Just like back then. (2)
Xar Moron River.
Across the boundless expanse of grasslands, a yellow river like a Golden Dragon cuts through the plains.
Those who made the Central Plains their home named it the Yellow Waters, to distinguish it from the Yellow River*. Along the banks of that broad river stood an immense force, so vast that it was all but impossible to count them all.
At its forefront, where the army met the Yellow Waters, several men clad in splendid armor stood facing the wind blowing off the river.
At their center stood an aged general [장군(將軍)], gazing silently at the flowing river. His wrinkled face was filled with regret. His tightly pressed lips and rigid expression alone were enough to reveal his stubborn nature, yet even such a stern exterior could not conceal the trace of sorrow seeping through.
“General. It is time for you to depart.”
“….I know.”
His reluctance was unmistakable in his reply.
“I know, and yet I cannot bring myself to walk away.”
The adjutants standing in attendance on either side did not dare attempt to console the aged general. Who could presume to understand the heart of a commander forced to withdraw his army because he could no longer withstand the enemy?
His eyes glistening with tears, the old man stared fixedly at the river as he muttered,
“…..A lingering attachment, that is all.”
Once, they had crossed that river and conquered the vast grasslands beyond. They had ridden and ridden their horses as though intent on reaching the very ends of the world. Across plains, rivers, mountains, and seas. It had seemed that nothing in the world could stop them.
But now, all of that was nothing more than a tale from the distant past.
They no longer possessed the strength. The strength to stand and fight against the enemies pouring forth from beyond that river.
No… perhaps they had lost it a while back.
‘An attachment I should have cast aside long ago.’
Even knowing they could no longer prevail, they had spent decades engaging in a futile war of attrition. All while the Central Plains fell into ruin and the authority of the Imperial Court steadily crumbled.
Even now, withdrawing the army behind the Great Wall – breaking free from this endless cycle of attrition – might well prove to be the wisest decision made in the past several decades.
‘Yes. I’m sure it is…’
Yet even knowing that, there was one reason the old man’s heart remained heavy with regret.
It was that those who had once seemed poised to conquer the entire world had ultimately been brought to ruin not by the tribes beyond that river, nor by the powerful men within the Great Wall, but by nothing more than fanatics driven mad by their religion.
At last, a hollow laugh escaped the old man’s lips.
“General.”
“We are withdrawing.”
The old man quietly closed his eyes.
There had once been a time when hundreds of banners fluttered before this river. But now, only a few dozen tattered standards remained. And before long, even they would no longer fly here. Perhaps never again.
‘Would things have been different if the Grand General [대장군] had been here?’
A meaningless question. Could the strength of one or two individuals ever determine the strength of a whole nation?
“It may be that we shall never set foot on this land again.”
The old man spoke as though to himself.
“It is not merely lingering attachment that keeps my feet from moving. Once we withdraw and leave this land empty, they will claim it, let their horses graze, and raise their cattle here. And one day they will slaughter those cattle to fill their stomachs, mount those horses, and ride against us.”
“…Horses cannot cross the Great Wall, General.”
“Heheh. Is that so?”
The old general said nothing more.
Whatever the case, one thing was certain. His era had come to an end. The world that kept flowing would have to be entrusted to those who remained. Even if the outcome was all too easy to foresee.
‘They are strong.’
Relentless and tenacious. And even after conquering a land, they never remain content to stay there.
That was precisely why they were so terrifying. There was nothing they could take from them except land – but if that land were surrendered, how could victory ever be hoped for?
“Come. We’re running late.”
“Yes, General.”
The old general turned to leave. Or rather, he was about to.
“W-Wait, General! Look… look over there!”
At his adjutant’s urgent cry, the old general turned his gaze back towards the river.
“What are you talking ab…”
“Beyond the river! On the horizon!”
The old general narrowed his eyes.
The distance was too great for his failing eyesight to make out clearly. Even so, it did not take him long to realize that an enormous force had appeared beyond the horizon the adjutant was pointing towards.
“Cavalry?”
“They’re coming this way! They’re riding straight towards us! It looks like they’re driving their horses as hard as they can!”
“What in the…”
The incomprehensible sight made the old general furrow his brows.
“An attack? No, that can’t be…”
Why had they established their formation before the Yellow Waters in the first place? Because horses could not cross this river.
And yet, why were the northern cavalrymen – who understood that fact better than anyone – charging forward with such desperate urgency?
“…Surely they don’t intend to see us off.”
Then what in the world were they trying to do?
“General! Your orders…!”
“Wait for now.”
They were not the sort to act without reason. If they were spurring their horses on like that, they had to be prepared to spill blood.
‘Then what exactly are they after?’
Until he understood the enemy’s objective, he could not afford to make a move rashly. Was that not the lesson he had earned by devoting his entire life to the northern frontier?
Ruuuumbleeeee!
The world began to tremble.
The yellow mass that stained one edge of the horizon steadily grew larger. At the same time, the earth beneath their feet shook with increasing violence.
“It’s a massive army! Their numbers are beyond anything we’ve ever seen!”
“They’re not slowing down! They’re picking up even more speed!”
“It’s an attack! They’re coming to strike us!”
“…”
“General!”
“I said wait!”
Raising his voice to cut off his subordinates’ frantic urging, the old general bit down on his lower lip until it turned white.
‘What in the world are they after?’
If they intended to stop at the river, they should have begun slowing down by now. Bringing an army of that size to a halt was no easy feat. And if, by some chance, they truly meant to charge into the river, they should have made some sort of preparations. Yet there was no sign of any such measures.
Then were they really charging towards the river with no plan at all? Unless every last one of those bastards had gone mad overnight, how could they possibly attempt something so…
‘Wait. An attack?’
