Chapter 72: Revival (IV)

Yellow dust gradually rose from the dirt at the corner. The first thing visible to the soldiers of Tianwei was a cavalry unit of about three to four hundred men. They wore tattered and damaged armor, their faces covered in blood and sweat. From afar, their chapped lips appeared eerily pale, twitching involuntarily. They were the remnants of the Anxi army—the comrades everyone had been searching for!
Yet for now, no one could approach them to embrace them. They had to endure, wait…
Fortunately, their wait wasn’t too long. Though exhausted from a long march, the Anxi cavalry still had enough strength. A distance of a hundred steps took but an instant. As they were about to cross the river valley, Li Kuo rushed out of the bushes holding an Anxi army flag, waving it repeatedly to signal across.
The commanding officer was initially stunned. When he saw the flag in Li Kuo’s hand, he exclaimed excitedly.
“Comrades, head into the dense forest! Change course!”
His soldiers didn’t understand why their commander wanted to change course suddenly, but since he had brought them here safely, they had no reason to doubt him.
These cavalrymen were well-trained. Upon receiving the order, they turned their horses and headed toward the gentle slope to the side.
As soon as all the Anxi remnants disappeared into the forest, nearly a thousand Arab cavalry followed closely. The leading Arab general was determined to annihilate the Tang army at all costs. They had pursued relentlessly, close to catching up with the Tang forces, only for those scattered soldiers to dive into a dense forest.
“Don’t stop! Charge in!”
The Arab general drew his curved sword and shouted, “General Abu Muslim has given strict orders—these Tang invaders must all be killed! Comrades, take up your swords and wipe them out!”
One of his deputy generals wanted to warn him about possible traps in the forest, but with the Tang army so close, how could he worry about that? He simply whipped his horse hard and rushed forward.
“Ah, keep up, keep up!”
The deputy general sighed helplessly and shook his head before chasing after them. …
The space in the bushes was extremely narrow, making it difficult for cavalry to pass. Even the agile Arab warhorses had to slow down in the forest. As the distance between the Tang and Arab cavalry grew wider, the Arab general was furious. But with no better option, he could only follow closely behind the Tang army.

That was about 150 steps. The bushes in the forest gradually thinned out, and there were fewer branches to get in the way, suddenly clearing the path ahead.
The Arab general was overjoyed and immediately ordered his troops to accelerate their pursuit.
For some reason, the Tang cavalry’s speed slowed down, allowing the Arab cavalry to close in step by step.
100 steps, 80 steps, 50 steps…
As the distance between the two sides shrank to 30 steps, the Arab general ordered his troops to draw their bows.
At this distance, even archery could effectively harm the enemy troops; even if it couldn’t kill them instantly, it could force them to slow down and turn to fight back.
A fight of 1,000 cavalry against less than 500 defeated soldiers was a slaughter with no suspense!
The Arab general smirked coldly and was about to give the order to fire. But before he could utter a word, he heard a mournful cry from his mount, which then collapsed forward.
“Bang!” “Bang!”
In an instant, the leading Arab cavalry were blocked, falling off their horses in chaos. Due to the suddenness of the attack, the Arab cavalry were unprepared. Many riders fell to the ground before they could pull their feet out of the stirrups, only to have one of their lower legs crushed by their horses. How could anyone endure such weight—five or six hundred pounds pressing down on a single leg?
Cracks of breaking bones could be heard, followed by agonized screams.
It was tripwires!
The Arab general instinctively shuddered and quickly drew the sword at his waist. He had been pushed by his guards when his horse fell, avoiding the fate of broken legs. But their disaster seemed just to begin—feathered arrows were flying at them from all directions!
The soldiers with broken legs were perfect targets, turned into porcupines after the random shooting. As for the cavalry behind them, their situation wasn’t much better. Forced to stop abruptly by their comrades, they rushed forward uncontrollably.
“Damn it! We’ve been ambushed by the Tang!”
The Arab cavalry pulled out leather-and-wood shields from behind and deflected the arrows aimed at their faces one by one.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
“But General, we were ordered to chase these Tang soldiers. If we fail to complete the mission, General Abu Muslim will—”
Seeing his general hesitating, the deputy general hurriedly reminded him. Abu Muslim was known for his harshness in commanding troops. If they returned empty-handed, their men would surely be punished.
“Idiots! How utterly foolish!”

The Arab general cursed loudly, “Can’t you just say that we chased them to the cliff, leaving those Tang people with no way out and forcing them to fall into the gorge and die? They were all crushed to pieces—where are we supposed to go to cut off their heads and report back?”
“Ah, ah!”
The deputy general didn’t want to incur more annoyance and agreed repeatedly.
“But, General, what about our wounded comrades?”
“Idiot, how can you still worry about so much now? We’ve fallen into a Tang ambush—where do we have time for this? Take care of yourself first!”
“Ah, ah.”
The deputy general dared not say more and vigorously waved the military flag: “All troops, retreat! Retreat!”
The Arab cavalry in the back struggled hard to pull their horses free from the corpses of their comrades before turning around and rushing back. Once their shock subsided, the soldiers cursed loudly at the Tang soldiers’ female relatives. Those damned Tang invaders were always up to some schemes and never dared to face them head-on!
“Charge forward! Don’t look back!”
At that moment, the Arab general only wanted to escape at all costs, ignoring any sense of dignity. He pressed his body tightly against the horse’s back to reduce the chance of being hit by arrows.
“Hiss!”
For some reason, the horse beneath him suddenly panicked, stretching its front legs and standing upright. The Arab general was terrified and quickly clamped his legs around the horse’s belly, holding its head with both hands.
“Damn it, what’s going on now?”
After gently tapping the horse’s belly to calm it down, the Arab general took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
What sheer bad luck! Those damned Tang invaders—never let me encounter them again! If I do, I’ll kill them each time I see them!
After killing those hateful Tang people in his mind a thousand times, the Arab general finally calmed his raging anger a little.
He looked into the distance and was immediately terrified.
“It’s… it’s the halberd warriors. Damn it!”
Although he hadn’t directly participated in attacking the Anxi army’s halberd formation, he had heard some details from comrades who had managed to escape.
These were halberd warriors capable of killing heavily armored cavalry—how unlucky was he to run into them?
He wanted to escape, but how could he?
It was like sheep trapped in a tiger’s den—they were now just meat on the Tangs’ chopping board, with no way to escape!
Pu Da Chui led a thousand heavily armored infantrymen standing in front of the Arab cavalry, his expression resolute as iron.
As the halberds were raised, the cold wind blew fiercely—kill anyone who stood in the way!…