Border Soldier: My fiancée snatched credit and broke off the engagement, so I promptly became a marq

More and more riders are appearing on the north slope.

A row.

Two rows.

Finally, it all merged into a dark, dense mass.

Horse hooves shattered the frozen earth, and snow mist pressed against the ground towards Wild Dog Gully. At the forefront were three wolf flags, the middle one being the largest, with nine strings of white bones hanging beneath the black wolf's head.

Anado's smile vanished after just one glance.

"Ugut's own banner."

Er Gou lay on the back of the hay cart and swallowed hard.

"Really a thousand?"

"More than that."

"There are forty of us."

"It's not too late to run now."

After Anado finished speaking, she looked at Chen Mu.

Chen Mu was placing the Northern Barbarian longbows one by one behind the chariot wall.

"You don't want the cattle and sheep anymore?"

Er Gou immediately shook his head.

"That won't do!"

He glanced back at the herd of cattle in the ditch.

Zhou Tie drove away 200 of the more than 300 cattle, leaving only a little over 100. Most of the sheep were also taken away, but the more than 200 sheep, more than 20 warhorses, salt bricks, cheese, and more than a dozen carts of hay left in the ditch were still the most they had ever seen in their lives.

Er Gou had only had his hands on it for half a day, and anyone who tried to take it from him felt like they were cutting off a piece of his flesh.

Chen Mu put down the last bundle of arrows.

"Anyone who wants to leave, leave now."

None of the forty people moved.

Some people were so scared that their legs were shaking.

Someone kept licking their chapped lips.

He Dashan removed the armor of the Han family's personal guards, wearing only an old cotton-padded jacket. He stood next to the guard with the severed finger, the two still half a step apart, yet both gripped their spears at the same time.

Stone patted his new armor.

"I haven't even had a chance to get used to this armor yet."

"If the northern barbarians want it, they can come and take it themselves."

A few soldiers laughed along.

The laughter was not loud.

But no one looked at the escape route anymore.

Chen Mu walked to the highest point of the stone beam and smashed the tattered flag with the black pot painted on it deeper into the crack in the stone.

"The hay cart is just a shield."

"When the arrows are all shot out, kill them behind the chariot."

"The car was overturned, so they retreated to the black pot flag to kill."

"The flag has fallen?" Er Gou asked.

Chen Mu glanced at him.

"Go help him up."

Er Gou shrank his neck.

"Then let's not pour it out."

Ugut's thousand cavalry did not charge immediately.

The cavalry split into three groups at the foot of the north slope, their horses turning in unison like three black knives pressing down on Wild Dog Gully. A rider stepped out from the center, carrying a white wolf tail on his shoulder.

"Anado!"

The man shouted in a northern dialect.

"Lord Ugut wants you to leave!"

"Hand over the Han slave who killed Kumu, return the cattle, sheep, and warhorses, and the magistrate will spare your life!"

The soldiers on the stone beam couldn't understand, so they could only look at Anato.

After Anado finished translating, Er Gou started cursing.

"Damn it, Niuyang now belongs to the Chen family!"

Chen Mu said, "It's still not enough."

"What?"

"His surname is Guo (锅)."

This time, all forty people actually burst out laughing.

The messenger below the slope heard the laughter and his face turned ugly.

He then raised a golden wolf ring.

"Anado, your mother's people are still in the North."

"When you go back today, you will still be a daughter of the Ugut family."

"If you don't return, they are traitors!"

Anato's fingers slowly tightened.

After her mother died, her clan's pastures were seized by Kum. Seventeen children froze to death, and the rest were driven to herd horses for Ugut. Her role as a spy in Blackstone Fortress wasn't solely for Ugut's sake; she also hoped to one day exchange those people.

The messenger below the slope knew what she feared most.

So as soon as they opened their mouths, they went straight for that.

Chen Mu did not answer for her.

They simply handed over the captured scimitar.

Anato caught the knife, but did not go downhill.

She walked under the black flag, cut off a lock of her hair, and wrapped it around an arrow shaft.

In northern regions, women would tie their hair with the other party's tokens when they married, returned to their clan, or became sworn brothers.

But she nocked an arrow into her bow.

The bowstring is drawn taut.

The arrow traversed a hundred paces of snow and struck the golden wolf ring in the messenger's hand.

With a clang.

The golden ring flew off the wooden pole and rolled under the horse's hooves.

