House of Chen

 Hao looked downstream. He was both gladdened and saddened. Gladdened he was on home territory once again but saddened, because he knew the land was all but destroyed for the furtherance of another tribe's greed. He worried too. How were the advanced party, or should he think, parties? He was with a group of fifty men from Shipao, Liú and Chen. They were all good fighters, but not invested as the Chen men who would see their beloved country destroyed. Staring out, he realised they had a strength of detachment. This was not their land so they could go about the business of clearing with a ruthless objectivity, something which would be lost to the Chen soldiers. They would see their fight through a haze of emotional investment and perhaps lose their sharpness of focus. 'Need to think on this. Use the objectivity and emotional involvement to its best advantage.' Hao was just about to turn away from the river when he heard the sound he had been unconsciously waiting for, come a...

  Slowly, the landing points became clearer. The roads, the likely spots to beach and the hazards. All coming into the mind of the writer.     

"It's dark, let's get going. We've some distance to cover and I'm concerned this will be too much for the women let alone the two children." Niao looked at the women. None seemed that strong, but then, after the ordeal they had gone through it wasn't surprising. She looked at Xin who returned the worried look.  "What if we come across trouble? What then ?" She could always read my mind. "Two, stop a moment." I grabbed him arm, "We can do these distances but I'm convinced they wont be able to." I paused and thought. I remembered back to when Hao and I had to evade the Mu men who were hell bent on kidnapping him. "I've got an idea, let me run this past you. Sit down everyone please, we have something I want to discuss and it will require us going by boat." I paused, then continued, "both boats I suspect, anyway, this is my idea."    "Ready?" Hao had forty men, five groups of eight. He knew t...

Bǎo leaned against the table and continued speaking, "We have three dark nights on the way. The first night we will move out the group of Blades, Swords and Bows who have been assigned to clear the area on the opposite side of the river. Under the cover of darkness, they can make their way across the river and begin the task of clearing vermin from Liú territories. At the same time," he pointed to the map laid out between them, " I am sending out two units into Shipao territory. One will move into the high grounds and clear out vermin who will no doubt be well entrenched up there. This group will be a mix of Blades, Bows and Swords. The other group will be more heavily biased towards Bows and Swords. Fighting in open territories, their skills will be better served here. As the territories are cleared, and they are told not to take prisoners, the two units will leap frog one another through the whole area, clearing it before the bulk of the army moves forward with the pri...

"Hear that? She's had a few returns on the call out. Its serious or she'd deal with it herself." "Should we go...." before he could continue a hand went out from Two, "No! I've said, is she wants us, she'll call us. Until then, she told us to get down and be vigilant." They couldn't make out what was happening, it was clearly too far away, but after a short period of time, they heard two pearcing screams floating on the air.  One of the Blades grinned, "sounds painful." The attack was clearly underway and knowing her it would be over quickly. She never wasted time killing. She did indeed follow her edict of flowing like water but stinging like ice. One minute you were standing there watching this mild mannered lady approach, you'd think to yourself, 'this is going to be a push over', then a deluge of ice water would decend and in that instant, all you saw were the eyes of a mountain cat laughing, as you felt the wa...

  They settled down to wait. It had been a while since the unit had been together, and each one was excited by the prospect of working once more. Quietly, they talked about some of the things they had done together, softly laughing about the games they would play so as to keep fit. The women looked on nervously. They were still silent. Some sobbed, some comforted those who were close to breaking down, whilst Zi continued to comfort the two children. They heard a strange noise, it was like a strangled cat almost, but it pierced the air and made them jump. "Down!" Three ordered, his voice lowered and his eyes vigilant. The remaining Blades turned themselves outwards, knives at the ready, protecting the women, should anything come their way. "What was that?" one of the women asked, almost in tears. "That's Alpha, she's warned us there's trouble between her and us." There was silence then. A woman went to speak but was stopped instantly by one of t...