Chapter 86 Escape from Danger

“What a madman!” Qi Jun froze for the briefest instant, then rushed up and locked an arm around the man’s neck from behind. With a burst of force from his legs, a trip, a twist of the waist, and a throw, he slammed him to the ground.

“Don’t stop me, I’ll—”

Before he could finish, Qi Jun straddled him and drove a heavy punch straight into his face, splitting the corner of his mouth.

“If you dare defy me again, I’ll cut your throat right now!” Qi Jun seized Captain Qin by the front of his clothes, hauled him up, and laid a curved saber against his neck.

“What are you standing there for? Move!” Qi Jun fixed Captain Qin with bloodshot eyes and barked the order like a growling beast.

The two warriors were both cowed by his ferocity. Nodding hurriedly, they followed his instructions and split up along the stockade wall, moving off in opposite directions.

“If you refuse to accept me, then when we get back, we can settle it man to man. But if you want to die, you’d better think of the brothers who died because of you. Only the living can take revenge!” Qi Jun glared at Captain Qin, pointed at the two warriors hanging nearby, then shoved him hard back to the ground and turned away.

The warrior with the injured foot tried to grit his teeth and follow Qi Jun, but the pain in his foot made every step impossible.

“I’m sorry...” Captain Qin sat dazed on the ground, mumbling as two streams of tears slowly slipped down his face.

In his mind, he heard again the words his brother had spoken to him in Red Clay Valley: Live on. How alike they were to what Qi Jun had just said.

He forced himself to calm down, then raised a hand and slapped himself hard across the face.

“There! They’re trying to run! Grab them! Hack off their legs!” A Qiang soldier spotted Captain Qin and immediately shouted to his companions in the Qiang tongue.

At the sound, Captain Qin lifted his head. A flash of hatred shot through his eyes. Without hesitation, he snatched up the curved saber before him and hurled it. The blade struck with deadly accuracy, burying itself in the Qiang soldier’s chest.

As the other Qiang soldiers, hearing their comrade’s cry, began converging on Captain Qin, a house on one side of the village suddenly caught fire.

Dry wood met blazing flame, and the fire spread at once.

“This is bad! Put out the fire! Hurry, put it out!” One of the Qiang soldiers saw what was happening and cried out in panic.

Under the command of the Qiang squad leader, most of them were immediately sent to fight the fire, while the rest continued searching for the captives.

But before they had even fully split up, another house on the opposite side of the village burst into flames. At that point, no one had any mind left to deal with Captain Qin and the others. Every Qiang tribesman rushed off in a frenzy to save the village.

The spreading blaze soon caught the thatch covering the stables. The warhorses inside sensed the danger in the firelight and neighed in mounting terror, struggling to break free of their reins.

In the chaos, Qi Jun sharply caught the sound of the horses screaming. Joy leapt in his chest, and he quickly followed the noise to the fiercely burning stable.

But he had only enough time to lead out two warhorses before burning timbers, loosened by the fire, collapsed from above and crashed into the stalls.

Two horses, their bodies aflame, tore free of their reins and bolted out in agony, trampling several Qiang soldiers who were too slow to dodge.

Qi Jun snatched a burning piece of wood from the ground, led one horse and mounted the other, then charged the Qiang soldiers with the flaming brand in hand.

At that moment, he seemed like a knight of fire come from hell itself, crashing into the panicked Qiang with the fury of vengeance blazing around him.

The burning club in his hand lashed across enemy bodies, and the iron hooves of the warhorse pounded through Qiang flesh, searing the terror of a hell-rider deep into their hearts.

Flames rose everywhere throughout the Qiang settlement. The whole village dissolved into chaos, filled with the shrill screams of terrified Qiang and the crackling roar of wood consumed by fire.

Captain Qin stared in stunned disbelief at the scene before him, then scrambled to his feet and wrenched the curved saber from a dead Qiang soldier’s body. Roaring, he hacked down every Qiang soldier who came at him.

