“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
JavaScript is off/unavailable on your browser. You will not be able to experience this website as it was intended without JavaScript enabled.
Yuan Shao could not fight his angry tears any longer.
“Damn them all!” Yuan Shao
whined. “Damn Chunyu Qiong, Ju Shou, Wen Chou, Yan Liang, Tian Feng, Zhang Hè,
Xu Yòu, Lü Bu, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao,
and worst of all, damn that fool brother of mine! Damn him... damn him...!”
Neither of Yuan Shao’s sons was sure of what to say or do: they
retreated, and Shao soon replaced their company with the numbing effects of a
jar of strong rice wine. Lady Liu beckoned her biological son Shang to her and
fawned on him as she always did; Yuan’s elder son by his late first wife, Yuan
Xi, and Yuan’s consorts kept their distance from the fearsome Lady Liu and
wondered what was going through her mind as she glared at her drunken husband.
*************
6
The minor warlord Liu Bei’s battered forces retreated to an abandoned
settlement that was close to the border between Yu and Jing Provinces. Bei
looked to his demoralised officers and smiled encouragingly; one of them - a
brawny, tanned, wild-eyed man with thick whiskers and tattered robes and armour
- was in no mood for false optimism. That man, Zhang Fei, pointed at a cloth
letter in Liu Bei’s hand and cried, “Don’t
do it, Xuande!”
Liu Bei turned his own gaze to the letter from Yuan Shao’s secretary
Chen Lin and shook his head with disbelief.
“Don’t do it!” Zhang Fei said for a second time. “Don’t-!”
“Yide, I’m trying to think!” Liu Bei scolded.
“...Damn that Cao Cao!” Zhang
Fei exclaimed. “Every time we get just
over the border or come near it, he...!”
A second officer - a tall, imposing man whose weathered green robes were
contrasted by his long, shiny, well-kept beard - smiled slightly and said, “Cao
Ren is our problem right now, Zhang
Yide. And he can harry us as much as he wants... we’ll be fine.”
“Don’t humour me, Guan Yunchang,” Zhang Fei retorted.
“I wouldn’t, Yide,” Guan Yu insisted. “Are you still angry...?”
“...No, no, I already said that I wasn’t angry at you anymore,” Zhang Fei
replied. “I didn’t just say that so you’d stop boring me senseless with talk
after talk about why you joined Cao Cao.”
Guan Yu smiled and laughed.
“Is there anything to laugh at...?” Zhang Fei asked.