Chapter 323. Departure in the Dark and the First Signs
In the dimness before dawn, the cold crept between the emperor's teeth.
He clenched his jaw.
Even the slightest opening of his mouth sent white breath into the air, and it felt as though even that faint mist might betray him in the darkness.
Twenty thousand imperial guards slipped quietly out from the rear of the Liao encampment.
Their banners were folded.
Cloth had been wrapped around metal fittings.
Every bell had been removed from the horses.
The cavalrymen kept their mounts' heads low and held the reins short.
Each time hooves struck the frozen earth, the muffled sound seemed to sink into the ground.
From a distance, they looked less like an army than a long black shadow moving through the night.
The emperor rode a horse rather than a carriage.
A thick cloak covered his shoulders, yet the cold still climbed along his spine.
Inside his chest sat something colder still.
He had to reach the Supreme Capital.
He had to seize Yelü Zhangnu.
He had to silence him before he could stand before the Temple of the Founder.
The more he repeated those thoughts, the more urgent his mind became.
The army he had left behind kept returning to him.
Seven hundred thousand men.
Tents and wagons.
Horses and soldiers.
The lights of tribal camps remaining in the darkness.
And at the center of all that, the emperor's place now stood empty.
Abul would hold it.
Xiao Fengxian would manage the military affairs.
The commanders would maintain the front.
He tried to believe that.
Yet another set of images kept rising in some corner of his mind.
Jin scouts discovering the movement.
Rumors spreading among the tribal forces that the emperor had left the main camp.
Yelü Zhangnu opening the gates of the Temple of the Founder in the Supreme Capital and standing before the altar.
The name of Yelü Chun passing from mouth to mouth.
And finally, someone proclaiming a new emperor.
The images appeared and vanished before his horse like the shadows of trees along the night road.
The emperor tightened his grip on the reins.
His fingertips had gone numb with cold, and sweat cooled inside his leather gloves.
The sky was still a deep blue-black.
A faint light had begun to spread along the eastern horizon, yet it seemed to carry a deeper chill rather than warmth.
Frost covered every blade of grass across the fields.
Thin ice lay over shallow pools.
Each time the horses breathed out, white vapor burst briefly into the air.
Even after riding twenty li, the army made little noise.
The lead cavalry watched the road.
Those behind followed with their eyes fixed on the backs before them.
Someone swallowed a cough.
Another man patted his horse's neck.
In the empty fields before dawn, even such tiny sounds seemed too loud.
The emperor suddenly looked behind him.
The column of imperial guards stretched far through the darkness.
What he had brought with him was his sharpest and strongest blade.
Yet the moment he drew that blade from its sheath and carried it away, the hand of the main army had been left empty.
The thought pressed hard against his chest.
Perhaps this is the first step toward ruin.
The emperor swallowed the words before they could fully form.
It felt as though speaking them might make them real.
The cold of dawn, the hoofbeats, and the black column moving through the darkness seemed to speak them in his place.
The road to the Supreme Capital was still long.
Yelü Zhangnu might already be standing before the Temple of the Founder.
The gates of the Supreme Capital might already have been opened.
Men might already be speaking another name before the emperor's own.
Each new thought tightened around the next until the emperor pulled harder on the reins.
"Faster."
The low command passed toward the front.
The cavalry increased their pace.
Hoofbeats quickened across the frozen ground.
Dawn was still far away, and darkness lay heavily over the shoulders of the army.
The emperor rode through it toward the Supreme Capital.
To protect his throne.
And perhaps to seize the fate of Great Liao, which had already begun to tilt.
At first, it was only a small irregularity.
A report came that horses had been leaving the Liao central camp throughout the night.
Even from a distance, one entire section of tents appeared strangely empty.
The direction of the water wagons and the carts carrying fodder had changed as well.
The scouts reported it as nothing more than a troop movement.
Youngwoo stopped at that detail.
"Which direction did they go?"
"Toward the Supreme Capital."
The officers inside the command tent looked at one another.
The Supreme Capital.
Soon a second report arrived.
A groom who had slipped out of the Liao camp had been captured at a Jin outpost.
He said nearly twenty thousand horses belonging to the imperial guard had moved during the night, and that many of the emperor's closest guards could no longer be seen.
Another informant brought the same story.
The emperor, after learning of Yelü Zhangnu's rebellion, had taken the imperial guard and headed toward the Supreme Capital.
Youngwoo did not believe it immediately.
Reports from an army were rarely precise.
Men saw ten riders and claimed that countless troops had arrived.
A formation shifted slightly, and someone reported that the entire army was fleeing in panic.
Every report had to be checked and checked again.
Especially one as vague as this.
But the separate reports began to fit together.
Empty tents.
Hoofprints leading toward the Supreme Capital.
Thinner security around the central camp.
Orders from the Liao command arriving later than before.
Words from different places were beginning to form the same picture.
Youngwoo ordered repeated verification.
The first report had been little more than rumor.
But when the same account returned from different roads and different mouths, he began to treat it as intelligence.
Scouts rode far to the north and west.
Men went out, returned, reported, and were sent out again in an almost endless stream.
They examined the roads leading toward the Supreme Capital, watering places, low hills, and stretches of dry woodland.
Deep hoofprints marked the northern road.
Wagon ruts ran alongside them.
The frozen soil was hard, but the passage of so many horses and wagons had left unmistakable traces.
"There are a great many hoofprints."
The returning scout dropped to one knee.
"They belong to the imperial guard. This was no movement of light reconnaissance cavalry. It was a major force, with tents and baggage wagons accompanying it."
Youngwoo asked at once,
"Direction?"
"Toward the Supreme Capital."
The officers inside the tent exchanged glances.
Wanyan Zonghan gave a quiet order.
"Confirm it again. Put men on every route and compare the tracks one by one."
A second report soon followed.
A Jin outpost had captured a groom who had escaped from the Liao side.
At first, the man refused to speak.
After being given water and a bowl of hot broth, he finally answered in a trembling voice.
"The emperor's closest troops moved out in the middle of the night. Their banners were folded, the bells were removed from the horses, and they left through the rear of the encampment.
"I heard they were going to the Supreme Capital.
"They said it was because of Yelü Zhangnu."
That still was not enough.
Youngwoo sent out men again.
This time he separately questioned merchants who had been near the Liao camp, laborers who carried fodder, Balhae soldiers who had defected, and even Jurchen prisoners.
Each man was made to describe only what he had personally seen or heard.
Who had told him?
At what hour?
Through which side of the camp had the troops departed?
Every answer was recorded one by one.
To their surprise, the accounts matched.
The emperor's imperial guards had moved during the night.
Rumor said that Abul, Commissioner of the Hunting Grounds, had been left in charge of the main camp.
Xiao Fengxian had remained behind to manage military affairs.
The emperor had selected his fastest cavalry and ridden toward the Supreme Capital.
And along with those reports came another rumor:
Yelü Zhangnu had seized upon the Temple of the Founder and was plotting deposition and enthronement.
Youngwoo laid the reports side by side.
The deserter.
The merchant.
The prisoner.
The surrendered soldier.
The informant.
None of them had met one another.
Yet every one of them pointed in the same direction.