Anado called back in the northern dialect.

Tell Ugut.

"Kum owes my mother's clan seventeen lives, but I only accepted one."

"I'll take the remaining sixteen one slowly."

The envoy's expression changed drastically.

He drew his scimitar and pointed it at Anato.

"Traitorous daughter!"

Chen Mu raised his longbow.

The second arrow pierced the messenger's shoulder.

The man fell off his horse and tumbled back to the front of the battle line in a disheveled state.

"That's all I have to say."

Chen Mu tossed the bow to Er Gou.

"Get ready to receive guests."

The wolf horns on the north slope rang out.

The first wave of attackers was not a thousand cavalry.

It consisted of two hundred heavily armed soldiers who dismounted.

The stone beams of Wild Dog Gully were too narrow for the warhorses to charge up. The Northern Barbarians, shielding their round shields on their heads and biting their long swords in their mouths, climbed up the slopes on three sides simultaneously. From behind, hundreds of cavalrymen drew their bows and fired arrows, raining down like black rain on the hay wagon wall.

Knock knock knock!

The cart floor was instantly riddled with arrows.

A border soldier peeked out too quickly, and an arrow pierced his eye socket, drawing blood from the back of his head. He didn't even cry out before collapsing backward at Chen Mu's feet.

This is the first death in Wild Dog Gully.

Chen Mu pulled the bow from his hand.

"Wait until they are thirty paces away."

No one fired randomly anymore.

The Northern Barbarian shield soldiers are getting closer and closer.

Fifty steps.

Forty steps.

The people at the front could already see the faces behind the car wall.

"put!"

Forty bows sounded at the same time.

The arrows weren't aimed at the shields, but rather at the feet and between the legs. The Northern Barbarian shield soldiers, on the steep slope, raised their shields to protect their heads, leaving their knees and calves completely exposed.

Seven or eight people fell down in the first row.

The people behind couldn't stop themselves and rolled down, one layer on top of another.

The second volley of arrows followed.

Anato shot an arrow into the mouth of a centurion, the arrowhead emerging from the back of his neck. Without looking at the body, she turned and took another arrow.

The northern barbarians are still pushing upwards.

There were too many of them.

Ten die, but there are still 190 more to go.

On the east side, a hay cart was caught by three lassos. The warhorses below pushed off simultaneously, and the wheels slid forward on the frozen ground, dragging the two soldiers responsible for pressing the cart so hard that their feet were smoking.

"The car needs to reverse!"

Chen Mu lunged forward and pierced the wheel with his spear.

Click!

The wooden wheels jammed, but the three horses pulling on the ropes continued to yank the cart. The shafts split open, and fodder poured out from the cracks.

A hand wearing an iron wrist guard reached in from under the chariot, grabbed the soldier's ankle, and dragged him out.

The soldier screamed and fell to the ground.

Chen Mu chopped off that hand with a single stroke.

Blood splattered all over the bottom of the car.

He ducked out and was met by three Northern Barbarian shield soldiers.

The first person raised his knife and chopped off the shoulder.

Chen Mu used his left arm to shield the enemy with a round shield, while his right hand stabbed the short sword into the enemy's armpit along the edge of the shield. The tip of the sword twisted, and half of the northern barbarian's body immediately went limp.

A second person crashed into them.

Chen Mu didn't retreat, grabbing the corpse in front of him as a shield. His long sword slashed into the corpse's back, getting stuck in the bone. He then pushed forward, and the corpse and the swordsman rolled down the steep slope together.

A third person pounced from the side, grabbed Chen Mu by the waist, and pushed him down the slope.

The shoulder injury was torn open.

Chen Mu's vision went black, and he had already stepped into the void.

He Dashan rushed out from behind the car wall and pierced the man's lower back with a spear.

The guard with the severed finger rushed forward, grabbed Chen Mu's belt, and dragged him back.

All three of them fell into the back of the car.

He Dashan was hit in the chest by an arrow, the arrowhead of which was blocked by half a piece of iron hidden under his cotton-padded coat, and only penetrated two inches into his flesh.

The guard with the severed finger saw this and cursed.

"Don't die!"

He Dashan grinned.

"Let's finish guarding the north wall first."

He took back what he had said earlier.

The two stood side by side to block the gap.

The east side of the car wall was finally pulled down.

More than twenty northern barbarian soldiers rushed in, stepping over the scattered hay.

