37
Kateullip received the report at midnight.
“The enemy has withdrawn.”
“To where?”
“Mulan, it seems.”
“When?”
“They are nearly gone now.”
Kateullip summoned the tribal chiefs in the middle of the night.
“The enemy has departed. We pass through the Gorge of Halan tonight. There will be ambush. Each tribe will advance separately. Who will lead?”
Mong Roe stepped forward.
“I will go.”
“We do not know what stratagem they have set. They must have laid traps while retreating. Their pressure throughout the day was to mask their departure.”
“Can we choose not to go? Before the river thaws, we must move north.”
The chiefs showed open eagerness.
There had been quiet dissatisfaction with Kateullip’s refusal to move.
They feared the thaw would cut off their return.
Now the path lay open.
A great battle might await them at Mulan, but the enemy had withdrawn.
The leading tribe would suffer most from whatever had been left behind.
Mong Roe found comfort in the darkness.
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“We cross Halan on foot.”
“Good. We depart at once.”
They were nomads.
A decision made at midnight became action without delay.
Loads were secured.
They mounted swiftly.
Kateullip touched his favored blade before fastening it at his waist.
“Forward. We return to the steppe.”
At his forceful command, the tribal leaders broke into smiles.
The plain lay empty.
The White Dragon Cavalry, ever an obstruction, had vanished without trace.
“How could they disappear so completely, Kahan?”
Mong Roe guided his horse alongside Kateullip.
“I pressed the Emperor,” Kateullip replied.
“I spread word that Jin Mu-gwang had no will to fight. I stirred debate within the court. Remember the dozen Han soldiers we released days ago? Likely an imperial envoy among them.”
“So that was it. Yet Kahan—if so, why withdraw to Mulan instead of striking us here?”
Kateullip’s strategy reached beyond ordinary cunning.
To move an emperor…
A commander like Jin Mu-gwang feared internal enemies more than external ones.
He lacked the political strength to counter the court.
Kateullip had exploited that weakness.
“I do not know their full intent,” Kateullip admitted.
“They wished to show this place truly abandoned. Only then would I move. A feigned ambush or hiding in the ridges would not deceive me.”
Mong Roe laughed, the thought of home lightening his spirit.
Kateullip raised his voice.
“Go, Mong Roe. There will be traps aplenty ahead. Clear the path. The tribes will follow.”
They advanced knowing traps awaited them.
They formed a thin, single line, stepping in the footprints of the man before them, guided only by moonlight.
A horse suddenly reared with a violent flutter.
A snare had seized its foreleg.
The animal thrashed.
Its rider killed it swiftly to spare its suffering.
Pits claimed several more.
Sharpened stakes below pierced both horse and rider.
Death came at once.
They circled and continued.
The Han army had sown the passage thick with snares.
They recognized them and yet pressed forward.
There was no alternative.
To return home, this path must be crossed.
Scouts at the very front swept the ground with poles, advancing inch by inch.
Because they moved in a single narrow file, the path trodden by the first became safe for those behind.
One thin line.
As the mountain ridges drew closer, the path grew harsher.
A misstep meant a trap, a pit, or broken limbs.
Still they advanced.
Now their eyes watched the mountains more than the earth.
An ambush from above would mean annihilation.
Mong Roe sent scouts into the narrow defiles.
They returned with the same report—nothing.
“Fools,” he thought.
“A hundred archers above would have ended us.”
There were traps—but no soldiers.
Through the night they crossed Halan.
They fell into countless snares, dead and wounded left behind.
Yet they moved forward.
