Chapter 647 pt 2 unedited unmemed

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lWhxWRD9PAOgrX8EwBjPe-sqhKzlyYEqHbOdgRDDUfI/edit?usp=sharing 

Horses. Crafty, despicable, spiteful beasts, which Baatar loathed with all his heart.

Whoever designed these damnable saddles also deserved equal amountsof contempt, for they could only have been fashionedwith ill-intent. A Defiled artisan, no doubt, one who delighted in conspiring to create the most uncomfortable manner of conveyance in existence, the soft leather no buffer from the  ridged, rugged, steely spine underneath as the beast plodded along at a jarring, uneven pace. Then there were the stirrups, whichforced him to either sit with legs spread and swinging at unnatural angles, or to continually exert downward pressure and bob with the rhythm of the beast. Maddeningly distracting, especially when he had other matters to focus on, so he forsook comfort and bounced along like a fat sack of rice atop the damnable horse’s back.

It wasn’t all the stupid stallion’s fault, a hulking warhorse that was remarkably well-trained and clearly as unhappy with his rider as Baatar was with his mount. There was no helping it however, for Colonel General Nian Zu had said this must be done, and Baatar was nothing if not a good soldier. At least he could rest easy knowing Balor was watching over Sarnai, the fearsome quin a force to be reckoned with whose dense, indestructable fur renderedhim nigh-invulnerable to all but the most powerful of blows. In contrast, this dumb horse wasn’t even a Spiritual Beast, despite costing a veritable fortune to acquire, and as far as he knew, there were no such tamed beastsin existence. Another point for the superiority of roosequins, a tally which he had long since lost count of, save to say that there was no future in which he would willingly pick a horse over a roosequin.

Growling in misery and frustration, he snarled as his beast flinched and tried to throw him off, but a squeeze of his calves took the fight out of it. Neighing in protest, it gave him a pitiful, pathetic stare in an effort to elicit sympathy, but Baatar was wise to its tricks. Only after it deigned to look away and lower its head did he release his clamped grip, the beast sputtering its lips in a mixture of relief and irritation. It’d already thrown him off once before, and he would not be shamed by it again, else he would be forced to take drastic measures and send it off to Charok to be butchered and roasted. Thanks to their newfangled love of cattle, Baatar’s entire family was slowly eliminating beef from their diet and he was fast growing bored of mutton, pork, and poultry, so horse-flesh would make for a refreshing addition.

Better if the Royal Guardians could be convinced to part with a lion or three, but even the boy couldn’t sway their minds, so Baatar was out of luck.

The boy. Turning his gaze southwest, his stare lingered on the distant storm clouds which only recently passed overhead, and for a moment, he imagined they were converging over the boy’s head. A fanciful thought, considering even a Divinity would be hard pressed to call up a storm of this magnitude without warning, if not unable to do so at all. Manipulating weather was a tricky thing, or so he’d been told, but as his beloved rose would say, the sum total of his personal understanding wouldn’t fill a thimble. Suffice to say this sudden and seemingly unnatural storm could not be Rain’s work, nor could it be the doing of anyone short of a true Deity, akin to the Mother or Father themselves.

And yet, Baatar’s unease would not go away. The boy was a constant source of joy, concern, and frustration. How was he doing out on the field of battle? Despite knowing he had power lurking beneath the surface, power he had yet to understand, Baatar worried for his silly, wayward son. It felt like a betrayal, leaving his family and friends to their own devices, but little Rain had planned for this and Baatar could do naught but follow them through. Technically, the boy hadn’t planned for this specific set of circumstances, wherein pirates led by a notorious bandit attacked and razed SuiHua harbour, but he did make contingencies for possible attacks by sea and by land, and events since then proved his precautions wise.

Though still not enough.

It pained Baatar to admit it, but the Colonel General had erred greatly by not putting more thought into the naval defences. In his defence, Nian Zu was no sailor or admiral, more used to thinking in terms of static barriers and avenues of approach, and this dastardly Huanhuzi was infamous for his ability to circumnavigate said protections, but the loss of SuiHua harbour was a costly blow which the Empire could ill-afford. Upon seeing the trail of destruction left in the nautical bandit’s wake, Baatar considered sending word to Taduk and setting the shrimp-guzzling turtle tyrant to work, but even Rain couldn’t control Pong Pong. Baatar slept better knowing the dangerous Divinity spent his days and nights out in the wilds, for one could hardly predict the moods of an all-powerful turtle, one so stealthy he’d all but given up trying to track his comings and goings.

