The first scream came with the wind.
Lin Yao froze where he stood, his hands still gripping the frozen reins of a mule. The morning mist was thick, rolling low over the valley floor, and for a moment he thought it was only the echo of his imagination — until a second scream followed, louder, closer, ending in the wet crack of something tearing apart.
Then came the horses.
The sound of hooves — hundreds of them — thundered through the fog like a storm. Arrows whistled, slicing the air, followed by the heavy thud of impact as they slammed into wood, flesh, and bone.
"Enemy attack!" someone shouted. The words shattered the stillness, and the convoy erupted in chaos.
Men ran. Horses shrieked. The wagons groaned as drivers abandoned them and scattered into the mist. Yao could barely see beyond five paces; everything was sound and motion — the clang of metal, the crack of bows, the coughing of frightened animals.
He ducked instinctively as an arrow tore through the side of a wagon, splintering wood beside his head. The shaft quivered, still humming from the impact.
"Get down!" he barked, but no one was listening.
They weren't soldiers. None of them were. The convoy was made up of slaves, drivers, and beasts of burden. Men with no weapons, no armor, and no hope. They were the spine of the army, but now, abandoned, they were nothing more than meat.
Yao crouched beside the nearest wagon, forcing his mind to cut through the noise. The path they were on ran through a narrow stretch of open ground between two ridges — perfect for an ambush. He had argued against using it days ago, but the officer had insisted it was faster. Now the man was nowhere to be seen.
Another arrow struck. Someone screamed.
"Lin Yao!" a voice called from behind — one of the older drivers, face smeared with mud and blood. "What do we do?"
Yao stared at him, blank for a heartbeat. His mind screamed run, but something colder pushed through the panic. The wagons. The road. The terrain.
He glanced around — dozens of heavy supply wagons scattered in disarray, some overturned, others half-stuck in mud. If they fled, they'd be picked off one by one. If they stayed, they'd die together.
Unless they could hide behind something.
He stood. "Circle the wagons!"
The man blinked at him, uncomprehending. "What?"
"Move them! Form a wall! Now!"
He didn't wait for agreement. He ran to the nearest team of mules, slapping their flanks, forcing them to drag the wagon sideways. The wheels sank deep, groaning under the weight, but they moved. Others watched, confused at first — then, one by one, they followed.
"Pull them tight!" Yao shouted. "Fronts facing out! Use the heavy carts for the outer line!"
The drivers strained against the frozen ground. Wood creaked, metal chains rattled. The wagons shifted, forming a rough circle — jagged, uneven, but solid enough. He ran from one to another, adjusting gaps, shouting until his voice cracked.
Arrows continued to fall. One man dropped beside him with a shaft buried in his neck. Another screamed as a horse reared and crushed his leg. The air stank of sweat, mud, and iron.
"Take cover behind the wheels!" Yao shouted. "Don't run! Stay low!"
He ducked behind a cart, heart hammering. From the fog, dark figures emerged — enemy cavalry, their armor blackened with soot, faces half-hidden under helmets. They rode low, silent, the cold light of dawn glinting on their blades.
The first volley hit the wagons like rain. Arrows punched through cloth and leather, thudding into barrels and crates. Men cried out, clutching wounds.
Yao crawled along the inside of the circle, counting heads. Maybe fifty still alive. Most unarmed, trembling, eyes wide with terror.
"Wood!" he said. "Break the spokes — make spears!"
They stared, not understanding.
"Use the axles! Anything sharp! Move!"
He tore a broken spoke free himself, splintering it against a rock until the end was jagged. When he turned, the others were copying him — hacking wood apart, gripping it with shaking hands. Improvised weapons, pitiful, but something to hold.
The riders closed in.
"Brace!" Yao shouted. "When they hit, aim for the horses!"
The first wave slammed into the wagon line. Hooves struck wood, blades flashed, screams erupted. Yao felt the ground shake beneath him. A rider lunged over the cart, slashing down. Yao ducked, driving his makeshift spear upward. It jammed into the horse's chest; the beast reared, blood spraying, throwing its rider backward into the mud.