“Burn! Burn more! Hahaha... this is glorious, damn glorious!” With his blood-dripping saber in hand, Captain Qin stalked through the smoke and fire, slaughtering every Qiang he encountered. Behind him, corpses littered the ground. In that moment, he looked like a fiend from the infernal realms, reveling in the savage ecstasy of bloodshed.

When the knight of hell and this demon of slaughter crossed paths, Captain Qin, blinded by killing rage, instinctively raised his blade and slashed at the warhorse charging toward him.

“Has this bastard truly lost his mind?!” Qi Jun’s heart jolted in alarm. He yanked the horse to a halt and, with a deft flick of his wrist, swept the stick across and knocked the saber from Captain Qin’s hand.

Captain Qin staggered back several steps, his eyes still scarlet, and bent to snatch up the fallen saber again.

“Are you possessed?” Furious and anxious, Qi Jun found some hidden reserve of strength, grabbed Captain Qin by the clothes, and hauled him bodily up onto the saddle.

“Hurry and gather the others. Withdraw! If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!” Whether Captain Qin heard him clearly or not, Qi Jun kicked his horse and raced toward the execution ground where the prefecture’s warriors had been held.

The warrior with the injured foot sat slumped against a wooden post, clutching a stick and staring fixedly at the sea of flames ahead.

By now, no Qiang soldier would risk being burned alive just to kill a few captives. Once the Qiang realized in the chaos that the fire was beyond control, they had already abandoned everything and fled for the village gate, each scrambling to save his own life.

Just then, a warhorse burst out from the wall of flame before the warrior’s eyes. When he saw who was riding it, he broke down and wept like a child.

“Get on, quickly!” Qi Jun slapped out the flames still licking at his clothes, reined the horse in before the warrior, and held out his hand.

Captain Qin, riding the other warhorse, galloped through the village in search of the two warriors who had set the fires, but he could not find them.

He looked back once at the inferno behind him, gritted his teeth, and spurred his horse in a leap through the burning gate, racing toward Ding’an Commandery.

Not long after he left, another fiery steed burst through the wall of flame carrying two men and thundered toward the commandery seat.

Qi Jun held the warrior steady with one hand and the reins with the other. Only when the horse’s four hooves struck once more upon that desolate expanse did the tightness in his heart finally ease.

Yet at that very moment, the warhorse beneath them suddenly faltered, its forelegs buckling as it pitched violently forward, throwing both Qi Jun and the warrior to the ground. When Qi Jun struggled upright, he saw the horse’s tongue hanging limply out, black ash billowing from its mouth and nostrils.

He let out a long sigh and reached out to stroke the horse’s eyes shut. It had inhaled too much smoke in the sea of flames; its lungs had borne all they could and only here, at last, had it collapsed in death.

He lay back on the sand, staring up at the sky full of stars, his heart overflowing with the dazed wonder of a man who had survived catastrophe. Feeling the cold night wind brushing his clothes and cheeks, he finally knew in a real and tangible way that he was still alive.

“Hey, what’s your name...” Qi Jun turned his head and asked the warrior lying beside him, but the man kept his eyes tightly shut and said nothing.

Qi Jun paused, then hurriedly rolled over and crawled to the warrior’s side. He slapped him hard, but still there was no response.

He pressed his fingers to the man’s pulse and found a faint breath still lingering. At once he understood: shock from smoke suffocation.

“I went through hell to drag you out of there, so don’t you dare die on me now...” Straightening up, Qi Jun recalled the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation from another lifetime and began trying to save him.

After thirty compressions came the part with artificial breathing. Looking at the warrior’s mouth, Qi Jun hesitated.

“Damn it, my first kiss already belongs to Yunfei. Giving you one too... doesn’t really count, does it? If you make it through this, you’d better thank me properly...” Muttering with a frown, he pried the warrior’s mouth open with one hand and slowly leaned down.

At that very instant, the warrior suddenly began coughing violently, then turned to the side and spat out a mouthful of thick black phlegm.

Qi Jun blinked in surprise, then joy surged through him and the tension in his heart finally loosened.

“My lord... I am a married man...” the warrior said weakly after a painful fit of coughing.