123 The secret weapon of the western hills (1/2)

The confident allied forces that were pushing forward in waves at a rate of knots behind the spear-men unit leading the attack on the western hills suddenly slowed their momentum when the ground shook over and over with booming ear-splitting explosions echoing out.

Those soldiers most eager to pillage and plunder, trying their hardest to reach the front lines of the battle and partake in the fun before the puny forces of the western hills were eliminated, stopped dead in their tracks.

They looked at each other in bewilderment and shock as the formation of spear-men that entered within melee distance of the opposition were completely engulfed by black smoke.

Everything in front of their eyes were obscured by the thick black snaky cloud slowly rising upward.

The army came to a sudden stop standing in a neat line, the wind brought a thick hazy dust swirling from the hidden battlefield ahead, stinging their eyes as the dust-cloud crept over the ground slowly enveloping their ranks before it was driven to the south with the wind.

After being swamped in dust they were then showered with countless pebbles raining down from the sky making constant clinking sounds as the harmless pieces of gravel hit against their armors and fell to the floor.

It was almost as if time was at a stand-still up ahead. The soldiers didn't hear the chaotic clashes of shields, spears and swords or the shouts and roars of desperate men locked in life and death combat that usually made up the ambient noises on a battlefield, it was like there wasn't even a struggle going on behind the veil of dark smoke.

Did the defenders of the western hills surrender? confusion was evident everywhere as no one really knew what had taken place up ahead.

Things became even worse when they started to hear numerous screams of agony, it didn't sound like any battle they've been involved in before, it sounded more like a field hospital catering for hundreds of injured men had been erected.

”Prepare to move forward!” a captain shouted at the confused troops, the men raised their shields and leveled their swords again preparing to move forward in support of the spear units.

Suddenly a raggedy soldier missing an arm with blood gushing from the stump at his right shoulder came stumbling through the thick black fog, he wore a suit of blackened silver armor that was badly damaged and missing many pieces, the man staggered towards his allies while continuously screaming hysterically ”the terror, oh the terror. The rocks are exploding, no one's safe, no one's safe.”

He then collapsed with wide frightened eyes in front of the second line of soldiers, wailing miserably before dying at the feet of the captain with an arrow sticking out of his back....

Stood on the high ground of the western hills, Viscount Sanzu's men were shell-shocked into speechlessness. There were sporadic cheers of joy coming from some, but most were muted staring at the battlefield with eyes that were about to pop out of their sockets.

The young red haired soldier looked at the gore filled battlefield in horror and amazement at the same time, a minute ago he was seriously considering fleeing for his life just at the sight of the enemy's long spears, who would have thought that the enemy's broken bodies would lay dying in misery before his eyes a minute later as the neat organized lines of spear-men disintegrated into screaming chaos.

He looked at the veteran next to him. The veteran had eyes just as wide as anybody else, when he noticed the younger soldier next to him he said. ”Our endings will be decided by fate, not by man.”

Then he turned away in a sage-like fashion and charged into the helpless soldiers remaining on the gruesome battlefield.

As the smoke slowly dispersed, the visible area around the Western Hills looked as if a series of tornadoes had swept over it.

There were wrecked trees, deep pits and bloody body parts strewn everywhere. Trees and dead bodies lay sprawled awkwardly on the ground entangled together.

There was the vile and pungent odor of burnt flesh everywhere and pieces of clothes, broken spears and other unrecognizable parts of military equipment scattered across the battlefield in piles.

Hundreds of suffering men laid on the shattered ground, they could only use the last tiny spark of life remaining in their battered bodies to wail out a final tune of misery with their dying breaths....

The panicked concussed survivors staggered around on the scorched earth in utter confusion.... Fu jianu nocked an arrow, the beautiful girl didn't even flinch as she took a deep breath, surveyed the battlefield filled with dead men and pieces of dead men, steadied her aim, then released the missile from the bow-string and into the back of an armored man stumbling around in a daze of disbelief. He screeched in terror as he contorted his body reaching back and trying to remove the black-fletched arrow-shaft that was jutting out his back, unfortunately for him, it was out of his reach.

The girl nonchalantly turned to another target without paying the wriggling man any more attention. Again the whiz of the arrow sounded out and again another victim was impaled screaming painfully.

Fu Jianu methodically nocked her arrows then let loose her shots, her targets screamed and fell rolling around in agony. She had taken a position higher than the others and when the blackness from the smoke started to fade she had a perfect vantage for sniping, she started to work viciously on the last of the struggling survivors.

Fu Jianu had no love or mercy for nobles or the forces that they controlled. She had seen her father bullied and came close to being violated under their oppression on my occasions. When her dad had tried to send her to hide she had insisted on joining the battle, Fu Qian had taught the girl to hunt from an early age and she was nifty with her bow. She had decided that she would fight alongside her father and take down as many of the bastards that she could before the inevitable happened..

When others saw what was happening, they quickly recognized the helplessness of the attackers and rushed down from their position to brutally put the remainder of the spear-men to the sword.