𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲'𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 || 敵の旦那様 (𝐁𝐋) ✔ [COMPLETE]

60. Deception

Suddenly there were hundreds of archers in the spire.

A puff of flame began eating away at his robe and he tried dusting it off, his eyes frantically looking around the camp. It was submerged in fire.

His subordinates ran amok with tongues of flames licking away at their bodies and heads. Even the tents were set ablaze as the thin hide danced to the fiery whirls of orange fires, consuming anything worth a dime in scorching heat and leaving only ashes in its wake.

General Haoran, after unsuccessfully dusting his clothes, realised that the fire was making its way even through the armour.

What in the...

With a vague suspicion plaguing his mind, he tore a part of his robe and smelled it. He was

right–it smelled like fuel on him everywhere.

There was only one way this could have happened, he mused as he clenched his fists. Just like how people smear their weapons with poison to kill, Silver Mountains had smeared their weapons in the earlier battle with fuel and carefully grazed them on their bodies for this after-attack.

Another surge of arrows shot down from the spire, all lit and covered in balls of terrifying fire. The arrows dug into the camp, giving rise to a fountain of flames that erupted greater smoke than it did before. Haoran held his throat and coughed. At this rate, they might die of choking on the smoke.

"Retreat!" he yelled at his soldiers who were fighting off the fire. "Go and jump into the moat! It has water."

Saying so, he himself bolted toward the moat, jumping into the water without hesitation and letting the water cool his charred skin. He felt the heat in his clothes dying and the felt splashes of water around him as all his subordinates jumped into the water one by one.

He now understood what the Silver Mountain wanted: It wasn't to kill them with the arrows, no. Because they too are aware of the moat filled with water. They simply wanted to create an opening; a weakness in defence, where most soldiers would incur injuries and leave the camp unattended.

He couldn't waste any more time. He had to find Shen Yue and see whether he was successful in finding the entryway because right now if Silver Mountains decides to attack them they'd be completely at their mercy.

"Lieutenant Shen Yue," the General rasped as he walked out of the water dripping all over, "did he send any messages?"

However, there was no message from him yet and it was not until an hour had elapsed that any sign of the other end came along.

"Imperial General!" A man on horseback with bloodied arms galloped and almost fell over in trying to talk to Haoran. "Your Grace, Lieutenant Shen Yue... he ..."

General Haoran's hands shook as he heard what the man had to narrate.

The next moment he had called Lieutenant Bing Ze over and said tersely, "Look after the camp while I'm away and get back in formation right this instant. Don't let their weapons graze your robes! If they do, kill them and wear their robes instead."

He rushed after the messenger in maddening speed as he guided the General through a thorny path of bushes, wilderness and finally arrived at a row of caves–out of which one particular cave

with brown ingrained on it stood out like a sore thumb. A sudden smell of steel and rust pervaded his nose. The warped, strong smell of blood. As he crossed the threshold to the cave, countless dead bodies lay splayed limply.

All Blazing Sun's.

He slowly walked into the brown cave. It was lit well enough with fire torches for it to be a secret spot. From within, the sounds of strangling cries and swords clanging reverberated as he steadily walked forward. The lit cave illuminated the profile of a few dozen soldiers of Blazing Sun fighting a heavily outnumbered Silver Mountains soldier count. Among them was Shen Yue. Soldiers sprawled at them from left and right and one suddenly caught Shen Yue's neck in a deadlock.

One of the soldiers, who looked like the leader of the troop, walked over and held the torch before Shen Yue's face.

General Haoran froze.

There, before him, was a complete mountain of Blazing Sun soldiers, their arms dangling and legs missing. Their eyes held the terror of death and as they lay unalive and unblinking. The stone floor of the cave was stained with the stench and ochre of red blood.

It was a complete slaughter.

How did this happen? Nobody was supposed to know that they had found their entryway. His eyes stung as he looked at his dead soldiers and he couldn't think clearly.

"Bold of you to assume we wouldn't know your little ploys." The leader hit Shen Yue in the face. His face battered black and blue already had a dent on it now. "Bastards, Ha! There never was a brown cave in Silver Mountains. It was us that coloured it brown and led you here, you stupid bullocks!"

Suddenly, everything made sense to Haoran. He recalled everything Fu Lin told him about the brown cave,

"I have this habit of walking all over the Empire." He had giggled. "Because everybody knows and calls me the useless prince and I'm jobless, I often go on explorations. So I once walked all over the edge of the Empire and got lost. It took over a day for the patrol to find me curled inside the place. Apparently, it was a cave that was supposed to be sealed, a brown, ugly one."

Except this time, everything Fu Lin told him felt like a mocking laughter at his foolishness. He had been deceived. Well, and thoroughly.

Fu Lin had crafted every little tale with deception coating the tip of his tongue. His words, his smile and even the friendship they fostered had been with impure intentions. And he had fallen right into this man's trap just because he nurtured a softness for him. It was his weakness that led to the deaths of all his soldiers.

All the desire in him transformed into rage.

I'm going to kill them all. Red lines appeared on the cornea of his eyes. There's about hundreds of them here and I'll kill them all.

And he did. His arms ached and legs lost balance, but he didn't give up the momentum he had gained. He did not remember what manoeuvres he used or whom killed; all he saw was a blur of red and rage and by the time he finished he had amassed a mountain of corpses equal to what they had done. He dropped his imperial sword to the ground while falling on his knees in weariness, his back against Shen Yue protecting him from further assault.

"Your Grace." Shen Yue walked over and bowed, holding his bruised eye. "I heard the imperial family was meant to escape through the back gates if this slaughter of the Blazing Sun soldiers failed."

"Catch those bastards," General Haoran said, his eyes feral, "catch them all and kill everybody except one..."

"You mean–"

"Yes." He growled, his voice cutting like a venomous spear, "Because he's my kill."

* * * * * 

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ Here's another update! Also let's not go there Haoran, what is a little bit of lies between husbands huh??  ┬┴┬┴┤( ͡° ͜ʖ├┬┴┬┴

Don't forget to vote, comment, share and follow!