Chapter 68: First Attack
The cavalry's reserve camp sat three li west of Chianji village.
We had ridden in with the vanguard at the second watch, broken off from the main column at a bend in the road where the trees gave cover from the south, and made cold camp inside a stand of pines at the foot of a low ridge. No fires, no torches, six riders and five cultivators, with the horses tethered at the western edge of the stand and the saddles dropped at the eastern edge under the lowest branches. Commander Xu had set the camp under the command of a cavalry captain whose name I had not been told and did not need to know. The captain's orders were simple, to hold the position and wait for the signal, and when the signal came, to send a rider back to the column so the column could march.
The signal was mine to give.
I assembled the cohort at the third hour before midnight at the centre of the stand of pines, on a patch of ground I had cleared with the heel of my boot. The four of them stood in a loose half-circle around the map I had scratched into the dirt with the point of a stick.
I traced the two outposts on the south road.
"The eastern outpost has five guards. The western has four. We take the western first because it is closer and smaller, and because the eastern outpost cannot see the western from the watchtower at this hour. The moon is hidden tonight. The cloud bank is moving east, and I read another hour at least before it lifts. That is the window."
Lin Zhi nodded. She was watching the dirt map, not me.
"We move as one unit. Each man knows his entry. Each man knows his target. When the western post is clear, we leave the torches in their brackets and the watchtower torch where it is. The eastern outpost will see the same light pattern they have seen all night. We circle north along the ditch and enter the eastern from the back. When the eastern is clear, I move the torch on the eastern watchtower from the north end of the rail to the south end. That is the signal Commander Xu is watching for. The column marches when the torch moves."
Cao Yan looked up from the map.