Chapter 764: Aerial Battle over the Plateau! (1/2)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
After journeying several hundred li, the pair of Tibetan horsemen quickly neared the edge of the plateau.
Creee! A shrill cry came from the heavens, causing the two Tibetan horsemen to raise their heads. Far up, they saw five or six birds of various species circling in the air, apparently observing something.
The horsemen instantly narrowed their eyes. There was no need to see anything else. At a glance, they could tell that those birds belonged to Tang scouts.
Creeeak!
Without the slightest hesitation, the horseman with the beast earring nocked an arrow to his bow and aimed it at the sky.
But before he could fire, a hand suddenly extended over and stopped him.
”It's useless. Those birds are flying at extremely high altitudes. Our bows can't fire that far.”
”Then what do we do? Nothing? If we let them find out something and ruin General's plan, General will have us executed.”
”Haha, I didn't say that we would do nothing. These birds have owners, and if the birds are here, their owners must be nearby. We can't deal with the birds in the air, but does that mean we're powerless against the Tang on the ground?”
The second Tibetan horseman chortled, and the first horseman quickly came around to his view.
”Hyah!”
The two smiled at each other, unsheathed their scimitars, and urged their horses to charge in the direction of the birds, seething with killing intent.
”I see them!”
A few moments later, the pair saw the figures they had expected to see. It was a group of seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, thin and frail. They showed no signs of practicing martial arts, much less the bearing of elite scouts, and it seemed like even a strong gust of wind would be enough to bowl them over.
”Let's go! Kill them!”
”Stop!”
”Hahaha, don't run!”
Invigorated, the pair flourished their scimitars and charged toward the Tang youths. But the two had only covered ten-some zhang when the situation changed…
Rumble! The ground began to shudder, and though merely a tiny trembling at first, it quickly intensified into a roaring thunder that caused the surrounding earth to quake.
Neigh!
Before the two could react, they heard the neighing of horses from the distant horizon. They could only watch in astonishment as thousands of horses galloped toward them, their riders all fully equipped: a force of Great Tang cavalry seething with devilish killing intent.
”Not good!”
The pair paled, and the bravery they had shown in their initial charge quickly vanished.
”Ruuun!”
So alarmed were they that their souls nearly took flight from their bodies, and they immediately began to flee in the direction they had come. The pair had never seen such a formidable Tang army, thousands of cavalry silently staring with those cold and nightmarish eyes.
And most frightening of all was their speed. By the time the two reacted, the leading Tang cavalry were only seven to eight hundred zhang away.
To cavalry used to high-speed charges, this distance could be covered in seconds.
”Stop!”
An order rang out through the sky, echoing across the plateau. An officer at the front had given the order to halt. Those five thousand cavalry seemed to not see the two fleeing Tibetan scouts, and dismounted. One group took up a defensive formation while the other group set about digging into and tamping down the ground.
Clang! A thick steel plank more than two zhang tall was installed into the earth, creating a high wall on the plateau. As if this was some sort of signal, the thousands of Tang cavalry began to split up into teams, using their warhorses to drag these steel walls up to the plateau.
While some of them held up the thick steel walls, other horsemen would take hammers and beat the steel walls into the ground.
Everyone worked closely together, completely ignoring the two Tibetan cavalry in the distance.
One wall, two, three, four… In a few short of moments, hundreds of these walls had been set up, scattered over the plateau.
The Tibetan scouts had only run several hundred zhang, but an unprecedented fortress of steel was already beginning to take shape on this deserted region of the plateau.
”Bastards! What are these Tang up to?”