At that instant, a single thought flashed through the general’s mind.
The idea was so absurd that it bordered on the unimaginable. Yet no other assumption could explain the enemy’s bizarre behavior.
He knew. No matter how far-fetched a hypothesis might be, if every impossible explanation had been eliminated and only one remained…
…then that was the answer.
Those enemies – so swift, so relentless, so terrifyingly persistent – the very embodiment of despair throughout the old general’s life…
‘It can’t be…’
“G-General! Back there! Behind them! There’s something back there! It looks like a different force from the cavalry in front!”
The old general’s shoulders trembled violently. At the same instant the adjutant’s scream-like shout rang out, something shot upward into the sky from behind the fleeing horseback riders.
‘A horse?’
It was a sight he could barely believe, even witnessing it with his own eyes.
It was true that the horses ridden by the northern nomads were smaller than those of the Central Plains. Even so, a horse was still a horse. By weight alone, one easily approached four times that of a full-grown man.
And yet that enormous, heavy beast, carrying its rider on its back, was hurled high into the air.
It was something he had never even imagined possible, so naturally it was impossible to believe.
‘Am I… dreaming?’
Craaaash!
But it was no dream.
The horse that had been flung into the air slammed back into the ground, tumbling together with the galloping riders around it. Though they were still some distance away, their dying screams and the deafening impact reached him as clearly as if they were nearby.
Another rider, reduced to a mangled mass of flesh, was launched into the air. Then another. And another!
Only then did the old general fully grasp what was happening.
‘They’re not attacking us.’
At the head of those racing towards the river, every one of the tribesmen driving their horses like mad wore an expression twisted with overwhelming terror. It was fear so raw and absolute that even the old general, who had fought them his entire life, had never witnessed anything like it.
‘They’re running away!’
But… from what?
What could possibly have driven these battle-hardened warriors – the very men who had finally forced his own massive army to retreat from the Yellow Waters – into such absolute terror? What could have made that vast force stretching across the horizon flee for their lives?
It was a sight beyond understanding, beyond acceptance. But one thing was certain: whoever pursued them had no intention of waiting for the old general’s thoughts to catch up.
The cavalry, charging towards the Yellow Waters with every ounce of strength they had left, threw themselves at the raging river ahead without the slightest hesitation.
Neeeigh!
The horses, in a frenzy, shrieked as if screaming in terror. Yet even those speechless beasts did not stop their pace.
The horses that plunged violently into the rushing current found their bodies gradually swallowed by the water, their movements slowing. Then the riders charging in from behind slammed directly into those struggling in the river.
“Arghhhhhhh!”
Horses and men were trampled beneath more horses and men that never slowed their charge. Upon the river’s relentless current, humans and beasts became hopelessly tangled together in utter chaos.
“G… General.”
The old general’s eyes trembled uncontrollably.
‘What is happening? What in the world is happening?’
He had spent his entire life on the battlefield. He had seen death so often that he had long since grown sick of it. Simply watching someone die no longer stirred even the faintest emotion within him.
But the incomprehensible scene unfolding before his eyes rekindled a feeling he had thought long extinguished. Fear.
Once, he had despised them. Later, he had feared them. And now, he respected them. Their blood might be different from his own, but they were still the enemies he had spent his entire life fighting.
And now those enemies – whom he had come to regard with such awe – were dying before his eyes like ants crushed beneath a child’s foot. No… it was worse than that. It looked as though they were choosing death of their own accord.
What in the world could drive those once-great warriors to flee into death itself as though it were their only refuge?
And then…
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
With a roar like that of a beast – no, of a devil from hell [마귀(魔鬼)] – something leapt up above the mass of cavalry filling the Yellow Waters.
“Th-That…”
The old general’s entire body began to tremble.
It was unmistakably a human.
A gaunt figure dressed in tattered black rags, long, disheveled hair whipping wildly around it. Roaring at the top of the lungs, something clutched in each hand, something that had clearly been torn from a human body.
One single character surfaced in the old general’s mind.
‘Demon [마(魔)].’
The moment dozens more fiends like it appeared behind the first, the old man remembered. He remembered how those who had once seemed destined to conquer the world had ended up reduced to desperately defending the banks of the Yellow Waters.
“…Run.”
“Sir?”
The old man’s eyes flew wide open as he screamed with desperate urgency.
“Run! Run! Now! Whoever survives, call for reinforcements!”
“G-General?”
The old general spun around violently and struck his dazed adjutant hard across the face.
“Pull yourself togeth…”
“G-General! Behind you!”
“What?”
Crunch!
The old general’s body lurched violently.
“…Urgh.”
Blood poured from his mouth as he slowly lowered his gaze to his abdomen. A blood-soaked black hand protruded through his stomach.
“G… go…”
“Generaaaal!”
“Go, you fool. Go. The devils from a hundred years ago…”
The old man’s words were never finished.
Crunch!
Demonic cultist tore the old man’s head clean from his body. Then, letting out a laugh so horrifying it defied description, he turned towards the ranks of soldiers.
The deathly pale soldiers were soon screaming in utter horror.
Those who tried to fight. Those who tried to flee. Those who grieved. Those who wailed in despair.
But in the eyes of the demonic cultists charging at the living, there was no distinction between any of them. They hated every living thing. That alone was their purpose.
The Yellow Waters, where countless lives and stories had long been woven together. Its riverbanks were soon awash in death that spared no one.
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*Xar Moron River [서납목륜하(西拉木伦河)] – a river in inner Mongolia.
Golden Dragon [황룡(黃龍)] – Huánglóng an actual mythological creature.
Yellow Waters [황수(黃水)] – the second name for Xar Moron, in contrast with Yellow River [황하(黃河)] – Huanghe, the second-longest river in China.
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