The next rider was on him before he could breathe. The sword came down — but a slave beside him tackled the man's arm, dragging him from the saddle. They fell together, thrashing. The slave screamed as steel opened his belly, but he didn't let go until the rider's throat was torn open by his own blade.
Yao stared, frozen for a heartbeat.
Then the smell hit him — blood, steaming in the cold air.
"Push them back!" he roared. "Don't break the line!"
The defenders heaved against the wagons. Arrows rattled, horses screamed. Fire caught somewhere to the left — an oil barrel had burst, spilling flame across the snow. The smoke thickened, black and choking.
Through the haze, Yao saw panic spreading among the enemy ranks. The wagons had become a wall — crude, uneven, but deadly. Horses refused to charge through the smoke and corpses. Riders struggled to circle around, but the ground was soft, the mules' tracks deepening into traps.
He crawled to the center of the formation, coughing from the smoke. The men there huddled together, clutching their makeshift weapons. "Keep low," he told them. "If they come again, stay behind the carts. Let the horses kill themselves on the wood."
They nodded, eyes hollow. One was praying under his breath.
Another volley came — arrows hissing through the air, thudding into the wagons like rain on a drum. Someone screamed nearby, a high, broken sound.
Yao's ears rang. His throat burned from shouting. Every muscle ached from tension.
Then, slowly, the sound began to fade.
The horses were pulling back. The riders wheeled around, disappearing into the fog. The noise of hooves receded, swallowed by distance.
For a long moment, no one moved. The only sound was the crackle of burning wood and the low moans of the dying.
Yao straightened slowly, gripping the wagon for balance. His body trembled, not from cold this time, but from the weight of what he'd just survived.
They had held.
He climbed up onto the nearest cart, peering through the smoke. The ground beyond was littered with corpses — men and horses tangled together, black blood steaming against the snow. The fog had thinned enough for him to see the horizon. No more riders. Only silence.
A sound behind him made him turn. One of the men who had fought beside him — the old driver with the scarred cheek — sat slumped against a wheel, clutching his stomach. Blood seeped between his fingers.
"Did… we win?" the man rasped.
Yao opened his mouth, but no words came.
The man smiled weakly, teeth red. "Then… good enough." He exhaled and went still.
Yao sank to his knees. The firelight flickered across his face, painting it in shifting shades of orange and shadow. Around him, the circle of wagons still stood — a ring of charred wood and death.
He forced himself to stand, moving from one body to the next. Checking, counting. By the time he reached the end of the line, the truth was clear.
Of the fifty who had stood with him, none remained alive.
He looked up at the gray sky, feeling the weight of the silence pressing down. The wind moved through the broken wagons, whistling softly, like breath escaping a dying throat.
The formation had held. The line had survived.
But only because everyone else had died for it.
Lin Yao stood in the center of the ring, surrounded by bodies, smoke, and the scent of burnt flesh. His hands hung at his sides, numb, the splintered wood of his makeshift spear still sticky with blood.
He could hear faint voices in the distance — the main army, maybe, finally realizing what had happened. But they were far too late.
He looked down at the dead around him and whispered, almost to himself, "You bought me time."
The words vanished into the smoke.
When the wind finally shifted and carried the fog away, the battlefield revealed itself in full — a ring of fire and corpses, a strange pattern in the snow, one that would later be studied and copied by others.
But in that moment, Lin Yao didn't care. He was too tired to think, too empty to feel victory.
He sank down beside the nearest wagon, leaning his head against the bloodstained wheel, eyes closing as the first flakes of new snow began to fall.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, the war raged on.
Here, among the wagons, only the dead kept watch.
Yao stayed crouched between the corpses until the wind buried their faces in dust. He could no longer tell which hands were his men's, which were the enemy's. The night had taken them all into the same stillness.
When he finally stood, the world was silent enough that even his breath felt like a trespass.