10 Bodyguards, as Hard as Rocks (1/2)
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
Bam!
As he stood near the luxury carriage, an arrow tore through a bodyguard's chest, the young man with whiskers, then, fell to the ground clutching his bleeding chest.
The moment Ning Que shouted out ”enemies attack”, the well-trained Princess's bodyguard reacted immediately. The bodyguard bravely jumped onto the shaft and blocked the window of Her Highness's carriage. He didn't know where the arrow was aimed, but he knew Her Highness in the carriage must be the first target choice for enemies, and he would never let her be in danger.
What the brave bodyguard thought was right, which, however, was at the sacrifice of his young life.
”Enemies attack!”
”Protect Her Highness!”
”Shields!”
Suddenly, bodyguards roared furiously and shockingly.
Countless arrows were swishing from the deep of the wood like a storm, loud enough to muffle the sound of the wind, and making the place a danger zone.
Though Ning Que kept a distance from the surrounding fleet, he laid down the moment the bows snapped. He even remembered to push down Sangsang and the maidservant, both of whom followed him to see what happened from the tent.
He fell down to the ground with a plump, but it was lucky that layers of layers of rotted leaves and pine needles for leaves accumulated through hundreds of years in Northern Mountain Road served as a large cushion and relieved his pain when hitting on the ground. Face against cold leaves, Ning Que listened carefully to the dense sound of arrows whooping ahead and several ones passing above his head, doing a quick calculation of the number of arrows and archers.
At the entrance of Northern Mountain Road were waves of annoyed and nervous voices. Some bodyguards were shouting to organize a defense, some calling out to make orders, and some screaming for backup. Among them, the sound of putting up shields was clear. Those giant shields made by planks from the carriage were inserted deep to the edge of the shaft, which obviously they helped a lot.
Rub-a-dub!
Arrows were deeply inserted in those crude shields with thuds like the pounding of war drums, but much denser and more terrible. Once in awhile, a bodyguard might give a grunt when he was shot by an arrow through the tiny space between shields. Since the horses didn't compare to those of the warriors of Tang Empire, they painfully fell down and rolled on the ground with a neigh of despair.
A din of arrows whooshing, shields cracking, men grunting and horses neighing was enveloping the camp, which just seconds ago, was filled with laughter and sunshine. But later, it became a total hell.
Whoosh!
An arrow hit into the mud inches ahead of Ning Que. Dirt and small pieces of rock splashed his face, making it red here and there. But, his expression did not change. He laid flat on rotten leaves and pine needles in stillness. He eyed the spaces between the leaves over that arrow in front of him and then south down the Northern Mountain Road.
Instead of ambushing the fleet in dense wood or taking them by surprise at night, the foes chose to start an attack as they just settled down at the entrance of Northern Mountain Road, which was beyond Ning Que's expectation although he has got natal instinct to danger since young.
At dusk, they were going to meet Gushan Commandery's troops. They would come to help when people in the fleet would easily get lax and turn slack. That hit the spot for the enemy.
Vaguely noticing numerous figures at both sides of Northern Mountain Road and based on his previous calculation of thick arrows, Ning Que inferred there were approximately sixty enemies.
Sixty was not a surprising number. After all, they were in the territory of Tang and their target was a princess who was beloved by the emperor. If they intended to keep it a secret before or after this action, they were not allowed to command real troops but had to chose those faithful suicide soldiers.
Though the number of those suicide soldiers couldn't be large, Ning Que clearly knew it that it was not the number of persons but the quality of fighters that could determine who would survive in a battle. A team consisting of fierce and fearless fighters was most terrifying.
When bigwigs of Empire planned such a shocking assassination, it was likely for him to involve cultivators in his team apart from their suicide men. Thinking of possible combat he might watch today in this place, Ning Que raised a kind of excitement he couldn't describe and sensed a sort of terror he has never had.
”What bad luck,” he murmured and turned his sight to the maidservant beside him. Except for a trace of panic and puzzle in her eyes in the very beginning, she did nothing wrong and calmed down quickly, which won a silent praise from Ning Que in his heart.
Enemies from both sides of woods crowded in. Those men dressed in grey military uniform of the Tang Empire didn't wear any mask or veil. Brandishing identical broadswords in hand, they dashed like a pack of wolves. Since they didn't cover their identity, obviously, this battle would not end until people on one side were totally swept off the world.
Since they were in grassland, valiant barbarians around the fleet were Horse Gang under the command of the princess. The storm of arrows aroused pugnacity in the fighters. Some set their crossbows to shoot swiftly, while others drew curved swords their waists with a battle cry.
Blades clanged at the entrance of Northern Mountain Road. In the chaos of grunts and cries, men were killed, bellies stabbed and throats cut open. Blood spouted from their bodies like fountains and painted the leaves red.