There was no time to shoot the arrow.

Stone was the first to charge. Relying on the Han family's iron armor protecting his chest, he ignored the sparks flying from the curved blade and smashed the opponent's face four times with the horseshoe hammer in his hand.

Nasal bone, teeth, and blood flew out together.

Er Gou raised his spear, his hand trembling violently, and his first thrust missed. The northern barbarian lunged along the spear shaft, and Er Gou, startled, let go and grabbed a salt brick from the ground to throw at him.

The salt brick is placed directly in the temple.

The man swayed and then knelt down on the ground.

Er Gou pounced on him and smashed him three more times with the salt brick.

"You stole my cow!"

For every curse, there was a smash.

He didn't stop until the salt bricks were covered in red and white stuff.

Forty men guarded the semicircle formed by three hay carts, huddled together with the northern barbarians who rushed up.

There is no formation.

There is no escape route.

When the knife became dull, they used an axe; when the spear broke, they grabbed people and rolled them down the slope. Some had their fingers chopped off, yet they still used their other hand to grab the enemy's foot. Some had their stomachs slashed open, yet they knelt on the ground and bit the leg of a northern barbarian.

Chen Mu attacked from the east side and reached the flagpole.

Nine corpses had already fallen around the black pot flag.

A northern barbarian centurion pulled out a flagpole, about to throw it down the slope.

Er Gou lunged forward and grabbed the flagpole, only to be kicked so hard by the other party that he coughed up blood.

"Corporal!"

Chen Mu rushed out from among the corpses.

The centurion turned and slashed.

Chen Mu ducked to avoid the blade, his shoulder slamming into the centurion's chest. Both men fell to the ground simultaneously. The centurion tried to roll over, but Chen Mu's dagger had already pierced his brain through his chin.

He drew his knife and reclaimed the flagpole.

He stepped on the centurion's corpse and stuck the black pot flag back into the crack in the stone.

"The flag is here!"

Er Gou's mouth was full of blood as he shouted.

"The pot's here too!"

The soldiers on the stone beam all turned red-eyed.

"kill!"

The last dozen or so Northern Barbarian soldiers who charged up were forced to the edge of the slope.

They turned around and realized that the people behind them had stopped following.

Of the first batch of two hundred people, more than half have been killed or injured.

The remaining men were trapped at the bottom of the slope by corpses and wounded soldiers, unable to advance or retreat. About forty men actually fell on the slope, and more than thirty others were wounded. The rest were not all killed, but their courage was worn down by the steep slope that could only accommodate a few dozen people.

Chen Mu did not remain behind the car wall to catch his breath.

He grabbed a round shield and led the twenty-three men who could still run back down the slope.

The northern barbarians on the slope thought that the Han soldiers only dared to defend to the death.

No one expected that these people, who were barely alive, would still dare to lunge downwards.

Using the momentum of the steep slope, Chen Mu smashed his shield into the lead barbarian soldier, then slit his throat with his short sword. Shi Tou and He Dashan stood on either side, while Er Gou followed at the rear, carrying the black pot flag.

The twenty-three men were like a piece of iron rolling down a mountain, forcefully scattering the remaining soldiers.

The northern barbarian cavalry below the slope dared not fire arrows for fear of hitting their own men.

Chen Mu fought his way to the first unclaimed warhorse, cut its reins, and mounted it.

"Steal the horse!"

The soldiers stopped chasing people and focused on cutting reins and dragging saddles. Those who couldn't ride were paired up and each held a horse, while the injured crawled on their backs towards the stone beams.

Ugut's central army finally sent cavalry to the rescue.

Chen Mu had already led his men back up the slope.

After the twenty-seven warhorses were dragged into the wagon wall, the northern barbarians' water bags, dried meat, and short bows were still hanging by their saddles.

Five people died on the stone beam.

Seven were seriously injured.

Of the first batch of two hundred Northern Barbarian soldiers, only a little over one hundred and thirty were able to walk back on their own.

The wolf horns stopped.

For the first time, the thousand riders on the north slope fell silent.

Ugut rode his black horse, looking at the ugly black flag across the hillside covered with corpses.

He originally thought he could flatten the stone beam in one round.

Now, Chen Mu, sitting on the stolen warhorse, is also looking at him.

Chen Mu raised his still-dripping dagger, the tip pointing at the Northern Barbarian central army.

"Two hundred is not enough."

"Again."