Still, it rankled the nerves to ride overland while watching sails flit in and out of the horizon, the pirate ships keeping track of Baatar’s army as it navigated over the fathomless depths of the Azure Sea. Suicide to travel in such a manner, the sailors all claimed, but Huanhuzi’s fleet did so easily enough, their ships untouched by the denizens of the deep and free to come and go as they pleased while their Imperial counterparts were unceremoniously sunk. Thrice now, the Imperial Fleet had attempted to chase Huanhuzi into deeper waters, and thrice they’d been attacked, first by sharks, then giant squids, and most recently a school of flying pike. Each time resulted in considerable casualties for the Imperials while the pirate ships escaped unscathed, which lent credence to the rumours of Huanhuzi’s boundless good fortune, as if blessed by the Mother Herself.

A theory which could now be discarded considering the bandit’s current allegiances.

A Sending arrived to inform him their forces were all in place, so Baatar silently heaved a sigh as he readied to put Rain’s plan into action. There was nothing wrong with the plan itself, and he was proud to see the boy come into his own, first as a warrior, then politician, then merchant, and now commander, but it seemed like some things would never change, for the boy once again forgot to take into account face. Not so terrible a sin in this case, as Baatar’s pride could survive the blow, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow.

Splitting his forces piecemeal, he dispatched them to carry out all manner of tasks, from fighting fires, searching for survivors, salvaging supplies, and clearing sunken hulls along the coastline. Minutes passed by, then hours as Baatar’s forces following the pirate fleet dwindled and shrank. After long, painful hours in the saddle, the opportunistic bandit finally felt safe enough to come out of hiding, and Baatar smiled as he watched the sails emerge from behind the horizon. Left with only a quarter of his original army, he set them into formation just outside the range of ship-mounted catapults and bolt-throwers and waited for the bandit to strike.

A cautious one, this half-badger Huanhuzi, but he would have to be to have thrived for so many years in his trade. Bandits were a bold and daring lot, but there were few bandits who were both bold and old. Skirting over the shallows as they approached the coastline, the sleek pirate ships cut a graceful, ninety degree turn to head either east or west along the coastline, a maneuver which set the soldiers with nautical experience to whistling. In Baatar’s eyes, it was only mildly impressive, but he knew nothing of ships and did not care to learn. It was clear these actions were a feint however, hoping to uncover any waiting Imperial ships veiled by Concealment, either by incidentally ramming them, watching how the waves broke, or any other number of ways Baatar was not entirely familiar with. It’d all been part of a briefing regarding nautical defences, but since it was not his area of expertise, he trusted Nian Zu’s judgment and let it be.

Not Rain however, who pored over those documents and bought in experts to help explain them.

Finding no hidden ships waiting to catch him off guard, Huanhuzi finally felt confident enough to order his pirates to disembark, no doubt seeing this diminished reinforcing army as a juicy target of opportunity. That was the issue with bandits, no discipline whatsoever, since the smart thing to do was to sail away once the damage had already been done. Had Huanhuzi’s fleet stayed out over the sea depths, then there was little the Imperial forces could do to stop him, but the greedy bandit was not yet done and saw a good chance for some bloodletting.

The pirate fleet disembarked in record time and even fell into formation without too much of a fuss, leading Baatar to raise his opinion of the bandit a few notches. So perhaps it wasn’t a lack of discipline which drew him to attack, but rather the unquenchable bloodlust which came with turning Defiled, though there were enough pirates here to give even Baatar’s full army a good fight. Still, he never understood how anyone could be so foolish as to believe the Father’s foul lies, but Rain was most impressed by his ‘stubbornness’ and how there were only two Spectres around him at his lowest, when his beloved Sarnai almost seemed lost.

Baatar would walk his own path, and no one, not even a Deity on the level of the Father Himself, would sway him.

Ever the coward, Huanhuzi’s forces stayed close to their ships in case an Imperial fleet was on the way, so Baatar happily gave the order to march out. There were no words exchanged or duels offered, because he had no time for this nonsense. The sooner he did away with the pirate threat, the sooner he could ride to reinforce Brigadier Hongji’s army, though he feared the battle would be long over before he arrived. Still, as Mother liked to say, where there was life, there was hope, so Baatar hoped his family still had life yet.

Drawing his Crescent Moon bardiche, he raised it over head and almost lost his seat as his damnable horse reared up on its hind legs. Once it had all four hooves on the ground again, Baatar shouted, “Charge!”

And to their credit, his soldiers obeyed, despite facing a Defiled force which outnumbered them at least four to one. Had they stood in formation and weathered the charge, this bandit army could have torn Baatar’s soldiers to shreds, but as he bounced atop his hulking war horse, he saw the first signs of his ally’s efforts as chaos broke out from within the pirates’ ranks.

For their precious ships, anchored just off shore behind them promising refuge and safe escape, were now sinking into the shallows.

