his feast, while beautiful, scantily dressed women tended to him, their golden accessories tinkled as they moved. Guards stood in every corner of the tent.

  This wasn't our first time greeting our prodigious leader. Luo and I couldn't kowtow in our heavy armor, so instead we dropped to one knee and brought one fist to the ground in a one handed military bow.

  Beside him stood four figures I had never seen before, their presence filling the tent with a palpable, dangerous energy. An aide introduced them briefly before Jiedushi An spoke.

  One was an old Daoist with a long, snow-white beard, whose simple grey robes could not conceal the edge of his power; they called him the "Heavenly Sword" Daoist Qingxuan. He was said to have once stormed the Qinghe gang alone, leaving three dozen bodies behind.

  Beside him stood a massive, bald monk in saffron robes, the "Mountain-Shattering Palm" Abbot Huiyuan, of the Iron Pagoda Temple. He carried no weapon, but stood calmly with his eyes almost closed, seemingly at peace with the world around him.

  A slender man cloaked in shadow, "Thousand Shadow" Yan Fei, seemed to absorb the very light around him. I'd actually heard of him before, as his QingGong is renowned in the north.

  And finally, a woman of cold, impossible beauty, "Jade Flute" Lady Yin, held a white jade flute in her hand. She must have been in her late thirties, and was dressed in a silver and blue dress with a flowing ornamental sash. Martial artists were often eccentric in their presentation.

  These were not soldiers, they were masters of the martial world, hired blades for a new dynasty. I couldn't imagine what it had cost to hire them. Even if The Asuran Hand of the South himself were to appear, I doubt he could fight his way past all four to reach An Lushan's throat.

  An Lushan sipped his wine, his eyes serious as he looked down on me. "General Cui," he said, his voice a deep, lightly accented, rumble. "I am told your vanguard has been… stagnant. I am offering you a chance to redeem yourself."

  He gestured to a map. "Within the city, the garrison commander, Sun Xiaozhe, has seen the wisdom of our cause. A thousand taels of gold, and a convenient investigation into his alleged dealings with my godson by Chang'an, have convinced him to open his gates to a more benevolent master."

  My heart quickened. This was it. The key to breaking the stalemate.

  "Sun Xiaozhe has five thousand loyal soldiers," An Lushan continued. "You and Commander Luo are skilled soldiers. With these great masters, tonight, under the cover of a diversionary assault on the eastern wall, you will slip into the city. You will make your way to the northern gate command tower and deliver my edict to Sun and his men, and they will throw open the gates for us. Upon your success, the main army will storm the city and this tedious siege will finally be at an end." He waved his hand as if dismissing a particularly unpleasant smelling servant. "Once the city falls, I return to Youzhou to prepare the spring campaign. This place holds nothing I need."

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  “Understood!” Luo and I said simultaneously.

  We shed our armor by the flickering torchlight, leaving the heavy lamellar behind. In its place, we donned simple, dark clothing, the chill of the winter night biting through the thin fabric. Without the familiar weight and protection of my steel plates, I felt exposed. We slinked though the wreckage of the buildings that used to sit outside LuoYang's protective shell.

  My eyes quickly adapted to the darkness, and the guards atop the walls had not extinguished their torches, a common mistake as they'd struggle to see beyond the firelight.

  The roar of the diversionary attack on the eastern gate echoed across the plains, a symphony of chaos that would be the cloak for our own quiet work.

  We reached the base of the northern wall, a sheer, fifteen-meter cliff of dark, freezing stone. As Luo and I pressed ourselves into the shadows, the masters prepared to ascend. "Thousand Shadow" Yan Fei moved first. He was not a man climbing a wall, but a wisp of smoke caught on an updraft.

  His feet seemed to find purchase on air alone, before his hands found the top of the parapet and he vaulted over, disappearing from sight without a sound. A moment later, a thin but strong silken rope snaked down the wall, secured for our ascent.

