The valley swallowed sound like a grave.
Lin Yao stood at its mouth, staring into the narrow slit of land that wound between the cliffs like a scar. The sky above was a thin gray blade, and the light that reached the floor of the gorge was weak, the color of old bone. The wind carried a smell that had no place in the living world — ash, rot, and something sweet beneath it, like burned marrow.
They called it the Death Passage.
The maps marked it as the fastest route to the northern front. The soldiers knew better. No army had crossed it intact in three campaigns. The cliffs funneled arrows like rain, the echo of screams never left, and when the sun set, even the crows didn't land.
Behind Yao stretched the remains of what had once been a supply regiment: thirty wagons, two hundred slaves, fifty soldiers, and a handful of officers too broken to command. The horses were ribs and skin. The men not much better. No banners flew; they had burned them weeks ago for warmth.
A lieutenant approached, eyes red from sleeplessness. "Orders, commander?"
Yao looked over the line — a procession of limping figures, bandaged and gaunt, each step marked by the groan of wood and the drag of rope.
"Keep them close," he said. "No gaps. If we're hit, we move forward. Never stop."
The man hesitated. "If the cliffs are lined—"
"They will be."
Yao started walking before the lieutenant could answer.
The wagons creaked to life behind him, wheels grinding over the dry riverbed. Dust rose in thin, pale sheets. Every sound magnified between the cliffs — the crack of a whip, the cough of a man, the rattle of armor. The valley turned each noise into something monstrous.
After an hour, they passed the first skeletons — bones half-buried in sand, a rusted spear still protruding from one ribcage. Then the remains of wagons, splintered and blackened. The smell grew thicker, the air heavier.
The men began whispering prayers, their voices faint and uneven.
"Quiet," Yao said. His voice echoed down the ravine. "The dead have enough noise."
For a time, there was only the sound of movement. The slaves strained at the ropes, breath ragged, skin raw from friction. The soldiers trudged alongside, eyes fixed upward, watching the cliffs.
A faint wind shifted the dust. For an instant, Yao thought he saw movement — a glint of metal on the ridge. Then nothing.
He raised his hand. The column halted.
"Archers," he said.
The lieutenant's face drained of color. "Where?"
Yao didn't answer. He watched the ridgeline, every sense stretched thin. The silence pressed in until it became unbearable.
Then the sky split open.
The first volley fell like rain — a hiss, a whisper, then a thousand cracks. Arrows slammed into wood and flesh. The sound was a single, shuddering roar. Men screamed. Horses reared. The line broke instantly.
"Cover!" someone shouted, voice cracking.
The slaves dropped the ropes and scattered. Soldiers ducked behind wagons or fell to their knees, clutching at their heads. The air filled with splinters and screams.
Yao stood in the center of it, unmoving, watching the chaos unfold with a kind of numb precision. He saw one wagon overturned, its cargo spilling grain into the mud — bright against the red that followed. He saw a soldier shoot upward blindly, his own arrow vanishing into the cliff face. He saw a slave running toward him, face streaked with blood, until an arrow took him through the spine.
"Forward!" Yao bellowed. His voice was hoarse but sharp. "Move the wagons! Keep them close!"
No one moved. Another volley fell.
"Move, damn you!"
He seized a soldier by the collar and dragged him upright. The man's eyes were wide, vacant. Yao shoved him toward the nearest wagon, grabbed the rope himself, and began to pull.
"Get up! Pull!"
One by one, they obeyed — not out of discipline, but instinct. Fear needed direction. Yao gave it shape.
"Left wagon! Push it sideways — there!" he shouted. "Front line, pull in tight! We use the wagons for cover!"
Arrows slammed into the wooden frames, embedding deep. The wheels cracked, but the wagons held. Yao ran along the column, forcing them into a staggered wall — each cart shielding the next.
The "wagon shield formation" was born not from design, but desperation.
"Get the dead off the ropes," he ordered. "Don't waste strength on corpses."
The men obeyed. They cut the bodies loose, let them drop into the dust. The line began to move — slow, grinding, like a creature dragging itself through its own blood.
The archers above adjusted their aim. Arrows began to fall in arcs, striking from behind. Yao turned, scanning for gaps.
"Rear wagon — angle left!" he shouted. "Cover the slope!"
A soldier tried to comply, then screamed as a shaft pierced his thigh. Yao pushed him aside, grabbed the rope, and hauled until the cart turned.
The air was thick with smoke and dust. Every breath tasted of iron.
The lieutenant stumbled toward him. "We're losing men faster than we can move! We can't—"
"We move or we die."
A sudden crack split the air — a wagon wheel shattered. The cart tilted, spilling its cargo and crushing two slaves beneath it. Yao didn't look. He grabbed another rope, shouted for others to help, and pulled it upright.
"Keep the formation!"
They dragged the line forward, step by step, through a hail of arrows. Every few moments, a man would fall, clutching at a wound, and the next would step over him without pause.
The cliffs echoed with screams. The enemy didn't need to show themselves — only to watch the valley choke itself with bodies.
When one of the soldiers began firing upward wildly, Yao knocked the bow from his hands.
