222 Battle Among Brothers

The gray smoke suffused the once fresh, night skies into darkness; putrid smells of burning flesh and earth had filled people's nostrils. It was intoxicating. Rams pounded against the gate, its walls bending and chips of wood splintering on faces. Following the explosion, men ran in anguish as their entire bodies were consumed by the flames. They screamed until they could not...until they rested into nothingness.

At the center of the battlefield, among the screams and whirling smoke, two men stood. They stared at one another with eyes of ice.

"You're really alive," An Ruo whispered hoarsely.

Flames from the explosion beforehand burned within An Sun's gaze, filling his eyes with a red glare. The heat within was suffocating.

"So it would seem," An Sun's hand around his sword clenched.

The two men's silence was overruled by the excruciating screams of soldiers on the battlefield. When An Sun suddenly heard a man charging toward him, his gaze on An Ruo moved. Ducking low, his sword mercilessly slashed at the incoming soldier's thigh before raising overhead to stab into his skull. The blow seemed effortless, almost gentle, but it was the sight of blood that showed it was anything but that.

At the sound of another man's attack beside him, An Sun's sword sang impossibly quick, lashing out as if it weighed no more than a walking stick, flicking the blade in strokes that looked effortless.

With a harsh breath, An Sun's ears twitched at the sound of running footsteps. He had already whirled his body, bringing the sword around and up in a swift deadly arc. Steel met steel with a ringing, bone-jarring clang.

"Very good, bastard." An Ruo sneered.

Looking at the figure before him, the ice in An Sun's eyes burned suddenly, hot with violent intensity, and his nostrils flared. An Ruo stared back at him, and he was biting his bottom lip until skin tore.

"Why?" An Ruo's voice seethed, strangely thick. "Why are you still…"

There was a maddening gleam in An Ruo's eyes. The raging words muttering from his mouth seemed for no one else but himself. An Sun could hear the tremble in his voice.

"You could say I'm a bastard that's too hard to kill." An Sun sneered.

Heeding his words, An Ruo froze before turning his blood-freezing smile directly upon An Sun, and his hungry voice was soft as serpent scales on stone.

"Then I'll just have to kill you again."

A lock of matted black hair fell across An Sun's eyes as he glared at his brother. For the first time, he saw the raw, and detestable look within An Ruo's gaze. An Sun's heart felt resentful.

He felt something wet and cold upon his face. When he raised his eyes, he saw it was raining. A bad omen.

The two men looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.

An Sun sprang to his feet and drove at An Ruo, the sword alive in his hands. An Ruo jumped back, parrying, but An Sun followed, pressing the attack.

Three strides with a dancer's grace, An Sun's sword licked out with deadly speed, and his shield slammed into An Ruo's shield like a battering ram. The sound of collision echoed with sharp, ear-shocking crack!

On the other side of the battlefield, horses stumbled and rolled. Men were swept from their saddles, torches spun through the air, axes, and swords hacked at flesh. In the midst of it, Fan Mingli clutched desperately to his sword with a strength he never knew he had.

The sounds of slaughter, flesh, and armor being torn apart, all of it hummed violently through Fan Mingli's ears and down to his trembling heart.

Fan Mingli had always been too frightened to kill a man before, but when a Tuhan man charged toward him with a bloodthirsty look in his eyes, he knew he had no choice. Somehow…somehow, the sword took over him.

"Haaaa!" Fan Mingli cried out and closed his eyes. He shoved the sword blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, then an agonizing sound of a man's cry.

When Fan Mingli opened his eyes, the blade of his sword stabbed deeply within a man's stomach. Impaled, his blood dripped around the sword, and the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell.

Fan Mingli's eyes widened. His breath was rough and heavy, sweat pouring heavily past his eyes. He closed them tight only for his eyes to sting.

"I-I killed someone…" He giggled and cried. "I killed someone!"

His heart was breathless with relief...Until a man in black leaped from the side, and charged toward him with his axe! The fear that filled Fan Mingli then was worse than any fear he had ever felt before - and he knew every kind of fear. He was so scared he might have pissed himself.

Quickly, his fingers found his sword and engulfed it with his hands. But it was too late, already the man had swung his axe down upon him. Awaiting his gruesome death, Fan Mingli closed his eyes. A scream stabbed his ears, sharp as a needle.

"Idiot! Stay focused!" He heard a familiar voice bellow.

Surprised, Fan Mingli opened his eyes to see Yin Changpu standing over him, eyes blazing with fierceness.

"Y-Yin Changpu?" Fan Mingli stuttered, soon realizing he had saved him.

"Come on, keep it together! We didn't follow Captain Sun and abandon our post to die so easily! Now hold your sword and fight!"

Swallowing the bile threatening to rise, Fan Mingli nodded his head. "I'll try hard."

Yin Changpu's lips curled into a grin, and he had been about to open his mouth to say something, but then his line of sight inadvertently fell to a place which caused his eyes to darken instantly.

"Over there…" Yin Changpu's voice darkened.

When Fan Mingli turned his head, his eyes shot open.

"Captain Sun!"

Amongst the battlefield, two men fought. One of the men was none other than An Sun! From the looks of it, their strength seemed to be par with one another. That is until the man with the axe knocked the sword out of An Sun's hands - leaving him completely defenseless.

"Come on!" Yin Changpu charged in the direction of their captain.

Fan Mingli followed behind, soon forgetting the previous fear he had felt.

…

High, low, overhand, An Sun rained down steel upon his brother, swinging so hard that sparks flew when the sword and axe came together. One of An Ruo's slashes raked across his brow, and blood ran down into his right eye.

But the fight continued.

The two, repeatedly attacking, moving into one another, hacking, slashing, faster, and faster!

Until he was breathless, the sword in An Sun's hand was knocked from out his grasp, falling somewhere within the mob of soldiers. He gathered a slow, deep breath, his gray eyes watching An Ruo warily. By now, his shoulders were going numb from the jarring they'd taken, and his wrists ached from the weight of the sword.

"Not half bad," An Ruo acknowledged. "For a dead bastard."

Immediately as An Ruo's words left his mouth, he whirled the axe back up above his head and flew at An Sun again. Just as An Sun had been about to evade his attack, he saw An Ruo suddenly stop in his tracks.

The axe in his hands lowered, and he lifted a hand to his cheek. It was bleeding. His eyes narrowed up slightly as he shifted his line of sight. The murder within An Ruo's gaze gradually grew to the point his eyes had gone red with fury.

On the other side of the field, a pair of blue eyes stared back at him coldly. Within his grasp was a longbow. One that was clearly used to shoot at An Ruo.

When An Sun shifted his gaze toward the archer, his eyes widened.

"Manchu…"