  The rest followed. The "Jade Flute Siren" Lady Yin went next, her outfit billowing as she rose. As she reached the top, a guard on patrol rounded the corner of a watchtower. Before the man could even register her presence, she brought the white jade flute to her lips. No melody came forth, only a thin needle that hit the guard's eye. The guard froze, his remaining eye going slack, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. Lady Yin’s movement was a blur as she flowed past him, the end of her flute tapping him once, lightly, at the base of his skull. The man crumpled to the stone without a sound.

  Abbot Huiyuan did not have the same practice in QingGong. He did not climb the rope so much as walk up the wall beside it, his massive frame defying gravity as his feet found purchase on the sheer stone. Another guard, alerted by some sixth sense, charged him, his spear leveled. The abbot didn't even break stride. He met the man's chest with his open palm, turning to avoid a spear thrust. There was no clang of steel, only a deep, muffled thump, and the spearman’s armor crumpled inward like paper, the man’s life extinguished before his body hit the floor.

  Last of the masters was the old Daoist, Qingxuan. As two more guards rushed the position, his sword left its scabbard. It was not a swing or a thrust, but a flicker, a whisper of steel that seemed to trace a silver character in the air. The two guards simply stopped, swayed for a moment, and then collapsed, thin red lines appearing on their throats. The Heavenly Sword was already sheathing his blade before they fell.

  It was over in seconds. Silent. Deadly. An entire section of the wall had been cleared, and no alarm had been raised. Luo and I exchanged a look of grim, professional respect. I couldn't get used to looking into Luo's one eye.

  We climbed the rope and joined them on the battlements, two more shadows melting into the night of Luoyang.

  We reached the designated guard tower in short order. Inside, by the dim light of a single, hooded lantern, stood Garrison Commander Sun Xiaozhe and a handful of his most trusted men. Sun was a man drowning in his own decision. His face was pale and slick with sweat, and his hand trembled where it rested on the hilt of his sword. He was terrified, and a terrified man is an unreliable tool.

  I stepped forward, keeping my voice low and steady, a commander speaking to a wavering subordinate. "Commander Sun. The hour is upon us."

  He flinched, his eyes darting from my face to the silent, deadly masters arrayed behind me. "General Cui... I... I cannot be sure this is the righteous path."

  "The righteous path?" I asked, my voice laced with the cold weariness of the past three months. "Was it righteous when the court in Chang'an allowed its ministers to steal the grain meant for your soldiers? Was it righteous when they sent investigators to make you the scapegoat for their own corruption? Chang'an has betrayed you, Commander. The alternative is an army of brothers who value a soldier's worth. The choice is before you."

  He hesitated, his face a mask of conflict. It was then that the "Jade Flute Siren" Lady Yin glided forward, the white jade of her flute gleaming in the lantern light.

  "It is too late for choices, Commander," she said, her voice as cold and clear as a winter stream. "If you do not throw open these gates, we will do it for you. And when our army is inside, you will be the first man we kill. A traitor to both sides is a man with no allies at all."

  The finality in her voice was absolute. Sun Xiaozhe let out a long, shuddering breath, the last of his resistance crumbling away. He turned, and to my surprise, dropped to his knees, performing a deep kowtow not to us, but to the south, towards the heart of the city he was about to betray.

  "Forgive me, Luoyang," he whispered, his forehead pressed to the cold stone. Then, he rose, his face a grim, tear-streaked mask of resolve. He turned to his men. "Throw open the gates."

  With a deep, groaning shriek of protesting metal, the massive bars were lifted and the northern gate of Luoyang was thrown wide. A moment later, the first figures on steeds, the vanguard of our great army, thundered through the opening. From a distant watchtower, a signal flare shot into the sky, a brilliant red flower that bloomed against the darkness, sounding the alarm. Almost immediately, the sounds of desperate gunfire began to pepper the night, echoing through the neat, rectangular grid of the city. The battle for Luoyang had begun.