Baatar’s forces struck the Defiled lines like a hammer into soft tofu, but the Enemy had begun scattering before he even arrived, for there was a second Imperial force emerging from the water and screaming bloody murder to all who would hear it. Spilling out of their sealed submersibles, which looked none the worse for wear despite having almost made a full circuit of the Azure Sea, these warriors were a fearsome sight to see in action. Dark scarves covered their faces but left their eyes bared, eyes which burned with a holy fire yearning for blood and vengeance. Forming no ranks and charging out in all directions, they threw themselves upon the Defiled like starving wolves who’d come across a herd of fat, unguarded sheep. Staves and hammers were their most common weapons of choice, heavy, ponderous armaments which they used to bash and bludgeon their foes to grisly death, an effective, but messy approach which soon made it difficult to distinguish the Imperials from Defiled at first glance. More than one newcomer was crying as they fought, spilling tears of anger and relief as they dispensed holy retribution upon the criminals who despoiled their homeland and drove them away, and Baatar’s heart swelled with pride for his most precious son, as none of this would have been possible if not for Rain.

The slaughter went on for another hour as the Defiled fought to the bitter end, as the Enemy was wont to do. Unfortunately, Huanhuzi escaped with his life in tact, or rather never took part in the battle to begin with, his ship sailing due West after the razing of SuiHua, just as Baatar would have in his place. Still, a great victory had been won here, and even though his damned horse survived the encounter, his spirits could not be dampened. Striding over to meet the commander who helped make this possible, he offered a Martial salute to the stalwart Great General, a hero who remained loyal while so many of his former comrades turned Defiled. “Well met. I am Baatar, Lieutenant General of the Empire and Warrior of the People.”

Dripping with blood and water, the bald, dusky Warrior gave him a broad smile which revealed a set of shockingly white teeth before falling to his knees, and every soldier who arrived with him followed suit. “This grateful one be Gao Changgong, here to pay his respects to the Legate’s honoured father.” Raising his head to look around, he asked, “Is the Legate here? May the Mother bless his fortunes. This Gao desires to give thanks in person, for without the Legate’s mercy, every one of my comrades here and all of the citizens I rescued would have been found and killed on the shores of the Azure Sea.”

So, another fervent devotee for little Rain, and a powerful one at that. Gao Changgong was a Major General and almost as strong as Baatar himself, strength they would need to keep the Western General safe in light of recent events. “My son is there,” Baatar said, pointing off into the distance at the roiling storm clouds. “Fighting against an army of Defiled on the open plains.” Readying his weapon to strike should Changgong show any sign of betrayal, he added, “An army led by the traitor, Gongsun Qi.”

Blinking once to take it all in, Gao Changgong nodded and corrected, “Better to call him Bai Qi, the name he was born with. ‘Gongsun’ is the name he gave himself, a homonym for ‘Prince’ in order to mock those who called him the ‘Prince of Barbarity’. Even knowing this, no true son or daughter of the West will call that traitorous butcher ‘Prince’.” Eyes lighting up in eager impatience, he asked, “Have you wagons or horses enough for my soldiers? Let us ride out in support of the Legate, may the Heaven’s bless his name.”

“Matters are not so simple.” Or so Rain said. “By Imperial Mandate, you and yours are technically marked for death, as the Western Province was closed off and contained.”

Anger smouldered in the large warrior’s eyes, and Baatar smiled to see it. “So?” Gao Changgong asked, as if this were of no concern. “The Legate has already saved this Gao’s people. Do you, his father, intend to correct this?”

“No.” Locking the borders had been the height of Imperial foolishness, though Baatar suspected someone other than Shen ZhenWu had ordered it, for the Imperial Scion seemed far too savvy to make such an ill-advised mistake. “But we will have to tread lightly, lest your presence be used against us.”

“Bah.” Rolling his eyes, he said, “What presence? This one be Gao Liang, Warrior of the North, sworn to the Legate’s personal service. Not once has this Gao set foot in the Western Province, and a pox on any who claim otherwise.”

As if anyone would believe him, considering his clothes, complexion, and manner of speech, but it was enough for Rain’s sake, since none would dare say otherwise in order to give him face. It showed he at least understood the concept however, which made this egregious slight all the more difficult to swallow, but at least he meant well.

Imagine what people would say once they learned that Baatar, a Lieutenant General and the Legate’s own father, had been used as a mere distraction. Oh how they would laugh, but Rain insisted Baatar be present to better ‘sell the story’. “Don’t worry, I have other plans in place, and I’d rather you went along to take charge,” Rain said. “If one thing goes to shit, I always expect more to follow, because it never rains. It pours.”

Alas, events here went perfectly as planned, or as perfectly as they could considering the circumstances. Sighing as he once again took in the growing storm, he hoped things were going just as well with Rain, and somehow, almost knew they most certainly weren’t.

That was life with Falling Rain. Never a dull moment, and Baatar counted himself blessed for having him.