"Save your arrows," he said. "You'll need them when they come down."
The man stared, shaking. "They're everywhere—"
"Then shoot when they're close enough to bleed."
He left him there and moved to the next break in the line. The wagons were splintered, shields barely holding. The slaves were faltering, their movements sluggish.
"Hold the ropes!" Yao shouted. "Pull when I pull!"
He gritted his teeth, heaved. The rope tore at his palms. The wagon lurched forward another few feet.
"Again!"
The column crept onward. For every step gained, two men fell.
The sun began to set, though the light barely changed — the valley too narrow for daylight to matter. Shadows deepened. Arrows still hissed.
By the time the tenth volley fell, the wagons were riddled with shafts. The mud beneath them was slick with blood.
A soldier crawled to Yao's side, coughing red foam. "Commander… the rear's gone."
Yao looked back. The last wagons were burning — the oil barrels shattered, fire crawling up their sides. Silhouettes ran in the light, some screaming, some silent.
"Then we leave them," he said. "Form the rest into two rows."
"Two—?"
"Front pushes. Rear fires. Rotate when the front dies."
The soldier blinked, nodded, and crawled away.
Yao turned to the men nearest him. "We're halfway through. Don't stop until the cliffs end. Anyone who drops stays behind."
A slave looked up at him — a boy, maybe fifteen, face streaked with dirt and tears. "Why keep going?"
"Because they want us to stop," Yao said.
The boy nodded, as if that made sense, and picked up the rope again.
The enemy fire began to slow. Fewer arrows now — cautious, deliberate. The archers were repositioning.
"Now," Yao muttered. "While they reload."
He signaled forward. The wagons creaked ahead faster, wheels dragging through mud that had become more blood than earth.
A faint hope flickered — the far mouth of the valley visible ahead, a gray slit of open sky. Then another volley came, closer than before.
This time, the arrows weren't aimed at the wagons. They fell on the men pulling them.
Yao heard a cry — not pain, but confusion — as a soldier clutched his chest and fell. The slaves faltered. Panic rippled again.
"Keep moving!" Yao roared.
The formation broke. One wagon veered too far right; another slammed into its side, spilling crates. A third overturned entirely, crushing the men beneath.
Chaos. Screams. Fire.
Yao drew his blade and smashed it against a wagon wheel. The sound cut through the din.
"Form up! On me!"
His voice cracked, but it carried. The soldiers, bloodied and half-mad, turned toward him like moths to a single flame.
He raised the sword, pointed forward. "Move!"
They obeyed. Somehow, impossibly, the line reformed.
They advanced again — not in order, but in shared defiance. The wagons, scarred and smoking, became walls of survival. Behind them, the dead lay stacked like sandbags.
Every few steps, Yao shouted a single word — "Push!" — and the line surged forward another pace.
An arrow grazed his cheek. Another hit his shoulder, glancing off bone. He didn't stop.
When the final ridge loomed above them, the enemy fire intensified — desperate to crush what was left. Arrows fell so thick they seemed to darken the sky.
The last wagon reached the slope. Its front wheel shattered. It tipped, threatening to collapse.
Yao threw himself against it, shoulder screaming, forcing it upright as men scrambled past.
"Keep it moving!" he shouted. "Don't stop for me!"
A soldier hesitated. "Commander—"
"Go!"
The man went. The rest followed, dragging the remaining carts toward the faint light ahead.
Yao held the wagon until the last man passed, then let go. It crashed behind him, blocking part of the path — a final wall between the living and the dead.
He staggered after them, breath ragged, vision blurred from smoke.
When he reached open ground, the air hit him like cold water. The survivors — maybe forty, maybe less — stood scattered among the wrecks, too shocked to speak.
Behind them, the valley still burned. Arrows jutted from the mud like grass.
Yao looked back once, saw the black smoke curling upward.
No cheers. No relief. Only silence.
He sheathed his sword slowly, the motion automatic. His hands trembled. He realized he couldn't feel his fingers.
The lieutenant approached, limping, one arm bound with cloth. "Half made it through," he rasped.
Yao stared past him, toward the horizon. "Half is too many for this world."
The man didn't answer. There was nothing left to say.
The wind shifted, carrying the stench of blood from the valley. The slaves sat in the dirt, eyes empty. The soldiers stood with their backs to the cliffs, waiting for orders that wouldn't come.
Yao walked among them — past the bodies, past the broken wheels, past the smoke that rose like ghosts. His boots sank into mud that still moved, pulsing faintly as if the ground itself remembered.
He stopped when he reached the edge of a burned wagon. Its wood was blackened, its axle bent. An arrow was still buried deep in its side. He pulled it free, stared at the blood on the tip.
It was his own.
He let it drop.
The light faded. The cliffs turned dark. Somewhere behind him, someone began to sob — softly, without sound.
Yao stood there until the first stars appeared, until the wind quieted and the fires burned low.
Then, in the hush that followed, he whispered — not a prayer, not a curse, just words meant for the air alone:
"We crossed."
And in the darkness beyond the Death Passage, Lin Yao kept walking, the last sound behind him the creak of broken wheels and the breath of men too tired to die.